New Hair Styles

Just a bit over one year ago, I had my hair cut to donate to Children With Hair Loss. My brother in law's cousin is the Founder. They will take hair that has been dyed whereas most other foundations with not. Last year I still had a good chunk of hair that had been highlighted so I was happy to find out about them. This year all of my dyed hair is gone but having donated to them once already, I just thought it made sense to donate to them again. I digress. So after the girls watched me do it last year, they all wanted to do it too. So for the past year, all of us have been growing it out. It needs to be at least 8" (wet) in order to donate it. Mine is just barely that long but the girls was much longer (when wet). They have all been long ready to cut theirs but they were waiting for Mom to catch up. Today was the big day. All 4 of us went and got our hair hacked! And we all LOVE it! K#3 was not long enough to donate but she couldn't be left out all together. K#2 seemed to take it a little hard when she saw her ponytail but she quickly got over it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to ALL! Sadly I don't have any pictures to share. SIL took a few but she hasn't shared them with me yet.

This was one of the best Thanksgivings we have ever celebrated. It was very quiet and low key. Normally we put up our Christmas tree while watching the parade and then go over to my sister's for dinner and the football game. Since we don't have our own home this year, we've decided not to do a tree. My MIL put up a small one and her village a few days ago. We won't be home on Christmas morning anyways so just another reason not to put one up. I did sell my artificial tree last year in the downsizing (it took up TWO large boxes) so we'd have to spend money buying one. With the pending adoption, we are skimping and saving every penny that we can since it came so much sooner than we had most recently thought it would. I digress. With hubby's celiac disease now, I knew there wouldn't be much that he could eat for dinner at my sister's house as well. Traditional Thanksgiving dinner is just FILLED with gluten containing foods.

SIL and BIL came over for brunch. We were supposed to eat at 11 am but since I'm still getting used to this stove, it wasn't ready until 1130 am. We still had time to visit and they left to head to BIL's families home for dinner. Brunch was egg bake, berry baked french toast, and pumpkin bread - all gluten free so my Honey could eat it all.

We were staying home for dinner so after they left, I just had to turn the turkey on to cook. I had made the stuffing earlier in the day and the rest had to wait until closer to dinner to cook.

Thanks to T$ we had an opportunity as a family to do something for someone else today as well. Barefoot Mike called me Wednesday night to let me know that there was a young woman with a 5 year old daughter and 7 month old son with little heat and no warm clothes or blankets that was in dire need. Pete and I went out shopping late Wednesday night to Target and Salvation Army to get what we could for them. Then in between stuffing ourselves full today, we drove down to 2nd & Seldon to deliver some bags of warm clothing and blankets to a family in need. We are so thankful for all our blessings that we don't have to worry about clothing that we are able to help others when in need.

Dinner was traditional. Turkey stuffed with gluten free stuffing, gluten free cornbread, mashed potatoes and gluten free gravy, corn, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, gluten free pumpkin spice cake and gluten free pumpkin pie. I definitely over-cooked but now I won't have to all week-end : )

I am thankful for so many things but especially the grace of the Lord, my handsome husband and 3 beautiful daughers, my extended family and friends, my health and all so many blessings that I don't deserve!

2008 Santa Visit

We visited Santa today. I realized last year that Santa actually arrives one week prior to Thanksgiving at our local mall. So again this year we took advantage of that and had our visit with him this week while hubby was off. It was nice to avoid the lines (or 6 am treks out to the mall to get our 'place' in line!).

What Animal Are You?

Just for fun - take this quiz:

I'm a Beaver!

Beaver Genera and species: Castor canadensis Collective Term: A business of beavers Description Beavers are the workaholics of the animal world. No animal personality places more emphasis, nor derives more self-esteem than beavers do from their careers. Organized and structured, their determined attitudes spill over into all aspects of their busy lives and they plan for the future almost unconsciously. Decisions made regarding their relationships, careers and families are methodically and practically prepared, and they are most comfortable at work or ensconced in their fastidiously decorated homes. In their spare time, beavers love to busy themselves around the house or tend their precisely manicured lawns. The beaver is an eager lover and its relationships seem to survive the most difficult challenges, for once a beaver has made a commitment to its partner, it will move water and earth to uphold its promise. They are passionate but hardly imaginative in their lovemaking, for their partners' approval is too important to gamble with risky play. This makes the beaver unique amongst the water mammals who are usually willing to get their feet wet. But, even with their conservative libidos, beavers are still attracted to casual relationships with the free-spirited aquatic dolphins, sea lions, walruses, and otters. While others are playing, beavers are usually hard at work. They are well prepared for any eventuality and their homes are well stocked with spare water, emergency radios and survival kits. Even the beaver is not sure why it spends such energy in securing its home, but it instinctively feel more comfortable when it does. Beaver personalities come in all shapes and sizes. Generally in good physical condition, they find time to keep fit even with their busy work schedules. Their conscientious attitudes makes them dependable as friends and a commitment from a beaver is like money in the bank. Family life is important to beavers although they generally have few offspring. As parents, they are predictably reliable but fight a tendency to be over-controlling. By keeping a close eye on their children's progress in school, their offspring are under constant pressure to perform to the beavers' high level of expectation. As they grow older, children are expected help with supporting the family. Beavers are patient listeners although they rarely follow advice. While they might confide in a close friend about personal issues, they usually choose to internalize their feelings instead. And a beaver wouldn't dream of confronting someone with whom it has a problem. It would much rather blow off steam by complaining behind their backs or by punishing them in subtle ways .

