Saddle Ridge Ranch

Tonight was our first night of Vacation Bible School. It was great! We had 8 kids in our class, and they were all really well behaved. Since both of my "Ask Amy Anything" questions pertained to VBS, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and show you what we've been working on, and what has kept me so busy. I was so pleased with the finished room, even though I thought we were never going to finish, despite lots of help! Mom's room looks amazing, and she worked so hard on her room, as well as helping me with mine. Our rooms are completely different, but as usual they are completely "us."

In case you are here looking for VBS decorating ideas, most of the art work was found through google images and then made into transparencies to copy onto the wall. It's hard work (about 40 hours worth of painting time for my classroom), but it's totally worth it!

Esther over at the Mommy Diaries," asked, "What VBS curriculum are you using? I'm co-chair this year, and we're using Group's High Seas Expedition. Ours isn't until August, though." Our church is using Lifeway's, Saddle Ridge Ranch. I was a little skeptical of the theme at first, but it's turned out really good!

Jenny asked, "What age group do you teach at VBS?" I always teach 3rd and 4th graders. Since I work with 5th and 6th grade girls during missions classes on Wednesday nights, it is a nice break to work with some of the younger kids.

Now on to the pics!

The official Saddle Ridge Ranch barn.

Tree and Ferdinand the Bull

Up close of Ferdinand. I just love him!

Saddle Ridge Ranch poster

"ABC" Wall

To make this I downloaded a free "rope" font. I love how it turned out!

Our Cowboy

Mom's Fireplace (with real deer skin!)

The Bunkhouse Bed (My Dad built it himself!)

Mom's ABC Wall

Mom's cowboy

And finally, my little lone ranger tonight before we began!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. If you have any questions, email me at auflag@yahoo.com and I would be happy to answer them. Have a great day!

All Aboard the Boomerang Express!

So here are the pictures of Kellyn and my 3rd and 4th grade VBS room. It took just about forever, but we are really pleased with the results. Enjoy!

Our kangaroos and boab tree

Olga's Rock and our train

"Admit, Believe, and Confess" pond complete with a crocodile, frogs, and lily pads.

Our koala in a tree

Upclose of the pond

The hard boab tree

The locomotive

Passenger car

Caboose

Olga's Rock (which you may remember that I didn't think was quite big enough)

Jumping Kangaroo

Kangaroo and her joey

Another boab tree

And these are pictures of my Mom's room (aka the Queen of the VBS Cartel). Her room is based on the theme of a Sheep Ranch and looks amazing!

Jackson posing on the wooden porch of the ranch house which is so big it had to be built inside their room.

Her sheep

Scenery

Wild horses and Bible themes for the week

The full porch

If you "Wallabee" a Christian wall (and I love what the sheep is saying)

Mom's boab tree and koala

I know we're crazy, but we love VBS so much that as soon as the 2010 theme is announced, I'm sure we'll start floating ideas around our heads, cause we're just suckers like that! I hope ya'll have a great day!

Hmm?

What do you think it says about one's driving skills when their 2 1/2 son reminds them that, "You need to turn on your blinker Mommy."? Either he pays WAY too much attention to me, or by next week he's going to want to apply for his driver's permit.

And how funny is it that Jackson has mastered using the word, "disgusting" only he's says, "That's deeesgusting. Yucky!"

And remember how much Jackson loved the movie Monster's Inc (aka Silly Monsters)? Since our original copy had gotten scratched beyond repair since Jackson figured out how to operate our DVD player, we went out before our trip to Mississippi last week and bought a new one. Can you believe that we had to pay full price for a movie that is almost 10 years old? Anywho, we have now watched said movie at least 30 times this week.

I'm really questioning why I insisted that we buy him another copy. What was I thinking? I'm such a glutton for punishment!

And finally, we are approaching the start of our VBS week. Our theme is Boomerang Express and Kellyn and I are still super busy getting our room decorated, but I think we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We were only at the church last night until close to 10:00! So far we have painted an entire mountain range, 2 kangaroos, 2 boab trees, a locomotive and passenger car of a train. All we have to paint now is a caboose, train tracks, a pond, crocodile, frogs, lily pads, clouds, and then paint the entire bottom part of the room with grass. I'm not at all thinking that perhaps our room is kicking our butts!

See this tree?

Kellyn painted it and did an awesome job, although we both thought that painting all the limbs was going to kill her in the process.

And see this mountain range?

It's called Olga's rock, and when we started trying to figure out how big we were going to paint it, I foolishly kept saying, "Let's make it bigger!" because as you know, bigger is always better. Well, we made it big, and let me just say that I should have kept my mouth shut!

And see this train?

It's not exactly like ours, but it's close. Ours is the same train, only a profile shot of it, and we are only using 3 cars because seriously, we have enough left to paint and time is quickly running out.

As usual, we have gone all out, but it's always so worth it in the end. The kids love it, and that makes it all worthwhile, even if I have ruined one of my favorite shirts by spilling paint on myself! I hope you have a great weekend!