Jackson strikes again!

"Mom, what do you call it when you put corn on a swan's head?"

:: I have a confused look on my face ::

"Corn on the cob!"

:: I look at him like he has a third eye ::

"MooOOoommm!! A male swan is called a COB. It has CORN on his head, GET IT?"

with this "duuuhh" look on his face.

I ruined it. Sorry bud, mom's just not that smart.

My twitter philosophy

I try to be a good tweep, I really do. I very much enjoy Twitter and if I'm not careful it can dominate huge chunks of time out of my day. Since joining Twitter in march and seeing how everything "works", I have come up with a tweet-relationship policy that works for me. I follow people because I enjoy their tweets. I do not follow people with the expectation that they are going to follow me back. This whole "I'll follow you if you follow me" game frankly, bugs me. I do not want to follow real estate tweets, I am the least interested in real estate. If a real estate representative is a conservative Christian who follows politics, they would LOVE to read my @CalvaryGirl account. A Christian who does not care for politics would enjoy my @myflydays account, as it is "politics free".

I've learned that there are people who will only follow you IF you are following them. I'm sorry, I do not mean offense towards those of you who roll that way, I do not. I find that to be a relationship of forced intentions. Do not make me be your friend, I'll make that decision on my own.

I do get the emails from Twitter saying when someone is following you. I am three weeks behind. At first I was guilting myself for not getting through them fast enough but I learned something. You see I follow @tless, Twitter Less, an application that sends you a weekly email of those who have dropped you. I've found DoesFollow.com, a site in which you enter a user's name, and your name, and it will show if that person is following you or not.

This is my "system":

• When I get my TwitterLess notification, I open that page for "the list". I used to feel bad cause I would look at people's profiles, and possibly start following a couple of profiles- and they would re-follow me. That's when I caught on. That was the game.
• Now, after opening the list, I open DoesFollow, and verify that these people are indeed not following me. If TWO apps says no, I believe it can be accurate.
• I then go to my email, and do a search for that user name. What I have found is that 99% of these people who are dropping me have started following me over the weekend. Since I participate in #followfriday, I realize that it is an opportunity for people to "network". It is also an opportunity for people to play the "I'll follow you if you follow me" game, too. What I realized is when I started following people after they dropped me, that they would happily be my friend again- which makes me doubt whether they actually pay attention to what I tweet in the first place. If they do not, then they really do me no good then, do they? They are just a number in my follower's list, and I do not care about that.

My solution? That "John Doe is following you" email is deleted. So when I DO sit down, and start going through the emails and following new people, I am following people who are more likely following me because they WANT to be following me. If I find their tweets comparable to my interests, then I will follow them back. I do not follow everyone back, and I understand that not everyone who I follow, will want to follow ME back, either.

What liberal leaning "green" mom is going to want to follow a right leaning new political activist who believes in conservation of our resources (and organic freak) but does NOT believe global warming is real? Likely, none. (I realize the hybrid I am!) But depending on the topics of their tweets (organic food 80% of the time, supports @wholefoods despite the stupid boycott, for example), I will follow them. That was a big part in my inspiration in creating a separate account. Us moms can differ on politics and still do our best to be the best parents our children can have, and enjoy foodie and mama talk. Common ground can be found.

If those who have unfollowed me actually have a profile I might enjoy, eventually, I'll run into it. And follow it. and they can follow me back if they choose.

Dear piano knowledgeable friends:

I need your help. We are looking to put Hannah in piano lessons, but need to get a piano. I've seen some ads in the paper for pianos between $300-$500. The one for $500 says "excellent condition". Does this sound like appropriate prices for a piano? I envisioned more than that myself, but I do not know anything about pianos.

Help?

Kitchen conversations epi 1

Hannah: "Mommy!!! I don't WANT vegetables in my chicken!!"

Jackson (as he is standing at the stove stirring the stiry fry): "Hannah don't you want to be healthy? You're gonna get the FLU and be out of school for two months. Then you're gonna have to make up ALL that work!"

:: I snort ::

Jackson: "Whuut? I'm trying to act more like a father ..."

:: I am trying not to lose it, as I'm headed to the bedroom to post this ::

Jackson from the kitchen across the house: "I AM going to be in COLLEGE in eight years ya know!"

553 Cool Verses: Praise Psalm of David

1 Chronicles 16

7Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.

8Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people.

9Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works.

10Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD.

11Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.

12Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth;

13O ye seed of Israel his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones.

14He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth.
________________________________

23Sing unto the LORD, all the earth; shew forth from day to day his salvation.

24Declare his glory among the heathen; his marvellous works among all nations.

25For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods.

26For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

27Glory and honour are in his presence; strength and gladness are in his place.

28Give unto the LORD, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength.

29Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

30Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.

31Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: and let men say among the nations, The LORD reigneth.

32Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof: let the fields rejoice, and all that is therein.

33Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the LORD, because he cometh to judge the earth.

34O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.

35And say ye, Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen, that we may give thanks to thy holy name, and glory in thy praise.

36Blessed be the LORD God of Israel for ever and ever. And all the people said, Amen, and praised the LORD.

Seek, and you'll find

John 3

15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

19And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

21But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Something was said today about "seeker sensitive" churches, and I just run across this passage in my reading. I've always doubted the "seeker" movement because God is good just as He is, for the young and old. A four year old thinks a circus is great, and wants to go. But we should not be making our churches proverbial circuses so people might want to come. If a church is presenting the gospel in a clear, loving but straight forward manner, then those who are wanting to find God, IS going to find God.

What happens when they do not accept Him is when they are not ready to give up control in their lives, I believe. That control that makes you feel like you're doing to have to "do-do-do" once you become a Christian. They might accuse the church of being "judgmental" when its completely possible that the holy spirit is convicting them of their sins, and they are trying to deflect the attention of their sinful nature the spirit is bringing to their minds. They know that God looks at sin as evil, bad, but they are too comfortable with their sin to want to acknowledge the fact if they were right with God, they would eventually give it up. Who likes change, anyway? Most people don't. They let fear of the "how -to's" of the "do-do-do's" boggle their mind down to think they must do some cleaning up of their acts before they are "ready" to get saved. (There is never a wrong time to be saved!)

So they put it off. This is when some people become bitter in their refusal to acknowledge the working of the holy spirit on their conscious. I truly believe these are the "Christian-haters". We've all seen them, I'm sure. The ones who jump the gun and insult anything and everything that could possibly have anything to do with God. Public prayer, conservatism (though, hard to believe but not all conservatives are Christian!), so forth. They HATE the light, in truth. They do not HATE Christians, they hate what Christians stand for. God is their kryptonite and if they were truthful with themselves, they could realize the deep rooted reasons behind their response to anything holy.

But those who WANT to know the truth, will find the truth. God will see to it. There are testimonies of people in third world countries who knew there was a creator and called to whoever it was that created them to show Himself to them, and then a missionary arrives to share the gospel with them and they confess their sin and get saved. That's the problem in this country, I believe. People expect entertainment as the world knows it when they go to the place of worship, and somehow, they miss the truth. Churches today need to stop looking at the "do-do-do's" of how to get people to come to church, and they need to start looking at the "how to's" the bible presents us with and run with it.

Acts 1:8
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

"God is like electricity, you cannot see him, but you can still see the light"

-- a former "they"

$100 Dicks Sporting Goods giveaway

Feisty, Frugal, and Fabulous is hosting a giveaway for Dick's Sporting Goods. It's very easy, follow Dicks on Twitter (link in giveaway post) and in your comment share what you would buy. Oh how easy that was for me!

I could blow $100 wide open there in hunting supplies alone! I might get Jay a new hunting blind; or maybe some archery targets (for me and Jackson), or perhaps a lot of smaller miscellaneous things that will be needed during the season.

Or some girlie looking outdoors stuff. Or the kid's some new soccer supplies. Oh the possibilities are endless at that store. It's Jay's "happy place".

I can't believe I done that

A few weeks ago I was looking through the upcoming themes for the I Heart Faces contests, and was really excited to see "bubbles" as a category. As you know bubbles has been a big theme on this blog lately. I spent Monday and Tuesday at the kid's school helping the teachers get ready for school open house Tuesday night and school starting on Thursday. Monday night I had visitation, and last night was open house. What did I do? I forgot to put up and enter my entry! I had the perfect picture!-

I love it. Amanda has some darling pictures and her entry up, toodle over there and check hers out!

Message to our children

I love King David. Out of all of the people in the bible, I am drawn to David most. The Lord saw fit to show him at his best, and at his worst. Though David he shows the potential we have as humans to be righteous, pleasing to God, on the mountaintop, as well as in the valleys, at our worst with sin in our lives taking rule. Having clinical depression, I relate with David greatly because after reading about him you can see the same highs and lows in him that a Christian dealing with clinical depression would have in their own lives. David "makes it real".

