My Domestic Church Daily Clips 07/01/2010

• Kagan Ignored Medical Group's Opinion to Keep Partial-Birth Abortions Legal

  I know a few bloggers who voted for Obama anyway because they did not believe that anything had changed with regard go abortion. Now I hope that it is clear that President Obama's SCOTUS picks are clearly not on the side of the unborn. But at least with this president, we may have some movement on the abortion issue. Unfortunately it will not be in the direction of the sanctity of life.

  tags: currentevents, Obama, areyousorryyet?, SCOTUS

  • Washington,
    DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Clinton presidential library today released
    tens of thousands of new memos authored by or mentioning Supreme Court
    nominee Elena Kagan. One in particular shows Kagan doing everything
    possible to provide strategy and political cover for former President
    Bill Clinton as he vetoed a partial-birth abortion ban.

    
    

    The
    latest memo is particularly concerning because it has her going against
    a leading medical group that said it found no medical reason for a
    woman to have a partial-birth abortion.

• Joni Earekson Tada on her breast cancer diagnosis

  Joni announces her breast cancer and displays her remarkable grace, courage and faith.

  tags: Christian, inspirational, cancer

• Personal Finance Newsletter - Dave Ramsey's July 2010 Newsletter - daveramsey.com

  AN inspiring story!

  tags: finance, budget

• Aggie Catholics: Top 35 Saints Names Rarely Picked for Confirmation

  A saint Dora!!! Rosie will be so pleased!

  tags: Catholic, confirmation

• Simplifying Homeschooling

  tags: homeschooling

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/29/2010

• Deep Space Sparkle Art Lessons for Kids

  tags: homeschooling, artsandcrafts

• Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

  tags: obama, areyousorryyet?, currentevents

  • President Obama will be handed the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight if the Senate votes for the infamous Internet ‘kill switch’ bill, which was approved by a key Senate committee yesterday and now moves to the floor.

    
    

    The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman, would hand absolute power to the federal government to close down networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries under a declared national emergency.

    
    

    Despite the Center for Democracy and Technology and 23 other privacy and technology organizations sending letters to Lieberman and other backers of the bill expressing concerns that the legislation could be used to stifle free speech, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed in the bill in advance of a vote on the Senate floor.

    
    

    In response to widespread criticism of the bill, language was added that would force the government to seek congressional approval to extend emergency measures beyond 120 days. Still, this would hand Obama the authority to shut down the Internet on a whim without Congressional oversight or approval for a period of no less than four months.

• Obama's last day in office Bumper Sticker - CafePress

  tags: obama, areyousorryyet?

• Oops, my bad, I voted for Obama - Biden Bumper Sticker from Zazzle.com

  I would be happy to buy a few of these to pass around. Let me know if you want one!

  tags: obama, areyousorryyet?

• Op-Ed Columnist - The Third Depression - NYTimes.com

  tags: economy, obama, areyousorryyet?

  • Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.

    
    

    
    Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

    
    

    
    We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

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My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/28/2010

• CollegePlus! - Home

  The new way I'm thinking of getting college degrees for my kids!

  tags: collegeplus, highschool, college, CLEP

• dr. kumar eatonton ga - Google Search

  tags: no_tag

  • 123 Sparta Highway
    Eatonton, GA 31024-6093

• Low-Cost Dinner Recipes: Serve 4 or More for $10 or Less

  tags: summerrecipes, cooking, recipes

• Indian-Spiced Chicken Pitas | Eating Well

  tags: chicken, summerrecipes, cooking

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Rosie the Mermaid

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My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/27/2010

• ACT SparkNotes Test Prep: A Sample ACT Essay—Up Close

  tags: ACT, SAT, homeschool, highschool, writing, testing

• SparkNotes: The Essay: Practice Essay Prompts

  tags: ACT, SAT, homeschool, highschool, writing, testing

• Sample SAT Essays Prompts To Help Students Study For The SAT Essay

  tags: SAT, ACT, homeschool, highschool, writing, testing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/25/2010

• US bishops back Olmsted in Arizona abortion drama :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

  tags: abortion, Catholic, EIFWAIL

  • 
    

    A June 23 statement from the USCCB Committee on Doctrine addresses the Arizona controversy, and calls upon the teachings of the Holy Fathers to explain the issue at hand. “The Distinction between Direct Abortion and Legitimate Medical Procedures” clarifies Church teaching, and applies it succinctly to the Arizona case.

