VBS Crocodile Dock

Toni and two of the girls from her crew

My interactive bayou...the baby snakes.

Our door to our craft room "Craw fish crafts"...yes I drew the craw fish LOL

Toni and Elizabeth playing with the snakes on day two (Snakes are Larry and Joe)

....don't try and count them...over 50.

...I am a dork....but a fun one.

Our church has a wonderful VBS that grows every year. This year we had 574 kids pass through our wonderful Crocodile Dock. I signed up to be a station leader....crafts of course. Let me explain a little bit. First we have to have over 100 volunteers to start. I think we ended up with over 130 but needed more like 150...anyway. Now VBS is open to the public for kids who have completed Kindergarten thru 5th grade. Here is the cool part...we have a preschool VBS as well but it is only available for the VBS workers kids. So...Toni goes to big VBS and Mikey is in the preschool wing having a very fun time with 30 plus kids, he gets to enjoy all the stuff of VBS plus more because his starts when the workers need to be there....7:55. Big VBS starts at 9 a.m. and lasts till 12:30. There are several parts of VBS first we have crew leaders and these are the people that get assigned the kids when they walk in the door. We need more crew leaders than any other position so we call all the teens and adults from the church to help. Each crew has 2 leaders and between 7 and 25 children depending on the experience level of the crew leaders. In Toni's crew she had 14 kids and two very energetic teen girls. Now the crew leaders job is gather up there kids and head to there very own crew room and wait for any late arrival's. Once they are in there room and accounted for they lead there crew from station to station all day. The crew leaders act like cheer leader and help the kids have a fun filled time of learning the bible. They paint there hair...there face...and most of all help the kids write Gods Word on there hearts. They are to help station leaders keep the kids under control and behaved during station times. There are spirit awards for crews with the most spirit. Now don't think these crew leaders get off easy because they just lead from station to station. The Sunday before VBS starts we have a huge dinner and decoration party. Everyone attends...crew leaders and station leaders. We all talk about our stations and rules one last time and then everyone heads to there station or crew room to decorate for the coming week. My station and the other lady with me stayed till around 9 p.m. to rearrange our room and decorate. When we left we saw tons of crew leaders still cutting paper and making decorations for there walls. The last crew leader did not leave the church till after 11 pm. Talk about a well decorated church. Every room...every space was taken and decorated. The large rooms were divided into sections so we could have more rooms. The second part is station leaders. We have Outside games and that needs a few station leaders...we have our big production on stage with singing, dancing, and short skits....that has 3 main singers and then lighting and sound guys... so lets say 6 leaders for that...then we have Bible Blast stories (very important) and that has 2 leaders per room (3 rooms/stations so 6 people all in all)...we have a short video drama that plays 15 min. a day called chatter (3 stations...3 people), we also have craft stations...3 stations..2 people per station (this is where I come in). I am one of six craft leaders. I can not fully explain what goes on in other stations but crafts I know. First lets go back a few months. All the craft station leaders have had meetings about what we are going to be doing and suggestions on the crafts to make life easier in the rooms and then tons of projects to take home and cut, sort, measure...you name it. My station was fun! The other lady (Judy) and I worked last year together doing the same thing. Judy and I decorated our very own snake pond. We put up a interactive bayou that we did not mind the kids playing with and jumping on. We have about 20 min. with each group that walks in the station and that gives us just enough time to explain how to do the craft, relate the craft to the days bible lesson and then help and play with the kids till time is up. Some of the kids finish faster than others...some really really really take there time and make everything perfect and some just slap it together and then need to be entertained. We kept word finds in the room for the kids that finished early and needed to be busy...we also let them take our snakes out and play. The first day we took our "grow-a-snakes" out of the package they were about 12" long...by day five they were over 3 feet long and today about 4'6". The kids loved our room....but there were sooooo many piled in at one time. One of our groups (three crews make up a group) was over 50 kids. Man it was fun! From 8 in the morning till 1 every afternoon last week I was having a blast at VBS. My daughter ended up in tears when she found out the VBS was only one week long and not all summer (truly a heart breaking moment). Mikey was very well behaved and did all that was asked of him (after the first day). The first day was funny for him. He was very well behaved but my little man is a story teller. The teacher pulled out markers and Mikey informed her that he is not allowed to play with markers and that his mom would get him in trouble if he did. Then later that day she pulled out stickers to decorate there VBS bag they would be using all week.....well...same thing. "I am not allowed to play with stickers or stick them on anything". Lucky for me his teacher knew me and just kind of laughed him of and told him she would take the blame...then her happily obliged. Toni was having a blast till they went outside to game...the second day they had water balloons and one broke on the ground beside her and she refused to play because she did not want to get dirty...yep sat on the side lines. Soon she had a follower who decided to keep her company. WHAT...this is Toni...the girl who will lay in the dirt and make dirt angels. She is silly and has her moods. I thought that was funny when the teacher was secretly telling me. My kids are a trip.