I'm reading in Chronicles now, and run into David's charge to Solomon for when he will become King over Israel. I am wowed each time I read about David, and this time is no exception. David tells Solomon what we all should be telling our children (and remember for ourselves!):

1 Chronicles 28
9And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

20And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD.

What comfort and security is to be found in these verses! David in these verses was leaving a legacy of holiness to his child, assurance of the faithfulness of our God. He not only tells him how good God is, but how HOLY he is as well. Oftentimes we tend to forget to remind our children how HOLY God is.

Lately I have been reminding our children when things are not going well for them, how what they are experiencing could possibly be the result of unconfessed sin in their life that they have not repented from. In my own life it has been hard enough to keep that in the forefront of my own life, I want to train my children to have that thought second nature unlike their mom's experience. I don't want them to forget that our God will not tolerate sin in our lives, and when we walk in sin and with self centered prideful attitudes, we lose our fellowship with God and our prayers will be hindered.

Likewise, I want them to be confident of the faithfulness of our God. This is why it is important to always remind them when God's faithfulness is being revealed in our lives. We experienced the loss of an infant family member just a number of months ago, that we were very close with and spent an unordinary amount of time with. That tragedy was devastating to our family and I've felt as if I lost one of my own children. It's one thing to experience the loss of an infant as an adult, but imagine what goes through the mind of a tender 6 year old girl's heart when thinking about God allowing a baby to die. Imagine feeling helpless as you watch her go through the motions of grief, not really knowing what do to but praying without ceasing! Yet, time heals all hurts. It is when I see her able to look at the baby's picture, and not burst into uncontrollable tears, I am able to show her how God has helped her in her grief. How God has given her peace in her heart to be able to start thinking about how much she loved the baby, without having the overwhelming thoughts of how much she misses it.

God is so good, so faithful, and so true to us. We don't know why God allowed the baby to die, but we do know he done it for His glory. That, we can count on. He started a work in us the day the baby died, and one day we might be able to minister to another family that experienced the same thing we did. One day my daughter might be able to comfort a classmate that does not know Christ, who experienced the loss of an infant in their life. I want my children to understand and be confident that when they seek the Lord, they will find Him. That as long as they are seeking Him, He will finish the work He started in them until the day He returns. *

Originally posted September 16, 2008

New Wallpaper

I am so ready for fall. I believe as soon as school starts it should turn over to fall. However, the Lord didn't design it like that, we have a little while to wait, huh? That doesn't have to stop me from starting on fall designs now though, right? I hope not because I got a darling freebie from Digital Freebies that just screams fall to me, so I created a new wallpaper with it:

View a larger version of it here.

If you like this, you have until this Thursday to download it for yourself here, for free!

I'm also going to be switching my Twitter background to a version of this soon. I thought this was "man" enough for Jay to have as his background for his desktop too- what do you think? I'm planning on offering this (minus our pictures) as a freebie but I thought some wordart would look good where the pictures would be.

What quote would be good for this wallpaper? any suggestions?

Got Purse-onality?

My church had a ladies fellowship called "Got Purse-onality?". Everyone was to bring one (or more) new, or lightly used purse for a purse swap. We had a potluck dinner and our Pastor's wife gave a nice devotion. I had a very good time. The decorations were adorable. We're very fortunate to have such talented, creative ladies in our ladies ministry. I am so grateful for my sisters in Christ!

Our fellowship hall used to be the auditorium until we bought an old grocery store and remodeled it a half a mile from the building shown. The school is behind this building, and they have chapel here every week / day.

The tables were decorated so pretty.

I like that last sentence in the instructions ;-)

lots of PURSES!

me and Lizzy.

Turn and wait

"Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment and wait on thy God continually."
Hosea 12:6

Family Friday: Girls Day Out

It's Family Friday time again! Family Friday is hosted by HomemakerBarbi.com, thank you Danielle! Danielle has also launched two new sites in recent weeks you might want to check out:

And Freebies For All (and)

Mommy Blogger

I'm excited about today. I'm actually behind on my day right now but that's how it's been all week it seems! I learned about Crazy 8 children's clothing a few months ago. We are huge Gymboree fans, and this is a "sister store" of Gymboree. I received an email via Gymboree on Wednesday that a Crazy 8 store was opening in the next city, yay!! Not only that but a $10 off of $30 purchase coupon, too! So Hannah and I are headed off in a little while to do some back to school shopping. The kids are going back to their private Christian school this year. They have went there their whole school careers except for this past year when they went to a charter school, and that was not a very good experience for Jackson.

