Fun Friday Photos!!!!

Here are some pictures of my neice Rayn's 4th Bday!!! Ok so I will be honest, 90% of this blog is dedicated to that little Princess so you are only going to get a few pics of the actual bday, bcuz later in the evening it was time for some Good CLEAN Adult Fun!!!! My brother in law ended up putting dishsoap in the hose to the Giant slide and miraculously not one of us Old, Overweight, and Sassy broads broke anything!!!! It was so much fun!!!! (Next post Joshua's bday) WISH YOU WERE HERE AMY GIRLHEAD!!!!!


Blowing out 4 candles this year!!!
Isn't that cake too cute!!!
Barrett, Rayn and Brett!!!
Opening presents!
The birthday Girl

Kerry, Tara, Carol, Jacy and myself!! That's alot of women in that little bitty pool!!
Look at Kerry climb!! (hehehe)
I think that is Tara and KIm falling! And Astrud and her Aunt Kim falling!!
Jacy, Kim and Me!

Crazy girls and Jade and Chelsea playing on the trampoline!!!

Tuesday Night Thoughts......

Do you ever have those days when you just ponder on things ALOT...... Well today was one of those days for me and I thought I would share a few of those thoughts with you.

First there are only 65 Calendar days and 13 GWCA LID dates ahead of us!!!!! Can you believe it???? After all this time waiting and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I have to admit that there is a different feel in the air around here, but as I start to think what I keep wondering is.....

What do our older kids really truly think about this? They seem excited , they have let their feelings be known about the long wait, I know that they are going to love her beyond belief, but deep down what do they think? Any of you that have older kids , have you ever wondered the same?

Another thing I keep thinking about is Franceskas 100 Good wishes quilt. It seems like a lifetime ago that I started receiving squares for it. And somewhere down the road they got put in a plastic box and was left in a corner of her room for a later date, but now that I have made so many what I hope to be lifelong friends, if any of you would like to send a fabric square for her quilt and a good wish I would just love that. If you want to just email me at KrisLRodriguez@aol.com and I will give you my address. That is going to be my "Nesting Project" for after Christmas.

And last I have decided to stop working on December 19th!! As many of you know my Momma has Alzheimers and things are really starting to change. It was a really rough weekend and I just want to spend more time with her and also I want to be there for my Daddy. Alzheimers sucks!! And it is just eating her away bit by bit. Please call your parent's if you still have them or your grandparents, tell them how much you love them, or give them a really tight squeeze, you just never know.

I know this was a pretty random post, but it's just what was on my mind tonight , thanks for listening. Love and blessings to all of you.

Monday Morning Gratitude

Good morning everyone!! I just had a little story to share. Yesterday morning before church and before anyone else had gotten up I had already done an entire list of household chores for about 3 hours. And right about that time when I started getting a "little moody", because Frank was sitting on the couch having fun with the girls,and I started feeling like nobody was listening to me, and when I probably started feeling a little sorry for myself, Frank went pssssst.... and told me to listen to our neice Rayn. WELL, that is when I just had to STOP and listen. She was sitting on the chair writing a letter to God! But as she pretended to write she was talking to HIM. She was saying thank you God for everything you can imagine. It was priceless and so special. And what a lesson for me, right when my heart was headed in the wrong direction , boy did HE change it. It reminded me to be thankful again for just the littlest of things. I hope and pray that each of you have an amazing and blessed week.
Love, Kristy

Some Summer Fun!

I probably took about 1000 pictures this summer and it was so hard to choose which ones to post. Our summer was so busy with the lake, Alyssas track meet, getting with family , etc. etc. etc., you hate to leave people out but I did my best!!! Hope you enjoy!! There is alot more to come but I will take it slow so you are not overwhelmed with too many pictures!!! Love to all of you.




Andrew,Brett and Rayn


Brettster!!

Jacy and Alvin

Some Rodriguez Siblings!!

Just a friendly family race in the pool!!

Our Joshua jumping in!!!

Emily was having a bit of trouble!!!

Astrud, Alyssa and Emily

Lucas and Astrud

Grandpa Frank and Joshua


So proud of Alyssa!

Frank and Andrew

Jacy, Brett, Rayn and Alvin

Momma with the kitty she found at the lake!


Yes that's me blowing out the candles for #41!!!

Jeffrey holding on to dear life!!!

FIREPROOF

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GO SEE THIS MOVIE WITH YOUR HUSBAND, WIFE, FIANCE, SISTER, BROTHER ,FRIEND, WHOEVER!!!! This movie was so good and so inspiring. Even people that think their marriage is just fine, let me tell you go see this. You will learn things about yourself, your spouse and your marriage. But this is just not for married couples, it is an awesome movie for all relationships. So take your significant other out on a date!!!

Remembering a Legend and very kind man of all time...

I had to take a little bit of time this morning to do my own little tribute to Paul Newman. Any of you who know me know that I love old movies, not like 1980 old, but like 1940 to about 1960 old! You will never hear me calling an actor a hero, but you will hear me say that I truly respected this man. He was one of the most honest, gracious, non ego having, normal, and real actor/person that there ever was. I admired his marriage of 50 years to Joanne Woodward, at one time they were a high powered Hollywood couple and they just made it work. His charity and humanitarian work was astounding. I will miss knowing that he is out there somewhere. The world just lost another really kind man. His family will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Good Morning!

Good morning to all of you. I have lots to catch up on and pictures to post but no time this morning. It is off to Lily and Rayn's soccer games, I have to get Astrud to the food pantry to volunteer , and then later this evening Frank and I are going with our Sunday school group to see "FIREPROOF". I will let all of you know how it was. All of you are in my thoughts and prayers, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. God bless.

Love and blessings, Kristy

29 MONTHS TODAY!!!

(PATIENCE)

Today is our 29th month LIDversary. We're almost there!!! I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel now, or maybe it is my heart letting me see now. Whatever it is, it feels good. I know our baby is somewhere in China right now , an ocean apart but sometimes when it is really quiet I can imagine the sound of her breathing. How is it that God puts such intense love in every fiber of our being, even when the source of love is sight unseen? I know it is because he is who he is...

From the bottom of my HEART!

Thank you just does not do the trick when it comes to wanting to show my gratitude for all of your comments of support and love in regards to my book.
I just never expected the outpour of love. I thank you and my family thanks all of you from the bottom of our Hearts. All of you have truly made this a journey of a lifetime for me. I swear that it is because of all of you that I am still sane. This wait has been so , so , long and there is more to come but, I can actually see or I am allowing myself to see the light at the end of the tunnel now and I sincerely pray that I never lose touch with any of you. I love you and may God always bless you and yours.

Love , Kristy


p.s. On another note, I am desperately trying to get hooked up with bloglines so I can follow alot easier. Catherine over at Catherine's Chatter said it has made her life so much easier. I am having a wee bit of a problem and have had to get in touch with customer service, so as soon as I am up on that I will be visiting.

OK HERE IT IS!!!!!??????

OK bare with me, this is going to be long but I will do my best to not bore you to death!!!!

OK over a year ago God kept putting this idea for a Christian Childrens Book on my heart, but not having a whole lot of self confidence in that dept. I kept putting it off until one night during the time Steven was in Iraq, I could not sleep and it was really late so I decided to sit down at my computer and just write it down.

OK so it was written and I only showed it to a select few because of that self confidence thing again. It is titled, "GOD MADE ME IN CHINA". I won't tell you the whole story but its about a little girl that is adopted from China and while at sunday school she is made fun of for not looking like her mommy and daddy, brothers and sisters. The lesson learned is that God made us all different and that he loves each and everyone of us and that we should love no matter what a person's eyes may look like or what color their skin is. So there... you have a pretty good idea of what the message of the book is so then, after I wrote it I put it in an envelope and tucked it away.

Then about 3 or 4 months ago Rev. Buckner Fanning gave a message at our church and at the end of the service he spoke about his son's Stephens book that he had a few copies of , so I bought one. It was called "Believe in Make Believe". ( great book). On the back cover it had his email address and for all this time I kept thinking why don't you go out on a limb and ask him how to get started??? Well.... he is Buckner Fannings son and why would he want to be bothered by me right???? OK so three weeks ago I did it, I emailed him asking him to point me in the right direction and I told him a little bit about us and told him about the wait for our Franceska. Well to my SURPRISE he emailed me back within 4 hours telling me thank you for contacting him, told me he went to my blog and thought my family was beautiful , he even said that he and his wife have friends right here in San Antonio that have adopted from China. BUT the mose astounding part was that he told me that he forwarded my email to his PUBLISHER!!!!!

ARE YOU BORED YET????


So the next day the published VicToria Freudiger emailed me and was so excited to have received my email from Stephen and really wanted me to contact her. OMG!! OMG!!! She said that she had went to my blog and was very taken by my family and that adoption was something very close to her heart. 41 years ago she had gotten pregnant and had given up her daughter for adoption and that 2 years ago her daughter had contacted her. So now VicToria and her husband have 5 children and 9 granchildren, including the daughters son and daughter. This lady is amazing, she and all of her employees are Christians and this is truly their ministry. It is EntryWay Publishing and they are out of Plano, Texas. She and her staff will help me from editing, (since it is a grammatical train wreck), to illustration, help me with the decisions like hardback, paperback, where I want the words bottom of page, to the left , etc. etc. etc. The marketing department will then get my book on Amazon, in Barnes and Nobles, Wal Mart , contact adoption agencies,etc. And they will also have book signings, press releases and stuff like that. WHO KNEW ???? I am just ME, a country girl from La Vernia, Texas, and I am going to publish a book!!! Can you believe that???

I told her that there are several seminars that our agency puts on and that those would be perfect opportunities to promote my book. She then asked me about wanting to give my agency a proceed from sales. And I have thought about this , and I think I want a portion of the sales to go to STARFISH in China. (if it sells) And she said that if we get started that it could possibly be out by Christmas!! If all of this goes well , this could really help with the adoption expenses and our trip to China, and what a blessing that would be.

Anyway I know this has been long but I have to add just one more thing. Im my heart I truly believe that this is God doing his work in my life and I am again TRULY not worthy for the love he shows me. All of the credit goes straight back to him. I feel as though I have been sent to the perfect publisher and publishing company. I still can't believe that it is possible that I could actually publish my book. So thank you for sharing my news with me. All of you that follow along day to day with my life have became my extended family and each of you is so special to me. God bless you and your families.

Love and blessings, Kristy
p.s. PugMama it was so good to hear from you again, I miss you . When are you coming back???

(NO WE DON'T HAVE A REFERRAL YET)

Just give me a couple of days to get the details worked out and I will let all of you know!!!!! I can't wait!!!

STRUD FOR PREZ!!!

Traci, Christopher, Amy, Chastity, Craig and Astrud!!
Frank and one of his girls, that's our Amy!!!
This is Christopher, I don't know who took this pic , but I am glad they did since it shows the front of the tshirt really good!!!
Our girls....Chas, Amy and Traci
Chas and Traci

Astrud is running for Sophomore Class President so when all of our kids found out about that Amy went and made tshirts that said, "Strud for Prez" on the front and "WORD" on the back with paw prints all over (La Vernia Bears)!!!!

5 of our kids live in the same apartment complex , so she spent the night with them and when she came out of the bathroom this morning all of them had their tshirts on and not only that , they were wearing them to church!!!!

You just have to know what goes thru a 15 year olds mind , right????? By the time they arrived at church I had already told several people , so everyone was waiting! Frank and I just loved it, even something like that makes us so proud!!! Can you only imagine what Franceska is going to have to endure!!!!! I can't wait to see their love surround her .

WALK TO CURE DIABETES

Hello to all my friends out there. I know everyone is strapped for money these days with gas prices and all. But I would like to share a personal story with you. My cousin Tracy and her son CJ both have Juvenile Diabetes. CJ was just diagnosed a year and a half ago. He has got to be one of the brightest rays of sunshine in our entire family, he always has a big smile on his face. On October 11th the Walk to cure Diabetes is here in San Antonio, please got to her Walk website : http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87046982 and take a look around and even if you can't make a donation, maybe there is a "Walk" in your area that you could be a part of, or just educate yourself on this terrible disease . I truly appreciate each of you. Thank you so much.

Love and blessings!

Let's please stop taking our friendship for granted, let's make time for each other. Are we really that busy??? I cherish and love you very much.

***A rich person has many treasures; a WISE person treasures many friendships***

So proud of our GIRL!!!

On Saturday a group of friends from our church and some of our youth went into San Antonio to help a ministry that feeds the homeless and also lets them pick out used clothing, and to hear a message. It is called "Church under the Bridge". Astrud, Emily, Frank, our friend Jacy and myself were on our way and Astrud received an upsetting phone call , which like any other teenager that was hurt, it put her in quite the "MOOD"! That is when I told her that this is one of those times that you have to set aside your own feelings and realize that God has put you on a path for a purpose. Well her comment to that was that she did not want to be around people in general and just wanted to go home. I told her to pray about it and that we would see what happens. Well she was right away put with the other kids sorting out clothing and when it was time to eat and "shop", we were serving food , and that is when Jacy said , Kristy look at your daughter, aren't you proud of her. I called Frank over there and told him to look at her and let's just say that we had one of those "parenting moments"that brought tears to my eyes and that you hope you never forget!! I grabbed my camera so I could show all of you how proud she made us. She was helping this man pick out some clothing. After we were finished she was in a totally different mood and although seeing what we saw is so disheartening, it makes you see just how blessed you are. This girl never seems to amaze me with her resilience and perseverance. Astrud helping this man shop for clothes.Karen, Frank, Kristy and Jacy
Alicia, Astrud, and Susie Astrud, Emily and Abby (Karen's daughter)
And you know the day would not be complete if Emily and Astrud did not have one of their "Blonde Moments"!!
Abby helping out.