Are these truth or myths?

A reader recently wrote:

you are sadly misinformed, and only flaunt your ignorance by biting the bait and perpetuating this nonsense.NOBODY WANTS to get an abortion, PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION IS A MYTH, and you should probably just make decisions for your own body. period.

My response:

I personally find promoting partial birth abortion as a myth to be as ignorant as promoting the Holocaust as a myth.

If you don't want to murder someone, you typically don't do it. This does not imply that the person receives pleasure from their choice, but it is not in involuntary action. It requires want, or will. I realize that this decision is usually a painful one and women do not go skipping into and out of abortion clinics, but that does not justify their actions. If their child were seven days old instead of seven weeks gestation, no one would even try to justify it. And somehow there would be another solution. I know that some situations must surely seem impossible, but we do not have the right to end an innocent life.

Women should make decisions for their own body, but they should not have the right to dismember or otherwise slaughter the body of the child that they carry.

The unborn entity within the pregnant woman's body is not
part of her body. The conceptus is a genetically distinct entity with its own
unique and individual gender, blood type, bone-structure, and genetic code.
Although the unborn entity is attached to its mother, it is not part of her (http://www.christiananswers.net/q-sum/q-life009.html)

One of the government's actual duties is to protect life. If every life is not sacred, soon no life at all will be sacred. It is not difficult to trace this path in other societies, even recent ones like Nazi Germany or modern day Holland.

When abortion becomes acceptable, so will euthansia. And then forced abortions. And then infanticide and not treating children born with handicaps. And then involuntary euthansia, choosing when people should die so as not to burden society. All you have to do is read a little history to see this pattern. It's a slippery slope.

For specific questions about a Christian view of abortion go here.

For more information on several topics of bioethics go here.

To find an abortion recovery center near you, go here.

Most importantly, what does the Bible say about abortion?

Halloween festival

My kids love this annual event that includes a miniature train ride, inflatables, carnival games with candy prizes, a small farm animal petting area, climbing around on hay bales, and trick or treating in the fairy tale forrest (getting treats from fairy tale characters in the woods). And I like that it's only $5 a child for all of the activities!

My Rosie

She had to have a picture with this leaf

She likes to do this.

Her first real dance lesson.

This is how she fell asleep the other night.

And this is how she fell asleep tonight.

She came into the bedroom, found an empty spot

between me and the laundry, stuck a pillow in the basket,

pulled some pillows over her legs - and fell asleep!

Job the book ~ powerful

You can listen to or read the entire poem or order the book here.

My friend went to heaven yesterday

Please pray for the Pryor family.

Funny Forward

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES

Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables, by getting someone else to hold them while you chop.

Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat, by using the sink.

For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose oflaxatives; then you'll be afraid to cough.

You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

Remember: Everyone seems normal, until you get to know them.

If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.

I'm in love with a pasta sauce!

I'm not much of a brand name shopper. There are a few things, some because it's the only brand that my family can eat or use for one reason or another, fewer because I just really prefer them.

As far as pasta sauce goes, I tend to buy what's on sale. There have always been some brands that I've preferred over others, but never one kind of sauce that just blew me away.

Meet Classico's Traditional Sweet Basil Pasta Sauce. This stuff is so good that I'm going to be watching for Classico sales, then stocking up.

So what's your favorite pasta sauce?

Reed diffuser?

Does anyone know of a regular store chain or type of store that carries reed diffusers that are empty? Target and Walmart has them, but I don't want their artificial fragrances. I'd like to just be able to get the diffusers so that I can fill them with my own essential oils.

A Night of Reformation

Hey, all! While we enjoy celebrating Halloween from great costumes to the Great Pumpkin, I know that some of you do not.

This is a great resource for all of us - the opportunity to celebrate the Reformation. I don't own this book, but I do have a couple of their other books and they are fantastic.

We will have the pleasure of celebrating both this year. Our friends are having a Reformation party, focusing on the life of John Calvin this year. So we'll put aside our spiders and bats for a few hours and enjoy some Reformation history.

