Bon Voyage Blake

Joel's brother Blake is headed to Ethiopia! He will be teaching French at a Christian International school called the Bingham Academy in Addis Ababa. He is affiliated with Mission to the World and expects to stay for at least 6 months, possibly up to year. We will really miss him... and Baby Harper REALLY wants to meet her Uncle Blake once she's born. But we're excited to see how God will use Blake over in Addis Ababa, and we will be praying for him everyday!

Blake has started a blog where you can keep up with his Ethiopian adventures: www.blakeinaddis.blogspot.com

Christmas at the White House

One of the great many perks with serving as an appointee in the Bush Administration is the opportunity to visit the White House at Christmas (when it's otherwise impossible to get a tour). We've been privileged to see the White Christmas decorations for the last 4 or 5 years, and it's always such a highlight of the season.

Every year there is a theme and this year's was "A Red, White, and Blue Christmas". I have to say, although it was pretty, it wasn't my favorite year. The decorations were all Americana-inspired and done in patriotic colors. Very elegant, but just didn't feel as Christmasy to me. But as always, we really enjoyed seeing the beautiful decorations. So for those of you that didn't catch the HGTV special hosted by Mrs. Bush which showcases all the decorations, consider this your own personal tour of the White House!




A patriotic Santa greets you as you walk in.


Wreaths hung by American eagles line the hallway looking out onto the Rose Garden.

The Vermeil Room (named so because of the vermeil-plated collection of silver that is showcased in this room, along with some of the First Lady portraits.)

The Library.

The East Room. You can kinda see the White House creche behind me in the picture, to the right of the tree.

The Green Room.

The official 2008 White House Christmas Tree. It's always displayed in the Blue Room and decorated consistent with that year's theme. This year, each state made a series of ornaments depicting the history of that particular state. Very pretty! (Interesting factoid: the chandelier in the Blue Room is temporarily removed during the holidays to accommodate the tree. The tree lights are actually wired through the ceiling where the chandelier hangs... wish I could do that at my house!).

The view of the Truman balcony and the National Mall from the Blue Room.

The Red Room (my personal favorite).

The State Dining Room.

A close-up of the topiaries that decorated the White House... they were very cute!

Each year, the White House pastry chef makes a gingerbread White House. It's always a little different each year, but always equally magnificent.

Standing in Cross Hall under the Presidential Seal.

Several trees and garland decorate Cross Hall.

The stairs up to the First Family's residence.

The White House is actually very "white". The bricks are gleaming literally gleaming white.

Even the Eisenhower Executive Office building where the White House Staff works (and where my old office was) gets decorated. This is such a neat, historic building... only one of a few French 2nd Empire-style buildings in the city.

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Hope you enjoyed your holiday "tour"! Sadly, with the new Administration coming in January, my days of White House tour-giving are over! :(

Baby Brawner #3!

We recieved from very exciting news at Thanksgiving... my sister Alison and her husband Jason are expecting their third child! Baby Brawner is expected to make his debut in early June. We think it's so fun that we're pregnant together (although this puts a wrinkle into sharing maternity clothes...hmmm). We were out shopping at Target and both like the same purple sweater, so Mom was nice enough to buy us each one. Even though Alison isn't quite showing yet, we believe this is first and last joint pregnacy picture. How fun, huh?



Twinkie pregger sisters.



The Glass fam is all smiles over 2 more grandchildren!

Boomer Sooner!

We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving in Oklahoma and were able to make it down to Norman for the OU-Texas Tech game. What a game! It was awesome and its always so great to be back in Norman!

The best part of being in Norman was the mini-Diggity reunion with the Weatherholts and the Smiths. I miss them SO much, and it was so fun to shop around Campus Corner and have dinner together before the game.

Giving Boomer and Sooner a quick pat before the game.

The PRIDDDDDDDDDE of Oklahoma!

It was COLD but really fun!

Touchdown! (One of many that night!)

Edmond Baby Shower

My mother-in-laws' very sweet friends hosted a darling baby shower for us in Edmond the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was so much fun, and people were so incredibly generous. It was a wonderful afternoon, and I am very blessed!


Suzanne and I in front of the darling spread-- all black and white gingham with pink to match the invitations. There was a delicious cake from Raspberries and Cream, monogrammed cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, and yummy pink punch. The baby LOVED all the sweets-- she kicked all through the shower!


The sweet ladies who hosted the shower.

Taryn and little Elle (the youngest guest!) and sweet Libby who drove up from Tulsa.

Some of my oldest Edmond friends-- Jenny Gray Ferguson and Marianne Gray Sharpe.

So many fun gifts! People we SO generous, and we are most appreciative. Now where will I put all of this stuff? :)

Preggers Update

All is well on the pregnancy front. The baby is growing right along schedule, and she is a very active little gal in there... especially in the evenings. My thrilling job must bore her because she tends to keep a low profile during the day. Joel has gotten to feel her move and kick alot, which is fun. Even little Norman has felt a kick when he rests his head on my belly!


