Countdown to Christmas

PandaG.....oops, I mean Rainbow Brite (I have the hardest time not referring to ourselves as the PandaFamily!) decorating her first gingerbread house. Mister Green put all the pieces together for us and then we decorated with the brick hard icing and all the colorful candies.


Tah-dah!! It may look adorable, but this pre-made kit tastes gross! I guess it's the fun of doing this project together 'cause it certainly ain't the taste! Gag.

Rainbow Brite decided, on a whim while we were out shopping Saturday, that it was time to get her ears pierced. I seized the moment and never looked back! LOL! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!

Made lots of chocolate/toffee covered pretzel logs for several neighbors.

I just l-o-v-e my new camera.

Simple gifts ready for delivery.

Guess who gets to come inside since the weather is tooooo stinkin' cold overnight even for his super thick coat?

Guess who wasn't too thrilled with the new visitor? Can you saaaay...snooty-snob kitty?

Mister Green reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory to RB. I loved hearing the giggles while I was cleaning up the kitchen. Next is the Wizard of Oz!

Watching movies and snuggling up on the couch with my munchkin while the frigid cold weather is finding it's ugly way INSIDE our house!!


Be intentional about enjoying your family and the REASON we celebrate Christmas in the first place: the birth of our Savior...JESUS!

A Peek at A Week #2

What a week!
Lots of good, some not-so-good. Blessed, no doubt.


We started the week off with an open house for all the Children's Ministry volunteers at our house. We began this tradition last year and it was a huge hit!

We were beaming with joy as Rainbow Brite made her singing debut last Sunday at our church Children's Christmas Musical.

Always fun to get these three together from our church.

Mister Green and I had a fun date night going shopping for Rainbow Brite!!!


Left work quickly to go purchase hand-sanitizer and Lysol to help stop all the cooties coming from some of the kids I see for speech, was returning to school so I could eat my lunch and wouldn't ya know it, I got one of THESE:

I was doing 47 in a 35. I am one of the safest drivers I know!!!!! I haven't had a ticket in....I think it was 1999. Hmph. I was speeding and there was no way around it. Didn't even try to get out of it. The irony is that my $173.00 ticket was given on the same stinkin' day I got my $500 bonus from work!!! GRRRRRR!

Rainbow Brite was so proud of herself for buying her Daddy a couple of presents and wrapping them all by herself.

Mister Green was a wonderful shepherd in our church Christmas worship experience and musical. We are with an interim music minister right now and the lay leadership of our church OUT-DID themselves with the production this year!!!!

There was a great need for me to sit down and go page by page of this little book that sits on our end table. I NEEDED to be reminded of the joys and blessings of Christmas and all through the year.

Though it turned out for the better, it was really a rough week for me last week. For now I'll just leave you with the good. In another post I'll expound on the way God worked in me to get through the struggles of this last year concerning adoption.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6


Make it a point to CELEBRATE the birth of Jesus!!!

He is the reason we have HOPE!

50 Golden Years!

December 6, 1958

My brother and I with our parents.


We had the best day yesterday celebrating my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. We had a party at their home with family. There is so much to be said about a couple staying together through thick & thin for 50 years!!! How blessed Mister Green and I both are to each have parents who were high school sweethearts and are still married to this day. Truly a blessing for us.

My new friend is Shutterfly. With the help of my sister-in-law I was able to put together a great scrapbook online with old photos along with new ones displaying their life through the years from 1958 to now. They LOVED it!!! Woohoooo! ; )

The whole crew that started with my parents! ; )

The Hammock

Please don't judge.

I had every intention of resting peacefully in the graceful hammock after downing my man-size piece of pumpkin pie with REAL whipped cream. Temperature was perfect. The time was right. Apparently the hammock was a wee bit broken on one end.

I did try to lay in the middle first.

Guess it didn't work.

Enjoy...at my expense, please.






So Mister Green--who had so much fun taking my picture--gives it a whirl...



RF, JBass & S. Hudgins---I can totally HEAR each of you laughing at us!!!!! ; )

Let it NEVER be said that I only put cute pics of myself on my blog. These are absolutely incriminating!!!

I laughed SO HARD that I got a headache from the actual event as well as looking at the pics over and over again. Laugh therapy does a heart good.

