Mama’s birthday is not until tomorrow, but we took time to sit together tonight and look at old pictures from her childhood. In celebration of Mama’s birthday, I will post a picture of her from way back when! She is on the left.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAMA!!!
I married Luke ten years ago, and ten years later, I have no regrets. I’d marry him again in an instant!
The modern gift for the 10th anniversary is diamonds. I cannot give Luke real diamonds, so here is the next best thing!
Our love is more valuable than the finest of diamonds! I love you, my favorite man on earth!
Today is the day to send in your tea bag. In short, the purpose is to let it be known that you are against a lot of government intervention.
Although the tea bag was supposed to be sent today, the goal was to get the bag to the government office by April 15. Chances are it will arrive on time if you send it on the 2nd. So go ahead. Send your tea bag in. Don’t say “I’ll do it later.” Go do it now.
Since we are babysitting for friends at their house, and they have an air hockey table, we decided to have an air hockey tournament for family night tonight. We had 9 participants, ranging in age from 5 to 31.
Now I know that sounds unfair, but we all had fun, even when we were losing. There’s just something exhilarating about using a piece of plastic to knock a round disk all over an air blowing table!
It is really not surprising that the final round consisted of the 4 oldest participants, ages, 9, 10, 31, and 31, or that the last 2 players remaining were the two adults (although the 10 year old was a challenge for me)!
We had a ton of fun and a blast too!
Note: If you are wondering, Luke won the tournament, of course! He always does, but I don’t mind because he always does it so humbly! He is an awesome sport!
All of my children have been early birds at an early age, but most of them started sleeping in as they got older. Peter has always been an early bird and probably always will be.
Family night is a time when it is unfortunate to be an early bird. Peter is always the first one to wear out, but he tries so hard to stay awake so as not to miss anything. This particular family night he did not quite make it.
David Ogden is a man who believes that America is already bound by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child due to International Law because almost every other nation has signed the treaty. That means Ogden already believes that the government has more control over children than their parents.
If that doesn’t concern you, Ogden also believes that there should be no internet filters at the library to prevent children from viewing pornography. He has a different view of such things than many of us.
Wondering why you should care?
David Ogden is scheduled to be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow (Thursday, February 26) as deputy attorney general. That is the 2nd highest highest seat on the Justice department.
Still wondering why you should care? His confirmation could mean that we are no longer allowed to home school our children, no longer allowed to take them to church, no longer allowed to keep them from viewing inappropriate things online, no longer allowed to send them to a sitter and be confident that they will still be there when you return!!
Please call and let your local senator know that you are against his confirmation. You have at least 2 very good reasons. You can add the amount of children or grandchildren you have to that number too. Their lives could be in danger in a much more serious way than physically!
Here are the numbers for some states. If yours is not listed below, keep reading.
Senate Judiciary Committee Members*
Patrick J. Leahy
Chairman, D-Vermont
(202) 224-4242
Herb Kohl
D-Wisconsin
(202) 224-5653
Arlen Specter
Ranking Member, R-Pennsylvania
(202) 224-4254
Dianne Feinstein
D-California
(202) 224-3841
Orrin G. Hatch
R-Utah
(202) 224-5251
Russell D. Feingold
D-Wisconsin
(202) 224-5323
Charles E. Grassley
R-Iowa
(202) 224-3744
Charles E. Schumer
D-New York
(202) 224-6542
Jon Kyl
R-Arizona
(202) 224-4521
Richard J. Durbin
D-Illinois
(202) 224-2152
Jeff Sessions
R-Alabama
(202) 224-4124
Benjamin L. Cardin
D-Maryland
(202) 224-4524
Lindsey Graham
R-South Carolina
(202) 224-5972
Sheldon Whitehouse
D-Rhode Island
(202) 224-2921
John Cornyn
R-Texas
(202) 224-2934
Ron Wyden
D-Oregon
(202) 224-5244
Tom Coburn
R-Oklahoma
(202) 224-5754
Amy Klobuchar
D-Minnesota
202-224-3244
Edward E. Kaufman
D-Delaware
(202) 224-5042
Notice that all these numbers have the same area code? That is because these numbers all call a the Senate Office Building in Washington DC. If your state is not above, choose a random number from above and call it. Tell them what state you are from, and they will transfer you to the correct person.
Please call. Don’t think your voice doesn’t count. It does!!! Not only does your one voice count, but you can reach even more voices by sharing this information with others who will call and oppose David Ogden as deputy attorney general of the United States.
