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I do hope it doesn't sound like I'm whining about this VBS busyness stuff! Really I'm not! I totally enjoy VBS -- even the hectic week before. But I have GOT to share some stuff about WHAT I get myself INTO! It's crazy! Really. I can NOT do things "simple". I just can't do it! Shawn came back from visiting another church who just finished up Gadget's Garage, and she said "oh Melli, they made these cute little robots out of toilet paper rolls wrapped in tinfoil..." Mmmhmmm... Pipe cleaner arms and legs - a few little nuts and bolts.. simple! And darling, no doubt! And here sits Melli trying to get wiffle balls glued to water bottle tops. Here's Dennis drilling holes through tops and bottoms of water bottles for the YES, pipe cleaners to go through -- the pipe cleaners that will hold hair curlers, or springs, or rubber pencil grips for arms, and bendy straws or rubber tubing or who knows for legs! Here sits Melli punching holes in 4" pie pans so they can have Breast Plates... and who knows what else I'll be doing for these robots - cuz I'm really not TO that part yet! LOL! The past 24 hours has been spent still trying to get the day 1 craft together! LOL! We are making MOBILES. Okay? Someone else might have cut pieces out of construction paper and saved themselves tons of time and money. No? Okay... for starters the main idea of the day is "God made the WORLD for you & me", K? So, first I need a world. Right? After looking at little globe beach balls, paper globes, and wooden world circles, I finally found some foam circles with the world stamped on them... perfect. I punch six holes in all 120 of them. Then I cut 9 strings each for all 120 of them. So now I have my world... what's going to hang from those strings? Well, what did God PUT in our world for us? Right... I have "under the sea" beads, and safari animal beads, and star beads.... and thats all the beads I could find. Now what? So I spent HOURS searching the internet and finally came up with some fruit erasers. Dennis drilled holes through all 120 of them! Then I found these darling little hamburger, hot dog, and sandwich erasers. But when they arrived, first, they each came individually wrapped - which would not be a problem for each kid to unwrap their own - but the one I unwrapped fell apart into 4 pieces in my hand! Bun, lettuce, hamburger, bun.... THAT won't work! The sandwiches and the hot dogs were the same -- oh and I found french fries too - the fries come OUT of the red container! WHY??? So, I've been gluing erasers together and then Dennis has been drilling holes in the french fries. And the hotdogs. The burgers and sandwiches can be worked without holes. So, I get my prototype, and I add a burger and a fruit... and suddenly I'm left with an extra hole. Why? Because I never bought the PEOPLE! Yes, God did give us each other now didn't he... The reason I never bought the people was because I thought I would simply go buy a bag or two of army guys... but apparently children do not PLAY with army guys anymore. Not even cowboys and indians either. So TODAY I spent several hours on line trying to find some... and couldn't. So then I looked for any kind of little people. HO train people are verrrrrry expensive. No, I did not buy them! Doll house people are too big. LEGO people would be just right -- but you can't buy just the people - and if ya could they'd be too expensive. So then I thought novelty candles? Novelty cupcake picks? Novelty key chains? ANYTHING!!! I need PEOPLE people! FINALLY, I found mini parachuters for a very reasonable price! I ordered them quickly and paid extra for 3 day delivery! And when they come, all I have to do is unwrap each individual one and snip the string off the guy! Then add them to the 120 bags and my DAY 1 project will finally be ready to go!!!

Day 2 is ready... providing we don't sign up more than 6 more 4 year olds, or 11 more K-5th graders! Riiiiiiiight! I have 80 kits put together for masks. I'll wait until I find out what our total numbers are on Monday and then put the rest together for the next day.

Just do me a favor... NEXT year when I start talking about VBS... remind me to "keep it simple!" K?