Puggles!

Our church does a program called Puggles, which is for older 2 and younger 3 year olds to do before they go to Cubbies. It is part of the AWANA program which is excellent! Claire fits perfectly into this age group. Since her birthday is in October, she is 1 month shy of being able to be in Cubbies, but she is still old enough to sit still for a short, SHORT, lesson, and to color, do a craft, and play. It's designed to teach the little ones about God. A puggle is a baby platypus which to me is just the cutest name ever. Anyway, during the summer, when they were recruiting AWANA workers, I found out about this program at our church for Claire's age group. I was so excited. However, they told me it was only for children whose parents worked in AWANA. I haven't worked in AWANA before due to choir practice on Wednesday evenings and our crazy schedule throughout the week, I was hesitant to add one more thing on my plate. But I really wanted her to do Puggles! Justin and I were talking and he asked who taught the Puggles class? I answered that I didn't know. So I asked, and they said they didn't have a teacher. I volunteered. Not only does Claire get to do Puggles, but she gets to do it with me! I am so excited about it! She is even more excited about it too! She asks every time we go anywhere now if I'm going to be her teacher. It is only an hour long, and in that hour we do a 5 minute lesson, a craft, a snack, songs, and a coloring page. The rest of the time is just play time. She is really enjoying it.
The other reason why I am excited is that I remember my mom teaching in my Sunday school class when I was 2 or 3. I don't really have a lot of memories, but I do have a few that are vivid and now that she is gone to be with Jesus, they are precious to me. Especially since she was taking the time to teach me about Jesus when I was that little. So I guess that I hope that when Claire is older, that she might remember a few of these times we spend together at Puggles and that I think teaching her about Jesus is the most important, since that truly is the most important thing I can teach her--ever.

Prayer

Today we learned that Claire has been praying at school for her lunch. This certainly pleased us so at dinner Daddy asked her to please say a prayer for our dinner. This is what she prayed:

"God is great, God is good,
Now we fank him for our food,
Amen. No talking. No mess."

Apparently they're not allowed to talk or make a mess at school during lunch. We adapted the "prayer" for dinner to say some talking, no mess.

Claire's Birthday!

Claire turned 3 last Friday. She wanted "bubbles" for her party. So we did bubble invitations by using washable paints to make our own homemade bubble solution. Then we painted the bubbles (by blowing through a regular wand) onto the invitations. She had so much fun, it was easy, and they turned out great! Then we did a whole bubble theme with tons of wands, bubble solution, and bubbles! We even took our inflatable pool and filled it with bubble solution and then took a hula hoop to make a huge bubble wand. She had so much fun!











Grandma and Grandpa also came down from Michigan to spend a week with us to celebrate Claire's birthday. We didn't let them have a vacation however, I mean they're retired. They have a vacation all the time right? Ha! Anyway, we had our carpet installed while they were here. This meant that all the furniture had to be moved out of the rooms, including the baby grand piano. That booger is heavy! Good thing my dad was here though, he's the pro at moving that thing. He's moved it at least 20 times I bet. They enjoyed the work we put them to however, at least I think so. They never complained and boy were we grateful. We could have never gotten through the week without them! A huge thanks again! We also enjoyed having them here for Claire to get to know them better. It's hard with us being so far away from everyone, so hopefully their visit cemented their relationship to Claire a little bit more. She missed them today while we were on the way home from the airport.



We also went over to Houston where my cousins live. We got to visit and catch up with them on Sunday. It was so good to see them since we haven't seen them in a while. My first cousin Wendy has twins that are 10 days younger than Claire, so it was neat to see all three of them play together since they're so close in age. I thought I had forgotten my camera so I didn't get very many pictures until later once I'd found my camera in my purse.