Hannah and I went shopping last weekend since it was tax free weekend, and I was amazed at how much money we saved in school supplies. We literally spend half as much money, or more (versus what we did last year), not counting book bags. It made me wonder- how is it that this small, private school can accomplish so much more with so much less, than the large public charter school? Of course the answer was easy- God is behind the small private school and is an integral part of its daily operation, He isn't in the public school. We're very excited about the upcoming school year that starts on the 20th. I've been helping Jackson's teacher this week get the classroom ready and its been a great blessing.

We've recent had a big family event happen: Braden turned three! Braden is our great nephew, brother to ^Jordan^.

Check out the recent Braden posts from his birthday and videos from the party:

Happy Birthday Braden!

You might be a redneck IF ...

Braden's birthday (Thomas the train is yummy)

Braden and bubbles

We've also reached a milestone with food. Hannah asked me yesterday if I can get her a Sigg bottle to send her water to school for lunch, because she has started to like drinking water. Praise the Lord! Miracles never cease. Read more about the recent food revelations.

Have a great weekend! I look forward to reading your Family Friday posts, be sure to leave your links with your comments!

Megyn Kelly takes on dep WH Press Secretary

Megyn Kelly, my favorite news anchor, grills deputy White House press secretary concerning the collection of emails this morning on America's Newsroom:

Megyn talking about it on O'Reilly tonight:

I find it interesting in the first clip the gentleman accusing Megyn of getting out of sorts when clearly megyn held control of the interview, focus, and facts on the matter.

You?

Just love God

Deuteronomy 10
12And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

13To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

15Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

Why is it we have such a hard time just loving God? Why do we tend to look at him like this big boogey man in the sky ready to strike us down for the least indiscretion? Or worse, only look to Him in times of trial? Or only mention Him when the unexplainable happens, the big things? When those big things happen, and He is mentioned, why is He only looked at as a "mystery"? There's very little mystery to God! If you draw close to him through His Word, you will understand the things of life. You will be able to appreciate not only the big miracles in life, but appreciate the little things that work out as well. You will be able to thank Him after you go to the office fridge hoping there's water in there and not only soft drinks, because He worked that out for you. No, He did not "magically" put it in the fridge as you were walking to it, but he knew you would want water when you had your snack so He saw to it that water was put in the fridge and cold before you even thought of it. YES, that's God!

When you love someone, your thoughts are continually on that person. If there ever was a person we should love with everything we have and continually have our thoughts on, it should be Jesus Christ. He died for our sins. We could be looking forward to an eternal lake of fire when we died, but because He loved us, He died for our sins so we could spend eternity in heaven with Him in glory. God is holy, and cannot be in the presence of sin. We are BORN in sin, and only until we accept that fact and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will not have the assurance of our eternity in heaven when we die. It is only through the blood, it does not matter how good or nice of a person we were when we lived, only that the blood of Christ washed our sins away.

Romans 5:12

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Lets come to a point where we truly appreciate this fact. When we are able to grasp just what was done for us, and just how perfect our God is, we can truly start to love Him. If we focus on getting to know Him better, just like in a relationship, we will continually "fall" deeper and deeper in love. Sin will bother us, because we will be more transformed into His image, and God cannot be in the presence of sin. As a result of being so close to him, the trials will be more bearable, and life will be more peaceable. Our perspectives will change for the wiser, and we will gain a deeper burden for the lost.

Acts 3:19

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

The lost is where God's burden is, that is why He sent His son to die for us. He wants us to be with Him. We need to be His messengers, but until we appreciate what He has done for us, how can we share with others what He can do for them?

How can you convince someone something tastes good, when you have not tasted it yourself? Why would I want to buy an item you have told me was just "ok"?

Psalm 34:8

"O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him"

People need to SEE God in our lives. If we are not loving Him, then people SEE that we are not loving Him. When was the last time you praised Him in someone Else's presence? When was the last time you explained to someone why you do, or do not do something because of your God-lead convictions? How often do you read your bible? How important is church attendance in your life? What are the things you put before church functions ... and serving the Lord? Are you afraid of what others might say when you throw a "monkey wrench" in plans because of your dedication to church and / or ministry? Do not let foolish pride keep you from growing closer to the one who holds your life in His hands.

