Fourteen

My sweet Paige turned 14 on Monday.

I wish you could meet Paige in person. She is such a blessing to know.

She is growing into a beautiful young woman.

I'm so proud of you Paigie-pooh.

Please indulge me as I take a stroll down memory lane.

Paige at 8 months old:

Paige at 4 years old:

Always has time for Daddy:

Wasn't she just the cutest. OK. back to the here and now~

Paige at 14 years old:

Leah giving Paige her gift

(a day early because she couldn't wait):

It's a Snuggie!

She had a great birthday at home with us and tomorrow she

is lunching with friends to celebrate some more.

Happy Birthday Paige!

I Love you,

Mom

Fetch - A - Prayer

Have you prayed today? So many times we get busy with our lives and forget to take the time to pray for ourselves and others. Sometimes prayer seems overwhelming and we just don't know what to say.

God gave us a promise in Romans 8:26.... that His Holy Spirit will help us in our weaknesses, because sometimes we don't know what to pray, but his Spirit interceeds for us. (Remember in our weakness He is strong.)


I have a new widget on my sidebar from Prayer Central

It is called Fetch-a-Prayer.

You just fill in the information on the spaces provided and it searchs out a scripture and composes a prayer for you to pray. The photos that are included with the prayers are beautiful and reflective.

Give it a try.



Prayer Central is a great prayer resource. Go have a look around.

Artist in Residence (or a few doors down)

This is Amy ~ my neighbor. She's an artist and her painting was chosen to be on the Wildflower Festival poster this year. The Wildflower Festival is an annual event in our community. She also has an Etsy shop with lots of pretty paintings in it too. Go check it out:

http://www.haveart.etsy.com/.

The Lion's Club copied her painting onto a poster and all the proceeds from today's sales went to charity.

It was a beautiful day in Texas. Hope you had a great weekend in your corner of the world.

OK. I just realized I'm wearing the same shirt in the last post too. I do have other clothes really. But this is one of those go-to shirts so comfortable and brown. Yes, brown I'm loving it right now. It goes with everything plus this is Texas and if the temperature drops below 80 degrees we just have to wear our long-sleeved shirts or shirt in my case.

So I was sitting in this meeting

and my hand goes up like this:

And then I end up with a bunch of this in my garage....

Also this totally unrelated event happened:

I have this thing about volunteer opportunities.....I fall for them.

Over the last few weeks, I've been pretty distracted by other things.

Our community decided to change National Night Out to October because well, you know, it's so blazing hot in August in Texas and it seemed like a good idea. Except this October day we broke a record heat temperatures. It was about 95 degrees with 90% humidity, but we had a nice NNO anyway. This past year I volunteered to be the Neighborhood Coordinator. This was our neighborhoods first time doing any National Night Out event. (The stuffed shirt on the table represents Buster who was away on business that night.) I kept it pretty simple and just asked everyone to bring a snack or dessert to share. We had 25 adults come out and a bunch of kids running around. So I was very pleased with the first event. A representative from our Community Association and a Sheriffs Deputy came by to visit us and talk about crime and being safe and I heard somebody mention taxes and you know that kind of stuff.

Then I go to a meeting at Paige's new school and raised my hand. That is how the stuff ended up in my garage. I volunteered to help coordinate class craft projects for an upcoming dinner/auction fundraiser. I don't have to actually do each of the projects. We have some great room moms to help, but my new friend Robin (who also raised her hand) and I sat down and came up with the ideas and then went shopping. The picture you see is just some of the projects we purchased. I'll show you the finished projects when they get done and ready for the auction. They are going to be so cute.

There's been lots of other great stuff going on....Like helping Moms in Touch groups (Yippee) get started for the new school year and planning some events.

Oh, and I'm starting a new business. I am establishing a Mobile Notary Service business. More on that later.

So all that to say this...

I love doing all of these kinds of things, just can't seem to get my blogging in when I'm in the middle of them.

Don't think I'm giving up on blogging. I'll post when I can and if I've missed a post or two of yours I do apologize. I'll catch up. Oh, and if you happen to see me in a meeting, will you please gently tell me it's ok and to put my hand down. :0

It's all Greek to me

Up until this weekend just about everything I knew about the Greek Orthodox religion and Culture I learned from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. ~ Love that movie.



But this weekend I asked Buster to take us to the Greek Festival in Houston. The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Houston, Texas hosted it's 43 Greek Festival. This is a four day event and thousands come. They claim it is the original Greek Festival in the United States.

This Houston Greek Orthodox community began with a handful of Greek immigrants back in 1917.
We had a great time watching the Folk Dancers, eating Greek food, touring the Cathedral and shopping in the Greek market.

Here are some pictures from our afternoon enjoying all things Greek.



Inside the Cathedral...


A member of the church gave us a brief history of the Greek Orthodox Faith. It was so interesting. She was so knowledgeable of early Church history. I would love to talk with her more.

Beautiful stained glass:

Looking up you see this:

The Greek Folk Dancers:

The non-Greek food eaters having pizza:

Mine and Buster's Gyro's: Yum Yum!

My purchase from the Greek market... This apron was only .99. I love aprons anyway and when I saw this one for 99 cents I couldn't pass it up. It has some olive brand advertisement on it. It's all written in Greek, but I thought it was fun.

We heard lots of OPA's!!! and had lots Fun!

Buster even missed an afternoon of College Football on TV to go. He wasn't real happy about that. But we went to Pappa's Burger on our way home after the festival and the Houston Texan's cheerleaders were there. So that made up for it I guess haha.

Trust me he wouldn't have been shouting "Opa" if he stayed home and watched his team play. Let's just say the Georgia Bulldogs were........the ηττημένος. *

* loser