When it comes to planning vacation bible school for our parish I try not to stress. The first couple of years I directed it I acted as if everything depended on me and I essentially tried to do every bit of it that could be done by me, myself. It was exhausting and it was largely due to me being a control freak and partly due to me not being able to trust that people would come through if I delegated a specific task to them. Too many years of forced group projects at school had trained me that if you want something done right and you want to get an A it's better to do it yourself and slap the names of the other people in the group on it when you're done.
Managing a growing family and heading up a project that requires a lot of work isn't easy if you want to actually get sleep or maintain sanity. So after year two of running VBS I started to listen to Bryan and a few of my other friends who were begging me to delegate tasks. I did it, and it was amazing. People came through and got the jobs that needed to be done completed. The first year I delegated I was really on edge because I worried that things might not get done right. Sometimes we had a hiccup, but when we did we were able to course correct it with minimal effort.
Right around the time I started delegating, I also started spending more time asking God to help me get the volunteers we needed or just asking Him to guide me to the right prayers, saints or devotions to introduce to the kids. And that's when things started buzzing along beautifully. I'd go to Mass, pray beforehand that I needed classroom teachers, or someone to pick up or bake a snack and most of the time before I left the church someone would approach me with what was needed. Or, I'd come home to find an email or a message on my answering machine that essentially answered my prayer. Nothing short of amazing, and I attribute it to me placing it in God's hands. I really should take a lesson from that and apply it to other areas of my life. When I do, I see equally amazing results, but I fail to exhibit that level of trust all the time. It's something I'm working on, and I know it's something Our Lord is working on me about, too.
So the past week or so I've been focusing on VBS and praying about it. I have a few positions I need filled, and I also need to pick the saints that will be featured and the crafts. I know I'll get the volunteers we need. I'm not sure who the new faces will be yet, but I'm sure they'll be exactly what we need. Crafts, had me stumped. I like to keep it fresh so people don't feel like their kids are doing that same things year after year.
My first wave of craft inspiration was courtesy of the liturgical calendar. The first day of the program is the feast day for St. Benedict, so he will get featured this year and the kids will do a craft that involves the St. Benedict medal. But the rest of the days were a mystery to me until today. Now I think I have some clarity.
I help out with the crafts for Little Flowers Girls Club at a neighboring parish. This month was my turn to come up with a craft. St. Anne was the featured saint and I didn't have the easiest time coming up with a good craft. After looking online, I got the idea to print a nice image of St. Anne with the Blessed Mother and put it in a wood craft frame. I wasn't sure if the girls should just paint it or do something more. So I thought about VBS and things that typically are simple but look very nice and that's when I thought that maybe gluing sequins to the frame would look nice. I was going to leave the wood unpainted, but I decided this morning that it might look nicer if they were painted. So as I sat in the kitchen painting 16 frames I got hit with an idea. I could use these same frames with a photo of the Divine Mercy image as a VBS craft. That would allow us to talk about the Year of Mercy in a video and have this as the corresponding craft. The kids can paint the frame (because we have time for that at VBS) and then sprinkle it with glitter or sequins if they like. But then I started thinking that this would also work as the Marian craft idea. (I always have one Marian craft day to help encourage a devotion to Mary.) And that's when I got the idea of doing a rosary holder with an image of Our Lady of Good Counsel. I just need to ask someone we know who does wood working who also volunteered his talent to help with VBS if I needed it, if he can cut keyholes into the backs of plaques and add a peg or hook to the front so it can function as a hanging rosary holder. If that's the case, I will have three out of five crafts picked. I never would have expected to have such amazing clarity on what the crafts might be this early.
I'll try to add pictures of the St. Anne craft later this week. It's such a simple, yet pretty craft.
Showing posts with label VBS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VBS. Show all posts
Monday, March 7, 2016
Monday, May 18, 2015
On My Mind
It's been such a long time since I've been able to just sit down and write. I really miss it, but it seems in any given day a small plethora of things just wind up taking precedence over me being able to blog.
Without fishing through previous blog posts, I have no idea how much I've shared about the kids. I had started to write about Katie and her being assessed for speech (which insurance frustratingly denied us coverage). We were told back in October or November that she's likely just a late talker. This past month has been very promising with Katie beginning to talk more. She uses sentences pretty frequently and people who don't live with us are starting to understand the things she does say. I'm in an odd place of feeling thrilled and excited about the words she can say, and yet still feeling frustrated and impatient that she isn't further along with speaking. It's a challenge, but I'm so grateful anytime she utters words I can understand. About two weeks ago she kept asking me "Why?" on a ride home from Target. With my older children the whys got on my nerves after so many iterations of it, but with Katie, I'm rejoicing that she's asking me a question with an actual word. It's interesting how perspective can change.
