blessed

I just finished reading this article on CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/06/afghanistan.law/index.html
As a woman, as a wife, as a mother, and as a person, I am over flowing with thankfulness that God blessed me with the ability to live in the United States of America. We are far from perfect here, and in my opinion we need alot of help and guidance (and some getting back to values that seem to be lost), but we are blessed.

My sons will never be taught that it is ok to use and abuse women because it is the "norm", as it is in Afghanistan and other places. My daughter will never have to believe that she is limited by her gender, or that she is "less" simply because she is female. I do not have to ask for permission just to walk out of my front door to go check the mail.

My husband and I have the right to teach our children what we believe about God, and the world, and justice, and freedom. They have the opportunity to become doctors, or garbage collectors, or artists, or cafeteria workers, or lawyers. They have the chance, each of them, to go to college and receive a stellar education.

I have the privilege to be grandaughter, daughter-in-law, and wife to men that have safe guarded these freedoms for us, and have valiantly fought to allow them to others. Thank God that we are in the United States. We are blessed.

too good to be true...

...the sun and that delicious 62 degree weather, that is. At least when you live in Siberia...


this is what I woke up to this morning. It's APRIL for crying out loud! I want to go outside without a jacket, PLEASE!!! Please note that the snow is STILL falling and will CONTINUE to fall for the next 36 hours or so.

On a side note, our stuff was supposed to be delivered from GA by yesterday. Two problems. First, they lost the paper giving them permission to release it to me, you know, being MY stuff and all. And, second, apparently our stuff is here (in NY), just not here here (at my house). Whatever. At least it gets here today, and Tyrone got the day off to help. You know, if they still show up w/ the snow and all....

Sweet Stellan

(clicking on this button will take you over to MckMama's blog)

There is a blog that I have been reading for a while. It is by a mom with 4 beautiful children. She is wildly creative, hysterical in her writing, and rock solid in her faith in God. She believes in what God teaches about marriage, and about raising our children, and about trusting Him. I find her inspirational, and although we've never *actually* had an exchange, we are kindred daughter-hair-doing spirits.

She goes by MckMama, and her children are Big Mac (4), MckNugget (2), Small Fry (1-only girl), and MckMuffin, who is 5 months old. MckMuffin is Stellan, and when MckMama was pregnant with him, he was basically diagnosed with heart failure and they were told he would surely die. MckMama handed the whole situation to God, and proclaimed to one and all that while it was her and her husband's most dearly held wish that God would choose to heal their son, their faith WOULD NOT WAIVER. That she would hold her son in her arms maybe on this side of eternity, but most definitely on the other.

Well, in what was truly a miracle, Stellan was born with no sign of his heart problems. He has been just as healthy and beautiful as any baby could possibly be....until about three weeks ago. He was having breathing problems, was given a nebulizer treatment in the ER, and it set off some serious SVT (Supraventricular Tachycardia: A very rapid heart rate electrically originating on an inappropriate spot on the heart).

They have gone to great lengths to get it under control, and it is still not. This poor baby now has in a central line, he has had his heart stopped and restarted numerous times to try to "reset" it...I just cannot imagine what this must feel like for his sweet Momma.

Please pray for them. MckMama is asking for prayers for wisdom for her and the doctors as they contemplate moving Stellan across the country to a different facility. Pray for peace, and healing.

There's one other thing you can do, too, if you loooove Etsy (I do!) If you don't know what Etsy is, it's a super cool site where people sell home made items, you can find anything and everything there and it's all so awesome! Anyway, go to Etsy.com, in the search bar type in Stellan, and the results pages that come up, when those things sell, the profits will be donated to Stellan's medical expenses.

Head on over to MyCharmingKids.net, and be prepared to fall in love with this family!

dance, baby, dance

Yesterday evening, Tyrone was watching Tokyo Drift (the 4th Fast and the Furious comes out today!! and Vin Diesel is back....:)....anyway....) and Shiloh was all fresh from the bath, and she just HAD to dance. Luckily, I had the camera handy. Note how she moves her dolly stroller to give herself more room! Also, please don't mind the background mess....I babysat yesterday and chose to play outside in the daytime with everyone and clean after dark ;)

62 degrees!!

It is actually semi warm today! We just HAD to get outside, so we went out at 9:30 and stayed out for over 2 hours. As Shiloh demonstrates, jackets even had to come off!!

all that hair!

One of my fav things to do is play with my only daughter's hair. It brings me joy....I mean, look how much of it there is....

And she's even relatively happy to let me do it....given, you know, that I provide lots of distractions like letting her dump her hair thingy basket....

But, she's so cute, even in the middle of her mess!

And, this handsome boy even volunteered to "sit" with Shiloh while I did her hair, so she wouldn't get bored :)

Isn't he looking like such a little man? Oh, and kudos to Sheena for noticing the hair cuts :)

go with the flow

Tyrone had to work late tonight, so the kids and I just kind of had fun hanging out. We watched Deadliest Catch on discovery for the first time, and the boys were LOVING it. We did some artsy things, and then had baths and dinner. I have been clearing out our downstairs in anticipation of the movers showing up SOMETIME in the next 5 days with all of our stuff from our huge storage unit, so that we have a place to stack all of our junk, um, I mean stuff.

The result, for now, is tons of room to run for the kids, which they love. There was so much craziness, with the tickling, and chasing, and Gabe choosing his own pajamas and deciding that long johns were his choice, and Shiloh running about alternately with the empty dog bowl and her careening doll stroller. So, I decided to play along and take pics. There was alot of laughing.