A laborious, gigantic career...

A sweet friend sent this to me...it was a word of encouragement to me...it may be to you as well!
Thanks, Carolyn! This came at a perfect time for me to read!

"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about arithmetic and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?

How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone?

No, a woman's function is laborious because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

G. K. Chesterton

Dishin' out the candy!

As the days grow shorter, the nights grow colder, the leaves begin to turn, our minds start to fill with excitement of upcoming birthdays, family celebrations, dare we mention Christmas....lots to make a girl smile!

With all of these thrills that we've come to expect, so does the question, "So, little girl, what are you going to be for Halloween?" My girls used to respond to the staring gaze of a stranger...with a staring glaze, then when they grew older they'd say, "I don't like Halloween...it's scary!" And now, our little Cricket has overtaken all of the answering for everyone; she'll say (with great enthusiasm!), "I'm going to be a cowgirl!" (every year!)

In the past, we have either just taken the girls (dressed up, if they wished) to the homes of a few of our closest friends, out to dinner, or out for ice-cream and fun with other friends, etc., and we've not really made that big of a deal of Halloween. My girls naturally turn their heads from "yucky" billboards, TV ads, etc., and we've openly discussed our viewpoints on Halloween, but this last year we decided that we'd take back the holiday and embrace it as a Christian holiday, which is how it began.

So as Ricci and I age and mature (I'd like to think), our viewpoints naturally age and mature along with us. So as the little girl that was out tricker-treating with her daddy and terrified by a neighbor, Suzy Johnson to name, I'm now proud to say that I'm over it (not really!) and am ready to arm myself with candy to give and to receive.


Our little Lovey will be our darling Eloise, proudly living at the Plaza!

Our spunky, little Cricket...you guessed it...a cute, little cowgirl!

And our sweet AngelWings is planning to be our effervescent Vitameatavegamin Girl.

I love Lucy Vitameatavegamin 10 min - http://www.youtube.com/

So after answering a fellow homeschooler on this same topic, I thought I'd also post my response here, including a blog posting written by Doug Wilson:

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This blog posting by Doug Wilson was very encouraging, and I thought you might appreciate it as well.

Wilson is a CREC (Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches) pastor in Idaho, and he is also well-known for his numerous books, particularly on classical Christian education, courtship, and marriage.

Anyway, on this Halloween blog posting, I especially liked his point about how Christians should be more giving (i.e., candy), for recently our pastor (Pastor Jeremy Jones) recently spoke to us on how Christians should be seen as bigger-givers than stingy-keepers (my simple words not his which were much more eloquent!) to show that we more fully appreciate all that Christ has given us.

Doug Wilson's blog posting: Halloween
Here is a brief something I sent out to our church a few years ago. Some of you all might find it helpful. I forget if I have posted it before.

- Halloween -
As another Halloween approaches, and as many of us are working on building alternatives, I wanted to take the opportunity to offer a few thoughts and pastoral suggestions.

Here is the background. First, November 1 is All Saints Day. The All Saints festival was first established during the times of persecution in the early church when the number of martyrs accumulated to the point where it was no longer possible to commemorate them all. In the time of John Chrysostom, all the martyrs were remembered on the first Sunday after Pentecost. In 608 A.D., the Pantheon, a former pagan temple to all the gods, was dedicated in Rome as a Christian church. The date of that dedication (May 13) became the day of "all saints." The day was moved to November 1 in 741 A.D. with the dedication of the Chapel of All Saints.

Second, in the British Isles, the day was known as All Hallows Day. The "eve" of that day, the night before, was known as Hallowe’en. In the minds of simple people, the night before the day of the holy ones was thought to be a last ditch party on the part of unholy ones — devils, witches, fairies, imps and so forth. With this kind of superstition, of course, we have nothing to do. Obviously, the custom of kids dressing up in order to play trick or treat did descend from this view, but the thing that is objectionable here is not the dressing up in itself, or the consumption of candy, but rather the dressing up as wicked creatures.

Third, Reformation Day is on October 31 and commemorates the posting of Luther’s famous theses, which is usually regarded as the inauguration of the Reformation. It is frequently honored by churches on the last Sunday of October. As it happens, Reformation Day is also Halloween.

Fourth, and the bottom line for us, is that both of these two days belong to the Christian church, and not to the pagans. And the days have been ours for many centuries, despite certain pagan encroachments of late. We should keep the days, and fight off the encroachments. And so . . .
Here are a few things to do: We are encouraging parishes to hold Reformation Day/All Saints Day parties and gatherings. The mood should be festive and filled with rejoicing — an exhibition of our gratitude for the faithfulness of the martyrs of the early church and the martyrs of the Reformation. This obviously can (and should) include kids dressing up and getting boatloads of candy, but I would strongly urge that no one have their kids dress up as members of the other team — witches, ghosts, devils, imps, or congressmen. We do want to urge a high level of celebration, but we don’t want to take our cues from the surrounding culture. So if you take your kid around to grandma’s house dressed up like a red M & M, or like Theodore Beza, don’t have them say trick or treat the same way some ghost or witch would. Of course, repent or perish or sola fide probably wouldn’t work either. Let’s do this differently, and intelligently, and still have fun. So have them say trick or treat the way a cute M & M would.

