4 Book Medallion!

So many great things have happened this past week! I spent Sunday with my extended family, and I don't know them much, but it was a really great time fellowshipping and getting to know them. Then Monday my family and I drove to Vegas and spent the day with my sisters, bro-in-law and adorable nephew, Austin. Now that was a great day! Today, Tuesday, was interesting as well. I had a good day monitoring at LBA, found out I have 2 twin daughters (don't ask =D), got into a fight with a Wal-Mart employee, and went to the LBA sports banquet. I also house-sat for the Harveys last week. So, it was very hard to figure out what I want to write about tonight...since I don't feel like going to bed just yet! I could've written about a good deal of those things, but some I just didn't feel like there would be a way to do the stories justice without plenty of sound effects, facial expressions and hand motions. Especially the Wal-Mart fight. If you want to know about that one, ask me when you see me next, it's pretty crazy! I thought about it for a while, and decided on a topic. Oddly, it's not one of the many options I listed above. Tonight, I feel like giving a shout-out to my RU Kidz!

I know I've written a little about RU Kidz on here before, but honestly, I just cannot say enough about this class! I've been teaching the class for about 5 months I think, and it's still not old! I still love it! Recently, the program has been going longer....by about 20 minutes! 2 hours and 20 minutes may not seem like a long time to you. But, as it gets later at night, the kids are tired and restless, they've had a long school day and the younger kids want to be with their mommy and go to bed, whereas the older kids are anxious to go have some snacks then hang out with their friends outside. I'm trying to find ways to stretch the program and not make it seem so long. One way, is by making song time longer. This has been an adjustment that I really enjoy! We sing first, and it is my favorite time of the night! Two new songs we've started singing are The Little Green Frog, and Black Socks. Oh yes, we're a very spiritual bunch! :) We sing for the first half hour or so of class and everyone seems to really enjoy the time! Then we have prayer/praise time, game time, challenge time, break time, and lesson time, after which we join the adults for awards and then close the night up in the fellowship hall with some snacks. The kids can, at times, be a pretty rowdy bunch, but overall they do a really good job! I am very impressed with how well most of the kids do! I have some that just don't care about the rules and want to talk and goof off all night. But others really get into the program! They pay attention, sing out, play all the games, do challenges every week and their daily journal, etc. We have 3 groups of kids in that class. The rotten's....I think that's pretty self-explanatory. The floaters.....you know, the kids who show up and behave alright, but are not huge participator's. Then, the star students. I have a few kids in there that work very hard on their challenge books, sing all the songs, play all the games, help out by being a leader to the other kids, on and on. Don't get me wrong, I don't think kids are rotten (exactly) and I don't think they're mediocre. In fact, I love the bad kids! I know they're badly behaved, but there's something endearing about them, anyways! And the "floaters" are still great kids, just maybe lacking some motivation. I don't even have a favorite group of kids. They're all great and help to make up the program. But, this last week, I was especially proud of 3 of my students. Some of these kids, I confess, work waaay harder than I do in their challenge book! They fly through them and get awards every week! One of the awards is the Four Book Medallion (if you can't figure out what you do to earn that...yikes!) and last week, *tear* I had 3 kids go up to the front of the room and receive their medallion! I was so proud of them!! They stood proudly as Brother Godinez draped the medals over their necks and the crowd cheered! Great moment!

~Camodes, Coffee, and Children's Class~

Today was an amazing day! I woke up this morning and took my dogs for a short walk. After that I came back and put some more hair dye in and tried to lighten my hair up some more. I think it worked a bit. Not the light brown I wanted, but at least it's a little bit different. Besides, with the sun becoming stronger, it is going to get much lighter soon anyways. I spent the largest portion of my morning cleaning both bathrooms and my grandma's bedroom (for which I got paid). Unfortunately, Grandma has a very particular way she likes the bathroom cleaned, and it takes so much longer. Much longer than I feel necessary! But alas, I was forced to clean it that way. But, her money, her way I suppose!

After spending the morning sticking my bare hand into the toilet bowl, I got to take my lil' sis Lauren out for a couple of hours! That was the best in the west! We have never hung out just the two of us girls. I don't know why we didn't ditch the boys sooner, it was so nice to go out and have some girl time! We went to Starbucks where I of course had a hot venti Apple Chai latte! Gotta be venti, baby! It's too good for anything smaller! Lauren had a Caramel Mocha Frappuchino, I think. We hung out there for a while then met Mrs. Wright at the mall. We talked about everything under the sun and were able to indulge in some girl talk which we have never been able to do since we're always with our brothers....so sorry guys, but we decided we like this girl time thing and are going to do it more often! We had a really great time together!

RU Kidz was good tonight. Matt was sick, which kind of stinks since he splits half of the program with me, but thankfully Raphael was there as usual, and Sarahjane was there tonight and offered to help so that was a blessing. A few of my kids were missing but we had four visitors so that was a treat and hopefully they will be back next week! I know at least two of them will be. We had 16 kids as it was, and that was missing 5 regulars! I realized that I have not given out any awards for attendance and the kids are supposed to get a star pin for when they are there 10/12 weeks and again when they have attended 20/26 weeks, but I have not given even one out. So tonight I realized that and made up for it. I had so many kids up there at the front receiving their back pay on the attendance awards and getting the ones due to them now, but it was pretty cool. I love it when the kids get awards in RU. I am so proud of them! Not that I had anything to do with them getting an award, mind you. Those kids work hard to complete the challenges they do and they do it without me, so I am not taking any credit for it. But it's very rewarding. I see my work paying off when I see some of them proudly, some with embarrassment walk up to Jodie and get their award. But I also see the look of excitement and pleasure on their faces, even if they wish they were not standing in front of people, and it makes the whole night worth it! It's so cool to their hard work paying off like that and to see how excited they are! Almost all of these kids come up to me during the week and tell me they're working on doing some challenges, or they've been writing their devotions down in their Walkie Talkie Journal, or those crazy over-achiever Nepomuceno kids are always telling me "I am almost done with my book!" haha! They do a good job! I guess what I am getting at is that I love RU Kidz!!!!