I occasionally ask my 7 year old son to help me do the dishes. Standing on the stool, sleeves rolled up he tries his very best to scrub each plate. Water splashes on his clothes and down to the floor. When we are finally done he’s practically had a bath himself. After sending him off to bed I mop the suds up off the floor and spot check the plates for missed spaghetti sauce. Could I do the dishes better on my own? Would it take less time? Be less mess? Yes, in fact it would be a lot easier if I did it on my own. That’s not the point. You see I don’t need a 7 year old boy to do my dishes. I can do them fine by myself. Much better that he can even begin to. There are three reasons I have this little guy doing such a big job. By him helping with the dishes he learns obedience to his mother, we have a time of fellowship in which we get to talk and share with each other, and he is learning skills for the future.

These are same reasons God asks us to work for him. Not because he needs help but because he is a God of relationship, he has created us for fellowship with him. We grow closer to Him through obedience. more…

Another weekly post in which I give you 7 random reasons why I love my Husband (in no particular order)

22- He’s a friend to my friends

23- He keeps the kids quiet when I’m taking a Sunday nap. 
(Well he tries, and that counts for something)

24- He’s a Cub Scout dad

25- He’s Loyal to his friends and family

26- He’s unashamedly Christian

27- He keeps his commitments even when it’s inconvenient

28- He tells people I’m a good Mom

I told you in April about this precious baby lost. Her mother had a beautiful tribute video on her blog today.

A weekly post in which I list 7 things in no particular order that make me smile

Here are numbers 22-28

- Cooking with Charleigh (we pretend we’re in a cooking show, she has fabulous commentary on garlic)

- Grandpa’s who POP their teeth out for little kids.

- Dry PULL-UPS®

- Family Movie Night

- Empty kitchen sinks
- Family’s on bicycles

- Spinning Merry-Go-Rounds

I awoke to Joshua’s little face.

“Mommy” he said, ” “You are very in-ter-est-ing”

And so my day began . . . more…

This morning my little Charleigh was on Good Morning America:

Charlie Gibson was doing a story on werenotafraid.com A blog created after the London bombings. The day after the attack I found Alfie’s blog, on which he had about 20 pictures featuring various people standing strong and unafraid. I submitted Charleigh’s picture that evening and when I checked back the following day there were hundreds more as well.Now the site has be revamped and there are thousands of pictures.

Janae called this morning to tell me Charleigh was on GMA. I only caught the tail end of the story. Did you see her? No matter here’s her picture now.

I had not previously linked you to this site as the content is not all “family friendly” and the comments were fairly harsh. In fact Charleigh’s picture had gained quite a bit of attention from anti American commenters. After the rude comments she then gained a very positive following with many people saying “God Bless London, and God Bless Charleigh” After the sites popularity rocketed the comments were disabled so there is no history of the brief international discussion based on a simple picture of my Charleigh.

Update: I added the story to these pictures in my Journal

So tired in fact, I can’t even tell you why. So untill I get a nap here are some pictures taken last night somewhere between midnight and 2am.

I’ve noticed that for some reason people are fairly interested in reading complete strangers day to day experiences. I will attempt to address this interest. My daily journal will be kept on the side. This will protect those of you who couldn’t care less from hearing about my trip to the grocery store, the Doctor or the back yard. If you are interested in my randomness click on the journal category.

Expect nothing poetic or inspiring only Reality. We have a lot of that around here, Reality, I mean. It piles up on the couch, on the kitchen table and pours out of the kid’s rooms. Sometimes it hides in the bathroom and overflows into the hall. Watch out it might get stuck on the bottom of your shoe. Reality its a sticky thing, and no matter how hard you try you just can’t seem to keep it shoved under the bed or in the closet. It’s never very exciting and not too shiny but we do have an ample supply. Enough to share anyway. . .

