Family Ties

I LOVE BABIES!!! Particularly one cute one, my little Nephew Benjamin. He was born December 2, 2005 to the best brother and sister in law in the world! I got to see him when I went home for Christmas, but he was only two to three weeks old. So he basically ate food, drank a bottle and slept. But that's babies for you! When Kevin and Renee came up for my wedding, Benjamin was about 6 months old! And boy was he cute. Sure I scared him a time or two with my big pink cowgirl hat, but I managed to get him to wear it!! Doesn't he look cute!!! Kevin and Renee are so proud of him.

It's funny to see my brother with a baby.

For anybody who doesn't know my brother, he was in the Marine Corps for four years and went and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. He always seemed so tough and now when I see him with his little boy, he doesn't seem tough at all! He practically looks like a teddy bear himself!! It is kind of sad that I don't know my nephew. I know more about Nathan (my adopted nephew, one of my friends' babies.) than I know about Benjamin! :( Family is so important. I grew up all my life close to family. Both grandparents lived close, so I got to know them really well, and it just seems to me that is the way children should be raised. (instead of the village raising the child, let the family do it) My grandmother spent countless hours answering all my questions about her way of life in the 40's, and answering all my questions about all of my ancestors and relatives. I can name my grandfathers for four generations and tell you what their proffessions were. Maybe trivial, but it helps me know why I can cut my husbands hair (we had a barber in our family) and why I do a whole lot of other things. It's in my genes! Our grandparents have wisdom and knowledge that we would never attain if it wasn't for them. :) I found a quote, that says exactly what I want to say. "In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future." Hug someone today :) Call your grandma and grandpa, or your parents, and be thankful you're loved. :)

Some good cooking

I wouldn't say I'm the greatest cook in the world. I can whip up a thing or two and Dave loves it. I love to experiment, and I have to say, since becoming a wife, I find that more and more enjoying. Nothing like having a grown man with an empty stomach to motivate you to cook! The other day I made chicken parmesan for Dave. He thought it was so great, but I got the recipe from a friend. Then I made baked macaroni and cheese... good, but I got the recipe from a friend. So I made some rice krispies for him, and he thought for sure, this was my own recipe. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Kellogs prints it right on the side of the box for you! So i told him that me and my mom made it together when I was a kid, which is entirely true (thanks mom!) but there is no way I would remember all the exact measurements from then. He loved it anyways.

Just tonight I spiced it up a little and made some Rice Krispies treats with peanut butter in them. I know! Daring!! I'm sure he'll love it, because I made it.

I love getting up in the morning and making him breakfast .

To bad he's not a morning person! I know he enjoys it all the same though, and he drags himself out of bed to eat my morning concoctions.

He likes to eat eggs which I am not fond of at all, and for many reasons, but I learned to make him eggs all the same because that is what he wanted. Now, when my mom used to make eggs for my brothers, she would always put cheese in them. So that's what I did, and it sure did confuse Dave's tastebuds, but he loved it all the same.

So, all this makes me hungry... so I will leave you all with a recipe I will pass along... some of you may have it, some of you may want to write it down, and others will think they could never make this! It's not to hard, just follow the instructions!

Ingredients:

Love....acceptance...kindness...gentleness...faith..

.commitment...communication...respect... patience..

.self control...hope...truth

Take 2 happy people (one male and 1 female) and separate them from their parents. Add the above ingredients in generous portions. Mix together and thoroughly sift in daily life. Next, strain out jealousy, arrogance, selfishness, provocation, and accounting of wrongs. Bake in the trials and tribulations of life for about 50 years, then celebrate when Golden!!

This is one recipe Dave and I like to cook together :)

A TRIBUTE TO LOVE

June 29, 1979
WOW!!! Look at those two lovebirds!! Aren't they cute!! CONGRATS mom and dad on twenty seven amazing years. Words cannot express how proud I am of the both of you for sticking in there and showing us kids what love is all about. We have seen you through the worst, and seen you through the best. Thankfully, there have been more good times than bad. I always look back at your relationship and think I have never seen two people more in love. 27 years and you still hold hands when you go places. And mom, don't think I don't see those google eyes that you make at dad. :) Many couples these days have a hard time adjusting when the kids leave the nest. Not you guys!! (I'm sure there was the sniffle here and there). Your love seems to have grown in the four years that I went to college, and I can only hope to have with Dave what you two have together. Three children later and a cute little grandbaby, we are so proud!!!

When does life begin?

