Animals

Daniel's first time playing with stuffed animals!







Check out his belly!






























Whatcha lookin' at?

Just in Case

Just in case you were wondering what an excellent sleeper looks like:

What I've Been Taught

I thought about titling this post What I've Learned, but when the majority of what has come out of my professors mouths is lies, I didn't want to associate that with learning per se.
I am not naive enough to have thought that I could walk into a classroom at a public university and expect to hear Biblical truths taught. I didn't even expect to hear them accurately described. But the level of lies, heresy and misinformation really has caught me off guard.
Two classes in particular make me want to pull my hair out. Introductions to Women's Studies and Sociology of the Family. (Nevermind the fact that my other two classes just covered Freud.) The fact that I feel so unprepared and ill-equipped to handle these issues had made me seriously consider homeschooling (but that's another post).

Lie #1- Religion exists to control women's sexuality; the first laws written were about controlling women and their sexuality.
Truth: Exodus 20:3"You shall have no other gods before me." The first of the 10 Commandments... this has what to do with sexuality?
Deuteronomy 22:13-30 talks some about what happens to men who violate women.
All of the laws recorded in the Bible were written because God expects his people to be holy, yes he expects even a woman's sexuality to be holy.

Lie#2- Patriarchy is all about the domination of men over women. And the Bible also demeans women.
Truth: Wisdom is referred to as she/her throughout the proverbs.
Check out Jess's post on Biblical Descriptions of Women. Several women are listed in Jesus' genealogy, and women are known for more than making babies. Debora was a judge, Ester saved her people from extermination, Lydia was a merchant; do I even need to mention Proverbs 31? Scripture has a high view of women. Sure we're capable of royally screwing up, just like men (how's that for equality?), we can be prostitutes and quarrelsome, but Jesus rescued more than one wayward woman.

There are so many more I could cover, but I'm not sure you'd read them, so we'll start with these.

Feminists struggle so hard against what they perceive as value attachments to Men and Women. I am well aware that women make $0.77 to every $1.00 that a man makes. (Or else that's just rhetoric on their agenda) But even worse is the devaluing of those women who choose to be homemakers. Ain't I a Woman?

Lately

Apparently Tommy and I are poor dinner company. Maybe that's why no one wants to come over...








Daniel loves the bath! He splashes water all over with his hands and feet.

Pro-Life

Starting with Sanctity of Life Sunday and recent sermons on adoption at our church, I've really been thinking more about pro-life, and what it means. Is saying that I voted Pro-Life enough? This might be a tough analogy, but was it enough for a German who could smell the smoke of burning bodies to say my vote was for the other guy?

No. It's not enough, not for me.

Pro-Life to me is about more than being against abortion. It's about advocating life. New life, Old life and everything in between.

If children are a blessing, I won't scoff at the family with six kids under age 7. If old folks valuable I won't huff if I'm behind someone shuffling their feet. I should encourage single moms and rejoice at every conception.

Tommy and I have been discussing what more practical ways we can have a positive influence with our limited time and even more limited budget. To be perfectly honest, we haven't come up with much yet. There are a few things we feel like we can do now, and start thinking about for the future:

• Buy diapers for a pregnancy help center when I find them at super good deals
• Donate a little extra money as we have it to the adoption fund our church just started
• Mentor someone about to age out of the foster system
• Adopt a child in the foster system or internationally
• Volunteer at a pregnancy help center
• Loose baby weight so we can have more babies to celebrate
• Become more educated on abortion, how it is performed and its repercussions
  
• Be sure that none of our future doctors perform abortions, and that no hospital we deliver at offer those procedures
• Make sure vaccines don't come from aborted babies
  

What will you do? Is voting enough for you?
Please check out these links for some more info

Questions to Consider
50 Ways to Help

Watch

Sylar, I mean Tommy, took apart my watches so we could put new batteries in them.



















He insisted that we couldn't just go buy batteries, because they are all different sizes. He was careful to write down the letters and numbers of each battery alongside which watch it came out of. Even after realizing they were the same size, he thought maybe some watches needed a higher voltage battery.














We'll see what happens when we go buy batteries.

Books for Spring

Tommy bought 3 used books and 3 new books for $119.02
He is taking:
Hebrew II
Advanced Expository Preaching
Intro to Missiology

I'm thinking his semester will rival last. (Which was his best to date!)

I bought 4 used books and 2 new books for $360.39
I am taking:
Psychology of Personality
Sociology of Individual and Society
Sociology of the Family
Intro to Women's Studies

The more I think about it, the more anxious I become.
Women's Studies!? for which I need the book Feminist Theory. How's submission for a theory?
And Family? Dad, Mom, Kids. Do I get an A?
Personality? how about bound to sin?
Individual? Not I, but Christ.

I'm reminded of that feeling you get before you dive to the bottom of the pool. Deep Breath. Will I make it to the bottom and back again?

Good Things

1. 24 starts now.

2. Tommy accidently bought me last Sunday's newspaper. I was so bummed that I forgot to buy one and missed out on lots of great coupons.

3. My dad found a job, in Houston!

4. The moon was way awesome last night. There was a halo around it, I've never seen anything like it.