SDFFN 4

It was Blindfold Night!  The kids wore blindfolds throughout dinner.  (The adults got a pass to help out where needed.)  The kids were silly and we had lots of fun, but it also provided an opportunity to talk about people with “different abilities” and the obstacles they overcome.  It also was a good chance to be thankful for things we take for granted, like our sight! 

Alden was a sport, but tended to cheat!

After dinner, I gave each of the kids, still blindfolded, some paper and a pen and instructed them to draw a picture.  I had them draw a scene with a house, a person by the house, a cat, a dog, the sun, clouds, etc.

The artwork!

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Weekend Getaway

We had such a great weekend away!  We spent some time at a friend’s cabin and had tons of fun.  There were six families total and it is truly hard to describe the mix.  We are all totally different but when we get together, it just works and hilarity is sure to ensue.  There were times we were just plain silly and laughed til we cried, and other times where we talked for hours over some pretty serious stuff.  The kids got to fish and swim and play and get dirty and just be kids.  It was just a fun weekend spent with people we love.  Despite the fact that I am super exhausted from staying up way too late every night and feel fat from eating WAY too much, my spirit is filled beyond capacity.  Here are a few of the hundreds of pictures I took.

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SDFFN 3

Everything’s all messed up!!  This week, I’ll admit, I didn’t put a lot of thought or effort into planning our Family Fun Night.  We are going out of town tomorrow so our normal night didn’t work out and I just didn’t get around to planning something until today at, gasp, 5:00pm.  So, I stole borrowed from the creative genius of Heather Whittaker’s Backwards Night and threw together a crazy messed up meal!  The table was set with all the dishes upside down, the chairs were all backwards, we drank “7-downs” and, of course, we ate dessert first!

Upside-down cupcakes

A 7-“down”

Toria digging into dessert first

Alden taking his sweet time

Noah, in the spirit of the evening, ate his upside-down

We didn’t have any backwards, upside-down, inside-out or otherwise activities planned, so we just went outside and had an impromptu waterfight, because, well, you just can’t go wrong with one of those!

It took Alden a little while to get what he was supposed to do with the water bottle.  Guess he was thirsty!

Man down!  Man down! Noah took full advantage! The happy, drippy bunch

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Beaches, BBQ’s and Baptizin’

Makes for a pretty good weekend! Saturday we got to hang out with the youth group leaders and a few of the teens at the beach. Yesterday our small group got together for a BBQ. Then last night, 6 people from our church were baptized in a local lake. What a cool sight to see people professing their love of Jesus in the middle of a city park and then getting baptized in the lake!

My Monkeys:

They do come by it naturally, though. Here is Daddy Monkey, scaling a tree:

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