Word for Word

Bella has had fever the past couple of days, but today she was feeling a little better...

Bella: "Mommy, can I watch a movie?"

Me: "no...you're feeling a lot better today, so I think you should play outside.  It's very pretty today."

Bella: "But Mommy, if I go outside, then I'll have to run, and my tummy hurts when I run."

Me: "You don't have to run.  You can walk, or-"

Bella: (upset, starting to tear up) "-But the grass makes me run!"

October Hymn of the Month: For the Beauty of the Earth

It's amazing how every song seems to reflect what I am studying at the moment.  This year I am studying Genesis, and when singing this hymn, I'm thinking of all the Truth that begins with Genesis 1:1 and beyond.  

For the beauty of the earth,

For the beauty of the skies,

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour

Of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale, and tree and flower,

Sun and moon and stars of light,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,

Brother, sister, parent, child,

Friends on earth, and friends above,

Pleasures pure and undefiled,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For each perfect gift of thine,

To our race so freely given,

Graces human and divine,

Flowers of earth and buds of heaven,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For thy Church which evermore

Lifteth holy hands above,

Offering up on every shore

Her pure sacrifice of love,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

Sandboxes and Sailboats

A little bit of this...a tid-bit of that...

First, there is Balian.

He can count to...well, I can't keep count.

He recognizes numbers up to 20 or so.

He can count with 1-to-1 correlation.

So I gave him a project that I gave Bella only a year or so ago...and he did it perfectly!

I initially had to show him/explain to him what I wanted him to do, but once that was over, he had no problem putting his number flashcards in order from 1-10 (they were mixed up), then using counters and putting the correct number of counters under each number.

The next day, he did it again, completely on his own, without me having to re-explain what he needed to do.

Yes, my son hates wearing pants...

Balian also had a birthday.  We decided to do a fun family day trip rather than a party.  We celebrated by going to downtown Grapevine and taking a ride on the Tarantula train.  It's an old vintage steam-engine that is still running.

Balian loves trains.  The entire first half (30 min.) of the train ride, he had a huge smile on his face and just kept saying over and over "This is SO FUN!", with a HUGE grin on his face.

My sister still needs to send me pictures that I took on her camera.

Balian's gift from Neil and I was a sand table.  We wanted to give him something for all 3 kids to play together...outside!  A sand table was perfect.  Neil was hesitant at first, but once the kids started playing in it, he said that it was worth the work to build it. (which only took a couple of hours.) Neil got instructions online, but made it taller than the instructions said.  I think we figured out that the grand total for making this baby (including the sand and the plastic bin) was about $40.

All 3 kids have been playing in it almost non-stop.  We had to pull up a stool so Isaiah could play, but he doesn't mind...and he loves every minute of his sandy fun.

I made Bella a sewing basket.  She has loved to practice sewing with yarn, a plastic needle, and no-slip shelf liner in an embroidery hoop.  She has started to attempt sewing buttons.  I think she's ready to step it up to some cross-stitching fabric, a needlepoint needle (blunt and metal), and embroidery thread, so she can really work on sewing those buttons.

While Bella was sewing, Isaiah had fun putting pipe-cleaners into the holes of a Parmesan container.  A fabulous activity to encourage fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Today, our Science lesson was learning about wind.

We made sailboats from food storage containers, paper, straws, and a bit of tape.

Easier said than done.

Then we filled up the big cooler with water...and sailed away.

Bella wanted her 2 Belles to experience sailing as well.

She blew at the sailboat and saw what wind does to sailboats.

We can't see the wind, but we can hear it and feel it, and we can see the affects of it with swaying trees, huge waves, and the like.

After our Science lesson the kids all had fun playing in the water...and getting drenched from head to toe.  Literally.

The joys of being a child! :)

And Bella is wearing an up-cycled dress I made.  Check it out in the post below.

Another Up-cycled Dress

I'm still trying to get through a box of old clothes.  The goal is to use as much as I can to make clothes for my kiddos.  We all know how pricey new pretty dresses for little girls cost.  Free is definitely cheaper, AND at the same time recycles a shirt that I would otherwise be giving away or throwing away.

This one would have been thrown away, because there were some holes in the chest area from wearing it while pregnant...and "busting" out of it.  hee hee.

