Preteen Kids Out on the Town!

Another fun preteen "Friday Night Live." This time it was a "car rally/ camera party" thing..... Three cars driving around town, opening up clues along the way, to find fun and/or unusual things around Lakewood and Long Beach such as...

*The giant cow at the Rockview Dairy on the corner of Bellflower and Del Amo

*The airplane at Del Valle Park on Woodruff

*The cinderella pumpkins at the park on Candlewood next to Gompers elementary school

*The pyramid at Long Beach State!

and finally, the fountain at Long Beach Town Center, where we of course stopped for ice cream or pretzels.

Thanks so much to our drivers, Becky Dugan and Heather Klingsporn. Oh and by the way... BOYS are WAY noisier than GIRLS when driving around town! I have the noisiest boys in the world in my preteen group! Wow! Seriously! But they sure are CUTE!

Preteen kids hit Downtown Disney

One of our recent activities for our 5th Graders.. the preteen group at our church. We had hoped to hang out at EPSN zone, but discovered that it was a 3 hour wait for a table on a Friday Night... not gonna happen with a dozen hungry 5th graders! So we ate at Wetzels Pretzels and then did some playing at the Lego store and the Disney store. I think the kids were just happy to be together and happy to be at the "Happiest Place on Earth!" So kids... if you're out there and you're listening, what kinds of activities to you like to do with your friends?????

How Do You Give your Pastor a Heart Attack ???

Today, in honor of Valentine's Day, we had a very special day planned for our Kids! This is a day we've been planning and anticipating for a long time! To tell our new pastor, Pastor Brent, how much we love him, this day was called "Heart Attack" day... not the kind you're thinking of! Each of our 1st - 5th Graders were given about 30 - 40 sticky notes, to draw hearts on and write notes of encouragement to Brent. Then we trekked outside to find and "attack" his car!!!!!

The sign on the windshield says, "You've received a Heart Attack from all the Kids in KidStuf!"

We had a great day, one we'll remember for a long time... hope you had a good weekend too!

Lots of New Kids at Kid U!

We sure are excited about all the new kids who are coming to Kid U on Wednesday nights. Our kids are inviting their friends, and our leaders are so wonderful... as they make each week an exciting, fun place to be!

This semester, we're offering: Art (taught by Sherry Friese), Model Building (taught by Larry Dearing), Woodworking (taught by John Welty), Cross Stitch (lead by Kim Oldham), Indoor Games (lead by Trasi Adams), Music in Motion (taught by Erica Borrowdale), and Preppie Leaders in Training (for our 5th Grade girls to learn what it's like to SERVE in the Preppie ministry. Here are 2 of our "newer" friends, the Eldridge boys, working hard at their models!

Hope you can join us on Wed. nights from 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. Ages 3 - Kindergarten attend "Preppies" and 1st - 5th Graders attend Kid U! See you there!

Love Out Loud November 30

This past Sunday ROCKED! We had a special worship concert for our kids during KidStuf, featuring Dave Hopkins, who came all the way down from Monterey to bless us and lead our kids in worship, along with my sister in law DANA and the rest of Dave's band, "Love Out Loud." We've been using some of Dave's worship songs in KidStuf for about a year, and it was so fun to have them here in person. The kids LOVED it and I was amazed at how much they participated, how much they SANG from their hearts, and how much FUN we all had. Here are a few of the pictures!

(Backstage before the concert began. The band and our worship girls, Courtney, Sabrina and Natalie!)

(Lord, we lift your name on high!)

(Hugo, Bailey, Alyssa, Cooper, Kennedy and Kalyn down front singing their hearts out, while the worship team girls are up on stage between Dave and Dana! Boy were they excited!)

Thanks Dave for coming to lead us and worship with us! It was awesome! Come back again soon!

18th Annual Fall Festival

Fall Festival... the biggest event of the year... and the event where we work the hardest, need the most volunteers, and certainly eat the most candy! 1500 people (I think a few more than that actually) great music, delicious food, smiling faces, adorable costumes, and wonderful memories... at least enough to last us until next year! Thanks to everyone who helped make it such a wonderful evening.

Fabulous Fifth Graders!

We have had some very exciting times with our fifth graders the past few weeks. These kids are so amazing. They reach out to new kids and make them feel at home quickly, they love to talk about God's Word and memorize Scripture, they love to serve and help others in our church, and I just love each and every one of them.

We had a Progressive Dinner on Friday night and took 18 kids from house to house BACKWARD! Dessert First Of Course! They loved it! I was afraid they had filled up on dessert too much, and wouldn't eat and the next 2 houses, but I was wrong! We stopped to play some games in between eating, and we had a blast! Thanks to the Bartons, the Armstrongs, and the Coxes who hosted our wild and crazy kids!

Here's a shot of our Sunday morning kids this week wearing their "PT Cruisers" T Shirts that they won in a game we were playing.