Audra Jennings

Last week, the kids decided they wanted to make two videos, so I saved one to share this week! Maybe if I make a couple each Sunday and each Wednesday of the month, I can share one every Sunday! I looked extra hard to find the other verses to this song. They weren't original by the song writer, Mary Rice Hopkins, but Paige and Peyton told me about them last year when they sang them at camp.  Hippopotamus Song In the beginning, God made the sea And the forest filled with trees He made the mountains up so high And on the top he placed the sky God’s fingerprints are everywhere Just to show how much He cares But in between He had loads of fun He made a hippo who weighs a ton. Chorus Hip-hip-hip-hippopotamus! Hip-hip-hooray! God made all of us. Hip-hip-hip-hippopotamus! Hip-hip-hooray! God made all of us. Creation sings of His praise, The sparrow and the tiny babe. We can sing and say, “well done.” But some things He just made for fu...

Next week is promotion, so Peyton, Nate and Grant will be moving up. I'll still do videos once a month when the next group comes in. I'm still in middle of decorating the class with scenes from Genesis. In an hour and a half this afternoon, Rachel and I accomplished a good bit. (It's amazing how much productive you can be with a couple of proper step stools.) I'm ready to get this side of the room finished to get us through the first month or two, then we'll work on additional stories on the other side of the room.

That is what I told the kids when I got to class. Two of them had been at my house last night and had gotten onto the older girls about quietening down after I did at 1:30 AM. It would have been one thing if we weren't all headed to church the next morning. Here are their smiling breakfast faces. (That's a strawberry, not a tongue.) Here is our attempt at singing after a brief lesson.

Sometimes I start the video early, just to see if they realize it. Their chairs had been even more scattered than this.

This week, we got a little ambitious. We started learning this one a couple of weeks ago. It's always the end that gets us though. Peyton is always wanting to sing songs with parts to it, so I asked her to sing with the boys. She said eagerly said she could do that. :) There's only three weeks before Peyton, Nate and Grant promote up. Then, I'll only be teaching the first Sunday/Wednesday of every month, and I'll only have one video a month. :(

This was a pick of one of the kids, but I don't think they were feeling the love, at least not a common one. It wasn't the kids' fault, but the morning started off sort of rough. Maybe that has something to do with disjointedness. It sure had us running behind without as much practice time.

Since we're in Revelation which talks about angels and trumpets and all, I thought this song was appropriate for today. Except, I thought they would have known it a little better. You can't tell we practiced it first.

I feel a bit ill equipped to get into Revelation with 3rd and 4th graders. Usually, I'm pretty crafty with my classes, but I've really not been with this group all year. So, this morning, I read Revelation 4 about the throne room of heaven, and let them draw what they thought it would look like (stay tuned to the end of the video). Today's song... "How Beautiful Heaven Must Be."

Admittedly, I avoided a lesson on Revelation this morning. Instead, I started lesson one of VBS that we won't be doing since we're only doing three lessons/days this year. Since we talked about the Armor of God, we sang, "The Battle Belongs to the Lord." And the staff of Cotton Patch sang for Peyton's birthday! She made sure we told them this needed to happen.  

After a small class two weeks ago, most of the kids were back this week. Therefore, we tried "Hosanna" again since they weren't there when the three did so well. I like having a full class. :)

A large chunk of the class left this morning for Camp Ida, so I had a small class. HOWEVER, with the smaller class, the quietest child came out of her shell and actually talked to us today and added some sass. I loved it! It was greatness. At the end, they ran around the room waiting for the bell like the boys would. I don't know what got into them. One of the other girls had requested this song last week, and they did a super job, especially with just the three of them. Love them learning and loving new songs. If not new songs, at least ones they don't get the chance to sing often. Tomorrow night is supposed to be a blog on The Bachelorette. There was nothing new to blog about on "The Journey so Far," if you wasted any time watching it. Just a warning that next week's post will be delayed since I'll be busy at the International Christian Retail Show. Hopefully, I won't need to devote a post to tomorrow's experience at jury duty. Yes, I g...