Careers and Hobbies
Engineer Naval Officer
Manager Judge

Gardening Woodworking
Collecting Sewing

Famous Beavers
Jimmy Carter, Alexander Graham Bell.

Breaking A Child's Spirit

I don't think a day has gone by yet since giving birth over 8 years ago to K#1 where I wonder if I am doing a good enough job raising my daughters. With a potential son on the way, I'm thinking even more about this. What will I do with a boy? I don't know how to raise boys? Granted, I didn't know anything about raising girls either before I had K#1. But, I was a girl, so I thought I could figure it out easy enough. Since K#1's birth, I've grown to realize that I don't do a good enough job and never will. I'm not perfect. I can only do my best (and I even stink at doing that some days but that is another blog post) But, with God's strength, wisdom, patience, love, you know where I'm going with that, I can go to bed at night knowing that I haven't completely screwed things up, and, if I have, I have God's grace.

I was just reading an article about Chute's latest book coming out here. The author states that Mr. Chute had a bumper sticker on his truck that read “School Takes 13 Years Because That’s How Long It Takes to Break a Child’s Spirit.” I'm not about to bash the public school system nor private nor any other system. There are some wonder schools out there that are run by wonderful people that give above and beyond of themselves. They all have their flaws too - just like L'Ecole de Pfeiffer does. But that bumper sticker really struck a chord with me. My primary motivation for wanting to homeschool was due to my public schooling years. 13 years I'd prefer to NEVER have to live over again. They were awful - the good times were far and few between. I did have some SUPER teachers that left a lasting impression on me. But the system is geared to teach the majority, as it should have been. But, I was in the minority, and was BORED OUT OF MY GOURD most days and socially, well, let's just not go there. My spirit was definitely broken.

I have to pray regularly that the Lord helps me to not brake the spirit of my own children. They are all 3 different - each as their own personalities that are different - and of course, they each have their own learning styles. Somedays I am not able to customize the day for each of them and they get taught to the majority, but I often try to not make that the case. Praise HIM for Grace!

Homeless BBQ

Due to the rain yesterday, the Homeless BBQ was re-scheduled to today. We were able to change our schedule around so that we could still attend. And I didn't serve. I was really bummed about that. As much as I complain to Superstar and George about it, I really look forward to doing it monthly. God works on my heart more and more each time we go. I had put a roast into the oven on HIGH so it would warm up quickly and when we were about 10 minutes from 2nd & Seldon, I realized I didn't have it. And I left it in the oven. So, I dropped my Man off with our other foods and headed back home to take it out so the house wouldn't blow up while we were gone. We live about 30 minutes from the park but it was snowing HARD so it took me 40 minutes each way. By the time I got back to the park, they were cleaning up.

On my way back I was praying and asking God what more could we do. He put an impression on my heart that we needed to do more than just show up with our soup & stew next month. But I didn't know what. While I was waiting for my Man to finish packing up the car, I had a few minutes to chat with T$. He has such a HUGE heart for the people of Hockeytown - unlike me. But God is working on me. He said he was feeling convicted about doing something for Detroit. I hadn't even told him about my chat with the Father on my way back. Cool! Maybe we could brainstorm something. We have a tentative plan. With God's provisions, we could bring Christmas Has a Face to 2nd & Seldon in a big way!

Thankful Thursday

Turkey Day is just 2 weeks away.

Recently a friend shared with me the idea of writing down five things you were happy about every day before going to bed. It is supposed to increase your general happiness everyday. I'm going to aim at doing it once a week to begin with and see how it goes. Today being the first day, is easy.

1. God
2. My Man
3. K#1
4. K#2
5. K#3

And those just happen to be my order of priorities as well!