Anthony is a year old! It's crazy how quickly that first year passed. He's been walking since around Easter, but had started taking his first steps back in February. He's presently on a mission to slip by us and scale the stairs anytime he's sees an open gate. He claps, he waves, he shakes his head no, and tries to tackle me by throwing himself at my legs. Today he almost succeeded in knocking me over. He says words, for which I am very thankful. He can say Mama, Dada, Daddy, no (I'm not exactly thrilled he learned that particular word.), uh-oh and something that sounds remarkably like bye-bye.
The girls are pretty much done with the school year. They both have a state history test to complete and we still need to take a field trip and then we can call History done. Ellie has everything else for the year completed. Math and Madeline just shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. I made an executive call last week and decided that even though she had just finished the final lesson in her math book that we were going to have to start over at the beginning of the fourth quarter and do it again. She wasn't retaining the information and when she would get stumped on classwork, she would go back to whatever lesson the problem was from and look at the example to figure it out. The problem with that was she would get the work done and it would be right, but when it was time to take a test, there was no book for her to look at to see how to do the problems. I'm sure I wasn't her favorite person when I told her we had to start over. Right now I'm going over two lessons a day with her and hand selecting the problems she struggles the most with to make sure she really understands how to do them so she won't have a problem when it's time to take the test.
Soccer season is still going. We had a lot of bad weather in March so three weeks of games that should have happened got cancelled or rescheduled for later in the spring. So while soccer should have wrapped up this past Saturday, it won't be done until June 6th. So that means that twice a week soccer practices will also keep going for the rest of this month and into June.
I came to the realization a few weeks ago that I've been praying for a specific intention for over six years now without seeing the result I'd love to see. Perhaps Our Lord is helping me to learn to be patient. Here and there I've seen articles and what not that say things to the effect that when a prayer isn't answered in the timing that you expect, it's because your heart isn't yet prepared to fully appreciate it. So on those days when I feel a bit like this is a hopeless cause and I feel like I'm on the brink of despair, I think maybe, just maybe that's it. It's also in those moments where I think that I should have a better relationship with St. Monica. I know she knows how I feel.
Since it's been over two months since I last wrote anything I suppose I should also mention that Madeline was confirmed last month. She chose Maria for her confirmation name to honor the Blessed Mother. I have every intention of putting together a post with pictures soon, I hope.
The VBS program had reached the max number of children we can take two months before hitting the registration deadline. I think registration was open for only about seven or eight weeks. Either the program has gained a really good reputation over these past few years, or the parents are really eager to get fifteen hours of kid free time for just $40 per child. Right now I'm working on making sure I have all of the volunteers that we need and I'm trying to pick out the music for the program. I'm almost there. Instead of stressing about it as I have in years past, I've just been focusing more on praying about it and seeing where the Spirit leads me.
The little man has just woken up from his nap. If all goes well, I'll find time later to add some pictures.
Without fishing through previous blog posts, I have no idea how much I've shared about the kids. I had started to write about Katie and her being assessed for speech (which insurance frustratingly denied us coverage). We were told back in October or November that she's likely just a late talker. This past month has been very promising with Katie beginning to talk more. She uses sentences pretty frequently and people who don't live with us are starting to understand the things she does say. I'm in an odd place of feeling thrilled and excited about the words she can say, and yet still feeling frustrated and impatient that she isn't further along with speaking. It's a challenge, but I'm so grateful anytime she utters words I can understand. About two weeks ago she kept asking me "Why?" on a ride home from Target. With my older children the whys got on my nerves after so many iterations of it, but with Katie, I'm rejoicing that she's asking me a question with an actual word. It's interesting how perspective can change.
Anthony is a year old! It's crazy how quickly that first year passed. He's been walking since around Easter, but had started taking his first steps back in February. He's presently on a mission to slip by us and scale the stairs anytime he's sees an open gate. He claps, he waves, he shakes his head no, and tries to tackle me by throwing himself at my legs. Today he almost succeeded in knocking me over. He says words, for which I am very thankful. He can say Mama, Dada, Daddy, no (I'm not exactly thrilled he learned that particular word.), uh-oh and something that sounds remarkably like bye-bye.