Toni's Kindergarten Graduation

Toni had such a great time all year in Kindergarten. She is loved by all her classmates and her teacher simply adored her. I am one proud mommy! I knew graduation was coming and I was looking forward to summer and swimming all the time... but I did not even stop and think about how fast the year went by. My mom is such a trooper when it comes to my kiddo's and let me tell you why. I am 31 and the youngest of three so that makes my mom... 29 right? Well you would think so after this. My mom works crazy long hours. She gets up at like 4:30 in the a.m. and works a 12 hour shift...then drives an hour home before crashing early just to do it again. I called mom and told her that Toni's kinder graduation was on her first day off and I would understand if she could not make it....HA. My wonderful mom worked 4 days in a row...12 hour shifts and in order to make it here for my daughter she drove strait from work all the way to Austin. That's right got up at 4:30....worked all day...left work that evening and drove into the night to be here. She did not come into the door till 11PM. The next morning my little Toni girl was up getting ready for school hugging on her grandma and was as happy as could be. John, Mikey, Kaelyn, Grandma, and myself headed to school for the 8:30 in the morning graduation. I did not expect much as I have never been to a Kinder graduation. It was fun! They had slide shows of all the kiddo's through out the year. Toni made the slide show a few times and it was fun to see all what they did in a years time. My husband even made the slide show! When we went on the field trip they captured him and Toni together and flipped it on the big screen. Then all the kids sang songs together...walked the stage and received there Kinder certificates...so cute. I know my kids are taken care of at school and you can tell because all the kids love the teachers and the principal. The principal got up to make her speech and could not get through it with out crying, she loves ALL these kids and was truly amazed at how smart this particular class was. Toni's teacher got up and talked about her class and how in the years past the lesson plans have worked just fine to keep the kids busy all day and learning...well not this year. She said that she had to come up with more stuff and lessons to do because this year the kids picked up everything so fast. She was giving our kindergartners 1st and 2nd grade work to challenge them. I kept it together for the most part only fighting tears every now and then and then feeling silly for tearing because it is not like she is graduating high school or college. Over all it was wonderful to watch all these kids shine and smile with life and love for there school. CC Mason rocks! ......ok so the last thing I need to share is when I did cry. It was the last day of school (5 school days after graduation...silly I know). Everything was normal, Toni was off to school, Mikey and I hung out for the day, the time came to go pick them up and I got sad. I took Mikey over to my neighbor's house and headed to go get my girl. I sat in the parking lot for about 50 min. waiting for Toni and the neighbor to come out and it hit me....My girl is not a kindergartner anymore...she is in school...real school. A school that is public, attendance matters, grades matter, everything matters and I don't have a baby...or a toddler....I have a grade school child. 1st grade. I teach 1st grade at church and have for 3 years....and now my daughter just turned into that big kid that I teach. WHAT?