    
    

    Church teaching, said the statement, holds that direct abortion is never permissible. Direct abortion is an act whose primary intent is to terminate a pregnancy and kill an unborn child. However, medical procedures which have other primary intentions, and which indirectly end the life of the unborn child, are not considered to be direct abortions nor immoral.

  • “The difference can be seen in two different scenarios in which the unborn child is not yet old enough to survive outside the womb,” says the statement. “In the first scenario, a pregnant woman is experiencing problems with one or more of her organs, apparently as a result of the added burden of pregnancy. The doctor recommends an abortion to protect the health of the woman.”

    
    

    “In the second scenario, a pregnant woman develops cancer in her uterus. The doctor recommends surgery to remove the cancerous uterus as the only way to prevent the spread of the cancer. Removing the uterus will also lead to the death of the unborn child, who cannot survive at this point outside the uterus.”

    
    

    The first scenario is an example of a direct abortion, because the surgery directly targets the life of the child. The procedure only affects the function of the woman’s organs, and thus her health, in an indirect way, explained the document. “As the Church has said many times, direct abortion is never permissible because a good end cannot justify an evil means.”

    
    

    In the second scenario, the surgery “indirectly and unintentionally (although foreseeably) results in the death of an unborn child.” However, it “directly addresses the health problem of the woman” and her “health benefits directly from the surgery, because of the removal of the cancerous organ.”

    
    

    In that scenario, “the surgery does not directly target the life of the unborn child,” explains the statement. “The death of the child is an unintended and unavoidable side effect and not the aim of the surgery.”

• Preface - Guitar

  tags: no_tag

  • is required.

• 6 Pack Abs Exercises - Reverse Abdominal Crunches For Six Pack Abs

  tags: exercise, fitness

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Izzy dancing on water

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My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/24/2010

• St. John the Baptist « Family in Feast and Feria

  tags: catholic, saints, feast, stjohnthebaptist

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Wordless Wednesday

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Making it right

After my mother passed away (one year ago today) I was filled with a lot of anger and rage at the Hospice we had used to help us with her care. After a lot of research and talking with my sister over the year I figured out that I was angry at her caregivers because when the time came, they didn't really do their job.

On the day my mother died, my sister went to visit her in the early afternoon. At that time she was struggling with breathing and her eyes had turned glassy (Incidentally, I think glassy eyes is really a bad way to phrase it, but that is the way all the "death" literature expresses it. I think cloudy would be a better term, or perhaps milky. Either way, I found a picture on Flickr of a dying deer that is pretty close to what I saw with my mom.) Eyes like that are a sign of imminent death.

My sister was startled and concerned about what she saw and when she asked the hospice nurse what was happening and how long our mother would suffer like that the nurse gave the platitude, "All in God's time." 

Well yes, of course everything is in God's time. But God was clearly telling a trained death professional that God's time was very, very close. 

When I arrived about an hour before my mother's death, no one from hospice was there. The every loyal nursing home staff was there though, and they did make sure I saw the big change in my mother's status, but they looked as concerned as I was about what was happening and whether or not this meant death was near.

So after a year of thinking about it, I think this is what angered me so much about the hospice.
1.  They weren't there. At the last final hours, minutes and seconds, they weren't even in the building.  I thought that's what they were there for - care of the dying who were actually...dying!
2.  Their directions around the time of death were not helpful. 
3.  They sure managed to nag me about contacting Medicare on their behalf.  Something about they had to hear from my that mom was retired at the time of her death so that they could get paid.  I still can't figure that one out.

So today, in honor of mom, one year later in a calmer state of mine, I called the hospice and talked to the nursing director.  I explained all of the research I had done and that in my opinion, the hospice nurse should have told my sister that death was imminent and that we should make plans accordingly.  She also should have stayed to make sure my mom had the oxygen that was available to her in the room (I ended up doing that when I came in) and she should have given us both a little guidance and maybe a little dialogue about what we were witnessing. The director was very nice. She asked me some questions and we talked and she told me that she would use what I had told her to help "educate" her staff. 

I feel comforted in that.  It it ends up helping another family, that would be what mama wanted.


