Dallas Visit

I originally had this post all in one, then it deleted all the pictures, so I split it up. We took a trip last Wednesday through Monday and it was a blast! Last hoorah before Eric goes back to school. We left and headed to College Station Wednesday to stay with my cousin Erin and her family. She and I went and took a quilt class together (hey, email me about paying you back!) and had a great time. Our kids did too, they were up past 11!! We spent a nice morning letting the kids play a bit, then headed up to Dallas. Too bad we didn't take any pictures!

While there we had something every day, but it was a blast! Thursday night Nathan, Shannon, Garrett and Jackson came over for dinner and swim time. The kids had a blast and stayed up way too late again.

All the Woods, Woods and Newsomes!

Friday we spent the day with Justin and Ashley, then headed to Jamie and Curtis' house to visit, have dinner, and meet Peter for the first time! The kids had a great time playing and romping. We had an even better time catching up. Oh how we wished all our Dallas friends lived closer!

Anna and Peter playing on the piano.

Micah playing in Peter's room

Anna was cracking me up!

Eric and Curtis :)

Saturday morning the Dazeys and the Dutys came over to Justin and Ashley's house to swim, eat hot dogs, and swim some more! It was so fun to get all our kids together. We were all in the Baylor marching band back in the day and it's always great to reminisce.

Here are all the boys in the deep end.

The mommies taking care of the babies in the shallow end.

Eric and our kids.

Our little fish, she would swim ALL DAY if we let her!

Anna banana.

We had a relaxing Saturday afternoon watching movies and letting the kids nap. Sunday Justin and Ashley cooked us an amazing breakfast, again, and we headed down to show the kids Baylor and to visit Gerry, Patti and Pawpaw. Pictures coming tomorrow! :)

JuiceRoots!!

I just have to share this awesome opportunity!  And it's not just for my friends and family and blog readers in Katy!!

If you live in the areas listed at the bottom of this post, and want to be blessed beyond measure with one of the easiest at home jobs, with no risk, then keep on reading!!

Local Moms –
Have a Fun Career from Home and Become the Local Go To Mom! 

Juice in the City connects local businesses and local moms to create local discovery and fun for all moms in your area. With Juice in the City, you can:

·        Become the local “go to” mom by discovering great local gems

·        Earn hundreds to thousands per month while being paid to experience the best local businesses

·        Have a fulfilling career from home that you can do during just a few hours a day, and work without needing childcare (the kids can tag along)!

We rely on your local knowledge to find the best deals that moms in your area would love to buy. And, that's not all, you will become part of a community of moms in over 20 major markets throughout the US who share a common vision to save local and support their community and families.

Most moms already have the skills we're looking for:

·        You have knowledge of local businesses and a desire to help them grow

·        You enjoy challenges and have excellent communication skills

·        You have good insight on what deals other moms would enjoy

With flexible hours and the ability to take your kids to work with you, this is unlike any company you've worked for!

HOW TO APPLY:
To get started on the application process, fill out a simple application, which takes no more than five-minutes. Go to http://tinyurl.com/juiceroots

Be sure to give my name, Misty Newsome, for who referred you to Juice when you are asked!

I wouldn't be advertising this if I thought it was a joke, kinda like I did when I joined back in January.  But seriously, it has been one of the best things that has happened to our family!    It has helped us to raised thousands of dollars towards our adoption, and be able to share God's glory and providence each time.  I've met some amazing vendors in the process, and great friendships have been formed through the other local LBC's in the Katy/Sugar Land family!  

Seriously, Juice in the City is so fun to work with, and they have great incentives, such as cash bonuses!  They even ask US quite often what is our best motivator, what prizes we like, etc.  

So take a gander and apply, what could it hurt?? :)  Make sure to mention my name!  Thanks friends!

Arizona                   California              Colorado                Georgia

Phoenix                    Los Angeles                        Denver                     Atlanta

                                    Orange County

                                    San Diego

                                    San Francisco

Illinois                    Maryland               Massachusetts    Minnesota

Chicago                    Baltimore                Boston                      Minneapolis

New Jersey                        New York               North Carolina    Oregon

New Jersey             New York City       Charlotte                 Portland

Pennsylvania      Texas                       Washington          Washington D.C

Philadelphia           Austin                       Seattle                       Washington D.C.

                                    Houston

                                    San Antonio

Micah's Day -- Railroad style!

Today Cara went to Terrific Tuesdays at our church from 9:30-2:30 and we took Micah to every little boy's dream (ok, not every one, but you know boys and trains right?) : the railroad museum! When we drove up, we didn't think he'd last long (and he didn't in the sit and learn section--ok, he's 2!) but he had a GREAT time seeing all the 'big trains'!

