$100 challenge on WSBT

I recently had the chance to help WSBT with an experiment. Can a family of 4 eat for a week? 3 meals a day. No frozen pizza. Just home cooking. (Yes, I know I have 5, but they are all small)

Check out the first of 2 interviews.

I'll post the vid next Monday of our final interview & you can see if I was able to do it or not.

Huge dead snake

We're moving

For those of you who aren't on Twitter...you should be...

If you were, you'd know that Ross accepted a new position in Eugene this week. He's taking off for Oregon the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. We're staying until our house sells.

Pray for a quick sale!! I don't think we'll be able to be seperated for that long.

Halloween family night

I have been so bad about taking pics & posting our family nights. I've gotta figure out how to categorize them too. Kem said it's easy, but I don't think so. If anyone wants to help me...I'd love it.

We had a fun time going through the dress up buckets & figuring out what everyone was going to wear. We ended up w/ a butterfly, a princess, Minnie Mouse, Popeye & a ballerina. I was supposed to be Olive Oyl, but didn't think anyone would know who I was since Popeye was out trick or treating.

Speaking of trick or treating... the family got invited to go on "the trailer" this year. It's full of parents, kids, a keg & candy..good times..good times.

Here's a pic of the family.


Next we carved pumpkins. Cyra chose Minnie Mouse.


Campbell chose Mickey Mouse.


I carved mine for Ross...Jack Skeleton.


Ross carved his for me. Even though he thinks emoticons are so high school..he made one for me.


For some reason, we didn't get an individual pic of Kenady's but here it is in a group shot.

Rodney Atkins & Winston Churchill knew what they were talking about.

This song describes the passed 4 months of my life. Trying not to slow down...

An a capella tribute to Star Wars

ht: bagsbunch

School art projects

I have a HUGE bin full of my kids' art projects. I'm sure all of you do. I know you keep each & every scrap of paper that your kid has drawn / scribbled on right? I thought so.

Well, I only keep the top 10%...the creme de la creme...of the art projects.

But, I have a pet peeve when it comes to kid art projects.

You see, I used to teach an after school program to low income children. One day I planned a project where we were using different items to make a collage. Some of the items were feathers, bit of scrap paper, buttons, broken plastic toy bits, dried beans, peas, noodles...and much more.

The kids were all sitting around the table w/ their glue, paper & bowls of treaures to start their project. I walked around supervising. Helping little ones squeeze the bottle. Encouraging. Whatever.

Some kids were just dumping stuff on the paper. Some were drawing a pattern & being very precise. But there were 3 kids, 2 boys & a girl, all siblings. They were picking out the dried beans, dries peas & pasta. The kids were stuffing those specific items into their pockets.

I watched for a minute until it clicked. These kids were stealing only the food items. They were hungry.

I seized that moment to say "STOP". I explained that I just realized that maybe we should be using such a valuable resource, such as food, for art. We take food for granted in our country. And here I was gluing it down while 3 kids in my class were hungry.

I gathered up the last of the food items & carefully stuck them into the eldest boys' backpack. I didn't have to say anything. He knew, that I knew.

I will never use food as a craft project again. I also encourage my kids to say no when it comes to projects at school that use food items as craft supplies. When a craft project comes home that does use food, I simply tell my story to the teacher.

Whatcha think? Should food be allowed for craft projects at school or daycare?

President Elect

To be totally honest, race did not play a card in this election for me. I heard one reporter say that voters my age were color blind. We didn't take race into consideration. I guess I'm one of them. I voted on issues alone.


I kept hearing news anchors talk about how momentous this was...that an African American man would be in the White House. I didn't see the importance...until I saw this picture.


It gave me chills. The good kind.


I found the picture above posted on Rebecca Woolf's blog - Girl's Gone Child.

She's passionate...I'll give her that...

This morning Cyra woke up early to get online & see who had won the election. She was rooting for McCain even though most of her friends were rooting for Obama. One friend in particular, she was very surprised about. She said "I thought we believed the same things."

Cyra's explanation for supporting McCain was that the Govt doesn't have the heart of Jesus to be able to care for old & poor people. She also said that she was against sucking the brains out of helpless babies.

Yeah.

So last night she was rummaging through the newspapers, searching for a picture of Obama. I asked her "what for?" She wanted to make a collage w/ a big red X through Obama's face to put in her folder at school. Just to irk her friends.

I let her know that in the morning we would have a new president either way. And out of respect for that man, and those who voted for him, she shouldn't be hurtful. Not to him or to her friends.

It was a good lesson in loving others. To not alienate yourself from others who don't believe the same things as you do.

I don't agree w/ Obama's ideals. I never will...unless they become WAY more conservative. But I do believe God can use anyone to do His will.

He's used me.

1 more B4 11 04

Next year's costumes...I wish

Voting & your pastor

Tim Stevens posted a blog earlier in the week asking for his readers to convince him one way or another...if he should share whom he's voting for.

I've had numerous conversations over the passed few weeks about this very topic. Folks are saying that if their pastor spoke on the act of murder and then voted someone in to office who is pro-choice...they would stop attending.

Tell me. Can your pastor preach one way & vote another & you would still follow his teaching?