I also mentioned to her that we had not been warned about the strong smell after mom died and the nursing director was surprised to hear that as she had never experienced that herself.  I'll have to research that more.  That may be something unique to ovarian cancer deaths.







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My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/22/2010

• ACOG on VBAC: In Their Own Words | Our Bodies Our Blog

  might the unreasonable requirements for hospital VBACs be changing?

  tags: birth, childbirth, VBAC

  • In 1999 (and again in 2004), ACOG released guidelines [pdf] stating that “VBAC should be attempted in institutions equipped to respond to emergencies with physicians immediately available.” This standard has been widely blamed for the lack of VBAC availability in many parts of the United States, as many hospitals discouraged or stopped doing VBACs, and in some cases malpractice insurance companies refused to cover claims resulting from the procedure.
  • As Rita Rubin explained in a 2005 USA Today story on the issue, “Many hospitals have interpreted that [the 'immediately available' standard] to mean they must have an anesthesiologist and operating room standing by whenever a patient attempts a VBAC, a luxury they say they can’t afford. If they can’t meet the guidelines, they argue, they’re opening themselves up to lawsuits should mother or baby be injured during a VBAC attempt.”
  • What level of risk is acceptable, and who decides? Currently, hospitals, insurance companies, and plaintiff attorneys decide or strongly influence whether VBAC is an option. Instead, the patient should be allowed to make that choice after she has been informed of the facts and has been counseled by her physician thoroughly.
  • “Despite the reality of disparate resources, we should ‘find a way’ for those who want the option of VBAC,” Scott continues. “Reducing the number of primary cesareans deals with the problem where it originates.”

• YouTube - St. Aloysius Gonzaga

  tags: Staloysius, Catholic, saint, feast

• St. Aloysius Gonzaga

  tags: Catholic, saint, feast, Staloysius

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One Year Anniversary

Maryrose Esquibel | Video Tribute

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Simple Woman

Outside my window...
It rained everyday for weeks and FINALLY for the first week of swimming classes it looks like it's going to be very nice outside for a while!



I am thinking...
when Izzy was born I really wanted her to come on the 22nd. After all her Dad is March 22 and Sam is January 22 and Gabe is July 22. But it wasn't to be and she was born a little after midnight on June 23. Ten years later her grandmother dies on June 22. I can't help but think that maybe then Izzy's birth date was a little gift, so that the two events would have a little separation.

I am thankful for...
my husband who I think had a great Father's Day celebration playing with his kids up on Lake Erie!


From the learning rooms...
Swimming lessons for the little ones
Oregon and Arizona for Geography
Finish ACT class for Sam!
Try go get some family reading time in.


From the kitchen...
Left overs!

I am wearing...
Black paints, orange/red T-shirt.

I am creating...
a new look for my front porch!

I am going...
to have a busy week. Swimming classes, wedding rehearsal and wedding, homeschool convention!

I am reading...
A Simple Guide to the Spiritual Life



I am hoping...
to maybe get some more Reading Readiness done with Rosie this week and to help Sam go over his ACT results.

I am hearing...
the humm of the air conditioner.

Around the house...
Probably nothing although I do hope to get the downstairs bathroom scraped soon!

A few plans for the rest of the week:
See above


A picture I am sharing:  


Dad and all of his kids for Father's Day

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Letter of Saint Aloysius to his Mother

 The Feast of Saint Aloysius

May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honored lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.


The divine goodness, most honored lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labours, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.


Take care above all things, most honoured lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Saviour; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us, his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we ourselves would most choose to have.


I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favor and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.

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How my mom's death made me a better mother.

The last images of my mother alive will stay with me forever. Her eyes were wide open but didn't see, clouded over with a white fog that looked like cataracts, her mouth wide open sucking air in and out, her back and neck arched aching to live. It was gruesome. And for months and months that image has haunted me from the moment I wake up in the morning until I go to bed at night. This week is the first anniversary of her death and I still think about it, a lot.

The other day I got something in the mail from a local funeral home about how to plan for my own eventual death and funeral preparations and so I started thinking about it. At first I thought that at the end, I do not want my children to be with me, because I do not want them to remember me the way I remember my own mother's last few minutes. But the more I thought about that the more it occurred to me that my time with my mother was a lot more than just that horrible last day.