One of my good friends just had an abortion. Well, we aren't really close, actually, we just know each other through friends. She is only a couple of years younger than me, so it's really easy to relate to her. Anyways, I didn't know she was pregnant until recently, and because of the way I found out I wasn't allowed to say anything. So I did a lot of praying, and I offered to get some pamphlets for her about abortion and that sort of thing. Despite the efforts made by me and some of my other friends, she decided to go through with it yesterday.
For those of you who don't know, I worked at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, which was a pro life agency. I firmly believe in Pro -Life, that life begins at conception, that the baby inside a woman is a life, has a heartbeat after 18 days, can feel pain. I respect that women who even are considering abortion are under a great deal of stress and anxiety that can't be measured. However, when it comes down to it, I don't think that can be compared to the life that is inside of you. That baby has a choice to, and ultimately, the man and the woman are the one who chose to give it life. I know this subject is controversial, but I don't think we talk enough about it. This remarkable photograph to the left is of a tiny fetus in it's unruptured amniotic sac taken after surgery for an ectopic pregnancy in 1972. This picture demonstrates the development of a baby at only six weeks after conception.


This is at 13 weeks and The brain is fully developed and the fetus can suck, swallow, and make irregular breathing sounds. Fetus can feel pain (New England Journal of Medicine). Fetal skin is almost transparent. Muscles tissue is lengthening and bones are becoming harder. Liver and organs produce appropriate fluids. Eyebrows and eyelashes appear and the fetus makes active movements including kicks and even somersaults...if this isn't life, I don't know what is. I truly learned where my heart lies today, a hard way to learn that, I would give up this sadness of a loss of life to see that baby someday, but for now I will try to follow the leading of the Lord as to where to go with this.

The honeymoon!

That's us snorkeling!! Our honeymoon was the most amazing week of our lives! We went to Puerto Vallarta Mexico. We stayed at an all inclusive resort on the ocean. When we got there, we told them it was our honeymoon and they bumped us up to an oceanview suite. Free!! We went snorkeling, on a boating cruise called Rythms of the Night. They take you away to a secluded island and do an Aztec wedding ceremony how it would have been performed ages ago. We did Kayaking, Ziplining (pic below) and became beach bums for a whole week! We came back really tan, well Dave came back almost black, and I came back tan. It's not fair! He has naturally tan skin, so he gets real dark. I am whiter than white, so I barely get a tan. Sigh.... :)

If anybody doesn't know what ziplining is, I guess I'll explain it. It's when you get attached to a metal rod that is strung from one mountain to the other. You hang on with your hands and glide down it. You go super fast and scream at the top of your lungs because you look down and the ground is so far below.

A week was definately the perfect amount of time to go. The first two days we rested and went walking around the city, just having fun. The next four days were jam packed with activities and fun. The next two days, we layed around at the pool and watched the world cup. It's funny cause four years ago when the last world cup was playing I was in Africa! Now I'm married and in Mexico!

Our Wedding Day!

The wedding went off without a hitch! Sure there were a few minor things, like forgetting my veil (which my uncle and aunt rushed off to get) And I forgot to eat lunch (which another one of my uncles rushed off to get). No fainting on the day of the wedding! And I broke a nail as soon as I woke up that morning. I was, for the most part, pretty calm about everything. Here I am about to marry the most amazing man in the whole world, so why cry or be anxious. I don't think I ever did anything easier in my whole life.
David looked amazing when I was walking down the aisle. He was so cute! He took out a little hanky and was dabbing his eyes with it. I don't think I cried at all until we did the unity candle and David started praying. It really got me!
It was so great to have our family there with us for the big day. Six out of 10 of the families on my side showed up, and David had a good showing to. His Dad officiated the ceremony. My uncle played the piano in our ceremony, and we tried to involve as much family as possible. He had met a lot of my family during a trip to Wisconsin, but I had never met anybody in his family besides his immediate family. It was fun to see his cousins and everybody interacting, they reminded me a lot of my family. Kudos to my mom and Dad! They did an amazing job on the whole wedding and the reception as well. It looked amazing! Dave and I could have never imagined it would have been this beautiful! Thank you!!

GRRRRR!!!!!!

GRRRR!!!!! Do you ever just have one of those days?? One of those days were up is really down, brown is really blue, and your shirts on backwards? Yea, I had one of those days today. It wasn't a bad day, it was just really frustrating. I feel like i'm babysitting everybody at work. I shouldn't be babysitting people at work, but that is what it is turning out to be. I"m a restaurant manager and the night shift is full of people who are still in high school. They just want to get out and go party. They aren't concerned about making money, paying bills, or being responsible, which is what makes being there manager so frustrating! I think sometimes of how different our lives are, yet how close they could have been. Had I not surrendered my life to the Lord I probably would have been worse off than them. One of my friends and I were looking on the internet last night and we were looking up criminal records of our old friends. (ok i know, weird, but we didn't have anything else to do.) More than half of the friends we looked up had criminal records. I mean, some were as bad as kidnapping, robbing a conveynance store, intent to kill...and these are people I hung out with! I mean, good friends, played sports with, took classes with. It's weird to think of what I could have turned out like. Thank God!! :) So i guess i should just be patient with them, not let it get to my head, try to take a deep breathe and know that I really don't need to worry about them. *sigh*