The last 3 weeks

I have no idea where to even begin. The last 3 weeks has been a journey of happiness, sorrow, joy, sickness, love, and loss.

I never posted about my Grandmothers (Mom's Mom) awesome and wonderful boyfriend that essentially a second grandfather to me. His name is Papa Pete and he is rejoicing in heaven now. Before Thanksgiving this year he was diagnosed with Leukemia and was not given a good outcome. We saw him at Christmas time and he was doing ok. However they had to call hospice in shortly after. He was doing ok but took a turn for the worse just before Valentines day and passed peacefully in his sleep to join his Lord and Savior. What an awesome joy to know he is in Heaven right now but he is truly missed here. I can not thank him enough for all that he has done for my Grandmother since my Grandfather passed away almost exactly 10 years ago from right now. I love you Papa Pete and enjoy some cloud jumping for Allie and Maddie please.

The girls have had to learn about death in this hard time but they take comfort that our loved ones are in Heaven with God and Jesus, boo boo free, and enjoying some cloud jumping!!!!

Another sorrow that we are going through is that about 3 weeks ago my Grandfather (Dad's Dad) found out that he has Lung Cancer when they did a deeper scan of his pneumonia. He had an appointment with the doc to found out the deeper specifics about 1 hour before Papa Pete's visitation. He has Stage 4 Lung Cancer and it's in the lymph nodes as well. My Grandfather is a very strong and caring man that has lived a very rough but good life. He is already dealing with a heart condition and Parkinson's disease. He does not complain and has an awesome outlook. I am so proud to cal him MINE!!!!! He is not a good candidate for surgery or radiation, and it seems that Chemo would only prolong his life while making him miserable most likely. I understand that this is not really his wishes and he deserves to enjoy his last days here spending it with family before he meets his Lord and Savior and joins the cloud jumping!!!! I pray that I am able to spend time with him and let my children see the truly wonderful man that I get to call Grandpa. Please pray for peace and understanding for everyone especially his wife my Grandma (step grandma by law but real by my heart).

Some praises are that Logan is 6 months and can officially say MA-MA!!! Maddie is starting to read. And lastly my little Allie has learned her night time prayer so well that when I hear her say it I want to cry for joy!!!!

This last week I was uber sick and my family did an awesome job of surviving. All thanks to Joel for being the glue that held us together and took me to the ER to get on meds, changed tons of diapers, brought me meds, read to the kids, loved on them all for me, and still worked here from home. Thank you babe for everything you do you are the best!!!! Love you Forever and Always.

Thank you for making it all of the way to the end of this blog and please keep our praises and prayers in yours. Thank you from us all!!!

Logan update

So my little guy is changing way too much way too fast... He turned 5 months on Sunday.

He can roll over like a little pro and he's only been only doing it for about 2 weeks now.

Logan is now also a pro at eating Solids. Last Saturday (1/12/08) he tried cereal and that did not sit well with his tummy. So we decided to give Veggies a try. We started with Green Beans and he loved them and did awesome with them. By his 4th spponful he was taking the spoon in and swallowing it no problem. He totally skipped the couple of weeks of regurgitating the food. He went on to Squash 5 days later and now we are on Sweet potatoes.

Oh yeah and the last thing is how big that "little" guy is. He weighed in at 18 lbs 13 ozs on the Thursday before we started solids (1/10/08). He also 2 weeks prior to that was in the 99% for height.

Where has the time gone???

One could only hope...

Well I really hoped that today when I went and checked on the freezer it would be working again. No such luck... it was about the same temp as the outdoors right now.

So that led to me to check out whether or not we had bought an extended service plan. Again nope... this is the reason that I feel they are so important. Right about the time that we bought this freezer we also bought a dishwasher. Joel was not to happy about buying service plans at that time because we had bought them on our exisiting appliances and never used them.

We lets go back to May of 2007 when our dishwasher of only 2 years died for the second time. The first time was when we had the house on the market and we had done a homeowners insurance thing that luckily covered it. However if we had bought a plan then we would not have had to buy a new dishwasher. The new one has a extended 5 yr plan on it ;)

Now here we are again same kind of problem... no plan and looks like we are out a freezer. I think we have learned our lesson!!!

Ticked off

So last night before I went to MOPs I got into the deep freezer in the garage to get out a meal for a member of our small group that had been in the ER becuase of hurting her back on Sunday. So I got in the freezer and notice that some of the stuff had this weird frost just starting to form on it and a few things were melted (Ice cream and juice cans). I prayed that it was just left open somehow when Joel had gotten in there earlier in the day for me.

When I came home last night from MOPs at 10:30pm and went and checked on it. It was even worse... Alot of the smaller items had already begun to defrost. So we had to make room in the two freezer inside. We have our old fridge in the basement to store pop and right now my Lean Cuisine meals. So we were able to get the bags of Chicken breasts and all of the bags of veggies saved.However I have some Main Dish Kitchen stuff that is was starting to defrost... looks like we have the next 4 days of meals planned out...

Some of you may recall that this is not the first time this stinking freezer did this. That time I lost over a 1000ozs of breast milk. I am so irratated that this stupid freezer has been just fince since that incident back in Nov of 05. We only bought the darn thing back in August of 04 too...

Weight Loss accoutability

Well they say accountability is the key to weight loss and since we are in a new year it's time for me to shed these baby pounds once and for all!!!! Normally I'd do a 1 year weight review However I'm going to do a 2 year in review since I was preggo for 9 months of the last year.