Here is our day in pictures: we arrived and watched the cartoon safety video.

Daddy and Anna girl

Yaya teaching about the old phone. There was a sticker search game, and it was a great little way for him to learn while looking at all the old 'cool stuff' as he called it.

Micah on the caboose!

 In the engineer's chair!

Mommy and my 2 little ones!

Coming back in the caboose.

Sweet happy girl!

The 'fancy' train. Our guide said this is basically like a private jet for trains. It is from the 1850's and at one point it was Prince Albert's train in England.

Daddy and the kiddos

One of the suites.

The dining area.

Sweet boy!

Yaya and Micah reading a paper.

Sitting on an old firetruck from 1944.

Awesome room filled with model trains. We sat in here and watched for 10 minutes or so.

After the big 'real' trains, they had this whole 'education station.' There were lots of Thomas books, trains, toys, track, etc. (It was the first room you walked into before going into the room with the automatic model trains). We stayed in here for a full hour watching him play with trains. He was in hog heaven!

And after we picked Cara up and Micah told her where we went, she started crying because she wanted to go :). We had already promised Micah to take him back with Cara, he missed having her there!  It is so great to get him 'alone' though, he talks non stop, asks lots of questions and is a great listener when he knows he's setting the example for Anna. Not totally the case when Cara is around ;).  

We will be busy the next few days, so if you ordered a shirt, please bear with us, as we probably won't mail them out until next Tueday.  If you absolutely need it before then, please email me asap.  Also, I lost my phone, so if you've called or text since yesterday, I haven't received it.  Call Eric's phone if you need me!

Thanks!
  

Happy 10 years baby!

How I could NEVER have imagined where God would lead us 10 years into our marriage.  How eternally grateful I am that He led me down that path with you.  How joyous and fun you make our marriage!  How loving, kind, and serving you are to our family.  You, Eric Newsome, are my leader and my man, and I respect you, your service to our family, and your love for our kids, those here, and those yet to come.  

I love you!

A little flashback: 7/21/2001

This past December:

Looking forward to spending the next 80 together ;) 

Blessed Beyond Measure

We seriously couldn't have ever anticipated how many friends and family would decide to donate to this garage sale!  We've already made $575 just from selling a couple of the bigger items on craigslist!  We have an entire garage full with more families donating next week!  We've been blown away, that's for sure.  God has shown up providing the number of tshirts we needed for our first order, with massive amounts of GREAT items to sell in our garage sale, and even friends who are willing to sacrifice part of their Saturday to come help.

I've been asked how you can help, if you live here in Katy.  I have a few tangible ways:

1)  We need to borrow LOTS of tables.  We'd like them by Tuesday (7/19) if you could part with them for that long.  My mom has graciously decided to take the big kids Tuesday night through Friday and so I think we've decided to turn our living room into Garage Sale central.  We're going to set up as many tables as can fit in our living/dining room so we can start setting things out.  We can't even see how/what we have because it has gotten to be too much. This gives us three days with only one child to corral while we work.

2)  Like to bake?  We'll take any and all cupcakes we can get (to be delivered Saturday morning).  Cara, Micah and some friends will be having a Cupcake Kids bake sale at our garage sale with all proceeds going to that blessed ministry.

3)  Help spread the word.  If you have a bulletin board at work, or an EBB, please email me at newsomes4adoption [at] gmail dot com and I'll send you a PDF of our flier.  We'd love for you to post it at work, at play or wherever you have access.  The folks at Orange Leaf have posted one there, and we've had some friends post it at work.  We have so many GREAT items, we hope to have some GREAT buyers as well!

4)  HELP!  Our sale will be from 7 am - 1 pm on 7/23.  I've held many a garage sale in my day, and since I've advertised 7 am, that means I'll be up at 5 pulling stuff out and people will start showing up around 6/6:30 most likely.  We can use any and all help you'd like to offer.  We have my mom and a friend from church here to help watch the little kids indoors (so feel free to bring yours if you need to).

5)  Help us make posters.  Email me if you have time and I'll tell you what we need.

And last but not least, send people to our blog!  You can send them to this page, or our garage sale page here.  

Here are just a few of the great items we have, some I've had a few minutes to post on craigslist.  The craigslist post is listed after each picture.  

http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/2493303238.html

http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/2493312169.html

http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/2493290834.html

http://houston.craigslist.org/clo/2481018955.html