The Perks of Being a Minister's Wife

I adore my church, love the staff that PandaPop serves with and I LOVE the staff wives.  We all get along great and love to serve alongside our hubbies, but rarely get the chance to all be together in the same place, at the same time and able to actually talk.  The last time we met all together was a year ago August.  We recently just added two more to our bonded group so our oh-so-beloved pastor's wife invited us all over for lunch today and, true to form......she had a darling craft for us to do.  Christmas organization cutie-patootie file folders!!

We started out with a regular manilla file folder, followed her instructions on how to make it perfectly compact, picked out our Christmas scrap papers, measured, cut, inked the edges, spray glued and embellished our little projects all while gabbing the whole time.  I didn't mention that our pastor's wife, M, is one of my favorite people on this planet and is probably one of the top two of the best hostesses I know.  I adore her somewhat rustic, but a bit shabby chic decor taste and style of her home and she always cooks up perfect delectable delights for us to nibble.

 I want to be her when I grow up.

Nah...I know that I really want to be the me I'm supposed to be, but I just can't help but be mesmerized by her ease in homemaking and hostessing all the while being quite busy and active in the life of our church and she runs her own organizing business and works part time as the assistant to the owner of a dance studio.  Did I mention she has five grown kids and several grandchildren that all live in the area?  Busy woman who is completely sold out to the Lord.  Of course, she's not perfect and has flaws like the rest of us, but she is a doll. Love her. Love.

It was great to catch up with the other girls and fill in the two new ones about the rest of us.

Laid back, delightful time.

Anyone can have a group of girlfriends and make a cute Christmas organizer.  I have different groups of friends that I love to do things with like my college BFFs and my NOGs and friends that live in other cities.....or countries, but there is something really special about sharing life with other ladies who are married to ministers.  Just like any group of like-minded people who like to share joys and vent griefs it's nice to know that the others "get it" making the time shared comforting and freeing.  I respect these women and am very blessed to be a part of this group for such a time as this.  Believe me, I have found this closeness of staff or staff wives in no other church in which we have served.  It's rare and we are blessed.

(I just tried to link to my NOGs, but apparently I had uploaded that collage of us in our red shoes to flickr* and have since deleted from my account so what's the point of linking to a post with no pictures, right? None. )

Now I just need to actually use my darling new Christmas planner.

On a mommy side note: guess what my darling 3 year old said today?  On the way back home from picking up PandaGirl from school, PandaJOY busts out with, "Mom, you're a great mom."

WHAT DID YOU SAY???

"Mom, you're a great mom."

Awe.............I so needed to hear those words from her.  Can't even believe she articulated them so well.

As an update on that whole thing.....still in the appeal process and turning into skeletons as we wait, but are doing it with a joyful heart.  Things around here are getting better and even enjoyable as compared to our many months of adjusting to the new normal.  I even said today that I love this crazy deaf doggie.

Yes, I said I love him.

Even though at this very moment I want to strangle him for being too hyper and barking at the air, leaping off the bed and spinning circles down the hall.  Idiot.

NOGs

::First, update on my tonsillectomy.....I am doing great!! A bit of nausea until all the anesthesia is out (which should be all out today!!) and with the pain meds. I know that come Sunday this will be a whole new ballgame because the nastified scabs have to come off causing more pain than I have had so far, but I have really good meds. I've only thrown up four times and hopefully that is over...not sure. ; )

Honestly, I have had bouts of strep that have been far worse than this. Granted, I didn't have narcotics running through my veins for those cases either.

Thanks for your prayers, but please keep them coming for full recovery!

::NOGs.....The pictures speak for themselves. A study on Ruth. Girls gathering to gab. Food involved. Enough said.

The red shoes play in because of the cover of the book and a reference to Dorothy and Oz and how, as Ruth found her true home, we as Believers in Jesus Christ have a True Home awaiting us. On Monday we all went out with our tootsies covered in scarlet and all our shoes seemed to fit our personalities. Funny. We dined at Red Robin....well, because it had the word Red in it. Nothing hyper-spritual in that decision.

If you start to think, "Ohhhh, I wish I had a group like that!" Then make one yourself. Two years ago I had only known these girls for a year, got the first No Other Gods Bible Study, decided to meet seven Tuesdays of the summer in my living room and whoever could come, could. Of course, now I have more friends who I'd never want to "leave out", but the intimacy of the group gelled two years ago and we stuck with it. Go out and just do it! ; )

Camp 2010-2

We have an AWESOME and AMAZING group of volunteers that take time out of their lives to spend it with children for a whole week! We had an absolute blast together!!

