Compassion Bloggers Are In The DR

Yesterday Compassion International sent several bloggers to the Dominican Republic.

Some of you may recall that Compassion sent their first set of bloggers to Uganda in February. Reading some of their stories, and watching their videos made me think of our own child that we sponsor.

Ashly actually is from the DR. So I'm curious to know if she will run into these bloggers while they are there this week.

She is turning 5 this week. What a special week for this precious child. We continue to send letters back and forth to her. Her last letter said that she would send us a picture of her birthday. She also asked me to teach her one of our songs. She asked "are they beautiful?"

How could you not love a girl like that?

So I need to pray for these bloggers this week, for whoever they meet, whoever they come into contact with. That God would be encouraging, healing and changing lives.

Make sure you check out the frequent updates from these bloggers too. Here's the list of them:

Jennifer Dovavan from 5MinutesForMom
Mary Ostyn from Owl Haven
Nick Challies from Challies Jr
Marlboro Man from Pioneer Woman
Melanie from The Big Mama
Tim Challies from Challies

and the leaders:

Brian Seay
Shaun Groves
Keely Scott (photographer)

Please keep these people in your prayers this week too.

Only 84 Days!!

Well it is official!!!!

John and I are going to Mexico in January!!

We leave on January 25, in exactly 84 days from today (but who's counting?!?).

We are going to the Riviera Maya, where we will enjoy the amazing hot sun, beautiful beaches, great food and drinks, Caribbean water, sightseeing (Ancient Mayan ruins), shopping and enjoying 10 years of married bliss.

Well maybe not every moment has been bliss, but it certainly is an accomplishment to make it to 10 years in tact. Those things that test us can only make us stronger, right?

Our all-inclusive package includes the usuals; water sports, snorkeling, food (7 a la carte restaurants) & drinks, and some extras such as dance lessons (how on earth can I convince John that this will be FUN?), archery, lazy river with tubes in the pool, and an ice cream parlour.

Alright so now I really need to work on this exercise stuff. I haven't been very dedicated to the treadmill lately and the eating...well I just like food and it's soooo hard not to snack in the evenings. But I only have 84 days to get in shape.

Oh I am soooo looking forward to this trip!!

Mighty Leaf Tea Winner

Congratulations go out to Elizabeth at Blue Violet! She has chosen to try the Chocolate Mint Truffle tea.

"I'm subscribed to your blog now!doot65{at}comcast[dot]netElizabeth"

Here are your random numbers:81

Timestamp: 2008-10-31 19:43:18 UTC

Thanks to everyone for visiting my blog! Hope to see you back here soon.

What Have I Done?

Too much to do today.

Too much to do tomorrow.

Halloween is in 2 days and I have LOTS of stuff to get done before then.

I brought it on myself.

I know that I did.

But now I'm stressed out.

Tomorrow we need to carve pumpkins. Brie got a small one from her piano teacher, but we usually carve 2 bigger pumpkins to leave outside for the Trick-or-Treaters. So yesterday I bought 2 bigger pumpkins.

Then a friend brought over 3 small ones this morning.

It was very nice of her.

But now we have 6 pumpkins whereas yesterday morning, we only had 1.

Are we carving 6 pumpkins? NO way!! But we have to do at least 2.

Pre-K is also having a party on Friday so I am making these cool Meringue Ghosts.

They are easy to make (just tried a smaller batch today) and Brie is very excited to take these to share with her class. I also wanted to make up a small goodie bag for each of her classmates. Since I'm a stamper I thought we could just stamp an "Enjoy" stamp on the front of a piece of orange cardstock and Brie could write her name on the back. Again, it's easy, but it's still one more thing to do tomorrow.

Also, I came up with this brilliant idea to make treat bags (another stampin' project called a "box in a bag") for our special friends. Apparently the dollar store variety of halloween treat bags wasn't sufficient for me?!? (Or I decided to do this in a moment of insanity?!?) I'm only making 8, but so far only 1 is completed. Here's a photo:

This is a project we just made in our stampin' class last month. I just went out and bought halloween paper at Dollarama a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty cheap to make, just time consuming.

So I really shouldn't be blogging right now, but it's also difficult to accomplish much right before the girls go to bed. You know how kids get right before bedtime.