The girls are pretty much done with the school year. They both have a state history test to complete and we still need to take a field trip and then we can call History done. Ellie has everything else for the year completed. Math and Madeline just shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. I made an executive call last week and decided that even though she had just finished the final lesson in her math book that we were going to have to start over at the beginning of the fourth quarter and do it again. She wasn't retaining the information and when she would get stumped on classwork, she would go back to whatever lesson the problem was from and look at the example to figure it out. The problem with that was she would get the work done and it would be right, but when it was time to take a test, there was no book for her to look at to see how to do the problems. I'm sure I wasn't her favorite person when I told her we had to start over. Right now I'm going over two lessons a day with her and hand selecting the problems she struggles the most with to make sure she really understands how to do them so she won't have a problem when it's time to take the test.
Soccer season is still going. We had a lot of bad weather in March so three weeks of games that should have happened got cancelled or rescheduled for later in the spring. So while soccer should have wrapped up this past Saturday, it won't be done until June 6th. So that means that twice a week soccer practices will also keep going for the rest of this month and into June.
I came to the realization a few weeks ago that I've been praying for a specific intention for over six years now without seeing the result I'd love to see. Perhaps Our Lord is helping me to learn to be patient. Here and there I've seen articles and what not that say things to the effect that when a prayer isn't answered in the timing that you expect, it's because your heart isn't yet prepared to fully appreciate it. So on those days when I feel a bit like this is a hopeless cause and I feel like I'm on the brink of despair, I think maybe, just maybe that's it. It's also in those moments where I think that I should have a better relationship with St. Monica. I know she knows how I feel.
Since it's been over two months since I last wrote anything I suppose I should also mention that Madeline was confirmed last month. She chose Maria for her confirmation name to honor the Blessed Mother. I have every intention of putting together a post with pictures soon, I hope.
The VBS program had reached the max number of children we can take two months before hitting the registration deadline. I think registration was open for only about seven or eight weeks. Either the program has gained a really good reputation over these past few years, or the parents are really eager to get fifteen hours of kid free time for just $40 per child. Right now I'm working on making sure I have all of the volunteers that we need and I'm trying to pick out the music for the program. I'm almost there. Instead of stressing about it as I have in years past, I've just been focusing more on praying about it and seeing where the Spirit leads me.
The little man has just woken up from his nap. If all goes well, I'll find time later to add some pictures.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} VBS 2014
Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.
Last week was VBS week. I switched VBS programs this year so the new changes and additions made my job as director a bit more challenging than years past, but it all came together nicely. Our theme this year was Living in God's Kingdom from Loyola's Catholic Vacation Bible School book. I was so pleased with the way the program turned out this year that I'm already looking forward to using the other two themes that are in that book for the next two years.
{Pretty}
One of the crafts the kids made at VBS was a prayer card holder. Each day the kids received a new holy card to color and take home. The color your own holy cards seemed to be a hit with the kids. We laminated all of the cards each day which made them look really nice.
{Happy}
I have some amazing friends who help me out with VBS each year. I'm convinced that the program wouldn't be as great as it is without their help and passion for teaching.
I think I also have some of the best student volunteers. This year I was the only volunteer with kids young enough to need a nursery so I scrapped the nursery knowing that my little ones wouldn't stay in there and instead had two awesome assistants who not only helped me a ton with relaying messages for me and delivering things to classrooms, but they also spent most of their time holding Katie and Anthony while I ran around doing all the things that I needed to do to make sure everything was running smoothly.
{Funny}
Ever since last year, I like to tease Deacon Al about what costume I'm going to have him dress up in for VBS. Originally I wanted him to be a jester to go with the medieval kingdom theme, but I never got around to ordering him a jester costume. I was delighted when a friend of mine came in with a monk costume. We were all amused to meet "Chip Monk" as he went from class to class with his Italian accent talking to the kids. I have to start thinking about who he will dress up as next year. I think he secretly enjoys dressing up in these costumes.
{Real}
My main goal with VBS is to plant as many seeds of faith as possible hoping that some of what the kids learn will take root. My approach is to infuse as much Catholic culture and prayer into the program as I can. Most of our crafts include a prayer. For the prayer card holders the kids made we included a prayer for vocations. It was an idea that just came to me one day and the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Our parish presently has a seminarian who is studying in Rome and we now have three more young men from our parish and/or young adult youth group who are entering the seminary this fall. I had one of our new seminarians do a video on Divine Mercy for the campers and in his video he explained what a vocation was and what a seminarian is to help this prayer make even more sense to the kids. Who knows, maybe our parish will see even more vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the coming years.
Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {P,H,F,R} and Clan Donaldson for more Vacation Theme Thursday posts.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Four Kids Will Keep You Busy!
I can't believe that I've only blogged two or three times since Anthony was born on May 1st. I feel like my blog has been set on the back burner for the longest time. All I can say is the past eleven months have felt like some of the busiest months of my life.
