So Grateful '08 :)

What blessings God has bestowed! We continue to be immensely grateful for the gift of H in our lives. She brings so much joy and teaches so many lessons. How awesome to have a child to demonstrate the life Christ calls us to live.

In this month's Faith & Family magazine, the suggestion was made to sing a short hymn at the Thanksgiving table, in addition to saying grace. So yesterday, before we had a glorious meal, Paul, Keith and I sang "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow." H watched on in delighted curiosity.

It is such a gift to be able to pass on your faith to your child. She has not yet mastered the sign of the cross, but she clasps her hands during grace and kisses her picture of Jesus and Mary at bedtime. Well, she also kisses the couch and random other inanimate objects....but I know this is more special - especially when she sees a picture and points to "zeeezus" at Church.

So...in our hopes to continue to teach our faith, now we enter the season of advent. For Paul and I - the ultimate sacrifice is reserving Christmas for the Christmas season. While we have tagged a glorious Christmas tree this morning - we will reserve picking it up for a few weeks.

I found online a book that was a special tradition in our house growing up called "Family Nights." We hope that it will help prepare our hearts to enter in to the real meaning of the season.








Okay...so now for the less "storybook" parts of our holiday, here is a video clip of H's favorite way to entertain us:

First encounter this year...not such a good one.

Declare Thyself!

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Yet another precious H moment

Usually when I am doing chores or getting ready, H likes to "help." This morning, as I was putting on makeup, all of a sudden I felt a little hand on my bare foot. I looked down and found her trying to put on my sock! Ahh! So sweet! So I sat down and helped her put on my sock. She was so delighted with the accolades, she immediately ran back to get me another. The two socks she pulled were slightly mismatched. I think I am wearing them in solidarity with her cuteness!

Isn't She Precious!!

I can not even begin to tell you in how many ways...and how many times a day H floods our lives with joy. NOTHING can compare to the gift of a child!

Continuing to use my freedom of speech...

One thing I have learned during this election, everyone is and should be entitled to their freedom of speech. This is the beauty and gift of being American. This is one thing I am most grateful for to those who give their lives for our country. The freedom of speech is a glorious thing.

Over the past months I have read and shared emails with friends and family of various opinions. I have heard many sides of many stories. While we can all disagree about opinion, we should all respect each others freedom to express opinion. Twice, my McCain/Palin signs were stolen in the week prior to the election. This upset me enough to replace it with a sign "coward's stole my McCain/Palin sign." I am not proud of using the word coward, it was not the most charitable word to use, though I do believe it fits the role of someone who takes that freedom from me.

With that said, in our America today, we have so many new ways, and forums to express our opinions publicly. I am sure everyone received emails from friends and family expressing election opinions. As I am demonstrating now, we have personal blogs. And like never before, people are connecting and expressing opinions with Facebook, a social networking site.

All this freedom of speech has allowed the flame of my pro-life passion to be reignited. While I was never a "closet" pro-life activist, today we have even greater abilities to make our causes/beliefs known. All I can do is pray these discussions allow people to listen and hear Truth. This does not mean find your own personal truth...but find the objective, unchanging Truth is the Truth is the Truth.

One of these Truths: Human Life Begins at Conception. This is not an opinion, this is not a religious belief. This is an objective, unchanging, scientifically proven Truth. Another Truth, abortion kills the life of a human child. And...as our new president-elect has stated...regardless of your position on abortion, we should all agree on reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies (supposedly, therefore reducing the number of abortions).

President-elect Obama has vowed to support a very dangerous and scary bill, The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). In his words, "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." -- Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007

"If passed into law, FOCA will impose upon the entire country an abortion regime far worse than anything brought on by Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. And the current level of 1.1 million abortions a year will go up, not down." USCCB

Cardinal Justin Rigali recently wrote the following: "there is one thing absolutely everyone should agree on: We can't reduce abortions by promoting abortion. We cannot reduce abortions by invalidating the very laws that have been shown to reduce abortions. We cannot reduce abortions by insisting that every program supporting women in childbirth and child care must also support abortion. No one who sponsors or supports legislation like FOCA can credibly claim to be part of a good-faith discussion on how to reduce abortions."

Please join me in praying and petitioning your representatives and senators:
Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard to contact the offices of
your Representative and two Senators: 202.224.3121.
Urge them to oppose FOCA

Go to http://www.nchla.org/issues.asp?ID=50 for more info.