Since there was an episode of The Bachelorette last Sunday night, I saved last week's video for today's post. Besides, I uploaded the wrong video to You Tube the first time around. This week, I'm already feeling the effects of summer with some families already on vacation. We have a new addition this week who is not a fan of the camera. We revisited one of our favorite songs, and I hate it when you can hear me sing.

This morning, everyone could chose a song about love, to relate back to our lesson from 1 John chapter 4. I figured based on the verses we talked about, Peyton would want to try "The Greatest Command" aka "Love One Another." Even they knew better than to try four parts together. One for each boy, and one for each of two girls. I have one really quiet girl who I joked would have to lip sync to a part. She smiled really big, so I am pretty sure she thought I was funny. Our medley is a bit of a hot mess though. It's what's in our hearts that counts though.

Today, I lost track of how many times I threatened to thump someone. That applies to the whole day, not just Bible class. Here's a repeat of an earlier song. It's been a while since we sang it, and we do need to revisit some songs. I started videoing early because I found it funny all their backs were to the camera. As soon as church was over, Paige, Peyton, Sadie (Peyton's friend) and I went to the Rangers game. Because we were coming from church and stopped to eat for $18 vs. $80, we didn't get there among the first 15,000 to get a Prince Fielder bobble head. I heard about that the whole rest of the day. I don't think our Whataburger stop was the problem.  I threatened to thump heads so hard they would bobble if they didn't stop whining about it. Peyton and Sadie tried to convince a few people to sell them theirs to no avail. HOWEVER, the Rangers won - a great thing as of late - and the girls got to run the bases after the game! A perk of...

After having only three kids last week, my crew was back this week! Today we were talking about II Peter. Peyton pointed out in the first verse that it said "Simon Peter" wrote it. Which leads to my "Provocative Question of the Day." Do you think Jesus ever called Peter by his full name to get his attention like a mother does? Something like, "Simon Peter... I TOLD you that you were going to deny me three times!" Happy Mothers' Day to all you mothers out there!  

Because the kids had already been making animal noises in class, that is how we ended up with this week's song. I apologize for you mostly hearing me sing.

There aren't many times we have to do a second take, but today was one of those. It also appears that someone wasn't too happy about singing more than one verse. This even though I think this kid picked the song this week.

This morning, we talked about taming the tongue from James chapter 3. After reigning them in several times, we had a good discussion and sang an appropriately themed song. They did the chorus right the time before I did the video, but I was so very proud of how well they caught on and how they were actually singing loudly. I'm not a very good videographer in the round though. For someone, who shall remain nameless, but you all know through my blog, she did well with what she learned in class until she started giving someone (thankfully not me) lots of grief at lunch. You never know what might come out of her mouth. As I have stated before, I'm not a very good teacher. She really was being funny in her teasing and wasn't actually being mean. You kind of had to be there, but she is something else. My parents, Brian, Paige, Peyton, and the Watsons (that makes 9 of us) had Easter lunch at my parents' house. I prepped pork ribs that Mom put in the oven right before...

We always go off topic on Sunday mornings. And I mean way off track. Way. Off. Track. This week, one of the boys (Nate) brought up a cow having broken its back and being slaughtered (hamburger). That drifted over to conversation about the recent youth expo and how Grant was not happy about having to give up his pig. Let's just say Nate and I did not help matters (ham, bacon...). I am a terrible person, this I know. Grant got beyond upset, and for that reason alone, I was thankful Peyton wasn't there or she may have too. Or may have made it worse. I missed her terribly because she's my loudest girl singer seeing as you have to strain to ever hear Macie. You hear me on "Living by Faith" which we did this week because we talked more about faith and we practiced it last week. Since I upset him, I let Grant sing his song of choice. Complete with his old man country twang accent. I really don't know what was up with that.  

This week, our lesson focused on Hebrews 11. It was good to review some of the Old Testament, but sad what they didn't know or remember. When it came time to do our song of the week - about faith, of course - we tried two. They always sing so much better with me, but I try to let the video be just them. In addition to "Faith is the Victory," we tried "Living by Faith," but couldn't quite pull it off. And the good news... We made it through class without anyone getting thumped upside the head!