Arbonne on the Today Show!

Tuesday, Dec 16th, Arbonne's president, Rita, is scheduled to be on the Today show during the 9:00 hour at some point! Woo-woo! Anyone else pumped about that?? They asked me if I wanted to do it, but I went ahead and had them ask her instead since I've got so much packing to do. If I said yes to everything, I'd never get anything done.

Home Sweet Condo

Within the last week we sold the house, visited 10-15 places for rent and signed a contract for a great condo in the city. The couple who owns it is allowing us to move boxes in before we actually start living there next month! Here's a few quick pics of our place sans stuff.





In some ways, we've upgraded while down-sizing. While it's a tad stressful to pack and move in such a short window of time, it's also a good thing because we're pretty excited to get in there and start living!

Sorry FE

Russ has a new band. I think he was drawn by a latin flare missing from your current style. Sorry.

For other FE news, click here!

Deck the Halls...

and the tv stand and Daisy and the chair...That's what you get when a 2 1/2 year old is helping decorate the Christmas tree! This kid provides nonstop entertainment for us! Seriously, I wish other people could see "The Show!" I don't think I've blogged yet about Eliot's new thing. When he's feeling a little more silly, he stands somewhere to draw attention and yells dramatically, "THE SHOWWWWWW!" It kills us. If he's feeling quite feisty a little dance or song will follow.

Anyway, here's some highlights from our night:

Eliot and Daisy lending a helping hand as Russ sets up our very large tree. (We wanted to get a tree but keep things simple since we're moving so soon, so it's the smallest one we've gotten since we got married!)


The scary elf? It matches this blog from today (It's a link, peeps!)

A perfect shot of "THE SHOWWWWW!"

He was definitely saying "cheese!" while staring at the tree here.


Russ is taller than the tree...love it.

Eliot's decking the halls activity all night!

Wordless Wednesday

Not sure what to say.

There's a family that was adopting from Guatemala that received the worst news. Here's their story (click here.)

There's a way you can help, other than offering a note/comment of sympathy. This blog was emailed to me this morning: The Shrum Family Adventures. Her entry gives details on how to help. I don't know this family but my heart hurts. It is the unthinkable.

Spontaneous Dinner party cancelled.

Yeah, you read that right, we. homeless.

Remember this post? (click on it, it's a link, yo.)

Well, we got a call Thursday that someone was gonna make us an offer. And they did. Being that it wasn't quite the 'offer we couldn't refuse', we countered. Then they countered. So we countered their counter of our counter. Not really, I just wanted to keep using the same word for verb and noun. It's a weird delight of mine. They did counter our counter but we didn't follow it w/ a counter to their counter of our counter. (I can't help it! Somebody stop me!)

We've had constant traffic through our house so this is a relief! Now my efforts can go from a spotless house ready for the spontaneous dinner party to boxes, boxes and more beautiful boxes. That means more purging and organizing. Another weird delight of mine. (and by spotless, I mean "quick, hide those dirty dishes in the fridge!)

So, off to the city we go! Confused? Stop and read this post from a year ago. No, really, go read it. The only difference in our plans a year later is residence related. We're kickin' it old school. Apartment living. No appliances to call our own. We've heard that age 31 is the new 21 but this is a bit much...

We're pumped. This has many layers that I can't post about yet, so just be super excited for us. I'll leave you with take 1, take 2, take 3 and take 4.




Many of you ask how we get Eliot to smile for pics all the time? I drop stuff off my head while taking the pic. Works every time. Good comedy, people.

Turkey day w/ the rents!

My parents came in from Michigan for Thanksgiving! We've had a lot going on this week (remember learning about foreshadowing in high school? Well, consider yourself foreshadowed...) so it's taken me until now to post! It's always a blessing to spend time with my parents since it doesn't happen nearly as often as we'd like. Eliot is now officially obsessed with them, which I love. He kept asking where they were several days after they left. Thankfully we'll see them in a few weeks again! Hurray! Here's some pics from their time here!






Hopefully there's another post coming today....it's done, just need the officially go-ahead to pull the trigger...

Wordless Wednesday

Time to give...

Last year we collected items for stockings for the soldiers and this year this project has my attention. Do you remember this post from our trip to Guate this summer? Well, they have organized themselves and are ready for your lovin'. Here's an email from Mayra Garcia, the Guatemalan superstar who is running this amazing project!

As most of you know, we have been working in a feeding program project in Ciudad vieja (5 kmts away from Antigua) and our vision has been to open up an school for these kids, since most of them are not currently attending school.

We strongly believe that education is a key factor for development in any country and that is why we don`t just want to feed their bellies, but also their minds and their hearts since we do not only need for them to be good professionals, but also professionals who fear and love God to start breaking up the corruption in our country.

We have spotted the perfect piece of land for this school to start in January, but need to come up with an offer to buy this land.

We have some friends who have opened up a non profit organization in Louisiana and any donation will be task deductible. Any donation, from $1.00 up will be highly appreciated.

The account no. Is 716622548. The Bank is Whitney National Bank in Louisiana
beneficiary (Wendy A. Smith). address is 1120 North White Street, New Orleans Louisiana, 70119
The official name on the account reads...THE VIEJA SCHOOL PROJECT.

Also, we have a friend (Mary Margaret) who is working on a web page for the project. I would like to add the links to this mail, so that you can get an idea of what we are doing and that you can keep up with any updates done to it.

http://ontheirbehalf.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002278&id=1530915043&saved (here are the picitures of most of the kids who would be attending the school).

Thank you and blessings to all