Things are going well here and I'm continually amazed at how sweet this new little love of mine is. I can't believe I spent so much time worried that I wouldn't adore this little man as much as I do my girls. I really didn't think I'd have any clue what to do with a little boy but I have to say having a boy baby isn't too different from having a girl other than the obvious differences and the overall absence of whining and crying. How come nobody told me boys were so easy going? Anthony is so laid back that I'd be prefectly content to have more just like him.
I have so much I want to blog about so I will hopefully be able to find some time in the next few weeks to fill you in on what we've been up to. Here are are few highlights.
Madeline completed her first year of homeschooling and she managed to finish up the year a full three weeks before the kids in public school finished.
Ellie will be joining us for school this year. When I re-enrolled Madeline for 8th grade we also enrolled Ellie for 4th grade. Can I tell you how excited I am that we're done with the public school? I know Ellie is excited about homeschooling, too. She seems to be telling everyone about it.
I think Katie has adjusted to having a little brother for the most part. She still has moments here and there where she seems jealous but overall she seems content to have a real baby in the house.
Anthony was baptized on the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua. I couldn't resist having him baptized on the feast day of his patron saint.
VBS took place last week. How I managed to pull off coordinating VBS this year while pregnant/having just had a baby will remain a mystery. All I can say is I have some amazing friends and family members who all helped me out tremendously. Last week was great and I enjoyed seeing all of the kids having a great time.
Anthony had his 2 month well visit last week. He's growing so fast. He's 12 lbs 11oz and 23 1/4 inches long. He's already outgrown some of his 0-3 month outfits and is on the verge of outgrowing the rest. It's crazy! Between 6 and 8 weeks old he went from looking like a newborn to looking more like a three month old.
As if having a new baby and running VBS wasn't enough, we also had a birthday party to plan for yesterday. Ellie turned nine yesterday and we celebrated with a Frozen pool party. I can't believe she's nine already. It's amazing how quickly time passes. It doesn't seem like that long ago that we had just moved into this house and celebrated her second birthday and already she's nine years old.
Things are going well here and I'm continually amazed at how sweet this new little love of mine is. I can't believe I spent so much time worried that I wouldn't adore this little man as much as I do my girls. I really didn't think I'd have any clue what to do with a little boy but I have to say having a boy baby isn't too different from having a girl other than the obvious differences and the overall absence of whining and crying. How come nobody told me boys were so easy going? Anthony is so laid back that I'd be prefectly content to have more just like him.
I have so much I want to blog about so I will hopefully be able to find some time in the next few weeks to fill you in on what we've been up to. Here are are few highlights.
Madeline completed her first year of homeschooling and she managed to finish up the year a full three weeks before the kids in public school finished.
Ellie will be joining us for school this year. When I re-enrolled Madeline for 8th grade we also enrolled Ellie for 4th grade. Can I tell you how excited I am that we're done with the public school? I know Ellie is excited about homeschooling, too. She seems to be telling everyone about it.
I think Katie has adjusted to having a little brother for the most part. She still has moments here and there where she seems jealous but overall she seems content to have a real baby in the house.
Anthony was baptized on the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua. I couldn't resist having him baptized on the feast day of his patron saint.
VBS took place last week. How I managed to pull off coordinating VBS this year while pregnant/having just had a baby will remain a mystery. All I can say is I have some amazing friends and family members who all helped me out tremendously. Last week was great and I enjoyed seeing all of the kids having a great time.
Anthony had his 2 month well visit last week. He's growing so fast. He's 12 lbs 11oz and 23 1/4 inches long. He's already outgrown some of his 0-3 month outfits and is on the verge of outgrowing the rest. It's crazy! Between 6 and 8 weeks old he went from looking like a newborn to looking more like a three month old.
As if having a new baby and running VBS wasn't enough, we also had a birthday party to plan for yesterday. Ellie turned nine yesterday and we celebrated with a Frozen pool party. I can't believe she's nine already. It's amazing how quickly time passes. It doesn't seem like that long ago that we had just moved into this house and celebrated her second birthday and already she's nine years old.
So I think this wraps up my little highlight tour of what we've been up to this past month and a half. I hope to be able to put together a post about Anthony's baptism and Ellie's Frozen party later this week. I have a lot of pictures to share and I was so pleased with how well Ellie's party came together that I need to tell you how easily everything came together and why I'm convinced that I must get a die cut machine. (Hint: Look at the snowflake decorations in the background of each of the birthday pictures.)
Monday, July 15, 2013
Miss Me?