So Thankful

How fun to start the week with Rainbow Brite's Thanksgiving Feast for her Kindergarten class!! We had a blessed week with family and enjoying each other.
I needed a break from work.
I needed a break from being busy.
I needed a break from life.
Lately I have been really struggling with our whole adoption journey. Many twists and tangles leaving me and Mister Green emotionally raw. As I type this God has done a great work in me. The sermon this morning was just what I needed to hear. The past few weeks have been rough for me dealing with these adoption issues. I have been mad at God knowing full well that He didn't do anything to me, but is allowing suffering so that I may know Him better. I had to CHOOSE joy over the holidays. My heart wasn't in it, but lo & behold He blessed me anyway, even though I didn't deserve it. He DOES have a plan for our family. I just know it. The journey, however, is much more than I thought it would be. Despite my own sadness in my heart over adoption misleads I had a fabulous break and am actually looking forward to going to work being refreshed from the Thanksgiving holiday.

Picking up pecans is Rainbow Brite's favorite thing to do at her grandparents' land. She went straight outside as soon as we arrived to start filling her cup with pecans....(for those of you non-Texans, that's pronounced "puh-KAHN"---not "PEE-can"...wink).

Rainbow Brite with her aunt (Mister Green's sister) enjoying the exquisite weather. Cool crispy air, leaves continuously falling from the trees and the sound of them crunching under foot. OOOO---I LOVE FALL!

The night before Thanksgiving we had a hot dog cookout along with S'mores at Mister Green's parents' land. The weather was just perfect for such a treat!

Oh yes. My new love. I got my Christmas present early because I begged Mister Green to let me have it for Thanksgiving. Because I have a job and we have a friend who has worked for Canon for 30 years I am very happy to own my new Rebel XSi that takes AMAZING pictures!!! I have always wanted a camera that would take a picture and blur the background or show fabulous detail and also one that would catch action pics and NOT blur the subject. I finally have it and I took GOBS of pics over the past week. This berry shot just makes me smile.

With my new camera I was able to capture about eight continuous pics in a series of Rainbow Brite laughing, swinging and making crazy faces. This is just one of the many showing the sheer joy of being a kid.

We were able to visit both sets of grandparents which is such a blessing because they are in the same city. Grandma (my mom) had the kids decorate her Christmas tree for her. Too cute!

A little tossing of the football with cousins.

We put up our Christmas decorations, watched White Christmas and drank hot chocolate!

Miao's favorite place every year at this time.


Be on the lookout for the next post and a series of...interesting pics.

I call it The Hammock. ; )

We Are So Blessed

Texas Twilight

I had the opportunity to decorate the 45 tables at our church for a fun women's event which featured Christmas treats, sing-a-long and speaker. The best part was the TEXAS theme!! We love our Lone Star State and a good old Texas style Christmas came together on Thursday night. When I agreed to do the work (with a great team) I wasn't working full time and had the time to devote to it. Because of being busy all the time it came down to the wire of gathering all I needed. I couldn't have done it without GREAT help. It was fun!



Our native-Texan speaker was stuck in traffic and an hour late because her agent switch her venues with another reporter and was on the other side of Dallas. She finally arrived and was quite delightful.

There is a precious woman at my church whom I want to be like when I grow up. ; ) She did this fabulous stage for us!!!

...and then it was FINALLY here---TWILIGHT.

Midnight Showing.


We had a B-L-A-S-T hanging out at Starbucks after the Texas dinner, having a peppermint white chocolate mocha AT TEN O'CLOCK at night!! We headed to the theater an hour early. Got there to find millions, literally, of crazy teenagers giddy with excitement. We oldies were rolling our eyes until a The Man in the Yellow Shirt came over and said, "I have something for you." Oh goody!!! Since the THREE screens were going to be full of Edward-lovin' teens they opened up a fourth screen JUST for oldies!! LOL! We adults guarded our doors and no teenies were aloud! It was glorious!!

The movie was nowhere near as fun or alluring as the book, but it was still good. The whole experience is what was fun. I got into bed at 3:00AM and then got up at six for work. I was actually still wired and did fine until about 5:00PM yesterday.

Thanks girlies---I had a wonderful time!!!


It's fun to be young...at heart. ; )