Love Him. Just love God.

Tell Me Thursday: Here kitty kitty

Tell Me Thursday is hosted by tellmethursday.com , be sure to hop over and see other participant's posts! Last week I was missing the beach, this week, Im introducing you to some family pets. Yep, you heard right!

Yesterday you saw Sheba and baby. Braden's (2) (paternal) grandparents own them. They have had wildlife in their back yard for ten years or better now. Sheba I believe is about that old. The baby's father is Charlie, who passed away a few months ago. They have a number of acres "out in the country" , very pretty area.

The view from the driveaway / back yard behind the house:

Hannah visiting Charlie last year ('08):

Charlie- there are two rows of fencing that are cemented a few feet into the ground for support:

Charlie- he was such a beautiful animal:

Part of the field and the shed where the deer used to live:

Chilling townhall comments

If you listen to nothing else, listen to the first man who speaks in this video. I heard it on the radio yesterday out running errands and got chills down my arms. From what I have been seeing apparently it's UnAmerican of our elder citizens to raise their voices towards our elected officials at these town halls. I think not. This is probably the first time these men and women have gotten involved in the civic process after watching the decline of our country for a good long while. They have a right to be this passionate, and even loud. It's quite an act of hypocrisy to say these people should remain calm, when ACORN and the like shout and are as loud as they are. What this video doesn't show that I saw on another clip was a man coming behind the first gentleman and grabbed him by the arms and tried to shove him down. Yeh, THAT'S patriotic!

Katy Abram, the lady speaking in the blue shirt, actually got a call on her cell phone yesterday (the day this was filmed) with someone calling her a racist. A Racist? Really? What in the world does race have to do with not wanting the executive branch of your country to take an unprecedented power grab into the loves of its citizens? In my experience, when some have no reasonable argument, they result to calling names, plain and simple. I believe the maturity level never reached above high school in those instances. Enjoy the video.

They sure don't look like astroturf, or paid by anyone.

Feel free to leave your thoughts, or tweet this post using this URL: http://bit.ly/7FhFs

Wordless Wednesday: Here kitty kitty

Find more Wordless Wednesday posts at WordlessWednesday.com, The Not So Blog, and Five Minutes For Mom. Come back tomorrow for Tell Me Thursday: About Wordless Wednesday, and learn the story behind these pics!

Food revelations

Last week I mentioned some of the changes Hannah has come upon in recent weeks. She is doing very well with food these days. She used to be very, very picky with food. Processed and junk foods are of the devil, I'm starting to believe. I've done a lot of reading over time about food, and what's best for the body and I'm starting to really appreciate the wisdom the Lord will give us especially as mothers when we ask for it, concerning how to raise our children, including what goes in their bellys. I'm not an average weight by far, and this has been a personal struggle for me in recent years. I am just not comfortable in my own skin. I have learned that one person in a family cannot combat their battles and trials alone- it takes the whole family to do it. Yes, everyone is responsible for their choices, but when it comes to strife in the home, if one's choices are not respected then not everyone is going to benefit in the situation.

My brother in law has been staying with us in the past few weeks. Monday a week ago, he treated the kids and I to Arby's. Since last Monday, we had not eaten fast food at all until Sunday night. I had cooked everything at home. I also tried some new recipes last week that worked well. One, which was something I come up with on my own- not so good. I got halfway through my Wendy's chicken sandwich when I realized, I truly was not enjoying that sandwich like I used to. Jay had even made sure the fries and sandwich were fresh, but it was different. My taste buds had already started changing. By the time I went to bed, my stomach was bothering me.

Yesterday, (Monday) Hannah and I went out to eat with my parents. I got what I usually order at this particular restaurant, "real" chicken tenders fried greek style, and crispy french fries. Same thing. I did not have the same enjoyment I used to have eating that meal. Furthermore, I felt like a block of lead was sitting in my stomach. Last night at a church dinner I attended- same thing. "Normal"- non whole foods, and by the time I got home last night I was in cramps!