Happy Birthday Kenzie. I love my Kenzie she is my dear friend Janae’s little girl. Well actually she’s not that little she just turned 9 and she is about 2 inches shorter than me. (I admit that’s not saying much)

Today was the first day of the First Baptist VBS. I went to drop Kaleb and Charleigh off and I had to wade through what seemed like hundreds of kids. Dragging Joshua through the masses I finally found my way back to the van. Poor thing just doesn’t understand why his siblings get to have all the fun and he has to go with me. I convinced him our day was going to be equally as fun. He cheered up when I mentioned that we were on our way to church to and that he was going to see his friend Abbye. I met Sarah at the Church a few minutes later only to find that she had not brought Abbye. This fact did not please my two year old at all. He was only slightly pacified by the new baby Hannah who was very pretty, had cute toes to tickle but just couldn’t play ball with him like her older sister.

Sarah and I are starting a Cookie Ministry at our church in which we will take a goody bag to recent visitors. Today our goal was to sit down organize our grocery list, go purchase the items, mix the dough, bake the cookies, then deliver them with a smile. . . Didn’t quite work the way we had planned. By noon we had retreived all necessary ingredients as well as going back to both of our homes to get mixers. With out having touched a chocolate chip we had to break for lunch. Cookies or no Cookies husbands and children still get hungry. It took me about 15 min for me to pick up the kids, I was waiting at the wrong door for Kaleb.

At lunch Kurt and I worked on his application for the position for Shop Supervisor(not sure if that is the official title but it’s close) He left early to go retype it up. I had planned on meeting Sarah at 1:30 and it was just barely 1:00 so it seemed like a fabulous chance for a nap. Within the first 5 minutes I had received 4 calls. 3 telemarketers and one local church doing some kind of week long prayer drive. The lady on the phone was so nervous I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I told her she could pray for Charleigh’s hearing and for her DR visit tomorrow. I could tell the lady was trying to get us to go to her church so I also added that I would love it if her church would pray for our church seeing that we just got a new Pastor and this was a time of great change for us. At that request she said Uh UH ok then she hung up. Interesting. . .

Back to church and back to work. Sorta we got the two batches of chocolate chip cookies mixed and rolled and put in the freezer. But none were baked or delivered. I have no idea why we were so slow could be the 5 kids accompaning us.

We arrived back home in time to get cleaned up and go to the Lakeview Methodist church for their VBS. Two Vacation Bible schools in one day? Why not? Once again Joshua was too young but by this time Daddy was home so he didn’t care. We had a nice dinner then Kurt went to Reunion group (men’s prayer/accountability group) Hmmm. . . wonder what they talk about. And here I am talking about probably the most uneventful day I’ve had in months. Hmm kinda nice to go disaster free for 24 hours.

Tomorrow we are headed to The ENT (Ear Nose Throat) Dr for Charleigh’s hearing. We will find out what is causing the loss and the means to restore it. Our possible options are medicine, tubes, or surgery. I choose healing, with medication coming in as a second option. Not to keen on the whole surgery thing.

Joshua has found his way out of bed so I best be off to tuck him into his glowing star sheets

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid urged President Bush on Saturday to say “no to the far right” and nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court someone who will rule with “an open mind and a big heart.”

“We need an independent thinker who will follow the Constitution, not a knee-jerk conservative crusader who will march in lock-step to the tune of partisan pressure groups,” Reid of Nevada said in his party’s weekly radio address.

Lets cut to the chase. We all know the controversy surrounding the Court is rooted in the Abortion Issue. There are those on the left who love to imply that those who are Pro-Life are in reality close-minded and hardhearted. I do not understand how this issue has been turned upside down in our culture. Why is it that he who wants to protect an innocent life is considered hard hearted? Why is a person who chooses to be blind to the life lost in abortion, blind to the consequences of this “Choice” why is that person considered to be more “Open Minded”? I would think that the only way to live with oneself while supporting abortion would be to close one’s mind to the reality of what abortion really is.

After reading other various statements from Mr. Reid, I have come to conclude that his idea of an “independent thinker” is really someone who agrees with him. Anyone who sways from his beliefs is considered a partisan extremist. (Now to be fair, that thinking resides in both red and blue brains, But I digress.) . . .

The leader of the Democrat party who is appealing for a fair unpartisan nominee has clearly stated that anyone who has demonstrated pro-life tendencies will be opposed. This does not seem very “Open Minded” to me.