I've been MIA for about a week and a half now, right? I feel like I've abandoned the blog. Last week was our parish VBS so I was pretty busy with that from just before the 4th of July when I began setting up the school and tying up some last minute VBS items. Once I made it through an exhausting week of VBS I had to jump right into putting together an American Girl party for Ellie's 8th birthday. I really need to realize that throwing a birthday party at my house just before or right after or even during the week of VBS is nothing short of overwhelming. Add in taking my sister-in-law to create a baby registry (for her, not me) and you can call me exhausted. On the whole it was a great week (8 days if we want to be specific) filled with lots of good things that kept me busy.
Since about last Wednesday I've been feeling like I just can't get enough sleep or rest. I wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm going to pass out within two hours and spend the rest of my day feeling like I'm dragging. I was hoping to spend some time relaxing today but that never happened. No rest for the weary! The heat wave that we just entered isn't helping either.
I have lots I want to blog about, but it's probably going to be another couple of days before my poor neglected blog has any sort of interesting content. I am wondering how some bloggers who seem to be busy all the time manage to crank out amazing blog posts with gorgeous pictures all of the time. Maybe they don't sleep.
Since about last Wednesday I've been feeling like I just can't get enough sleep or rest. I wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm going to pass out within two hours and spend the rest of my day feeling like I'm dragging. I was hoping to spend some time relaxing today but that never happened. No rest for the weary! The heat wave that we just entered isn't helping either.
I have lots I want to blog about, but it's probably going to be another couple of days before my poor neglected blog has any sort of interesting content. I am wondering how some bloggers who seem to be busy all the time manage to crank out amazing blog posts with gorgeous pictures all of the time. Maybe they don't sleep.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
What a busy week!
I'm exhausted after the past nine days! This past week was VBS so I was incredibly busy first with preparing for VBS and then making sure everything went smoothly for all of the volunteers. As the week drew to a close yesterday I felt incredibly relived. Now I have fifty-one weeks to plan for next year.
I learned some things this year. It's good to take notes to make improvements in the future. I discovered that it's pretty time consuming to try and reinvent the wheel each year. It was something that I kept realizing over and over as I prepared for this past week. Armed with my notes, I will be sitting down next week and writing up procedures and guidelines for next year. I'm also going to come up with a basic time line so I can have an even better handle on things.
I feel so blessed that I had such amazing people to help me out along the way. I'm convinced that I could not have found better volunteers to teach the classes if I had tried. These people were all amazing. My lackluster hall decorations ended up being ok simply because the teachers had amazingly creative room decorations.
So another year of directing VBS is behind me. I'm pretty confident that next year's program will run even smoother than this year. It's my hope that all of the things for which I am responsible will come together quickly and run like a well-oiled machine. Time will only tell.
I'm also kicking around the idea of writing my own VBS program for 2014. I had a student volunteer suggest an amazing theme that created quite a buzz among some of the other people involved with VBS. I even have a teacher who said she'd be willing to collaborate with me on the project. I'm excited about the prospect and hope we can make it happen.
Bryan has been coming up with lots of suggestions for me to streamline the registration process and speed it up, as well. I'm going to be passing these suggestions along to our DRE and see which of them can be implemented for next year. One of them will bring the registration process into the digital realm, and the other might potentially help VBS get the bulk of it's registrations in one weekend.
I'm truly exhausted after this past week, but I can't help but feel a bit energized about planning for next year.
I learned some things this year. It's good to take notes to make improvements in the future. I discovered that it's pretty time consuming to try and reinvent the wheel each year. It was something that I kept realizing over and over as I prepared for this past week. Armed with my notes, I will be sitting down next week and writing up procedures and guidelines for next year. I'm also going to come up with a basic time line so I can have an even better handle on things.
I feel so blessed that I had such amazing people to help me out along the way. I'm convinced that I could not have found better volunteers to teach the classes if I had tried. These people were all amazing. My lackluster hall decorations ended up being ok simply because the teachers had amazingly creative room decorations.
So another year of directing VBS is behind me. I'm pretty confident that next year's program will run even smoother than this year. It's my hope that all of the things for which I am responsible will come together quickly and run like a well-oiled machine. Time will only tell.
I'm also kicking around the idea of writing my own VBS program for 2014. I had a student volunteer suggest an amazing theme that created quite a buzz among some of the other people involved with VBS. I even have a teacher who said she'd be willing to collaborate with me on the project. I'm excited about the prospect and hope we can make it happen.
Bryan has been coming up with lots of suggestions for me to streamline the registration process and speed it up, as well. I'm going to be passing these suggestions along to our DRE and see which of them can be implemented for next year. One of them will bring the registration process into the digital realm, and the other might potentially help VBS get the bulk of it's registrations in one weekend.
I'm truly exhausted after this past week, but I can't help but feel a bit energized about planning for next year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
