July at our house

So I'm pretty sure I broke my toe. It is the next to last one on the left foot and I know it would make me feel better if it turned black. Then I would feel a little justified in the amount of pain it is causing me. This really isn't a convenient time for me to have a broken toe. I've just gotten back into my exercise routine (you may have heard that Joe & I are participating in a weight loss challenge with the office staff at church) and I have VBS next week. Not sure at this point how I'm going to jump around on stage like I need to. I've really started praying that by next week the toe is back to normal. Joe (the medical expert in the house) says it is very unlikely. Sigh...

The middle part of July has been pretty active for us. Here's what's been going on....

• We've been borrowing some videos from the library for our evening entertainment. (There just hasn't been anything child worthy on TV lately.) The other day Nathan talked me into letting him get a nature video Deep Blue. It's not that I'm against nature; I'm just not a fan of some of the videos about nature. Anyway, we settled in to watch it with me warning them that if it got crazy on evolution we would be turning it off. It actually turned out to be pretty good, right up to the point that they started showing the killer whales. After seeing them in a action, I'm kind of wondering who at Sea World thought it would be a good idea to try to tame these mighty beasts. They had a scene where a pack of killer whales attacked a baby gray whale. After 6 hours they wore the mama gray whale out and killed (yikes!) the baby gray whale. It was really horrible. We had major tears going on with Nathan and I'm afraid he will probably never watch a nature video again.
• On the same theme of nature, a monarch catepillar somehow ended up on my foot outside last week. So we brought it in a put it in Sara's "butterfly pavillion". It ate and ate this last week and we woke up this morning to it hanging upside down in the pavillion. Here's hoping for a butterfly in two weeks.
• The girls had an Anne of Green Gables marathon while visiting their aunt a few weeks ago. Now I know who Ashley reminds me of...Anne of Green Gables! She is now devouring the books and her dramatic side has come into light even more in the last week. She was in tears when we took the video back to the library yesterday (yes, they had to watch them again when they got home). I think there may have even been utterances of "how shall I now live?"
• Speaking of Ashley, she lost a tooth this last week. It put me in a panic when she came upstairs one afternoon with blood coming out of her mouth and she announced a tooth fell out. I didn't know she had a loose tooth and you just never know what is going to happen with that child. Fortunately, it was one that was suppose to come out this time.
• We have VBS here next week and once again I'm in charge of it. I guess that sounded a little like I didn't want to be in charge. I enjoy it. It could be an interesting week. Last year we had 38 kids on our first day and ended the week around 60 or 70. We have 41 preregistered for this year. Here's hoping we have enough of everything!
• I've been studying Hebrews this summer. I usually end up my Bible study with more questions than answers. But it has been really good to be in the Word.

We are off to the orthodontist and to do a little shopping...that will be fun with a broken toe. Oooo, maybe I can drive one of those little carts at the store....