Saturday, October 24, 2009

Pumpkin Party


We had an incredible BLAST last night at a friend's Pumpkin Party. Some close friends hosted this fun event starting us out with pumpkin carving, all the creepy and fun foods to eat, followed by lighting the jack-o-lanterns, hot cider and an outside viewing of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" The weather was crystal clear and very chilly hanging around in the 50's.

For a girl who adores fall so much, this experience couldn't have been any better!







Tuesday, October 20, 2009

PandaHouse Autumn


Just a few images of autumn around our home. The pic up in my blog header is from our dining room table. I just drink in this time of year.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows.
James 1:17













Friday, October 16, 2009

Birthday Tea Room 2009



Ever since PandaGirl's third birthday I have taken her to a tea room around her birthday and let her choose a special teacup for her collection. I hope to continue this fun tradition until she is at least 18....maybe longer!


Each year we have "special guests" and this year was my parents. It was raining cats and dogs, but we had a great time sipping our hot tea. Even my Daddy got in on the act since he was off work that day. What a fun treat!



The tea room we went to didn't sell cups so we had to come back home to an antique store to find just the right one. PG picked out this gorgeous metallic gold trimmed teacup. It's perfect---the owner of the store said, "It's very Frenchy!"---which goes RIGHT along with her love for Fancy Nancy this year who does everything in FRENCH!



I know it's been awhile since my last post, but with homeschool, church ministry and life in general it's been hard to find time for the computer.

More pics and (important-to-us) posts coming soon!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Happy 7th Birthday, PandaGirl!!!

Today is PG's 7th Birthday. She is so excited that I told her,

"NO SCHOOL on your birthday!!"

You'd have thought I'd given her the world! LOL! The pic above is after two days of being home from China. We were VERY jet-lagged and have little memory of this trip we took to visit family a couple of hours away from our home, but PG still looks so darn adorable!


Little Miss had been home with us for about a month when we went to interview at a new church for a PandaPop to be the children's minister there. While in the hotel PG decided it would be fun to pull out ALL the tissues and toilet paper off the roll. We loved it!
This is one of my favorite pics of all time! Yes, we started her quite early on Starbucks. Hey, we had to get her to like us, right? ; ) She loves coffee to this day and will probably get some for her special day today. She'd been home about four months here.

Home for about six months. This pucker-lip was something that she did often and this is the only time I captured it on camera. She would do it at random times for no reason and totally crack us up!
God was so gracious to give me a daughter whose birthday is in October/Fall....my most favorite time of the year!

Another favorite of mine is this cute pic of me and PG at the Ft. Worth Stockyards on a cold November day. We'd just eaten B-B-Q (a Texas staple!!) and it was the first really cold spell we had had that year. Just a special day. We ended up taking a really cute pic of the three of us there among the old wooden fences that ended up being our first Christmas card picture. Good memories.

Very happy little girl who'd been home for ten months.


Little Miss Personality showing some of her cuteness!


Totally one of my favorite pictures of PG!!! This is in January 2005. These pics are all just a small peek at PandaGirl's first year home.
Today we celebrate a little girl who is transforming before our very eyes into the lovely girl that God has created her to be. We are blessed.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Party at the Pandas'!


Friday night we celebrated

PandaGirl's 7th birthday

in our front yard with a few little girl-friends and had a BLAST! The theme was a cross between "Fancy Nancy" and "Littlest Pet Shop"---PG just couldn't decide so we incorporated both! I am a party planner after watching my own mom decorate and throw great parties for all sorts of things my whole life. I LOVE putting these things together. Very much a "sweet spot" for me (check out Mac Lucado's book Cure for the Common Life to learn more about your sweet spot).

Since PG is into being a scientist it really worked out that Fancy Nancy's latest book is about being an Explorer Extraordinaire who forms a backyard club with a friend and they go on searches for all sorts of great nature stuff. This goes right along with our Botany lessons in our new homeschool work, so that worked out to our benefit.

The reason the party decor is shabby looking with sheets and twinkles lights is because the book characters make their own tent in the backyard like this, yet Fancy Nancy has to have EVERYthing fancied up with her own flare, hence the reason for all the extra touches to the party, like curly ribbon on all the utensils. I made up pretty cute (even if I do say so myself!) hobo-bags or bundles along a real tree branch to carry it on just like the girls in the book. They were filled with a large magnifying glass, chunky notepad, bling ring, jumbo sized glow stick with a butterfly on the end and a ball point pen wrapped up to look like the stem of one of those large orange flowers, brightly colored fluffy hats and the darling bandannas tying it all up.

With the night-time sky darkening I knew that glow sticks would be a hit along with the twinkle lights....and they were! I let the girls decorate their own confetti cupcakes that had a blingy ring waiting for them in each cupcake after I made brightly colored frosting for them to spread. We also played "pin the tongue on the gecko" to add in our LPS animals for the night.

The weather on Thursday night was just awful with torrential rain. The weather for the party? A total God-send!!! The temp. was in the high 60's once the sun went down, the sky was as clear as could be and the full moon was bright and shiny up in the night sky: P-E-R-F-E-C-T!!!! It just couldn't have been any more perfect for the party. Then today it was downpour again. Good timing, God....thanks.

Thanks to PandaPop, J, C, B and K for all your help!!!!

I would write more, but I had an ALL day conference and am really pooped out. Just enjoy the pics. I'm enjoying the gobs more that I'm not taking the time to post! LOL!