What to avoid. We want parish parties, not pious parties. So when neighborhood trick or treaters come to your door, I would encourage you to give them more candy than unbelievers give, as opposed to a glare and/or a tract about the fires of hell. We want to behave during this time in such a way that their celebrations are revealed as far more anemic than ours (not to mention twisted and gross). We do not want our parish parties to be a cheesy alternative, a sort of faux-Halloween. It should be a true All Hallow’s Eve, a true Reformation Day blow-out.

On a related note, there is no way to do this without kirkers differing among themselves about what is appropriate. This is reasonable — up to a point. We know the general direction we want to go, and we want to get there together with unity of spirit. This means learning to lighten up on details. So don’t freak out and rebuke someone if their kid goes over to an aunt’s house dressed like John Knox, but he cackles evilly instead of saying soli Deo gloria. But feel free to be concerned if someone from the Night of the Living Dead shows up at the parish party.

All for now . . .Posted by Douglas Wilson - 10/2/2008

We are so worn out!

We're dropping like flies over here! The girls are just exhausted from staying up too late and doing a little too much; and for a couple of days Tressie has been complaining about her ears' hurting her (I've made her an appt. with the pediatrician, but as far as I can remember, she has never had an ear infection, but I know that her daddy had several when he was a child); and my pleurisy is acting up again...momma can't do too much when she can't breathe well! And poor Eric's just worn out!

Thankfully, supper's already made, so I don't have to think about that! I try to always prepare more food than we need on Sundays when we have friends over for dinner...just so that I don't have to think about supper on Monday nights, for Mondays are our detox days (we're in detox from having our daddy stay at home with us for the weekend as well as fun doing this and that!)

After we return from the pediatrician's office and the library, it's back to getting the house ready for another school year's kick-off! Woohoo! (There's nothing else better than the smell of a fresh, new notebook!) I'll start my 39th load of laundry, and then continue trying to implement the best new set-up for our family/home-school room. This year I've decided to put a round dining table and an extra bookcase at the end of the family room. And then when we're not snuggled together on the sofa by the fireplace, we can be using this new area for games, artwork, puzzles, etc!

Hopefully, we can pull ourselves back together quickly so Momma can begin getting the 'new' room ready, for we're looking forward to crackin' open some of these new books that we've bought!

God enjoys drawing us near!

After a more-than-wonderful trip to Louisiana, we knew that we needed to get back home by a certain day, for we had to have Annie at the children's hospital to have an ultrasound done on her kidneys after having several episodes with her over the last couple of months.

So early that morning Macy went to spend the morning with Miss Craig; Tressie had the joy of going to work with her daddy, while Annie and I had the pleasure of spending "just you and me time" sitting at the hospital. They checked her in, and we sat some more. The children's hospital really is a place of wonder. All of the waiting rooms are equipped with a television monitor that is playing the same movie, so as we walked from one room to another, Annie didn't miss a single line of "Surf's Up."

Just resting assured that they wouldn't find anything, I held Annie's hand through the ultrasound until she was assured herself that there was nothing to be of concern. After hearing that our doctor would 'get back with us' in a couple of days, we left and ran a couple of errands while enjoying some "just you and me time" before picking up her sweet sisters.

The next morning, the phone rang; it was our pediatrician, who called to tell us that they did find something on her left kidney, so he wanted her scheduled for further testing. Later that day, the hospital called and told us that they had scheduled her next test for the following Tuesday! Holding back the tears, I told them that was her birthday! So thankfully, I was able to reschedule it for the following day.

For some reason, God planned all of this around her birthday...I'm still not sure why; however, we decided that it was best to not say anything to sweet Annie, and we just prayed and asked our close friends and family to pray with us. We are in His hands, and in His timing He reveals to us what He wills. We as parents are so very thankful to have her...she adds so much to our lives! Sometimes so much that this 'lil gal keeps us on our knees!

Psalm 121

Over the hills and through the woods to YaYa's house we go!

Last Sunday afternoon, the girls began to watch out the window, for we were all excited to see my mom and sister with my adorable nephew and two precious nieces, who were on their way! And what a fun week we had while they were here!

