Daddy and his caddy...

YUMMO!

Gingerbread cake that I made for house church this morning. It was so pretty and delicious I had to take a picture!

Bella- The Review

Imagine my surprise while reading the morning paper with my cup of coffee on Friday morning when I saw Bella was being shown in Decatur! I thought for sure we would see it in Austin when we visit in a couple of weeks...but we had a date night Saturday night instead!

The movie has beautiful cinematography and some delightful symbolism. This relatively simple, yet profound story will stay with you for a very long time. It's about life: family, friendship, sacrifice and what is truly important in life... love.

Jose', played by Eduardo Verastequi (the next Antonio Banderas?) is a chef in a Latino restaurant, so of course we had to end our night with my favorite, enchilada verdes with lots of cilantro and a margarita! The end to a perfect evening!

Thanksgiving in Review

Abby and I prepared our Turkey the night before with a secret spice rub.
Abby and Troy were the turkey carvers.
L-R: Ray, Sandy, Kristin, Jim, Troy, Abby
The "Losers". We played many rounds of Mad Gab, Catchphrase and Mexican Train Dominoes.
The "Winners". We were too much for the guys to handle!

Waiting on the Lord

Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him...

Psalm 37:4,5,7a

Free Rice!

Do you want to build your vocabulary and help end world hunger! Go to this website and for every answer you get right, 10 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program! This program is addicting and beneficial!

Yada Yada Addict!

Over the past year, I have become a Yada Yada Prayer Group addict! I finished book #6 over the weekend and now HAVE to get #7! I love how a group of women from various backgrounds and cultures can get together and BE REAL and SHARE LIFE!

Pics From Iowa

We're Back...

...from Clearlake, Iowa! We had a long weekend celebrating Troy's cousins wedding and catching up with family! Pictures to come soon! Troy did an incredible job of officiating the ceremony and had an inspiring message...of course I am biased, but he got a lot of compliments! I overheard one conversation that went like this: "Is this the new pastor at this church? If so, I will start going to church!" Well sorry guys, we are not in IA but you can come to our house for church in IL!

We stopped in Iowa City on the way home to get lunch and walk around the mall! We have passed this mall for years, but never got to check it out since we always had Jackson with us (he stayed home with his favorite dog/house sitter)! We are not mall crazy, but just about everything is a treat to us considering what we have at home! Troy felt at home wearing his University of Iowa hat and wasn't razzed for once!

BELLA THE MOVIE: OFFICIAL TRAILER (HI-RES)

I received an email from a respected adoption agency today promoting the movie Bella. This is what they say:

The award-winning film BELLA has been a box office success in 30 major cities since its limited release on October 26. Because of its success, BELLA will be shown in 19 more major cities on November 9 and in at least 30 more cities on November 16. Winner of the Toronto Film Festival, this movie shows how love goes beyond romance with the lead actor sharing compassion for a woman dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.The message of adoption is portrayed in a positive and authentic manner, and the ending of the movie is one you will never forget. This film has the opportunity to make a major impact on our culture’s view of abortion and adoption.

This movie truly excites me and I pray it will have a major impact on our culture's view of abortion and adoption. I work with pregnant and parenting teen moms including at-risk families who are expecting. It breaks my heart to see the choices some families continue make and I can only think how thier lives would be positively different had they made an adoption plan!

11

Today marks the 11th month we have been waiting for our child(ren) from China. Please keep us in your prayers at this time. We are depressed and wonder when and how God is going to build our family. According to statistics, if the CCAA matches 15 days of log-in days each month as they are saying they are going to do, it will be another 2 years before we get a refferal. It is our prayer that each 1 represented in the number 11 equals a child.

Veterans Day vs. Santa

While visiting the mall and walking out of Bergner's, I heard this band playing "God Bless America". This band's uniform and colors reminded me of my band days at Bowie High School when I was a freshman, so I hung around and listened to them finish their song. They had such a grandiose finish that I shed a tear. What did I shed a tear too? This was their song to honor the veterans who have fought for our freedoms, but to also welcome the kickoff of Santa at the mall! Can you say twisted!

The Shark!

Call me a suckerfor infomercials, but I DISLIKE ( I am being very kind) cleaning our kitchen floor, until I saw the Shark Steam Mop on T. V. and here. Our linoleum floors are white and have dimples in it that harbor dirt. The polish has worn off in well worn spots and leaves these grungy brown spots. It takes LOTS of elbow grease to get the floors in tip top company condition and we have people over weekly for house church and other stuff. After doing some research, of course, I ordered my Shark to see how miraculous it really is. The lavender machine arrived yesterday and it has been put to WORK. I don't want to say it is everything I was expecting it to be, but it does its job. I am still not sure if I am going to keep it, but I will continue to test it for the next 60 days until it must be returned if I decide not to keep it. I think that our floor dimples have not be exfoliated in the proper manner in a long time that it will take a couple of cleanings until it is perfection.

Update: The steam mop works! The floors look whiter and refreshed! It doesn't move as easy as the video demonstrates, but it beats the mop and chemicals! We have been using GREEN cleaning products for many years using Melaleuca Eco Sense products from our seminary days. They go a long way!

Oh Poop!

During the Fall months, Jack has a strange habit of bringing in a leaf or stick each time he comes inside. He will wait at the backdoor to open, you open it, and then he runs and grabs some piece of nature! He prances around strutting his stuff until you take away the mystery object! What did he grab tonight? A piece of POOP! Poor Abby had no idea she would take a piece of poop out of his mouth! Of course he then turned on his charm and got all cute and rolled over for a belly rub!

Introducing...Manbug Jack!

Jack was a manbug for Halloween this year, the male version of a ladybug. He was so incredibly CUTE in his costume and LOVED greeting all the kids at the door! This was a HUGE relief for us since he has not been keen of kids in the past, a concern we have had. Boys are slower to mature and this is also being shown in dogs! All the trick-or-treaters wanted to pet Jack and we even had one girl ask, "Was your dog a lobster last year?" We couldn't believe it...she remembered Jackson! Yes, Jack was a lobster last year...red is his favorite color!

Refferals are In!

Many families got to see pictures of their little one for the first time today! Boy are they CUTE! The CCAA matched through December 8, 2005, so we are a few days short of being a year away from LID's with a 12-11-06 Log-In-Date. It would be nice if we are only a year away from a referral! We keep reminding ourselves that anything can happen! My teen moms that I work with at the area HS's ask me week after week if we have heard anything. I keep saying it will be another year or so, but it does not sink in their minds! Many of them have been on this journey with Troy and I since the beginning and are just as eager for us to be parents!

Good-bye Dell! Hello Toshiba!!!!!!!!!

We did it! We couldn't wait any longer, so Merry Christmas Roenfanz family! The Christmas tree will look bare this year, but it is hard to survive (for us anywase) without a home computer! Troy does have a laptop for business at home, but we don't want to use it for personal reasons! So after a bunch of research online and checking out Consumer Reports, we settled on a Toshiba! Circuit City had an INCREDIBLE deal in which we got the computer, a wireless printer and Microsoft Office for less then a $1000! We already have one printer, but you can't pass up a FREE one!

Regarding our Dell, it is TOAST! According to them, our motherboard is dead. The model we had experienced one problem after another!