September Serve

Each year the Missions Pastor at our church organizes September Serve.   Everyone is encouraged to find a mission or service type project to work on in our community during the month (and hopefully continue through the year).

On Saturday the 24th over 25 teams from our church spread out all over the Houston area working together on various projects.  Some hosted a camp for 125 inner city youth.  Others painted a Habitat for Humanity  house and our family signed up for this project:

We helped paint, clean and do maintenance projects at Harper United Methodist Church in Monaville, Texas.    This church was founded in 1881.  It is tucked back down a country road and is home to  a small, mostly elderly congregation.   I’m not sure how far back this  building dates, but it was probably built in the early 1900’s.

We painted the front porch, scraped and cleaned the windows.  Worked on ceiling fans and light fixtures, and other miscellaneous items on the ‘to-do’ list.

It was a blessing to work together as a family and with others on this beautiful church.  This historic church needs much more TLC, and hopefully we can go again and help to scrape the wood and re-paint the rest of the church. 

Here we are working away:

The group hard at work on the porch:

I just noticed on their sign it says “Catch the Spirit of Love”  There was definitely a spirit of love on that day in Monaville.

♥    Joy

Aprons

Do you wear an apron when you are in the kitchen?

If you read around the blog world or check your local stores, you will see that aprons are definitely making a comeback.  They are cuter than ever and as much of a fashion statement as they are useful.

I wear one everyday when I’m cooking.   Here is my collection hanging in the laundry room.   I made the blue one on the left and won the cute one that has the pink pocket and polka dots.  The others I purchased. 

Here is a close up of the adorable apron that Yoli made.   I won it from a blog contest she had a while back.  She is an awesome seamstress and so creative.   Check out her Etsy shop and sidebar for her creations.

No signs of Fall here in my part of the world except for the fact the temperature is 89 F today.    Anything below 90 degrees F may have to qualify as Fall.

Tanner Update:

The new little four legged furry man in my life is doing just fine.  He has me wrapped around his little paw already.  It is fun learning his personality.  He loves to move items he finds on the floor around the house.  So if he can fit it in his mouth and you leave it on the floor,  it most certainly won’t be there when you check next time.   (including my bloomers that I have found next to the backdoor hehe) He doesn’t chew on things, just moves them.

Here’s another close up of his adorable face.

I had a dog trainer come over and do a consultation on Saturday.  Of course, Tanner does what he is suppose to when the trainer is here, but with me…..not so much.    Surely this little 12 pound ball of cuteness and fur won’t be the pack leader in our house...   

♥ Joy

Meet Tanner

On Saturday our family went to look at a couple of dogs at a local rescue and this little guy stole our hearts.  He is approximately one year old and was found wandering the streets.  He was very matted, dirty and covered in fleas.   The rescue cleaned him up and groomed him as best they could.

He is a Miniature Schnauzer.  We named him Tanner because he is brown and tan.  Brown coloring is pretty rare in Schnauzers.  I’ve never seen one anyway.  He is adjusting wonderfully.   He is so sweet.  He has some healing to do from all the flea bites and I’m sure he wishes I would leave him alone.   I believe he thinks that  all I do is bathe, brush and check him.   I’ve been walking him around the neighborhood and he’s meeting his new dog and people friends.  The first night he slept all night without a peep in his crate.  He loves to be near us, but doesn’t understand toys.  This is our first experience with a male dog, so we’re getting use to that.

Just had to introduce you to our new little guy. I’ll get more pictures up of him soon. 

♥  Joy

Leah’s Day

We’re back from our vacation and boy was it wonderful.  I will do a post soon because, more important things are happening at our house:

I can’t believe I’m doing another birthday post.  Seems like they come faster and faster don’t they;  especially when it is your baby that is having them.

Leah’s birthday is this week and there is so much about her to celebrate. She fills our home with laughter and has such a quick wit about her.

Here are some pictures of Leah in the past year and our recent vacation:

Leah portrayed Grace Kelly at her Wax Museum at school:

(she was loving the make-up)

 

On the ice in the middle of summer!

High Fiving in Breckenridge:

Kicking back in the gondola in Breckenridge:

  Leah at Garden of the Gods in Colorado:

 

Celebrating an early birthday in Florida:

Leah loves people, pigs and going places.  

She is such a blessing to our family.

Love you Leah!

Happy Birthday!

 

 

LiveJournal Tags: My Chickadees

Libby

I know it has been five plus weeks since my last post.   When I returned home from Florida, we picked up Libby our Miniature Schnauzer.  She wasn’t acting herself and had lost weight and her eyes were runny.  I took her to the vet the next day thinking she had an eye infection.   Unfortunately, I was given the news that she had Lymphoma.  The prognosis was not good, but I did expect to have a couple more months with her.   She had perked up some and was eating good and seeming not to know she was sick.

But things changed in the last few days.  She started going downhill quickly and we had to do the best thing for our sweet Libby.

Libby came to live with us back in September 2004.  She was a rescue dog.   We never really knew how old she was and knew nothing of her background.     She is the first dog I ever really had that was mine.   Libby really took me by surprise as I never consider myself a “dog” person but she loved me and taught me so much about unconditional love.  She made herself right at home in our house and in our hearts.   Our time with her was shorter than we thought it would be.  But I’m so glad she was ours for that time.

 

I’m sorry this is a sad post.  I know some of you already know thru Facebook about Libby.   I will get back into the blogging groove eventually.  I just wanted to let you know what has happened.

Thank you all for your support.

Joy