I remember... the little song she made up for me and the little song she made up for my sister. Mine was "I Love E-len-a" while my sister's had more of a Latin feel - "Kathryn Anne I love you, yes I do, cha cha cha!" And how we giggled about our songs. I remember her taking me for long walks when I was very little down our country lane, and she told me about Queen Ann's Lace and we listened to the Bob White Quail. I remember the stories she told me from history while we drove in the car, and the puppet theater she made for us, and our vacation to upper Michigan and all of the family reunions we drove to, and the exotic festivals we visited and how she was so active in Band boosters and all the Mozart concertos we played for flute and piano, and how she rocked my babies, and homeschooled Sam and earned her hiking staff, and how she always prayed.

Why was I so focused then on the horrible thoughts, the horror, the sadness, the grief? I had reduced my mother down to that, and she deserved better. What I was doing wasn't from God.

So since I have had this little epiphany the thoughts have started to fade and I have relished the good memories and gifts mom gave me. But perhaps posthumously, mom has given me the best gift of all.  Because someday I will be the dying mother in the bed, and I want to give my children as many good memories of our times together.

So now that the grief is not as palpable, and the sad memories are more like bad dreams, when I think about mom, I think about how much she would have enjoyed my kids' music concert last night, so I enjoyed it and praised them for it. And how much she would have loved Rosie's picture, and so I made sure to praise Rosie for it too. And I give Sam a hug even though he towers over me, and I tell Gabe how sweet he is even though he rolls his eyes at me and starts to blush - because it really is okay for a mom to tell her teenager that and it's okay for teens to pretend they don't like it because secretly they do. And I call my grown kid on the phone on his day off just to check in - not to talk long, just to say "Hey, how are you? Do you need anything? Love you - bye"all the kinds of things my mom would have done.

I continue to love her and to miss her deeply, but her legacy as a loving mother can live in me and I can be a better mother to my own children, because hopefully when I am gone, it is the love they will remember. 



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My Domestic Church Daily Clips 06/20/2010

• Mommy Life: Is Obama really that smart? His speeches say no

  Barbara Curtis had an interesting article on her blog today about the actual language skills of the presidents on an academic scale. Obama - he ain't all that and a bag of chips after all!

  tags: obama, language

  • As
    such, the speech by 'the professor' stands in contrast to his
    predecessor, 'the cowboy,' George W. Bush, who was frequently skewered
    by the left and late-night talk show hosts for his public speaking
    abilities, his intelligence, and his misuse of the English language.

    
    
    

    Bush averaged a Flesch-Kincaid score of 10.4 across his
    seven State of the Union Addresses - or nearly two full grades higher
    than Obama's speech. Bush's speeches also averaged 2.4 more words per
    sentence than Obama, at 19.0.

    
    
    

    In other words, the text of George W. Bush's speeches are expected to
    be understandable (in written form) by an average sophomore in high
    school, whereas Obama's speech should be understandable by a junior
    high school student.

    
    
    

    Interestingly, George W. Bush's 10.4 Flesch-Kincaid score was also
    higher than several of his predecessors, including Ronald Reagan (10.3),
    Bill Clinton (9.5), and his father George H.W. Bush (8.6).

• Readability index calculator Result

  How readable is your writing? Here's a way to find out.

  tags: language, reading, writing

• $7-a-gallon gas? - NYPOST.com

  tags: areyousorryyet?, Obama

  • That's a Harvard University study's estimate of the per-gallon price of the president's global-warming agenda. And Obama made clear this week that this agenda is a part of his plan for addressing the Gulf mess.

• The contempt shown to parents of large families

  tags: no_tag

  • I don't mind that the world doesn't really love babies, just that it pretends to. It's time we got honest about our priorities. Most people get a new car every two or three years, but one or two babies through the life of their marriage is plenty. You can get drunk on an airplane, laugh hysterically with your mates, and still not really anger people. But if you dare bring a crying baby on board you will be given malicious looks as if the little thing is a package that ticks. If you walk your dog along the street, people will stop you to tell you how cute he is. If you walk down the street with a baby, you might find a woman or two who coos, but for the most part, you'll be utterly ignored.
    