In my head I knew this was a likely occurance for someone who had been eating primarily whole foods (as in, foods closest to their natural state, not "from" Whole Foods.) I realized, last week, no one complained about what I fixed, and everyone ate what was fixed and liked it. Yes, there was one night Jay fixed fried potatoes and onions, but beyond that- chicken from the grill, salads, watermelon for dessert. Great stuff. Beyond Hannah, Jay is the greatest whole food critic in this house. The times he was "exposed" to the foods I fixed (which, actually weren't many), he did not complain. He has no idea how far that has went for me and how encouraged I am right now with this food revelation: It can be done, you do feel better, and you can keep doing it.

Because when you are not the overweight one, the food issues really shouldn't be about you. It should be about who needs the biggest benefit from the food being fixed. Because nothing tastes as good as being healthy / skinny / thin feels.

This post is shared at Heavenly Homemakers for Gratituesday. Now hop on over to Carrie and Amy Lynne's blog and see what they're thankful for this week :)

Braden and bubbles

We got Braden a Winnie The Pooh bubble wand for his birthday. That thing is HUGE. I want one! It is one of those things where you wouldn't pay for your own kids to have one, but because it's a gift, the price is justified. Am I the only one that thinks like that? (I hope not!) He LOVED his bubbles. I knew he would. Because I'm the "cool" aunt and cool aunts get the best stuff for birthdays, right? Ok, that's what I tell myself at least. I mentioned before loving to hear him talk. We don't get to spend much time with him anymore and weren't around really when he started talking in sentences and so forth, so I really enjoyed this. Three year old giggles are so adorable!!

The UNAmerican father

This is the Michigan father who Pelosi calls UnAmerican, and his congressman calls a troublemaker:

Thoughts?

Braden's birthday

More video from Braden's third birthday (our great nephew). What a cutie.

I<3Faces: Crazy and Silly

This weeks theme is "crazy and silly".

Meet Haley :o)

Click here for the before and after.

crazy and silly: before and after

It didn't take me long to remember these pictures from our beach trip to know which one to enter for this week's iheartfaces challenge. Haley and Hannah got silly at Taylor's birthday dinner and this picture got snapped:

"Before":

I applied the Pioneer Woman's "cooler" action twice, then applied an unsharp mask using these settings:

After duplicating the layer, I applied her "Slight Sharpen" action;

duplicating again, I appled the "Define and Sharpen" action, reducing that layer to 25%;

duplicating again, I applied the "Dim the Lights" action, and reduced the fill on that layer to 50% and the opacity to 66%.

another pic caught:

Michelle Malkin on The View

Did anyone catch this? I don't watch the view so I happened upon it via youtube. Michelle was on The View this week to promote her new book. This is wonderful. As Glenn Beck would say: "pudding".

Be sure to click below your thoughts!

O'Reilly calls liberals out for hypocrisy

With all the manufactured outrage of liberal groups towards the concerned, passionate citizens showing up at town halls in an attempt to communicate with their elected officials concerning the current health care debate, Bill O'Reilly calls them out for the hypocrisy they are showing:

Urban deer part two

More pictures of my surprise visit from our herd of deer on my birthday. View the first batch of pictures.

I love walking by my back door during deer season and seeing this view. I've missed it greatly since the early Spring. In September into October of last year Jackson and I would sit in lawn chairs between the back door and corner of the garage (close to that little hill where the buck pictures are taken) and they will wander by us. "Moe" will watch us closely while the rest graze and enjoy theirselves. One day I counted ten while we were out there, it almost got a little creepy when they started staring at us!

"You get away from us!" :)

Thier colors are so beautiful.

There's our boy. Oh he's so gorgeous, I so hope we will be seeing a lot of him this year.

I'm pretty sure Im going to create a layout of prints to hang in the livingroom of this set, especially of this last picture. It's my absolute favorite.

Which one do you like best between these and the first ones?

Timothy dreaming

We have an over sized chair we got from freecycle. It's so over sized, we've discussed a number of times how out of place it looks in the living room, and it's too big to fit through the kid's bedroom doors, and too big for our bedroom. When we start redecorating ... or decorating, should I say, we'll eventually get rid of it. But it's so comfortable. VERY comfortable. But it's an eyesore now. Why? Cause it's the cats' chair. (Translate: picked to death from claws) Both of them, but mainly Timothy. That's where you'll find him. It's not uncommon to see him on one arm and Titus on another. This chair sits beside Jay's recliner, where I like to do my bible reading in the morning. I caught this video on one of our recently quiet, calm mornings. It was so quiet you can hear the camera zooming!