This is what I started out with.

I'm horrible about making my first cut, then remembering to take a picture.

A 3/4 sleeve tunic dress shirt.

 This one was pretty complex.  I pretty much took everything apart and pieced it back together.

But amazingly enough, I was able to make an entire dress for Bella out of the pieces, and I was able to finish it in only a couple of hours.

Here is the result:

Disregard the blue and white striped daisy tights that don't match at ALL...

It's definitely not perfect, but I think it turned out really cute - and most importantly, Bella loves it :)

I love making old things into something new.

Hmm...that's a lesson of being created in God's image...

The Ugly Truth About Abortion

After reading in WORLD magazine about how much push there was in the Democratic convention for the social issues, it makes me wonder how many people advocate for abortion, not knowing what is really involved.  I remember having to watch these horrible videos so that I could volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center.  It was a requirement for us to understand what happens during an abortion, and for us to witness, through videos, what a "fetus" has to say about it.

I had to watch a video in particular, called "The Silent Scream".  It was a video of an ultrasound taken during an abortion.  I can never erase the picture of a screaming baby inside a womb, being aborted, from my mind.  It really makes me wish it was a requirement for women to see graphic videos like that before they have an abortion, so that they truly know what they are getting themselves into.

Because, in all honesty, most women probably have no clue what is involved.

But to be fair, difficult circumstances can cause any person to put blinders on, as we focus on ourselves and our circumstances.  Perhaps we think that ignorance is bliss and we just want to get it over with so we can go on with our lives the way we want.

I would like to encourage ALL of us to take off the blinders, to look outside of ourselves, and to consider the truth of the matter.

A heart begins to beat 3-4 weeks after conception.

Brain waves begin as early as 6 weeks.

Both of these begin before most women even know they are pregnant.

Premature babies born before the 3rd trimester have been known to survive.

Even babies, when fully developed and full-term are dependant on their mother (or other care-taker) to provide for their basic needs.  Left to themselves, they would die.

If we value human life, shouldn't we value ALL human life?

Do a heartbeat and brainwaves define human life?

How about multiplying, working, living, and active cells?

If not, then how do we define it?  When hands and feet are formed?  When he can fend for himself?  When he is a certain size, weight, or age?

Doesn't life end when the heart stops beating or when brain-waves cease?  When all the cells in a body stop working- stop doing their jobs- stop multiplying?

Just asking questions.

If this election is going to be a social issue fight, I think we should be armed with not just our own opinion, but rather the truth.

Here are some more resources to help you understand abortion, or to help you ponder the concept of abortion:

This one is VERY graphic.  Click on the link, then click on "Virtual Exhibit".

The Justice For All Exhibit 

This is a video that is about 45 minutes long.  A documentary interviewing people about their views on abortion.  This one has some graphic images as well.

http://www.180movie.com

Sorry. The truth of abortion is pretty ugly.

When light shines, it exposes that which has been hidden in the darkness.

Oh, and as a side note, the movie October Baby is out on DVD now.

Warning Label

WARNING: prayer walking around your driveway in circles until you get so lost in communicating with the Lord that you have no idea how many circles you've made (100 times?) when it's pitch-black outside can cause breakthroughs to happen, as well as becoming instantly addicting.  Symptoms include an unwillingness to go inside, having to force yourself to stop walking, and a worried husband wondering where his wife has been.  It is perfectly normal to have  no concept of time, allowing an hour or more to go by without even realizing it.

Highly reccommended by the Holy Spirit.  

However, the enemy has criticized this practice in the form of busy schedules, housework, laziness, fear, condemnation, guilt, self-hate, and the like.  If you experience any of these attacks, standard procedure is to rebuke the enemy by calling him a jerk and a liar, then marching your happy butt outside, whether he likes it or not.  This could cause your heart to form a target in the weakest areas, to which he can aim his flaming arrows.  If this happens, start singing praises and repeating truths of scripture repeatedly until the words penetrate your heart.

This could form a more serious addiction to the above mentioned practice of prayer-walking.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Love This!

I love cheesy videos about parenting :)
This one even made Neil laugh by just listening to it from across the room.
Fabulous!