Bella Dancerella

Bella's choice of dress-up almost always includes a tutu. She loves to dance. Now combine it with a trampoline and you got our kid. She is one of the funniest kids I know. She keeps us on our toes for sure. I love her spirit and wit. So, thankful God knew best when He gave us our Bella.

weekend full of guests

This past weekend, Gigi and PopPop (Ben's parents) spent Friday night and Saturday with us. Then, Sunday morning my Mom called and asked if they could bring my Grandma over for the night. We had such a great weekend full of family, fun and food. The girls loved showing off their school lessons and rough housing with the grandpas. LE and Mimi baked my favorite chocolate cake for my birthday. Thanks again for a wonderful birthday!

weekend facials

One of the things the girls wanted to do on my birthday was play "big girl dress-up." Turned out that meant they wanted to put on my make-up. After church on Sunday, Daddy went to help a friend with a home project so the girls and I had some time to play. LE wanted to put her own make-up on, but Bella still wanted Mommy's help. Then, LE did my make-up too. I even found a maternity dress-up dress that fit. I just cannot figure out where I got such girlie girls.

new school desk

This is my favorite piece of furniture in the entire house. My friend, Belinda purchased it at an antique show in Comfort when I was in high school. Every time I went to her house I ooohed and ahhhed over it. Recently, she moved into a smaller home and was having an auction to sell off some of her unneeded pieces. I was able to buy this sweet side-by-side school desk for the girls. It ended up being LE's birthday present. I think it is one of the reasons the girls love school so much.

and then He rested...

I guess the girls are still enjoying school b/c every morning they wake up asking when are we going to do school work. I loved reverting back to our creation time lines on Sunday morning to remind them even God took a day off. We are now in the thick of lessons and I can honestly say it is harder than I thought it would be balancing two different ages. We are still working on getting the classroom fully functional, so both girls have projects to work on while they are getting their one-on-one time. But, I will post pics soon.
I received several complements on my preggo pic, thanks. LE took that pic before our date.

Mission Mondays - Vio and Estera

I love to share about missions with you.  It is always neat how God puts someone on my heart to share with you and then find out it was at a time in which they needed encouragement.  I got the privelege of meeting Estera & Vio when I was in Romania last fall.  She is SuperWoman, I mean for real, for real Super Woman.  She cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for our team, then cleaned up, drove us to our outreaches, preached, taught, planned, you name it, and when I got up at 4 a.m. she was in the hall reading her Bible.  She inspired me so greatly that week we were there.  And she is witty too, great blog, but in all honesty I have no idea how she has time to blog, so check back b/c there are times it is weeks before she blogs.  They are in the process of adopting two boys, and have had many bumps along the way.  Please lift them up in prayer for strength, direction, financially abundance and harvest.

great day

The day started with pancakes in bed, roses on the kitchen table and a brand new pair of tennies on my feet. LE had an upset tummy so we spent much of the day on the couch watching movies. I did get a pedi, haircut and brow arch during rest time. Friday night, we went to Maggiano's in the Domain for an amazing dinner. We had mussels, bleu cheese salad, Lobster Cannelloni and a peanut butter/chocolate dessert. It was a great day.
Thanks Ben and girls for an amazing day. Thanks FB for friends for an inbox of birthday wishes, I felt very loved.

no ordinary kid

"It's our responsibility as parents to instill a spirit of excellence in our kids and excellence is only obtained through sacrifice".

It is hard to keep it a secret from the girls when we are getting ready to head downtown.  Our house turns into Grand Central Station with clothes and food that weekend.  They want to go, they "want to feed the people who do not have houses."  So, if there are enough hands then they get to go.  This month, we passed out gogurt that the church had leftover from a special speaker & juice from my mom.  We gathered clothes from Pam's outreach, jeans from my mom's boss' dumpster dives, and new clothes from a clearance sale my friend, Melanie had found & other miscellaneous items from friends.  We even took a large bag full of dress slacks and dress shoes to the ARCH for the men's job interviews.

August Outreach

Another great month - thank you to everyone who contributed.  We could not do it without you. 
Next outreach - September 11th and 19th. 

easy bake oven

Mimi and PawPaw gave LE an easy bake oven. If you are friends with me on facebook you may have already seen my opinion of this gift that I must have tortured my own mother with as a child. Do you know it takes 40 minutes to cook FOUR cookies in an easy bake oven? On top of the 15 minutes to preheat the oven and then the 10 minutes for the last cookie to cool before you ice them? I am sure this is one of those "paying for your raising" gifts my mom is always talking about. I guess in the grand scheme of things it does not matter b/c the girls loved it. We will have to make a Wal-Mart run soon for more mixes, guess I will just pick up a roll of cookie dough to cook in the oven for while we are waiting.