Centri- Kid Day 1

We arrived all safe and sound at MC yesterday!! The kids were all pumped up until they saw the hill they had to carry their luggage up : )

We have had so much fun so far and look forward to a wonderful rest of the week!!

Here are the girls ready for dinner and opening celebration!! 

Some of the girls pumped up during opening celebration!

The boys pumped up during opening celebration!!

Having fun at "The Party"

More fun at "The Party"

Andrew, Owen, and Dillon at "The Party"

Andrew Cole was chosen to go on stage and play a game. 

I think he may have won!! 

Andrew playing the game at "The Party"

Playing a name game at church group devotion!

More name game..... His name is Clint, and he is going on a trip. 

On that trip, he is going to bring a Chesnut, cessnut, cesly, but not a Cessna.... 

His name is Andrew, and he is going on a trip. 

On that trip, he is going to bring the alphabet. 

The kids are at track times right now. I think they all got what they wanted, and they are super excited! We have hang time at 3:45, and I think they decided they wanted to hit the pool! Then we will go to dinner, OMC, The Party, Worship, and Church Devotion! 

I am personally hoping some of the girls decide to sleep tonight!! They were all tooooooo excited about today to sleep last night!! I will try to post pictures from today sometime tonight after lights out!! 

Bowling Fun : )

Summertime is officially here, and to celebrate that, we went bowling! This was Parkway's first children's event of the summer. We had a lot of fun! On Wednesday, the younger kids went bowling. They really surprised me with their bowling talents. On Thursday, the older kids went. We had 18 kids show up Thursday, so I was really excited. I was able to capture a few pictures  from Wednesday, but my camera died after one picture on Thursday.

This Thursday, we are going to the Museum of Natural Science in Jackson. I am really excited.

Next week will be a busy one! I am leaving on Sunday with the 3rd through 6th graders to go to Centri- Kid at Mississippi College in Clinton. We are very ready to go!!! The same week, the pre-K through 2nd graders will have Day Camp at the church. We have a lot of fun planned for Day Camp, so if you have a preker through 2nd grade student, sign them up! It only cost $25!!! It's a Monday through Thursday camp and it's from 9-12 in the youth center!!You can call the Parkway office to register for camp!

I think that is all of the updates I have for now, so here are a few pictures from our bowling trip! Enjoy!

Some of the bowling observing their friends bowling on Wednesday!

Landon picking out his bowling ball!!

Marlee posing for a picture in between bowls!

The sole picture from Thursday.. Too bad my boys were trying to be cool and not look at the camera.

A General Update and LSU

I haven't had much time lately to blog, so I am going to give everyone a general update.

School... I have one more day at WCES until August!! This is bittersweet. The kids last day was last Friday, so it has been a peaceful week. However, I miss some of them so much! Luckily, Woodville isn't so big, so I have seen almost all of them since last Friday. I will be going to watch my boys play a little basketball tomorrow, so I will get to see a lot of them then!! This week has been a little slow... we get the week to pack up, fill out papers, etc. Since I already had most of that done, I have been using my time to get a jump start on homework... which brings me to .....

Grad School.... I officially started Monday, and I already have the "i am sick of school" attitude. I sure hope that changed soon, because I have 18 more months of school!
I take the GRE on Tuesday, and I am a lot nervous!

Church.... We are all set for Centri- Kid, and I am super excited to get there! I have a lot of work to do next week to nail things down for the summer, so I will be busy, busy, busy!!

American Idol - My pick won!! I have loved LEE since day one, and was super excited that he is this year's idol!!!

LSU......... Well if you follow LSU baseball, you will know that this hasn't been all we wanted it to be... They barely, and I mean BARELY, got into the SEC tourney (thank you Kentucky for losing that game, btw.). When I saw the announcement of who we would be playing first, I will admit, I became a little saddened. I think LSU is ranked last in the SEC tourney and we were going to have to play the #1 ranked team - Florida... Yesterday, I had a good feeling all day about the game. I got home, turned the radio to 98.1, and got myself ready to hear Jim Hawthorn announce the game. LSU was guest, and their first at bat flew by. Then Ranaudo took the mound and sat down the first three. It was then that I knew we would win! Our next at bat set the pace for the game.. We scored 5, and gained the momentum needed to win the game. The game was still going on when idol started, so I was running back and forth to the radio during commercials listening, watching 360 on my computer, and checking twitter on my phone every couple of seconds. It came down to a nail bitter, but LSU pulled it out and put Florida is the losers bracket!! I hope this LSU team is here to stay, and claim the SEC championship for the 3rd time in a row!!!

Children's Ministry - warning: this is a LONG post. sorry.

I have had the privilege of being the children's ministry coordinator at Parkway for about a year now. I have done this off and on over the past few years, but started on a part-time, year around basis last May. It has been wonderful. I love planning children's events for the church, especially meaningful events. Here are a few things we have done in my first year at the church.

SUMMER 2009

Last summer, instead of doing Bible School, we went to different communities around town and did block parties on Sunday evenings. They were wonderful! At the block parties, we have a bible study, craft, moon bounces, and food! We had a lot of people come to these events and we all had a good time! Below are some pictures of the kids (and adults) enjoying the block parties!