*These phone numbers came from HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association).
As I mentioned yesterday, there has been talk of trying to get the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child passed in as few as 2 months. I have been racking my brain, trying to think of things I can do to help get the word out about the issue. I am a 10-and-2 representative, but I want to do more. I have to do more.
If you are willing to help, please let me know. If you know of someone who might be interested in helping, please put them in contact with me. Suggestions of ways to get the word out as quickly as possible are very welcome. Thanks for caring about your country and your freedom as a citizen.
Now that Christmas is well past, I think it is time to start telling you how Christmas went in our household. Don’t you think so? Because we have so many cool pictures, I am going to break this into quite a long series. There will be at least 6 parts. I hope I don’t bore you too much! 🙂
Each of our children has from a very young age had a blanket that is special to him or her. There are few items in our household that our children can say belong specifically to them, and their special blankets are one of those few. Because these blankets belong to specific children, we are able to use their blankets as identifiers.*
For instance, because of this wonderful heavy snow we have been getting this season, church has been canceled 3 times so far. On those occasions, in order to keep our children in their own space and (somewhat) contained while we had church at home, we had each child sit on his/her special blanket. It worked wonderfully!
Also, it has been a tradition for the last 2 or 3 years for us to set each child’s unwrapped Christmas gifts on his/her special blanket on Christmas morning. This allows the children to know immediately which gifts were intended for whom. Also, since the blankets are spread out, each child has a place set aside to sit on as they look at their stuff!
What do you think of our blanket identification idea? I’m definitely open for more Christmas morning traditions. What are your Christmas traditions or what were your traditions as a child?
* For those of you who might be wondering, I don’t have my children show their blankets as identification, and I really can tell my children apart without the blanket anywhere nearby. Really…I can. 😀
During our last snowfall, the kids and I built a snowman together. I rolled the bottom ball, Anna rolled the middle one, and Peter rolled the head. Phillip busied himself dusting snow off the van (not sure why, but he was more interested in that than the snowman).
Luke agreed to help stack the three balls, so as soon as we got the balls as big as they needed to be, I came in to let Luke know we were ready. He took a glance outside and said, “That’s not big enough. Make it as big as you can manage, so I did.
Now that snowman may not look very big to you in the pictures, but I tell you, rolling that ball was no easy feat! It got so big that I was literally laying across it, pushing with my feet and hoping it didn’t roll the wrong way and dump me on the ground! Then I noticed that I had to move it about 5 feet over to where we were planning to have the snowman stand. Of course, in a foot of snow, it grew quite a bit in that distance. Talk about some exercise as I used my whole body to roll the huge snowball across our driveway, wondering with each push if it was going to budge. It was fun, though!
I helped Anna make the middle ball bigger because the size ratio for her was about the same as for me with the bigger one. We had very little trouble working together. And I had no trouble at all making Peter’s head bigger. Unfortunately I dropped it and broke it twice before I was done. So, I guess you could say Peter’s head was a remake. 😀
After Luke helped put Mr. Snowman together, he was taller than me and almost as tall as Luke. And best of all, he seemed to have a bit of personality. He had a bright smile* and rosey cheeks that just brought life to him! He also seemed to be leaning comfortably to the side as if to say, “Aren’t I cool?” And he really was….until he melted.
But never fear, the snow is falling again as I type, and you never know. Mr. Snowman might just return with all his coolness and give us another bright, crooked, frozen smile!
*If you are wondering, Mr. Snowman had jelly bean eyes, a carrot nose, a gummy worm mouth, skittle buttons, and broken sponge mop arms. And he didn’t complain a bit about having broken arms!
In our effort to become more familiar with China and its culture, we have begun to check out children’s books about it at the library. Some of my favorites have been by an author who signs her name on her books simply as Demi. To give you a preview, I will tell you about one of her books called The Empty Pot.
A little boy named Ping has a green thumb and is able to make anything grow. The emperor has no heir, and because he also loves flowers, he uses them to choose the future emperor. Every child who is interested is given a seed and is told to go home, plant it, and come back in one year to show their plant to the emporer.
Although Ping is a wonderful gardner, he is not able to make the seed grow. When the time comes to take his plant to the emperor, he is stopped by several young friends who want to show off their beautiful flowers. Ping sadly takes his empty pot to show to the emperor.
As it turns out the emperor had cooked the seeds to keep them from growing. Ping’s honesty made him stand out and be chosen as next emperor!
What an awesome story about the rewards of honesty!