Earlier this month, I found the cutest Easter baskets for my nephew and 2 nieces, so we filled them up with some little goodies that were also awaiting their arrival! (I always try to have a welcome basket awaiting our guests to let them know how much we love and appreciate their visit!)

My wonderful brother-in-law is deployed as he is proudly serving our country, so they came up to here for a little change of scenery! However, Mom and Jen brought the wrong baby...they brought my 4 1/2 year-old nephew Drew and my 2 1/2 year-old niece Sarah Katherine (who is talking so well...it's so cute!) and a baby that is just getting too big! We celebrated her 3-month bday while they were here! We all had a fun time passing her back and forth...eat, sleep, and giggle was all she did...she is such a good baby, and we loved every minute of it! (Now, of course, there would be one time of evening when she would want Uncle Ricci to be the one to hold her! Right about the same time he would come home from work! She wanted him, and he wanted her! There were several evenings that she would stay up with him late at night...just the two of them, bonding! He's definitely got the touch!)

Mom, Jen and I had fun planning our days: cooking, talking, lots of laughing, shopping, working on puzzles together, eating chocolate (Jen, you left that huge box of chocolates here...I'm not sure if that's good or bad!), and even talking to Nate via internet/video...technology ceases to amaze me! The cousins had fun saying, "YaYa, where we going today?" They had so much fun walking/running on the treadmill [;)] and just running around the house playing with one another, and Brody misses SK terribly, for she'd walk around giving him food all day! And I miss Mimi terribly, for she helped me a great deal getting caught up on our laundry! Thanks, Mimi! They'll definitely have to come back soon, for our town does have a lot for families to do, and we did have a "fabulous" time while there were here, but there's still much for us to do! So we hope they can come back...soon, for on Thursday their trip was sadly cut short.

Wednesday afternoon Annie began not feeling so well, and by that evening her head was hurting her so badly (and she also kept complaining about her neck), and her fever went from low-grade to 103.8, and it seemed that neither Tylenol nor Motrin would bring it down successfully, so the next morning when her fever was 104.4 we said a rushed good-bye to everyone (I know they wanted to get the heck out of dodge with such a bad cold/flu season going on!), and we took her to the doctor's office. We love our pediatrician; he has nine children, five of whom are adopted! And we were told many years ago that we could throw a bomb to the man, and he would know how to disarm it...well, we've tossed him quite a few, and he's done just that! And yesterday, our poor, little Annie went through a battery of tests, and after several hours at his office, we learned that it was just a severe uti, which is something easily treated with antibiotics! (Once she has recovered, she will have an ultrasound done on her kidneys to assure our doctor that there is no underlying problem....we are all so thankful for modern medicine and that was all it is! Annie thought it was silly when Mimi graciously but seriously offered one of hers to Annie, if need be!) My poor baby! She has been more than miserable! I guess the Lord obviously saw it fitting that He and I spend some time together in prayer, for I have been begging for His healing for her...because of her high fever at times sweet Annie wouldn't be lucid or able to talk, and when she did talk, it wasn't making sense! I think the worst part was when she stopped hallucinating, she told me that she had dreamed she had found Brownie, and she asked me if it was true...aghh!

After knowing that my mom and sister had made it back home safely and after another agonizing evening of high fevers, we were able to get Annie's temps back to low-grade (we are more-than-happy for that!), and we were able to get a restful night's sleep! This morning, she is still running a low-grade fever; however, we have been able to manage it, and we see the light at the end of the tunnel! Thank you, dear Lord!

If anyone knows our little Annie, they know that she is a sweet girl bounding with energy...but not right now! Hopefully, Mom and Jen will come back once more before Nate returns from his deployment (We're so proud of you, NaNa!), for there is still so much for us to do! Come back soon...we miss you!!!!

Such a neat idea!

After discussing paying bills, responsibility, and other "hot topics" with a girlfriend of mine (LeighAnn was it you?), she told me something that I thought was so interesting! Some friends of theirs were working on encouraging and training their son to become a wise, responsible, young man, and they allowed him to open up his own checking account so that he could take over the responsibility of managing their family's electric bill. The son was to be held responsible for paying the monthly electric bill...he would have to accept the electric bill, write out a deposit slip and check for the appropriate amounts, have it all approved by his father and pay the electric bill in a timely manner or know that his family would have to suffer the consequences. I think this is so neat!

Of course, we have daughters who we are training to (Lord-willingly) be godly, young ladies, so I don't feel that this would be appropriate for our family...and certainly not at their ages at this time! Yet the girls and I do pray regularly for their future husbands AND their families.

One day last week, the conversation of their future husbands came up between Macy and me, and I asked her if she hoped that her future husband's parents disciplined her husband, and without a hesitation, she said that she did hope for that. I asked why she felt that way, and she said that she hoped he was being taught to do what was right. I was so proud of her for thinking about this!