Not earth shattering or necessarily hilarious, but I thought it was cute. If you liked it, be sure to click so below this post :)

Burger King kicks baby out

Imagine being out in a large group of twenty five, with your mother and six month old baby. You are on your way to a show and stop for a bite to eat at your local Burger King. You are standing in line about to order when the manager tells you that you cannot dine in because the baby you are carrying does not have shoes on. The baby, that does not walk. You explain that the baby does not own shoes, and the manager continues to harass you after your group has ordered and you are sitting there eating. "that lady with that baby with no shoes is still here", an employee says, as the manager tells you he will call the police if you do not leave with your shoeless baby. As a result, your group of 25 hurries to finish so you all can leave.

Yes, Burger King manager of Missouri, the sign says "no shirt, no shoes, no service". The baby wasn't receiving service! It's mother was! How far down the intellectual chain has fast food corporations went, when they have to actually explain to managers that such policies do not apply to babies? It used to be a respectful profession- fast food restaurant manager, with many challenges and rewards. What has happened?

Recent reports says that Burger King has apologized to the mother. They would like her to come back for the "royal treament", including free food. My question is- what about the 25 other people who had to eat in a hurry because they were with this mother, baby, and grandmother? Will they receive free food, too? They were, afterall, forced to dine under duress.

View the video of the interview with the mom here-

You might be a redneck IF ...

I'll let the video speak.

This is from Braden's birthday party last weekend:

Tell Me Thursday: Missing the beach

Tell Me Thursday is hosted by tellmethursday.com , be sure to hop over and see other participant's posts!

Last week I shared about family fun day. This week, I'm thinking about how much I'd love to go back to the beach! We went to the beach with my BFF and her kids and nieces. It was me, her, and nine kids. It was quite the trip and we had a wonderful time. The weather was so beautiful. We are planning on going for the full week next year. The place where we stayed has three bedroom condos upstairs from the level we were on with the two bedrooms this year. We're planning on getting a two bedroom and they're going to get a three bedroom. If everything goes right Jackson is going to take a friend so he will have someone to play with. I'm excited already :)

Although the beach is wonderful for summer, so is the mountains. We love visiting Banner Elk (North Carolina), too. My parents have a timeshare there. We honeymooned there, and have spent a good number of weekend trips there. It's become tradition for us to go up there in September. Last year it was November and it snowed! I've already made the mental note to take some board games and extra movies if we go in November again.

Are you scared yet?

I've mentioned the current health care debate before. This is far from over, and more and more people are becoming involved in this debate by contacting their representatives. Have you gotten involved yet? I'll throw a disclaimer out here for my Canadian friends- I love you and have no disrespect towards you. But I do not want socialized or nationalized health care. At all. There are a great number of Canadians that are speaking out now, not wanting America to go down that route, either.

This is not the last step towards fixing our health care system. No, it is not perfect. Yes, it needs changes, but socialized / nationalized care / government mandates is NOT the answer. This post is very worth reading:

"A Look At Some Items In The Socialized Medicine Bill" (HR3200) Blog post (alternate link)

There are a number of reform bills that have been introduced by republicans, but they are shut out in DC. The democrats refuse to debate the introduced bills or even discuss it. They are not even allowed allotted time to speak on the house floor, anymore. It's their way or the highway. This is why it is so important to have a "clean sweep" in next year's elections. To vote in people who represent the people, and not their own ideologies and personal purposes. People who will not have those pesky voters removed from their offices, but will stop and listen to them.

People who acknowledge that there are people that might disagree with them, but won't publically hold a character assasination straight out of Alinsky's playbook. Ridicule just shows how little you really are DNC!

re:

Cause let me explain something to you (those who put out this ad, or supports this ad):

I cannot be "back", I was never "there".

I didn't "lose" the election, I was not running. Furthermore, I voted for the bottom of the Republican ticket, NOT the top!

I never battled over the Recovery Act, I became an activist after the Act was signed.

YOU done NOTHING for Children's Healthcare but CONTINUE what a REPUBLICAN started to begin with.

I never had the confidence of the Americans, I was never an elected leader.

Eight years = I had nothing to do with. I'm not very happy with that crowd, either.

YOU had JUST as much to do with THIS failed economy as republicans, moreso since 2006 when YOU took the majorty. WAKE UP!

YOUR policies are costing Americans EVEN MORE jobs NOW! Can we say stimulus lies?

The election win was not "overwhelmingly".

