VBS- Shake it Up Cafe!!

Well it has taken me a few days to finally have life slow down enough to post about what has consumed ALL of my time the last few weeks.  This year I was assistant director for VBS at our church.  I had NO IDEA just how much time that meant.  We have 2 directors and 2 asst directors for our church's VBS.  This year we had 295 kids and 140 volunteers that needed guidance.  

Let me start by explaining my schedule for the first week of summer.  We did not have a decorator coordinator this year, so all 4 of us plus our 2 fabulous children's directors (paid staff) took on the job.  We were up at church everyday from 9-12 in the morning, grabbed lunch, took a quick nap, and headed back to church every night from 6-9pm. Then all day Saturday & Sunday to complete all the decorations after the wedding, and church services.  My poor kids spent a ridiculous amount of time in the church's nursery.  Luckily they had lots of fun playing with all the other kids, but still, not exactly what every kid wants to do their first week of summer. 

Then just as we survived decorating & prep week, it was time for the real thing.  VBS with all the kids and everything we had prepared for.  Sunday night had the worst trouble sleeping, I even had the typical nightmares like I do before the first day of school.  Monday was everything I worried about and more.  Ok actually it wasn't that bad.  With the exception of the registration table that I was running, everything else went really smoothly.  The registration table was another story.  We had about 30 people that had registered online that did not show up in our system.  So I was trying to assign groups at last second, as well as apease parents who were having to fill out a really long form for a second time.  It was totally chaotic and really stressed me out. 

After each day of class, we had a director's meeting to go over everything and prepare for the next day. Somehow that always kept me at church until about 3:00.  Luckily my mom & dad were there to help out and take the kids out to lunch and just get them out of the church. 

 Our theme was Shake it Up Cafe.  So everything was food related.  Here are two adorable little chefs in front of Matt's Muffins table.  Believe it or not these were all made out of spray insulation and painted.  Barbara did an awesome job!  They looked so real, that we even had to put up signs stating they were for VBS & not real food. 

 This was the first time I had to face my baby boy being in 1st grade!!!  But it was all ok, because Nana was his shepherd.  Yes my parents had to put in some serious time decorating & working VBS, when they weren't watching my kids so that I could be in meetings.   

Some really big spaghetti!!

 My dad even shephered for one of the 4th grade groups!

My size cookies & milk!!!

 On Thursday morning, I decided to sneak down the hall and check out what our preschoolers were doing.  Here is Alex in morning assembly.  All week she had seen me pass by her classroom, and just commented there is my mommy.  But I think by Thursday morning, she was just plain tired.  Because she just started crying and wanted me to take her with me.  So I had to quickly sneak out and leave her to her teacher's to stop crying.  Sorry guys!!

Our star of the week, Scraps!

 God has a recipe for ME!

 Extra large pizza, please!  Notice Alex's lunch box- On Wednesday I was beginning to feel bad about my parents having the kids so much, so I packed a lunch for both kids to eat in the nursery after VBS.  I cannot even begin to tell you how excited Alex was about having a big girl lunch in a lunchbox like Riley takes to school.  It was so cute!  Too bad she didn't eat more of it...

 This one of our cute tables set up around the hallways.  Plus I had to have at least one picture of all 3 of us in our matching VBS shirts that I was in charge of ordering! :)

 Group 1B- Or Shepherd Nana with Little Chef, Riley

Shepherd Greg preparing for the last day!

By the end of the week, I was exhausted but happy.  We changed alot of things up this year, but all in all I think there were lots of good change.  We will have to tweak things for next year, but when do we ever not make changes, in efforts to make things better!