Serve and Ski Summer

I'm summing up the month of July with the titles Serve and Ski, because most of the things we documented fell into those categories. We are always looking for ways to teach the kids to serve others, so at the beginning of July, we made the focal point of our hallway their Special Helper Pockets, which hold their Special Helper Rockets. (They are actually presents and Bibles, but used to be rockets so we still call them that.) Next to their Pockets are their own cork boards where we can display more art in a neater way, and not clog the fridge.

Serve:

In between all this serving each other there is a healthy amount of skiing, not this kind, 

Ski (ball):

although someone cashed in 20 Helper Rockets on July 13th and we did get to go to Chuck E Cheese's and play. 

This kind:

Ski:

That's what Kivi wanted to do on her birthday and Peter also forced cousin Madison to try wake boarding before their family went on a high school house boating trip. She's not as big of a fan as Kivi and Peter.

We were able to Serve:

Mimi as she needed a place to stay for a couple days before my cousin's baby shower and she definitely served us with her love and helping with the kids. One of the days, the kids even served me by painting little birds, that I found at the thrift store, black. 

We were also able to Serve:

during our church's Faith in Action Day. Peter scored us this awesome fixer upper of a yard to work on and serve not only the man who lived here, but the neighbors as well. They were so excited that we were fixing up this house that they gave us lemonade, water and even money for our church!

Ta Da! Yep, it's the same house! That truck was even in that first picture, you just couldn't see it because the driveway was covered in bushes.

Actually, I should note for future reference, that my amazing hubby starred as Faith in Action Man!!! and can be seen on YouTube. There are three episodes to promote our church's day of serving the community and they are hilarious.

So, they will be the next three blogs! Hee hee hee!

Serve:

Making laundry detergent and earning Special Helper Rockets.

Ski:

Serve:

Well, I don't know if this fits the serve category, but it's my new cool cleaning plan and the kids use the non toxic cleaning agents to clean during their jobs which serves me and I'm serving Peter by not spending a ton of money on cleaning supplies soooo, maybe it does fit! The kids think it's so funny that I named all of my homemade cleaning stuff, "Abby's - whatever it is". They always say, "Mama, I don't think it's really yours, someone else came up with the recipe and we're the ones who use it."

Ski:

Right after ski:

Seriously, the girl can't get enough. I should mention that Peter is also skiing (fine, wake boarding) every day also at this point in July.

Serving, while others are skiing:

Serve?

Hmmm. I don't know. We did invite our friends to join us at our new, completely not finished and not even close, condo's pool while Peter worked on said condo. Ok, Dada might be the only one serving here.

Serve:

Serve. Right after this of course, she skiied.