NO ONE has told me to show up ANYWHERE- I do so because I AM a citizen concerned about her country- because I don't trust YOU with it as far as I can throw you!

The White House has now started asking for people to report those who oppose Obamacare:

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

My question is: what are they going to do with this information once they get it? Oddly enough, the original message included "or in casual conversation ..." oh but that did not go well over the weekend. So they adjusted themselves. Maybe they'll keep adjusting them selves until they realize free speech is free speech?

Lastly, this post, "Stupidly Retarded", is a hoot. She writes with all the sarcasm I just dream of writing with. I'm not that brave, but she is ;) Enjoy!

My birthday party

My birthday was last Thursday. Jay, Hannah and I met some family members for dinner at Applebees. We had a good time visiting together. I had the best birthday in years this year. Here are some of the pictures I caught. Mom has a really good one on her camera I want to snag soon. It's a hoot. All of these pictures were edited in Photoshop CS2 and I used two- three Pioneer Woman Actions, "Boost" from pack one, "warmer" and "seventies" from pack two.

The cheese girl. The girl LOVES cheese. But she's picky. She used to only eat processed American cheese food products. Then I broke the news that it wasn't real cheese. Good thing she's not a die hard Santa player. The cheese thing was hard enough! So she started exploring. We also eat real American cheese now. She likes to be patriotic like that. She loves Monterey Jack cheese in and on everything if she had the choice.

In the last six months, she has grown a love of fried Mozzarella now. Praise God.

You know ... I cannot remember the last time we took a picture this good. Seriously. Not even our wedding pictures were this good. He was smiling, too! Yes, that's a Jay smile for pictures. He usually doesn't smile. That's why you don't see a whole lot of "posed" pictures of us. This was his gift to me.

"Mommy what made you fall in love with daddy?" Hannah has asked. Well here ya go.

This picture also answers the question to how I can have such brown eyes and my children do not. Note: no additional eye filters were done to this picture. Yes, those are real! :)

You can see the rest of the birthday pictures on the Facebook page. Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday: Missing the Beach

GratiTuesday: August 4th

This is one of the easiest posts of the week. God has blessed me with so many wonderful things in my life, picking something out to talk about is easy. Of course I am grateful for my daughter. She's my daughter! I think she's everything I wasn't when I was a little girl. She's all hearts, flowers, balloons ... princesses ... always thinking of others. Her heart is a mile wide. She is the best friend anyone could ask for. Really, she cares SO MUCH about other people. There's a downside to this- it's easy for her to be hurt, too. At the same time, though, those hurts have been teachable moments to show her more about Christ, and about people's need for Christ in the way some treat others. She accepted Christ as her Savior two months before her 6th birthday, and she led herself to Christ. All we done was witness it. It was a precious, precious night for our family.

This past week has been GREAT. Jackson was with one of his uncle's visiting, so it was just me and Hannah here at the house. It was so peaceful. Usually she pecks me to death wanting this, wanting that, complaining about something or another. Not Wednesday. I realized as I was doing my bible reading in the living room, how peacefully quiet it was, even with her three feet away from me in the dining room. She was playing on Pixie Hollow and was as content as she could be. It wasn't like she'd never played on that site, it was just different. We didn't even turn on the TV that day until 4pm. Thursday was the same, and Friday was very close to it. It occurred to me that this new found peace could possibly be her changing, a result of her growing up.

I told Jay in a conversation not long ago how we were on the brink of a number of accomplishments with the kids. We were close to getting on the "other side" of some issues we were trying to overcome. Little things, such as, her insistence on sugary drinks. While we were at the beach I convinced her to drink a glass of water each day to stay hydrated. She's still doing it. As a result, she's not paying as much attention to food during the day because she's able to more accurately tell when she's truly hungry or not. That's big for us, as she was continually snacking through the day, and I believe it was more from potential boredom than true hunger. She's more willing to try new foods, which has ALWAYS been a struggle. The big thing in recent weeks is her relationship with the Lord. No matter where she sits in a church service, she always makes it down to the alter to pray during invitation. That warms my heart SO much. This past week, she brought a friend with her. A friend who is new to church, no less. What a blessing it was to see her be a positive spiritual influence towards another child!

Last week, she also figured out how to make comments on blogs, so you might be seeing links to her new blog posts in the near future. She was so excited about commenting :)

Check out more Gratituesday posts on Heavenly Homemakers.

Tweet what you're thankful for today using the #gratituesday hastag and I'll ReTweet it!