    

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Logical Fallacies and American History

A friend of mine put the letter below on her Facebook Page and one of her friends commented that it was "not very accurate" and "Rather Palinish with its facts."

That he said "facts" and not "feelings" made me wonder what was inaccurate about it. So I asked.

The reply was, "We may have started with a number of Christians, but the "new" country wanted to avoid the bloody controls of Britain, and so we are a nation with no declared religion."

So I re-read the letter. And it didn't say that Christianity was the declared state religion but rather that, "This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country."  So that first commenter was immediately trying to dance with a straw man fallacy that wasn't there to begin with.


I then suggested the book, The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen as a good source for examples.

But before the discussion got into too much more depth (which is kind of limited by the Facebook format anyway) another person commented, "Oh...and by the way, the book someone mentioned, "5000 Year Leap", was written by a Mormon Fundamentalist. It will contain many inaccuracies and quotes taken out of context. In other words...it's a bunch of excrement."

Let me out by pointing out that the last comment was a blatant logical fallacy. 

Skousen was a Mormon, so I probably have theological differences with him too, but that doesn't necessarily mean that his historical scholarship is questionable.

So I promised my new Facebook acquaintance that I would post something here so that we don't bog down our mutual friend's Facebook page.  Let's see what happens. 

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From my e-mail - A brave 4th grade teacher says it all!

BTW -I tried to call this lady to say "you go girl" but no answer.

Update: Apparently the teacher didn't write this but merely circulated it. But couple this kind of sentiment with the current approval ratings and the upcoming tax hikes January 1, and I think we're looking at a one term administration.

April 17, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500


Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States . You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia .... You didn't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia .. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey ...... You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you? I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now?

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.

I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Every real American

P.S. I rarely ask that emails be 'passed around'.................PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST......it's past time for all Americans to wake up!

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy . C
Hillsboro , MO 63050
(636) 944-3291 Phone
(636) 944-3870 Fax


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Obama at the Bat

Casey at the Bat is one of my all time favorites! Here is an updated (and very spot-on) version!








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7 Quicktakes- the Saturday Edition

 Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary.

1. We have a birthday to celebrate next week and swimming lessons start, and Mr. Pete and I are manning a table at the state homeschool convention - the lazy days of summer?

2. I couldn't figure out why my otherwise gorgeous daughter's hair was looking so dull and greasy even after a shower? I started thinking that maybe she was going into early puberty and her oil glands were going into overdrive. But I discovered that she was using the fancy conditioner I got at the hair cutting place as a shampoo!! So I gave her a good old fashioned shampoo in the kitchen sink - shampoo, lather, rinse, repeat and then applied a little conditioner just to the ends and her hair looks great! So now that I am positive she knows what to do maybe she can keep it going.

3. In the last month I have had the opportunity to share some of the tips I learned about childbearing to two pregnant young women who were very open to hearing them. I really enjoyed those conversations and wish I could figure out a way to share what I have learned over the years on a more regular basis to women who genuinely want to hear about them!

4. Next month is a big birthday for Calvin - he will be 21! And aside from the usual reasons young people like to turn 21, Calvin has a special one- at 21 he will finally be allowed to drive the ambulance at work with lights and sirens.

5. Last night, Izzy, Noah and Gabe sang in a concert to cap off the end of Choir Camp. They had a blast!



I learned some things about my kids - Izzy has a wonderful stage presence! Gabe has a great sense of humor, and Noah is very serious - he enjoys the technical aspects of music I think more than the actual performance. Gabe was the biggest and the oldest kid at camp. Lots of other kids would have been shy and maybe withdrawn about that, but Gabe seemed to relish being the stand out. When they did hand motions, Gabe REALLY did the hand motions. When they danced Gabe danced his heart out.

But the laugh-out-loud moment for me was when the kids in one number got to play these xylophones and Gabe sat down in front of the tiniest little xylophone on stage. It was hysterical, this big kid in front of this tiny instrument - but he played it and had fun with it too.


6. After the performance a lady came up to Gabe and told him that he was so handsome and he very graciously smiled at her and said, "Why, thank you!" It was a nice moment.

7. Me to my 5-year-old daughter, "You should draw a picture for her Godfather for Father's Day."

Rosie to me, "Does he like butterflies and mermaids?"

This is the picture she ended up drawing of herself with her Godfather. 




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