So here’s a little life update for August !
Next week we will start out 7th kids crusade for this year. I am so excited to tell you that we have had several children pray to be saved and even one parent accept Christ as their Savior during 2022 kids crusades !
We have had a lot of fun hosting these crusades. There’s a special blessing that comes with working hand in hand with so many of God’s people and really getting to know them in a better way. Anyone who has done kids crusades, VBS, or any type of children’s ministry realize how much work is done behind the scene but these same people understand that even one child accepting Christ is worth it all and that’s why we do this. It always strengthens me at the end of a exhausting night of games, skits, stories, songs, and sermon, to see a child weeping in the alters experiencing God for himself.
I thought I’d add a few pics of our crusades in this month’s life update, check them out here!
Sister Jenny from our church did a wonderful job building the sail with the help of her husband. It is made of PVC pipe and old bed sheets. It can be lowered or raised to different heights and tears down so small that it will fit into a garbage bag! It has been a huge blessing and the main vocal point of our set up this year.
The biggest challenge of making crusade props this year was making them to where they could condense enough to travel. This has taken some organization, consideration, and even some elimination lol. But so far so good!
My boat is made from dollar tree foam boards duck taped together and covered with a vinyl fabric photo backdrop from Amazon. It can be folded and is very light… almost too light when Skitsters get a little carried away 😂. This has held up incredibly well and I plan to keep this prop making technique close by in the future.
The Bible skits are one of our favorite parts of the night. We like to take a well known bible story and narrate it while the Skitsters act it out. It’s so fun because they really don’t know the details of how the narrator will tell the story… let’s just say, we don’t always abide by traditional story telling rules… 😂.
A-mist these kids crusades we have been in several wonderful church services and met many new people. We have also traveled a LOT of miles, particularly during the past six weeks. We did a quick add up and found that we had traveled approximately 3,000 miles in the past 6 weeks! The last two day trip we made coming back to KY consisted of over 900 of these travel miles 🤪. Let’s just say, We have been faithfully using our travel boredom busters and could probably even add a few lol. We have also listened to our 20+ audio dramas for kids plenty, and dug through our emergency car bag one time too many 😂. These three things have been life savers these past 6weeks!
One thing we majorly lacked and have been working towards is healthier snack options. My kids are extremely picky when it comes to “healthy food” and what I mean by healthy is anything that’s not chips or candy 😂 I’m seriously not too picky.
Healthy snack idea!
One thing we did find was these snack pouches. I guess I always assumed these were for baby food only until a restaurant served our kids meals with pouch type apple sauce… my brain was turning … no way was I purchasing those expensive disposable apple sauces I had seen in the stores on a regular basis. So I did a quick Google search.. sure enough, as usual, someone had already came up with the genius idea of a reusable food pouch that could be filled, used, and cleaned easily. It wasn’t long before I had a Amazon order in. ❤️
Now.. my kids like apple sauce but after awhile, it can get old so I knew I had to get creative. As a child, my Mom would purchase the little cups of strawberry apple sauce. I still remember how it tasted, I absolutely LOVED it! I checked the stores and sure enough they carried it but… once again, I wasn’t about to pay for those individually cups. Back to Google I was, the only thing I could find was fruit flavored /added apple sauces. These sound great and are probably the best healthy option but for us, they were not. First of all, my kids would gag if they found even one piece of fruit skin in their apple sauce, secondly it would be a little more pricey then I was looking for and I wasn’t convinced about the shelf life.
My light bulb moment!
With my brain still turning I had a light bulb moment! Sugar FREE Jell-o ! Yes, you heard me right. I played with the ratio a few times and found the perfect mixture to share with you all! By adding a tiny bit of sugar free jello powder, you can have several of flavors of unsweetened apple sauce that your kids will love! We can’t hardly get past the strawberry although my son also loved the lime flavor. I think we will be trying blueberry next 😊.
I filled our reusable Amazon food pouches with this yummy strawberry apple sauce for our last trip and the kids were so excited! (I even packed me one 😉)
I do recommend running water through the pouches before tossing them into the dirty sink for quicker cleaning later. You will need a bottle brush of some time for easy washing.
This apple sauce is so yummy and fun!
It’s colorful , flavorful, super fast to make, and SO cheap! For less than .50 cent I am able to flavor a entire 2lb 14oz tub of unsweetened apple sauce. Did I mention that It also stores very well? If you’re ready to try our new apple sauce trick, you can have my recipe free under my members only page. If you are a subscriber, head on over here if not, then all you have to do is subscribe by this form below, check your email to confirm, and you will be given the subscribed homemakers page password where you will find special content free to your access!
Now what?
We will be hanging out in KY for a few more days before we head to Alabama. We plan to spend a few days with our family and catch up on doctor visits, etc. after that, we will be jumping into the last half portion of this summer’s kids crusades. That about wraps up this life update. Y’all have a good weekend and don’t forget to check out these related post below. And subscribe to my blog to receive your subscribed homemakers password!
My emergency car bag (this is not for normal emergencies ans is a must have for moms!)