And then off we'll go to secure our year's supply of candy - because everyone knows that that's what it's all about (at least in our book)!



For some fun halloween activites, check out last year's post.

Pirate Songs CD

Any pirate lovers at your house (or just kids who can't resist a great sing-along CD)? Then this is your next just-for-fun kid CD : Disney Pirates Of The Caribbean: Swashbuckling Sea Song CD. From traditional songs, to "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)" to the silly "The First Mate Is a Monkey" this CD is a keeper. The only drawback would be if you mind a minivan full of kids singing along at the top of their lungs, " yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!" Personally, we find this pretty amusing.

Columbus Day activities

1. Journal and coloring pages from the Teacher's Corner
2. A printable board game
3. The coloring page we used this year (we celebrated early on Friday)
4. Great worksheets for young kids from Time for Kids here and here
5. A great poem and Columbus Day song from Teaching Heart
6. Another great worksheet from Schoolexpress
7. The Library of Congress has a nice history of Columbus day with lots of links, so does Kaboose.
8. We made these ships from FirstSchool last year. DTLK has a fancier ship .
9. And just for fun Today's Kitchen's "Columbus Day recipes"

A Vote for Obama is a Vote for Infanticide

I don't love McCain, heck, I don't even like him - but this guy is sick, heinous. How could anyone support this practice?! This is not ancient Sparta or Nazi Germany. And this is not a good man.

If you vote for Obama, this is what you're voting for. This is the kind of change you will get.

And you will deserve it. But I pity your children and grandchildren. Especially the ones you will never know.

That's all I have to say.

For those who haven't seen it - the final Twilight trailer

You can view this in high definition at http://www.myspace.com/trailerpark.

Thanksgiving music

I was teasing Leslie about listening to Christmas music already (she was previewing an album) and lamenting the lack of Thanksgiving music. She asked what should be on a Thanksgiving album. So,I thought, let's take a shake at it. Two albums. One classy, maybe a beautiful instrumental album, and another fun, probably at least some vocals, kid-oriented album. What to put on them?

Classy:

1. Simple Gifts
2. Come, Ye Thankful People, Come
3. We Gather Together
4. Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow
5. Bright Canaan? - I love early American hymns
6. America, the Beautiful

I think some quoted Psalms or other verses of thankfulness dispersed throughout could be really cool too.

Fun:

1. Over the river and Through the Woods
2. Turkey in the Straw
3. Praise Him, Praise Him, All Ye Little Children
4. Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise Ye the Lord

What tracks would you add?

Here are some albums I just found through a search that appear to go along with my wishlist:

1. Thanksgiving CD - Various artists, Wyndham Hill
2. Gospel Kids Songs Of Thanksgiving CD - great song selection, but the gospel-style music would really get on my nerves
3. The Thanksgiving CD : Quincy Choral Society - a choral CD, but the vocals are, in my opinion, sub-par
4. Great Thanksgiving - Now this is a choral CD! Who can argue with the vocal quality of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
5. Harvest Home: The Dale Warland Singers - beautiful
6. Home For The Harvest - a classical Thanksgiving

I'm coming up with way more Thanksgiving Cds than I expected, but I can't find a children's CD that I like.

Do you have any good Thanksgiving albums?

A Day at the Apple Farm

We shook up our annual apple picking tradition by going to a different orchard this year. The main reason for the change was the opportunity to try out a corn maze. It was hot in that open field and it's a good thing that it didn't take us long because the natives got restless quickly. They also had some really cool stuff at the p[layground, inclusing the tepee and the bouncing tubes. But all in all, I think we'll be back at our beautiful, cool mountaintop orchard next year.

Stuff I'm printing today

1. Crayola's Nature Walk activity page - my kids are going to take this to do at their Gran's for a seasonal little science/art/writing activity
2. Crayola's Autumn Leaves coloring page - I'm going to have the kids color these with their crayola :^) markers and then cut them out and make a border over the deck doors
3. There are other fall Crayola activity pages here.
4. Wondertime's Autumn Adventure cutting pages for Rose
5. Halloween bookmarks from Jan Brett to enjoy this month.