I had a good day of cleaning yesterday, some friends came over this morning and this afternoon disappeared before I knew it. Now the panic sets in. I should have been working on this both yesterday and today!!!

Reminder to self: Just buy the darn treat bags next year. Don't leave it all to the LAST MINUTE.

Bloggy Giveaways: Mighty Leaf Tea

***This Giveaway Is Now Closed. Thank you to everyone who entered.***

Bloggy Giveaways is hosting yet another carnival of awesome giveaways! Already there are hundreds of blogs participating.

I thought that this time around I would have a giveaway that is near and dear to my heart.

Chocolate. AND. Tea.


Put them together and you get Mighty Leaf Tea.


Now I haven't actually tried this out yet, because my hubby insists that I need to clean out some of my tea in the pantry first.

I like tea. And I like variety in tea.

So I have a few different boxes and tins sitting in the pantry.

But I DO use them all on a regular basis. Most days I have at least one or two cups of tea.

Nevertheless, I emptied one tin earlier this week so that should be good enough for hubby, right?!?

I have it on good authority that Mighty Leaf makes some pretty darn good tea. Their website is fabulous and they have glowing remarks in the testimonials section. I have been waiting months to put in an order.

So with that being said...onto my giveaway!

For your drinking pleasure, I am offering up one sampler tin of chocolate truffle tea. There are 6 flavors to choose from: Mayan Chocolate Truffle, Masala Chocolate Truffle, Chocolate Mint Truffle, Chocolate Orange Truffle, Mocha Pu-erh Truffle and Pear Carmel Truffle.

Mmm. Don't those sound delicious?

This giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere.

In your comments, please let me know which flavor you would like to sample.

For a second entry, please subscribe to my blog and leave a Separate comment.

For a third entry, please read through The Story Of Us and tell me (in another Separate comment) what you appreciated the most, or what you would like to hear about next.

Thanks for looking at my blog and good luck!

Brr!

It's only 8:30 and already I am FREEZING!!

You know it's turning cold when you check the weather forcast and it gives a wind chill factor already.

Darn wind chill.

It really ruins everything.

Mitts and toques are out.

Boots are ordered and on their way to the post office.

Agh.

I really don't like winter.

I hate being cold.

I can't wait for January when we go somewhere warm. We've been talking about it more recently as the travel packages continue to go down in price and we browse websites looking for good deals.

Ahhhhh....I can almost feel the warm sun beating down on me right now.

Almost.

Zelda

We have never been the first ones to own the latest and greatest game systems.

In fact, years ago we received an N64 from John's brother who wasn't using it anymore.

That went great for a couple of years until it died. But we were able to take it in to a store that gives you money for the games and systems and we traded up for a Game Cube.

That was about 2 1/2 years ago now, just when the WII was coming in.

I rarely pick up a game with the desire to play, but lately I have been playing a lot of the game Zelda: Twilight Princess.

It may have something to do with the lack of good TV, but at least I am enjoying something to do in the evenings.

Actually I'm having so much playing this game that I've been playing it during the day now too.

Apparently the girls have picked up a lot watching John play this game in the past. He's not much of a video fanatic either, but every once in a while he goes on a playing kick that lasts for a couple of months.

So whenever I play, the girls gladly offer up their advice in the game. Quite often they are absolutely correct! It stunned me for a while to see how much they remembered from watching their daddy play.

Ella is actually quite THE FAN of video games. She begs and begs for me to play it during the day.

She talks about Zelda to random people, who are probably wondering who on earth this Zelda person is.

Now I must add that I really am not much of a "gamer". Hah hah, that title alone just makes me laugh because I am so far from that! Actually I enjoy the fun aspects of the game, but as soon as I have to fight an "end boss" in a level, I save it and leave it for John to fight. I get too stressed out and end up dying otherwise.

Yesterday John came home from a few hours at work playing catch-up and Ella asked him if he could help me beat the bad guy because "Mommy isn't very good at it".

Yep. Daddy gets the bad guys. Literally.

And me? What do I do?

I keep my girls entertained. At least for now.

But I'm really looking forward to the day when we retire our Game Cube and buy a WII. I think we will have even more fun then!