::The cute blingy heart-camo hat was made for me by Wild & Precious.

::The dolls on sticks were the spirit awards each day for the boy & girl teams who won the challenge. By the end of the week the poor things had been through the wringer.

--I know the 6th grade boys were all about NOT getting to win the "doll", but came around when they actually won and got to tote Camo Clark (which later turned into Combat Charlie, I think).

--The girls.....the girls became a little wild about Camo Cami whom the 6th grade girls decided to tattoo her arm, remove her other arm, add things to her in ways I'm not sure a doll should experience and wholesomely gave her the name Pole-dance Polly, to which I put an abrupt end to. I hope my teaching them in Bible Study for the past year has done a little more for their growth and well-being than their name attaching ability has proven. Sweet Jesus. The 3rd grade girls cried when Polly.....I mean Cami had her arm ripped off. Little darlings.

::Below on the long table we had lots of snacks for the adult volunteers in our "green room"...had nothing to do with the green camo stuff. A green room is a term used for TV & movie studios, radio shows, stage acting, etc. for the people to relax in when not performing. We've always provided a place of respite for the adults to gather. Funny things happen in that little kitchen.

::PandaPop had dog tags made for everyone with our church's name on to go along with their name tags. Very fun to have at Boot Camp.

::PP really worked his tail off last week, as usual, and I am so blessed to be his wife!! He really didn't camp out on stage all week on the cot, but I walked in during a time of explaining the next event to the kids and couldn't find him. Surprise! He found the perfect spot to listen to instructions!

::Also interesting that we actually had three different camp shirts this week. It made it all flow together with the many kinds of camo represented.

::As "cute" as all of this camo stuff was.....I am so very thankful for true military people who wear this gear all the time in rough and horrible conditions for my freedom. I do not take that lightly.

Camp 2010-1

We always leave on Sunday afternoon for camp with an "early crew" to get everything set up and ready for the campers to arrive on Monday. PandaGirl has her friend along as a companion and the other two girls are other staff kids. Our wild & precious friend who has blessed us with goodie baskets for the last four years of camp thought it would be a brilliant idea to give darling little bottles of fingernail polish to PG and her friend.

You can see where this is going.

I felt totally confident to leave to room for a bit because PG is used to her Daddy and I having to run around at church doing things while she occupies herself. The other two staff kids are little, but their mom lets them roam as well. However, we moms both thought that the other was going to be peeking her head in shortly.

Apparently shortly wasn't quite short enough. I walk in to the powerful smell of nail polish. When I left I knew PG and her friend has already done their fingers and toes, but I thought they were done.

It seems that the little one the bed wanted hers done, too so PG tried to accomplish the task.

OOPS.

I look down to see smeared RED polish on the comforter. Not so bad, it kinda blended in to the print on the fabric. Then I see a white washcloth covered in blood....I mean red polish smears as well as the 3x3 size white box that connects the wires to the wall and the base of PandaPop's Mac laptop!!! Not only that, but the white cloth was WET and just resting on the PLUGGED in white box. PG tried to clean the polish with water.

Note to self: teach PG that polish and water don't mix. Nor do water and electricity.

Oh my word.

One part of me freaked out over the whole water/electricity part but the polish part of the incident made me giggle at how young we girls start with pampering ourselves and our friends!

More pics to come!

Always Better with a Friend

We are back from children's camp. It was so great.....AGAIN! This year's theme was BOOT CAMP and I'm making a collage to show you just how fun it was. Camp is the big event we really look forward to each summer. PandaPop is an amazing children's minister in how he totally cares for the spiritual well-being of these kiddos. Along with the "fun", they got lots of Biblical truths and hefty spiritual meat to chew on for awhile.

Our camp is cute and up-to-date, but not state-of-the-art, hip & slick like a lot of camps these days. Not to diminish ANYTHING about those kinds of camps, but we LOVE that our camp is JUST our church. This is the second year that we were on the same campground facility as our youth ministry. We get to interact with the kids and the volunteers at various points in the day. It is a huge blessing to be one big family at camp for a week, but still have age appropriate activities going on. I LOVE laughing so hard that I can't breathe and there was ample opportunity for that to happen this past week! Good laugh therapy.

As always, PP and I love coming up with next year's theme and are sooooo pumped about it!!

PandaGirl was able to have her sweet friend come along with us to camp this week. Her friend's three older sisters were already there so we brought her, too. I adored having a companion for PG....it allowed me much more freedom! They only had about three times where I had to say, "Get it together or else....". Pretty good for two girls to be in such close quarters for five days.

Hold on---BOOT CAMP 2010 collage is coming!

Off Broadway

What a weekend!

PandaGirl's strep throat must have been caught early enough that she really didn't get to the bad stage at all. Whew. Made it through her Thursday night dress rehearsal a bit weakly, but made it none the less.

She was, of course, THE cutest gift package I've ever seen!! I decided to go with blue wrapping paper even though I'm a RED girl and she's a RAINBOW girl, because I figured everyone would go with red, green and gold. Good call PandaMom! Look at my sweet little gift showing up so cutely smack in the middle of all those Christmas colors in the full group shot below!! ; ) Not arrogant, just smart stage show thinking. Smile.

Our music minister asked if I would take pictures with my good camera during the dress rehearsal on Thursday. I took a lot of great shots, but I missed the finale so I was able to snap this one last night. Our church choir, orchestra, dancers, actors, backstage crew, sound crew, lights, all of them were so fabulous and very effectively relayed the message of CHRISTmas!! Love my church family.
Me and my awesome friend!! We connected a couple of years ago for a very serious reason. We both graduated high school in 1989!!! That one one fact opened up the door to a wonderfully fun friendship. If you look back in the group shot you'll see her green-garbed-self on top of a huge rolling platform. Great job, C!
My parents came to see PG in her little blue gift ensemble and had fun helping with making some Christmas goodies in the kitchen. Oh, and we had to go out for BBQ, too. That IS what we Texans do, ya know.

Lots more fun Christmas pics to come!

Volunteer Open House

Yesterday was our 3rd annual open house for our children's ministry volunteers. We open our home to these awesome servants who give of their time to help children know more about Jesus and his saving grace.

He IS the perfect gift.

Of course, we always serve yummy, fattening food and enjoy lots of good conversation. This year's gift from us to them were these cutie patootie chunky fat clear glass mugs filled with two big cookies and a package of flavored coffee. I think it was a great time of fellowship. As soon as we were done in the afternoon we all headed back to our church for the Hanging of the Green worship time.

It. Was. Amazing.

We love our precious church.

Camp or Bust! 2009

Headed out tomorrow afternoon for a week of Children's Camp! So very excited and thankful that it will be the lowest temps of the month with the highs only hitting the mid-90's!!! WOOHOOOOO! Thank You, LORD! That is a huge difference than when those little digits creep over 100 degrees. Anything over 100 is just down-right miserable. From 88 degrees to 95 is just bliss! Well, I wouldn't go that far, but at least sweat doesn't drip off my chin at those readings.

I'll be back in a week to report on all the happenings---THEN----PandaPop turns 40 next Sunday and I'll have some really fun things to post about that!

Have a blessed week! ; )

Worship

Last week was filled with our VBS/Kids Praise kind of event for our Kindergarten through 5th grade children at church. It was from 9-3 everyday, but wasn't just VBS as traditionally known. Our church has always done VBS one week and then a music camp another week in the summer which culminated in a musical performance at the end of the week. PandaPop wanted to merge the two to save some time for families, lower the cost and focus more on worship than performance. All the years past have been wonderful, but it was time for a change. This one was a good change. These kids worked their little hearts out and LED us in worship on the last day at the evening worship experience called Born to Worship. Blessed my heart, for sure.


PandaPop was either welcoming all the parents or telling the kids they did great...I can't remember. No matter, at some point he told them that if they raised enough money to meet the goal for the mission project for the week, he'd dye his hair royal blue to keep up with his awesomeness from last year's challenge. However, the next day he was doing the wedding ceremony for my cousin as posted a few days ago and couldn't really walk into the wedding as the minister with blue hair. I was bummed for that reason and for the fact that the kids didn't make the goal and there weren't any adults to pitch in to make it happen. Boo. I was looking forward to ROYAL BLUE hair! Oh well, I'm sure some other goofy challenge is right around the corner.

Adored having my daughter lead me in worship with her special part in the experience.

Does this pic make your heart melt? Make you want to worship right now? Make you believe that you were born to worship the Living God who created you? The other side of the stage has three more poses with kids in front of them, too. This was quite powerful while the whole group of 250 kids sang, "Here I am to Worship".

PG and her sweet friend. These two always get mistaken for each other at church. The other day was fun for me and the friend, because we walked hand-n-hand together without PG and everyone just assumed it was PG. We giggled. ; )