We also took the kids to the Louisiana Arts and Sciences Museum in Baton Rouge, LA. It was SOOOOOO much fun! I actually got to bring my 5th graders there this year and they had equally as much fun! I recommend everyone go, if they haven't already! 

To wrap the summer up, our older kids went to Centri- Kid at Mississippi College in Clinton, MS. They LOVED it! We are going back again this summer. Due to the fact that I am a teacher and we have to go to work the end of July, I wasn't able to attend last summer. Therefore, I have no pictures to share. While the older kids go to Centri- Kid, the younger kids stay at the church for day camp. Each day of day camp, the kids have a worship time, a bible study, make a craft, eat a snack, and go on a field trip. Our favorite field trip spots are the bowling ally, a carriage ride around downtown natchez, a visit to a swimming pool, and The Natchez Indian Village!! 

In September, we started a new ministry at the church called Parent's Night Out. We have PNO the first Saturday of each month from 5:30 - 7:30. This is a way for our Sunday School departments to have outreach events and socials without having to worry about getting a baby sitter. The event is free but we do take donations. Our youth work the event and the donations are used as a fundraiser for their summer trip. PNO also provides each child with a bible study, craft, and dinner. The kids seem to have a lot of fun, as do the youth. Here are a few pictures - I apologize for the side ways pictures. 

In October, we normally have a fall fest in place of halloween. However, we have hosted a fall fest for so long, it was becoming a bit monotonous so this year we decided to try out Trunk or Treat. In case you are not aware of what Trunk or Treat is, I will briefly explain. You have member of your church decorate their car and themselves in a certain theme. We arranged the cars in one of our parking lots and made a little pathway around them. The kids travel the pathway playing games or hearing stories at each car, and of course receiving candy. We had 30 cars that participated. Along with trunk or treat, we also had a section designated to Slime Time Games. We have 10 slimy, gross games for the kids to play. We also served hot dogs, popcorn, and cotton candy. Below are a few pictures from the event. 

For Christmas, we saw the opportunity for us to provide the families in our community with an event to share the Christmas story. We called this The Tour of Bethlehem. As the families entered, they were taken to the census room to register. After a group of 20 or so gathered, a tour guide led the group through a tour of our different rooms. Here is what a tour looked like. Stop 1 : A tour of bethlehem. We had this room set up with different things you would have found in Bethlehem; i.e. a farmer's market, a bakery, and a perfume maker. The kids were able to sample different foods and help make perfume, mosaics, and bread. Stop 2: Game Time. In this room, the kids heard the story of the Candy Cane and played a Christmas version of spin the tale on the donkey- where the kids had to decorate a christmas tree after being spun around 3 times. Stop 3: Crafts. We also order crafts from oriental trading. Stop 4: Bible Study. For this, we had our youth act out the nativity scene. They did a good job. Stop 5: Christmas cookies. In this room, the kids decorated Christmas cookies. Stop 6: Dinner. We usually do hot dogs, chips, popcorn, and cookies for dinners like this. After their tour was complete, the families were able to go home. Sorry I do not have any pictures for this one. 

For the spring semester, my focus was on AWANA, our Wednesday evening activity for kids. Awana is a program that allows our kids to learn scripture. You can read their website for more information. We planned several Saturday events throughout this semester. We brought the kids to several nursing homes in February to visit some of our church members and to pass out fruit baskets. We quickly found out how funny some of the kids could be, when they started telling the residents the jokes from the laffy taffy candy wrapper. In March, we took the boys to a fundraiser for St. Catherine's Wildlife Refuge, called Wildthangs. They had an archery exhibit, fun jumps, and other wildlife exhibits. They had a blast. Here are a few pictures. 

For more information on children's events at Parkway Baptist Church children's ministry, click on the link below. 

www.parkwaybaptistchurch.com/children

I need your help!!!

We are in the middle of renovating our children's department at church. We are pretty much done and now working on the decorating part. The walls are all painted and they are green, purple, and blue (actually the same colors and shades as the colors of my blog). I am trying to find some fabric to make curtains and maybe a few other things with. I have a large piece of fabric I bought a while back that matches, but I do not have enough to make all of the window treatments. If you know of a fabric that you think would match these colors and look great in a coed children's department, please let me know!!

Below are 2 links to 2 fabrics that I found on Hancocks. Let me know what you think, please!

http://www.hancockfabrics.com/search.htm?numHits=24&query=2992147&path=&x=19&y=10

http://www.hancockfabrics.com/search.htm?numHits=24&query=3111911&path=

Hello World : - )

After a little thinking, I decided I would start blogging again. Lately, I have been experimenting in the kitchen with some of my own recipes and I decide I needed someone to share my experiments with. I also wanted to start blogging again because I am a teacher and a children's minister and I have a lot going on that I would like to share (and then have something to look back on to remember what I did for what lesson). For example, my door decorations, bulletin board ideas, lesson ideas, and ideas for events at church that are, for example, more meaningful to kids than an Easter Egg. It may be a little boring really until next school year starts, but I will need time to practice blogging again.

Warning: I am an English teacher but I overuse commas, never remember to use capitalization, and I am a terrible speller (good thing spell check is my best friend!!).