Safety Camp Revisited....

Remember the safety camp we had this summer???
Well I wanted to mention one more thing about it just in case any of you are planning on doing something similar.
I left out one topic that I had planned to cover, but just didn't prepare well enough for ahead of time. It is definitely something we're going to cover this fall!!
I planned on talking about gun safety.
We have lots of friends who hunt and I know for a fact have guns in their homes and as my kids get older and they have more playdates without me I want to be certain that they know what to do if another kid starts to play with a gun or if they find a gun somewhere.
You never know how well other people secure their guns. You might think you're leaving your kid in the hands of the most responsible person you know, but people make mistakes. People get careless sometimes and you have got to train your child for that moment.
I'm not trying to be all dramatic, but I think it's important to think of the worst thing that your child could ever experience and prepare them for it. Pray it never happens and don't live in fear, but educate and empower them to be able to handle it.

My favorite boys!

Special Guests!

We were honored to have some special visitors for dinner last week! Ryan's Uncle Rod and Aunt Sue came to visit all the way from Illinois! The kids were so excited to see them. McKenna was anticipating "Aunt Zoo's" visit for days. They came for dinner and it was such a sweet time of catching up and reminiscing. Our time together was entirely too short, but we were just so thankful that they came.

Aunt Sue brought each of the kids music CDs with their names in the songs! Oy...what a hit. McKenna has her entire CD memorized and now she's working on memorizing Christian's and Will's. Thanks, Uncle Rod and Aunt Sue for such a special gift.

5 Months!!!

William is officially 5 months old right now!

In my opinion, this is when it starts getting fun.

Will literally smiles at me ALL DAY LONG!

He has rolled over a few times.

He twists around in a complete circle when he plays on the floor.

He's just beginning (in the last week) to eat baby food.

So far: rice cereal, bananas and sweet potatoes are a hit.

Will sleeps through the night most of the time (just since we've started food).

If he does wake up, it's only once.

Wears a size 4 diaper

Wears size 12 month clothes

Weighs around 19 lbs.

He loves his playmat on the floor.

Tolerates his exersaucer for about 10 minutes at a time.

Loves to fall alsleep in the car or in his stroller on a walk.

Doesn't take very good naps.

He's not so sure about baths...he doesn't smile and doesn't cry...he's very serious.

If you lay him on a pillow he will pull himself to a sitting position by using his abdominal muscles, then he falls over...I've never had a baby do that before. It's rather amazing to watch him sit up on his own. I've got to get it on video.

P.S. Christian was looking at this post while I was working on it and he said "Why is Will wearing a girl bib?" Ha..I didn't even notice. I think the whole drawer we have in the kitchen is filled with girl bibs. I guess I need to change that :)

1st Annual Safety Camp - 2011

So I came up with this super cool idea to have a safety camp with my kids and their cousins. I'm pretty sure that I was the only one who thought it was going to be super cool (I even had a super deluxe powerpoint presentation) but they all ended up thinking it was fun. At least I think so. ha!

There are so many topics that we really need to discuss and I've decided that doing it every August before school starts is a good way of remembering to do it. And turning the whole thing into a 2 hour safety camp made it a lot more fun.

Safety Camp Topics Included:

Tornado drill - learned why tornadoes form, the difference between a watch & a warning, then we had a drill

Fire drill - reviewed stop-drop & roll, checked our smoke alarms, had a fire drill, got to shoot off a water fire extinguisher

Bike Safety- learned how to properly wear a helmet, talked about road rules, did a bike safety check

Stranger Danger- Talked about who strangers are, Discussed what to do if someone grabs you, Talked about how parents must always know who you are with even if you're with someone you know, your mom/dad should always know who it is...don't ever go off with anyone even if you know them.

Good touches/ Bad touches- We had a book we read on this topic. Big discussion with this one and this was probably the biggest reason we even had safety camp. Kids (even 3 yr olds) need to feel empowered to tell adults "NO" (even adults in authority over them). We talked about strategies to get yourself out of a nervous/uncomfortable situation. Talked about how you should trust your gut feeling and how to protect your privacy even when your at a sleepover with friends.

Super deluxe powerpoint :)

During our fire drill we pretended that all the doors were blocked and the kids had to find another way out. It took them a few minutes to figure out what to do....they finally decided to head out the window. It had never occurred to me that I needed to make sure they knew how to unlock the windows and kick out the screen.

Our emergency meeting place is our mailbox. Our emergency plan is to meet at the mailbox and wait for the firemen to come.

The "students" listening to me instruct them on the use of a fire extinguisher, but I also told them that this was just for fun and they should NEVER try to put out a fire on their own!!

Christian's two!

Today is Christian's 2nd Born-Again Birthday!

On this day two years ago Christian asked Jesus into his heart.

Link to Christian's first born-again b-day.

Link to the day Christian asked Jesus into his heart.

We celebrated earlier this week when our cousins were still in town.

We made had a make-your-own pizza party.
McKenna thought it was grand.

Christian got presents of course :)

We gave him the verse Joshua 1:9 to put on his bedroom wall. It's going to go above his closet doors and I told him that as he learns to read this year he'll be able to lay in bed and practice his reading with the verse we picked out for him.

Grandmom and PopPop gave him a Bible.

What a special day we had. It's always a special day as we take time out to reflect on what Jesus has done in Christian's life.

It's all fun and games until....

McKenna was having fun eating a snack and watching all the cousins have bike races!

PopPop and Grandmom's driveways was full of racers.

Christian and Emma decided to have one final race.And just about the same time, McKenna decided to "race" Abby down the driveway.

This is the last picture I took.

A minute later, as Christian and Emma were speeding back up the driveway a "steering challenged" biker veered into Christian's path and Christian plowed right into McKenna, knocking her onto her knees then completely running over her with his front bike tire.

It was bad. Her knees weren't that bad, but her side was. She basically had a nice bloody tire burn on the side of her tummy. I had to remind her to breathe. Grandmom had to find a huge bandaid and that was the end of the fun. Everyone was sad.

She's recovered now for the most part, but she's going to be sore for awhile. Poor girl :(

Biker Boy!!!!

Does he look happy and proud or what??!!

His instructor (PopPop) waiting for him at the end of the driveway!

What is missing in this picture??? Oh that's right....training wheels.

The cousins have been here visiting this week and Nathan accomplished something HUGE!!!

We are so proud of this no-training wheels...biker boy of ours!!!!

Okay, what on earth is wrong with me??? Who would have thought this cool dude on his bike could bring me to tears! Seriously people, he's one awesome kid!