Here I am at 21 weeks.



And a few weeks later (and bigger) at 25 weeks.

Halloween Pics

Norman had a costume for his first Halloween! He went as a sheriff, and we took him trick-or-treating to a few of our friends' houses. He was a big hit in his costume, and actually didn't seem to mind wearing it too much.


Norm in his costume.

It really looked so funny on. People just laughed at him when they saw him....poor guy!

Giving his best "mean sheriff" look.

NYC weekend

We spent a great October weekend in NYC visiting Joel's brother Blake and catching a show. It's hard to beat New York in the fall!


I hadn't been back to see my old apartment since I moved out in 2001! It was as darling as I remember... my roomate and I lived on a quiet (well, quiet for Manhattan) street in the Morningside Heights neighborhood on the Upper West side.


The Columbia University campus, where I studied.

We shopped around the Village and I made Joel and Blake wait in line 30 minutes for a Magnolia Bakery cupcake... Joel was very annoyed! Hey, it was a pregnancy craving! :)

Dinner in Little Italy.

We saw Wicked on Broadway.... it was SO great! The tickets were my 3oth birthday present from Joel's mom that we FINALLY got to use. It was so fun to see!

Desert at Serendipity after the show (after another long wait....45 minutes!)

Strolling through Central Park after church and brunch on Sunday.

It's a....

GIRL!!!!

We were SO excited to find out today that our little peanut is a sweet baby girl! Most important of all, she is perfectly healthy and we got to see all her little organs working together just the way God designed them to. She was very cooperative in showing us that she is indeed a girl, and wanted to make sure there was no uncertainty about it. She was VERY active, dancing and posing for the "camera".... a little ham already!

I'll post some pictures of our little darlin' soon! In the meantime, we are praising God for the incredible blessing of a daughter!

6 Years Ago Today....

....We were married! We had a beautiful wedding day in San Antonio, Texas and we were so blessed to be able to celebrate with so many special family members and dear friends who traveled to be with us on our big day. Six years have FLOWN by, and we praise God for the many ways in which He has richly blessed our marriage!


Our first moment alone as Mr. and Mrs. Pardue!


The Glasses and the Pardues-- our new combined family. (Doesn't everyone look young and fabulous back then?!?) Quick trivia note: my sister Alison was newly pregnant with Jackson in this picutre, who is now 5 1/2 years old and a big brother to Mollie Jane!


Off to our fabulous honeymoon in St. Maarten... wish we could be back there now!

Baby Bump

Just within the last week, I have officially transitioned into finally looking pregnant (as opposed to just chubby)! Now the countdown is on until October 3rd when we find out whether Baby Pardue is a boy or a girl.... we can't wait!


Not showing much at 11 weeks along...



...but sporting a little bump just 5 weeks later!

Norman gets "tutored"

At 8 months old, it was finally time. Yep, you guessed it... poor Norman lost his manhood. Of course we didn't tell him that he was going in to get neutered, but instead described it as a "tutoring" session. Norm came back a little groggy, and HATED wearing the Elizabethan collar we had to keep on him for a few days to keep him from licking his stitches. But otherwise he was no worse for the wear and back to his spunky self after a few days.


Pure misery with the collar... he moped and whined and put on a huge fuss when we put it on him. What a baby!



Back to his sweet self and waiting for a game of chase up and down the stairs.

Joel's 32nd Birthday

We spent Labor Day weekend at Aunt Debbie and Uncle Durwood's house on the River. It was a great place to ring in Joel's big Three-Two, and Norman was thrilled to come along. The best surprise came when we arrived on Saturday morning to discover that Joel's brother Blake had secretly flown down from NYC! It was so fun to have him there, and such a great surprise. And our cousin Abigail, her husband Massey, and sweet baby Lydia also came down, so it was a mini family reunion! (I can't believe we got no pictures with Ab, Mass, and Lydie, though). It was a wonderful weekend and we are so appreciative of Debbie and Dur for having us down to their beautiful home!


Taking a sunset cocktail cruise (note my sweet glass of raspberry lemonade) on Aunt Deb's beloved little retro 1950's boat, the Aqua Belva!


We couldn't keep Norman out of the water-- he LOVED it. He met several friends, including this chocolate lab Bailey, who was his swimming buddy.


Norm even went sailing with us.... he was a natural (although did make it a challenge to balance the boat!)

Sweet Aunt Debbie got him a delicious birthday cake.

Joel got lots of great b-day loot. Check out his new humidor on the left-- a gift from Blake and Logan. I got him a gift card to the golf store to pick out a new golf bag... kinda boring, but that's what he wanted!