Jan 2006: 166
May 2006: 175
August 2006: 148
Oct 2006: 150 (My maintain weight before we started to TTC)
Dec 2006: 157 (Got pregnant then)
Aug 20th 2007: 185 (My pregnancy high)
Sept 1st 2007: 164
Sept 20th 2007: 157
Oct 31st 2007: 158
Dec 1st 2007: 160
Dec 26th 2007: 164
Now: 162

Goals:April 1st (Allie's b-day) 152ish
June 29th (Maddie's b-day) 147ish
Aug 20th (Logan's b-day) 142ish
Final Goal 135-140 area!!!!

Merry CHRISTmas

The Golden Compass

Cl.. The 2007 film The Golden Compass is based on a series of books with anti-religious themes.

Status: True.

Examples:

[Collected via e-mail, October 2007] There will be a new Children's movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud athiest who belongs to secular humanist societies. He hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side. The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won't hear on the regular TV. [Collected via e-mail, October 2007] I don't just generally dismiss a movie or book just because someone 'says' it's meant to be something else...but this is worth knowing if you plan to see it (or plan to take your kids). "Hi! I just wanted to inform you what I just learned about a movie that is coming out December 7, during the Christmas season, which is entitled THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It stars Nicole Kidman and it is directed toward children. What is disturbing to me is that this movie is based on the first of a trilogy of books for children called HIS DARK MATERIALS written by Philip Pullman of England. He's an atheist and his objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. I heard that he has made remarks that he wants to kill God in the minds of children, and that's what his books are all about. He despises C.S. Lewis and Narnia, etc. An article written about him said "this is the most dangerous author in Britain" and that Pullman would be the writer "the atheists would be praying for, if atheists prayed." Pullman said he doesn't think it is possible that there is a God and he has great difficulty understanding the words "spiritual" and "spirituality." What I thought was important to communicate is what part of the agenda is for making this picture. This movie is a watered down version of the first book, which is the least offensive of the three books. The second book of the trilogy is THE SUBTLE KNIFE and the third book is THE AMBER SPYGLASS. Each book gets worse and worse regarding Pullman's hatred of God. In the trilogy, a young girl becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle against a nefarious Church known as the Magisterium. Another character, an ex-nun, describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake." As I understand it, in the last book, a boy and girl are depicted representing Adam and Eve and they kill God, who at times is called YAHWEH (which is definitely not Allah). Since the movie would seem mild if you viewed it, that's been done on purpose. They are hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie, that they will enjoy the movie and then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven. If you decide that you do not want to support something like this, I suggest that you boycott the movie and the books. I googled a synopsis of THE GOLDEN COMPASS. As I skimmed it, I couldn't believe that in a children's book part of the story is about castration and female circumcision.

Origins: The Golden Compass, a fantasy film starring Nicole Kidman that is scheduled to be released into theaters on 7 December 2007, has been drawing fire from concerned Christians. The film is based on Northern Lights (released in the U.S. as The Golden Compass), the first offering in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy of children's books, a series that follows the adventures of a streetwise girl who travels through multiple worlds populated by witches, armor-plated bears, and sinister ecclesiastical assassins to defeat the oppressive forces of a senile God.

Books of the trilogy have sold more than 15 million copies around the world, with Northern Lights winning the Carnegie Medal for Children's Literature in 1995 and in 2007 being awarded the 'Carnegie of Carnegies' for the best children's book of the past 70 years. The Amber Spyglass, the final book of the series, won The Whitbread Prize in 2001, making it the first children's book to do so.

The series' author, Philip Pullman (who has described himself as both an agnostic and an atheist), has averred that "I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.'" Critics of Pullman's books point to the strong anti-religion and anti-God themes they incorporate, and although literary works are subject to a variety of interpretations, Pullman left little doubt about his books' intended meanings when he said in a 2003 interview that "My books are about killing God" and in a 2001 interview that he was "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief." (In 2002 conservative British columnist Peter Hitchens labeled Pullman "The Most Dangerous Author in Britain" and described him as the writer "the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed.")

Bill Donohue, president of The Catholic League, has condemned The Golden Compass as a "pernicious" effort to indoctrinate children into anti-Christian beliefs and has produced a 23-page pamphlet titled The Golden Compass: Unmasked in which he maintains that Pullman "sells atheism for kids." Donohoe told interviewer John Gibson on 9 October 2007 why he believes Christians should stay away from the film:

Look, the movie is based on the least offensive of the three books. And they have dumbed down the worst elements in the movie because they don't want to make Christians angry and they want to make money. Our concern is this, unsuspecting Christian parents may want to take their kid to the movie, it opens up December 7th and say, this wasn't troubling, then we'll buy the books. So the movie is the bait for the books which are profoundly anti-Catholic and at the same time selling atheism.

Other reviewers, however, have described Pullman's works as being more generally anti-religion rather than specifically anti-Christian or anti-Catholic:

In "His Dark Materials," Pullman's criticisms of organized religion come across as anti-authoritarian and anti-ascetic rather than anti-doctrinal. (Jesus isn't mentioned in any of the books, although Pullman has hinted that He might figure in a forthcoming sequel, "The Book of Dust.") His fundamental objection is to ideological tyranny and the rejection of this world in favor of an idealized afterlife, regardless of creed. As one of the novel's pagan characters puts it, "Every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp