WeeMee!

Townhouse

So we've lived here for five months, and I'm already looking to move. This apartment has been great - the mainainance people are quick, and they even eventually fix the problem. We love the courtyard that is separated from the parking lot so Olivia can run around safely (with the exception of a couple residents who refuse to obey to rules and put their large dogs on leashes). We haven't had to turn on the heat basically all winter because the people below us like tropical temperatures. The layout of the apartment itself is spacious and I must say I'm getting better and better at decorating the more we move - this is our best-looking apartment yet!

However... I can't take the coin laundry anymore. The washing machine doesn't clean as well as our own does and it kills me to have to keep ours in storage at a $30/mo loss to us. Add to that the $40/mo in quarters we spend on laundry, and we're $70/mo poorer for having to use an old, disfunctional machine.

Another reason I'm looking to move is the fact that we're on the second floor. I know I'm not the first to be in this situation, but it's so exhausting! Every Monday, we go grocery shopping, and I have to carry 2 gallons of milk, 4 gallons of water, 2 jugs of juice, 1 gallon of orange juice, plus all the food we eat in a week up a flight of stairs and down the hall. All while carrying a toddler and a 7 month pregnant belly.

So I've found us an affordable townhouse. (It's the two bedroom). Here's the floor plan, except take the downstairs bathroom and make it a laundryroom:

So we haven't seen it yet; we've just driven around the parking lot. But it looks well-kept. We have an appointment for Friday to see a lived-in townhouse. They don't have any available right now and they don't know if they will have any in August. And even if they do, we'd only want one with the laundry room, which reduces our odds. So it's up to God whether He wants to continue to build my patience and physical strength, or whether He chooses to give a poor mom a break. :-)

The perks of this townhouse would be:

• Laundry room (saves $40/mo)
• Water/Trash/Sewage paid for! (Saves $30/mo)
• Might be able to squeeze all our stuff from storage in it (saves $30/mo)
• We ARE the neighbors upstairs. If someone's stomping around, we can go up there and stop them. (Currently, our upstairs neighbors have an 11-yr-old boy who plays pretty rough and stays up pretty late.
• The laundry room is downstairs. In our last apartment, the laundryroom was just off the bedroom - and we have a dryer with a buzzer that doesn't turn off and lasts for at LEAST a full 60 seconds. Very inconvenient for napping babies/children/parents and that last load you like to throw in before going to bed.
• The bedrooms are upstairs. The babies won't hear us watching LoTR (or vacuuming, whichever...)
• When carrying groceries, I can just drop them off inside the door - no stairs!
• The mail slot is in the door!
  

The drawbacks would be:

• We haven't seen it yet, so it could be completely run-down on the inside.
• They don't have the nice courtyard. In fact, we didn't see much lawn at all.
• We don't know what kind of a deal they'll give us on the price. Right now, it's $121/mo more than we pay here. They said they'll likely be able to give us some kind of deal, and when you calculate the savings I mentioned above, it might work out - but you never know.
• Since we'd be getting one with a laundry room, we would not have a bathroom downstairs. Not sure how difficult that would be with pottytraining...
• Heating might cost more. We still pay a pretty high gas bill for not having turned on our heat all winter ($60) so it might stay the same or at least not go up too much.
  
• Hmm... can't think of anything else! I might have more to add after Friday, though.

What NOT to say to a pregnant woman.

"Oh, wow, you're going to have another one really soon, aren't you?"
"Yep, March 21st."
"Oh... March. So... not that soon...."

Before...

After!

 

Children say the FUNNIEST things...

A friend sent me this link. It's about a Christmas pageant in the UK that went a bit off-script. If you read it with a British accent, it makes it even funnier.

Livi Shelf Video: Part I - Can't Turn Over

Olivia has found a new spot. She's definately not claustrophobic. She still needs a little practice though.

Livi Shelf Video: Part III - Waves

She's gotten quite good at getting into and almost out of her shelf.

Larry on Livi's Shelf Video (Alt Title: Livi Runs Off)

Olivia wants to share her shelf with Larry the Cucumber. Then she dances to his theme song. Then she runs off.

Too Cute

This isn't a video of Olivia, though I do have one coming soon involving a bookshelf. But it is of small children being outright adorable.

My Ultrasound - For Real This Time

I wasn't even going to blog anything, I was so disappointed in the lack of curiousity displayed. I suppose that had something to do with the fact that most everyone insisted on hearing personally instead of from the blog. Then, anyone else who wanted to know IM'ed me before I got the chance to blog and found out that way. Although, some found out more quickly than others (poor Jeremy had to withstand 15 minutes of torture while Joel tricked his way into a quick answer). The blogs just don't come as easily or as quickly as they used to.

So, my ultrasound. There's only one baby. There are 2 arms, 2 legs, 10 fingers, 11 toes... wait, typo - make that 10 toes. According to the measurements, my due date is now March 21 - amost a whole week earlier than the previous March 27th date. That's happy. They recorded the whole ultrasound, which took at least 15 minutes, so we have that as a momento. We tried to watch it when we got home, but Olivia just wasn't as interested because no one came out and sang a Silly Song. The ultrasound itself was kind of boring compared to the one I got with Livi. There wasn't a monitor for me to look at (there was when I had Livi's done), so I stared at some generic hotel-quality floral painting on the opposite wall for about the whole time. For the first half of the appointment, the lady didn't even say anything. She was staring at the monitor with a severe look of concentration, frowning at times. That's a pretty scary thing to encounter. I was wondering, "What's wrong? How many are in there?! What are you frowning at?!!" Then, all of a sudden, she burst into conversation about a recent news report about a father who went missing after being trapped with his family in his car for 9 days in a snow storm. Mmmm-k.

Oh, and did I mention that Josh wasn't allowed to come back with me? Not until the last 5 minutes or so. I don't understand why, but since Olivia was with him, I'm sort of glad it had to be that way. Because, again, as soon as she saw me lying down with a strange device rolling over my belly, she started crying and reaching for me. Ahh, my protective baby. I just wish Josh could have been in there when she told me what the gender of the baby was. I thought she'd wait til we were both in there so we could hear together. But no. Oh, well. He was thrilled!

We do have pictures that they printed off for us, but we have no scanner. So I guess I could call the library and see if they have public scanners for use, but that's the only thing I could think of short of making you wait until we bring them to Missouri for Christmas and scan them there. And when I see my mom, I'm giving her the VHS so she can make it a DVD and then we'll be able to put it on the computer and the internet. It's not the most interesting and it's really long. But we enjoy it!

So, now we've got to start picking out some names...

My Ultrasound

Haha, fooled you. You thought I had an ultrasound. I'm not lying, this post will be about my ultrasound... and my anticipation for it. IT'S TOMORROW! At 1:45p.m. And they said to bring a VHS tape, so that means they'll record it for us! Then, next time I see my mom, I'll have her put it over on DVD and we'll put it on the computer for all to see. There, I'm done talking about my ultrasound.

Now I'll talk about the apppointment I had yesterday. First, the due date. She said I was measuring about 24 weeks, so we were right on target with our own due date calculations. We still don't have an actual *date*, but we'll most likely get one of those tomorrow. We got to hear the heart beat, and that would be been really exciting, but Livi was crying the whole time. I'll talk about that later; it's really quite sweet. The nurse said that if you believe in old wives tales, then this one will be a girl because the heartrate's fast. But then, if we believed in old wives tales, we would have though Livi was a boy because I carried her so low. So we don't believe in those. We believe in ultrasounds. I'm not sure I liked the nurse, actually. I liked the main nurse, the nurse practitioner. She was very sweet and, well, likeable. But the other one who did all the examining 1) wasn't the gentlest and 2) thought it was her place to tell us when we should and shouldn't have more children. She actually told us to make sure we take a break for at least a couple years before having another. Not that we weren't already planning on doing that, but advice coming from a stranger just irks me. And what if we didn't? She said my body needs at least 2 years to recover from having a baby. Which really made me feel like she thought I was making a mistake having another one so soon. We got pregnant when Livi was 12 months. And if God wants to give us another when this one is 12 months, then I'll leave that up to Him, not this nurse.

But I'll end on a bittersweet note. I said earlier that Livi was crying throughout most of the appointment. (She did leave for a convenient diaper change for the inappropriate parts). But she cried when they checked my blood pressure, she cried when they listened to my heart and lungs, and she cried when they listened to the baby's heartbeat. And do you know why? She thought they were hurting me. Isn't that sweet? She's become familiar with the Health Clinic. It's where she gets her shots. So when they started doing strange things to me, she thought they were going to give me shots, and that I would hurt, and that I would cry. Josh was holding her and she was just reaching for me the whole time anything was happening to me like she wanted to come protect me and comfort me. Oh, I just love her so much!

For those of you who like pictures....

I think I've found my preferred photo hosting site. I've discovered Picasa. It seems the simplest. Oh, and I've changed the way I organize my photos. They used to be all of Livi and all organized by her age. Since we'll soon have two children that won't be feasible, so they are pictures of all of us and organized by months of the year. Enjoy!

November 2006

"Doctor" Appointment

So a few people have expressed disappointment that when I blogged, I chose a grammar lesson instead of my "doctor" appointment to blog about. Sorry. I was going to blog about my appointment last night, but blogger wasn't working. Then this morning in the shower (where all good thinking is done) I was consumed with my annoyance about the misused "I" and so that's what I blogged about. :-)

Last Wednesday, I didn't have a doctor appointment. I didn't even have a nurse appointment. I had a "prenatal cluster" appointment. I met with about 15 other pregnant women and sat for three hours while two nurses had us fill out paperwork, took our blood, and taught us how to be pregnant. I learned all sorts of interesting things; like not to smoke, drink, or do drugs. I also learned I should eat, but not overeat. It was quite informational. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go. (If you can't sense the sarcasm at this point, you don't know me very well.) But anyway, the three-hour-classroom-type setting is the reason why they wouldn't let me take Olivia back with me last month. I guess that makes sense. But really, they could have drawn my blood, given me the paperwork and told me to bring it back filled in for my next appointment. Olivia could have been there for that. There should be some kind of excemption for women who have been through this within the last two years. It's kinda still fresh in my memory - how to be pregnant and all.

But I have an actual nurse practitioner appointment set for December 5. At 3:45. I'm so excited! I should get an ultrasound appointment at that point, too. :-D It might not be long now, folks! I did snicker at the prenatal cluster when they explained how often the appointments would be. They said up to 28 weeks, you see a nurse once a month, then twice a month after that. I'm 23 weeks. By my appointment I'll be 24. This means I'll have one monthly appointment and then I'll be biweekly until the 9th month (36 weeks), then I'll be weekly. That'll make the time just fly by! I remember with Olivia, once I got to the biweekly stage, everything went very quickly from that point on. Well, until school got out and all I did was sit around, read Harry Potter, and wait for the baby to come. But I think Olivia will keep me busy enough that that won't happen this time.

Well, that was my "doctor" appointment. Hopefully I'll have more to say after my December 5th appointment. Like maybe an actual due date. Or an ultrasound date. Exciting times!

Grammar Lesson

It seems there are a lot of confused people out there concerning the use of the pronoun "I" when used with multiple subjects, or rather, objects of the preposition, I guess. I keep hearing sentences like this:

She went with him and I to the store.

It's like people are afraid of making the "me" mistake that makes hillbillies so comical to listen to. It's okay to say the word "me"!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I remember from grade school:
When there are multiple subjects with the pronoun "I", take out the other subjects to see if the word "I" makes sense. Does this make sense:

She went with I to the store.

Nope, it sure doesn't. It's:

She went with him and me to the store.

I'll get down off my soap box now.

Pray

There was a tragedy in the Ramsay family. Pray hard for peace and understanding and most of all God's presence through this difficult time. Even if you don't know them.

My Morning

I VACUUMED! It's not even 11 and I vacuumed! And did laundry! And dishes! And now Livi's down for her nap and I'm deciding whether or not to shower or clean the bathroom. I can't clean the bathroom with her awake, because she's always trying to touch whatever I have just bleached. She won't stay out of the bathroom! It's the same with everything I do. When I was vacuuming, she's always right there in front of me. I have to nudge her to get her to move! And with dishes, she's right there, trying to close the dishwasher (thankfully, she's finally learned not to try to pull the dirty dishes out of the dishwasher). And when I'm cooking, she's very mad if I can't hold her so she can see what I'm doing. Sometimes that's enough to frustrate me severely, but today, I was thinking how grateful I am that she's here with me, learning these useful things instead of with strangers at daycare. I kept thinking about how useful all this will be to her and how I hope I can instill some sense of a schedule and responsibility along with the knowledge of how to cook and clean. When I first got married I was so lost! I had rarely cooked, and had never had a cleaning schedule. I'd like to think I'm a little better by now. So anyway, that's my morning.

Nothing else is new around here enough to blog about. Still haven't been to a doctor. Josh is still pretty sure we're staying here vs. moving to Alabama. We probably won't hear from those people again until after the holidays, anyway. Speaking of job offers, Josh got an email saying that they're hiring at Surrey. That's a bit further away than Alabama. It's in England. But they're a much much better company and would most likely pay much much better as well. Maybe well enough we could fly home to the states for the holidays and such? And I'd get an awesome accent. And bad teeth. But again, we're most likely staying here for the next year and a half.

Livi's Little House II

This is the second movie we took of Olivia and her little house, but it's the only one I'm blogging about because it's far superior. It's longer, for one, and we all know more is better.

Where Are Your Hands?

I noticed when watching this video that Olivia has learned the word "hand" quite well! At the time, I didn't realize there was a connection between Josh asking her, "What's in your hand?" and her making her hand disappear. It's a good thing we recorded it so I could realize her true genius! So, without further ado, here's Olivia, doing something cute!

Bob Barker is Retiring!

It's true. After 50 years in television and 35 on The Price is Right, the 83 year-old is leaving. I just don't know who they'll find to replace him! Will the Price become nothing but reruns without his tanned, wrinkled face gracing the screen?

Olivia Rides the Pillow

Here's a second video for you, since I've not been the best at posting pictures. Daddy gets creative with Olivia sometimes. This is a ride he invented that she really likes a lot. We call it the Pillow Ride.

Olivia Chases the Kitty

At first, Olivia wanted to choke the kitty. Then she wanted to bite the kitty. When the kitty ran away, she chased the kitty.

Disappointment

I've got some disappointing news. I was supposed to have my first prenatal appointment today. It wasn't anything personal or informational. It was just to fill out paperwork and give blood so they could make another appointment for later with a nurse practitioner. But... I didn't have my appointment today. I went and signed in and everything and waited to be called. Then a lady came and told me that I wasn't supposed to bring anybody with me; that I couldn't take Livi back with me. She said I should have known because they told me when they called me. I told them nobody called me and she checked and said, "Well, I tried four times." If I had known they were going to call me, I would have told them I'd changed my number! So she told me to reschedule. And guess when the nearest appointment was? November 22. :-( I started to cry! I'll be 22 weeks pregnant before they'll even let me fill out paperwork! Why don't they just mail it to me? I'll fill it out at home! So I'll be at least 23 weeks before I see the nurse practitioner (they won't make the appointment for that until after I fill out the paperwork and who knows how long the wait will be, hopefully just a week, not another month - I'll have given birth before I see anybody!) Anyways, the real disappointment is, I've read that the window for finding out the baby's gender is from 16-20 weeks. Isn't that sad? That means I'll have missed it.

Too Fat for Lethal Injection?

Then off with his head! Gee, I wonder if shooting a family of four while they stood in a pit dug in his barn after they joined his cult and followed him across the country could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. I hate stupid people. I wonder if he would object to being shot instead?

*Sigh* Okay, I hate "when people are stupid".

New Cell Number

Email me if you didn't get the mass email. Unless your name is Noah. Bwah-ha-ha.

Poopy in the Potty!!!

She did it!! I was in the bathroom combing out my hair and she came in, sat down, and started grunting! So I asked if she had to go poopy in the potty and she got down on the rug so I could take off her diaper. Then she sat on the potty and kept leaning forward and grunting some more. She wanted to hold her babydoll and her puppy the whole time. We didn't read a book or anything. I just kept telling her what a big girl she was, and then I heard it! The tiniest little plop. It's not as loud when there isn't water. But she knew what she had done! I ripped off some toilet paper and she wiped herself! All at 15 months old in an age where children are in diapers until they're 2 at least. :-D

Now the question is:
Do you want to see pictures? Hehe. Here's a couple safe ones I took afterwords. She's already diapered and snapped back up. She's just reenacting it for you. :-D

Brrrr

We've got the draftiest windows and porch doors we've ever had in an apartment, I do believe. I plan on shrink wrapping our windows as soon as Melissa gets here with her hair dryer (mine got lost in the move somehow). But I can't do that with the porch doors, or don't want to, in case I need to get out on the porch sometime during the winter. So I'm in the market for those long skinny insulating pillows that you put down to block the air from getting in. Does anyone know where to get one?

Olivia Dances

I've been trying and trying to get video of Olivia dancing. The problem is, as soon as she realizes I'm filming her, she comes over to investigate. Take this film, for example. She's having fun, twirling away, and I think I'm clever, filming her from behind the couch. But no. Something catches her eye, and upon closer inspection, she realizes it's the mommy, trying to film her dancing.

Oooooh, Contest!

I want a free CD. Onward and Upward will give me one if I brag on their site and happen to be the lucky piece of paper they pull out of a hat. Aren't they AWESOME??!! Go comment on their site on how I so deserve this free CD.

My Husband - The Genius

Josh thinks he may have decided on a thesis topic! Here are the main elements:
(If you can only get through the first word or so, it's alright, we can't all be rocket scientists. Some of us have to teach them when they're three, you know, or they'd never get this far!) Anyways, read through as much as you can, and try to comprehend the brilliance of my husband. :-D

Angular Velocity Estimation

Traditionally, the angular velocity of a spacecraft is measured using a mechanical or MEMS gyroscope. These instruments are typically very expensive or significantly inaccurate, however. Likewise, the inclusion of such instruments adds complexity to the overall satellite bus. It is therefore advantageous to search for numerical methods to estimate this quantity from attitude parameter measurements. There are two methods available for doing this, one is derivative-based and the other is filter-based. I would like investigate the performance of these methods as well as see if anything can be said about total system stability when using such methods.

Adaptive Control

Many modern spacecraft are characterized by changing inertial parameters. Such spacecraft include systems with movable (or deploying) parts, expulsion of fuel or smaller spacecraft from the main spacecraft, and the docking of other spacecraft to the main spacecraft. In these situations, and others like them, the satellite inertia matrix my have significant uncertainty or may simply be unknown. To accommodate such spacecraft, one must create an adaptive control
structure that is capable of identifying the model plant and changing the control structure accordingly. The aforementioned satellite under consideration would be an excellent testbed for such systems. -- I also want to note that such systems would be of great interest to the Air Force, which is currently looking into the feasibility of responsive space missions (ones which go from mission definition to launch integration in six days). If the control structure could adapt for whatever spacecraft it is placed in, one could effectively have a control system that is ready for launch without a known model of the spacecraft (within some range of uncertainty of course).

Tether Dynamics

Tethered spacecraft attitude control strategies have received much attention over the years and are a continued area of research today. The satellite in question will most likely contain a back up tether for gravity gradient stabilization. Thus, there is a possibility for experiments in tether dynamics and control.

Ugh.

Just wanted to let you all know... I'm starting to feel pregnant. Turns out you get fat a lot quicker the second time around. Your body just remembers fatness a lot better than skinniness. I officially have Medicaid now, so I will be getting a doctor's appointment hopefully sometime next week. Yep, I'm in my second trimester and still haven't seen a doctor. For all I know, I could be carrying octuplets, and from the way my belly's protruding right now (I guess I did have a rather large Sunday lunch, too...) I wouldn't doubt it!

Keep voting on whether or not I should find out the sex of the baby, but an awful lot of you are going to have to vote no to outweigh Josh's vote. Just to let you know.

To Know or Not to Know...

Should I find out the sex of the baby? I'm 14 weeks pregnant, the prime time to find out the sex of the baby is between 18 and 26 weeks. So I've got some time to think about it. We found out with Olivia because we had so much to buy (we ended up going gender nuetral with all the expensive stuff anyway) and because we were sick of calling her an "it." I've never been the type to have patience with surprises - I always wanted to open up my presents on Christmas Eve and you better not show me my birthday presents in the morning and then say, "Now wait til after supper..." But who knows. Maybe a surprise would be fun. It'll keep all of you guys on your toes, that's for sure. So, I've had people vote for every other important decision in my life (wedding dress, Olivia's first AND middle name) - okay, maybe not the REAL important decisions - but here you go. Another chance to sway me one way or the other.

When Is Abortion Considered Murder?

Joanna blogged a bit about this article, raising a good point. In the eyes of the law, how can this case be considered "intentional homicide of an unborn child" when abortion clinics do the same thing everyday, only without the scissors (but some of their utensils are still pretty barbaric). Joanna wondered if maybe the difference was the mother's wishes. Obviously, this particular mother didn't want her womb cut open with scissors, leading eventually to both her and her child's deaths. But wait - it's intentional homicide of an unborn child, not intentional cutting open of a woman's womb and removing a non-living thing. I think that wording makes all the difference. Otherwise, wouldn't she just be charged for the murder of the mother and maybe theft at the most?

And here's another article I saw today on the same theme. A mother forced her 16 year-old daughter to drink turpentine to induce an abortion! And yet her charges are merely "criminal abortion and first-degree cruelty to children" (and I'm assuming the "children" in the charge is referring to her daughter and not her grandchild). True, the baby seems to have survived, but shouldn't the charge then be "attempted intentional homicide of an unborn child"? I can't really see a difference. In fact, the only difference I see in motives between this woman and the murderer in the above story is that the murderer might have actually wanted to keep the child as her own, where this woman clearly wanted the child dead. Yet, this murderous grandmother will only get 10 years in prison at the most.

I don't get it.

Too Good To Be True?

Is Bin Laden dead?

Oh, and Olivia swallowed a plum pit. But don't worry, she pooped it out the next day.

Butter and a Skinny Belly

Butter:
Olivia ate butter yesterday. Yep, grabbed the stick right off the table. She was taking bites of it, and digging her little fingers all into it, and then threw it up on the floor in her bedroom. And no one saw. Josh was busy cleaning up her high chair and I was on the computer suffering from one of the many headaches that have become quite prevalent within my skull. Josh found her and when I heard him exclaim: "What do you have?!" I jumped up to see what my neglectful parenting had caused. Oh, just hardened arteries. Thankfully, I had just that day switched from margerine to real butter. So at least her little body knows how to somewhat handle that stuff. I had watched just a show on what not to eat (Oprah) and the top five were: hydrogenized oil (it means they put HYDROGEN in the oil to solidify it - HYDROGEN, PEOPLE!), enriched flour (it means they stripped out all the good stuff and put a little of it back in for appearances - go for the whole wheat, just the way God made it), high fructose corn syrup (they make it so that you never get full - that's why I could eat candy all day), salt (duh), and... let me check the notes I took... animal fat (any saturated fat is animal fat - I don't know specifically why this is bad, besides the fact that it's fat. I got distracted at this point in the show). Well, all that to say... Olivia ate butter. Yuck.

A Skinny Belly:
Okay, so I'm three months pregnant and haven't been able to go to the doctor yet. This worries me because I'm a worry wart. I have an appointment tomorrow to see if I can get on medicaid (Livi and I have no insurance), then I can find a doctor and finally put my worries to rest. But in the meantime, I have been to the WIC office twice, where they weighed me because that's really all they have the equipment to do to check up on us pregos. But they asked me what my normal weight was and I said (okay, this hurts to say on the internet of all places where anyone can read it) 140-145. But last month, when she weighed me for the first time to see what my pregnancy weight gain was, I was at 139! And today, a month later, I was at 138! Did I mention I'm a worry wart?! She asked about my appetite and I confessed that it's not what it used to be. Not that I've had morning sickness (much), just that when I sit down for a meal, I get fuller quicker than I used to. And I used to be able to keep eating even after I was full (if it was a favorite meal of mine), but I can't do that anymore! My gag reflex has gotten a lot more sesitive. So I'm eating less and losing weight when I should be gaining. I gained 40+ pounds with Olivia and never lost my appetite like this. BUT, on top off all that, I truly have been noticing my belly steadily grow outward. So I'm confident something's growing in there! (Since I'm eating less, it can't be that I'm just getting fat!) And I guess every pregnancy is different. But like I said before: Worry Wart! I'll be glad when I can get to a doctor and she can confirm for me that everything's normal.

Calm Down!

For some reason, I'm really into this Middle Eastern dispute between the Pope and Muslims.

The article I found today expounds on the Pope's previous faux pax a bit:

The pope on Sunday said he was "deeply sorry" about the angry reaction to his speech last week in which he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman" and referred to spreading Islam "by the sword."

Note that they added the "by the sword." I didn't hear the original speech nor have I seen it written down anywhere, so everytime they add a new quote like this, it's news to me. But in the same article, they had this quote by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an extremist Islamic group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq:

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

Note the same "sword" reference. The liquor and head tax reference is explained in the article. If they had truly listened to the Pope's speech, could they truly be so ignorant as to prove him right like that? Maybe this was all taken out of context. I hope so!

Then the article brought up this memory:

The protests and violence have stirred up memories of the fury over cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper of the Prophet Muhammad. Angry demonstrations took place in many countries, and some of the violence was directed at Western targets and Christian churches.

Remember that? Honestly, I'm glad I have a Savior who can stand up for Himself! I mean, come on! Our own country makes fun of Jesus - He lives in South Park for crying out loud!

Now Just Wait a Minute...

So...

During a speech last week in Germany, the Pope, quoting from a Medieval text, cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterised some of the teachings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman”.

And in response, Muslims firebomb churches? Who's point are they proving?!

Uh Oh...

The Pope's in truh-bul.....

Death after two-hour ER wait ruled homicide

Don't go to this hospital!

So who would get the prison time? The triage nurse?

My Trouble With Blogging

Is that I rarely have one thing to talk about. It's all a-jumble in my head. (Which, incidently also makes it really hard to come up with titles for my blogs.) Cute things Olivia does, problems I'm having with different appliances... and really that's about all that changes from day to day. We don't go out, we have no friends and no adventures. Unless you call a bike ride an adventure. We did ride through some sprinklers. Scary. I used to solely blog pictures and explanations of different funny/odd/cute things Olivia would do. But now when she does something funny/odd/cute and I go running for the camera, she stops and comes running towards me as soon as she hears the thing turn on. A lot of our pictures now-a-days are of her right up in the camera lens, reaching for it. I've had to become sneaky-sneaky with the camera. I hide it behind my back and turn it on while talking and then get down, flash the camera really quick, then hide it again. Which results in fuzzy pictures. None-the-less, here are some recent ones.

This is what Olivia looks like after her nap, watching I Love Lucy. She's a little bit of a zombie.


Here she is in her new fall wardrobe (Yay, jeans that fit cloth diapers!). I tried to get a pic of her facing me, but as soon as she turned around and saw the camera...


This happened.


Oh, yeah, and while Grandma and Grandpa Brooke (that's my side of the family - don't be confused) came to visit over Labor Day, They helped us buy a potty for Olivia! Not that she's ever used it, but when I can tell she's about to poop, I say, "Do you want to go in the potty?" and she heads towards the bathroom. So I thought it's never to early to try! She mainly just sits there and reads books.


And she has this weird thing she does recently. She covers herself with a blanket and runs into walls.


Isn't this adorable? And shocking that she let me take a picture of it! I'm glad, because it's rare she ever, ever lies down, and on a person?! I had to get photographic evidence.


And this happened just today. I can only surmise what happened: She had her afternoon juice sippy-cup. She always shares her afternoon juice with her baby doll. She saw her baby doll in the toy box, but she was futher away than she could reach. But does she give up?


But off of the Olivia-topic. Remember when I was talking about appliance problems? I have my fair share to choose from to blog about. For starters, our printer doesn't work. So when I needed to find the Farmer's Market in Lafayette, I Mapquested it, zoomed in on the complicated down-town part, took a picture of it and used my handy-dandy go-go-gadget camera as I navigated those tricky one-way streets. Aren't I creative? :)

I don't have a picture of this one, but I would really appreciate some input. Another appliance that has been nothing but a headache is our dishwasher. Over the weeks we've lived here, it has steadily turned our glasses and plates white with this strange residue. And it doesn't just rinse off. It has to be scratched off with a fingernail. Is it soap? Is it our hard water? I've tried with powder degergents, liquid detergents, the expensive Cascade liquid detergent, heated dry on, deated dry off - it just keeps getting worse! I finally resorted to handwashing dishes - but that's so annoying! We have a dishwasher! Or rather, a dish-dirtier. Anyone else have this problem? Anyone ever solved this problem? If not, ask your moms. I'm desperate. And I'm a housewife. Hehe.

And finally - the TV that Josh and Olivia were working on so hard. The problem was that the on/off button wasn't working. So Josh thought he could fix it by taking the whole thing apart (we know the truth - he just wanted to gut the thing to see how it worked). He solved the problem by removing the button entirely. Which left a gaping hole leading to circuitry, so that is now covered with tape. What's that you say? How do we turn our TV on and off without a button? (P.S. Olivia broke the remote a long time ago and no other remote will work. Josh blames the remotes, I blame the TV) We're lucky enough to have a freak TV that turns on when you press the volume up button on the TV. And to turn it off, we unplug it. So that's how Olivia helped Daddy fix the TV.

Bib Lit II Was Completely Normal...

5 Years Ago Today.

Even though the class at Taylor University started 31 minutes after the first tower was attacked, only one person come in with the knowledge of what had happened, and he didn't know very much. "A plane flew into a building" was how the news was broke to me. My first thought? Crazy crop-duster! I must have recently watched Independence Day. Then he clarified, "No, in New York, not Indiana." Someone said "World Trade Center," but to be painfully honest, I had no clue what that was. But I still didn't imagine there would be much damage. I still figured it was a small private plane that maybe took out a corner office. We didn't even realize there had been a second plane that had hit the second tower. We had class until 10.

When I got back to my dorm, the atmosphere was vastly different. There was a group of people in front of the TV in the lounge, and buildings were falling. It was confusing to try to figure out how many buildings had been hit, because the same two kept falling over and over. But it didn't matter how many times I saw those buildings fall, it didn't hit home with me. The biggest embarassment to my character and regret in my memory of that day came when Katie, the P.A. on 2nd spoke out in the silence, "People, we need to be on our knees." I'll never forget those words, and the feeling of pit of my stomach sinking as absolutely no one in that room, myself included, hit the floor. I don't know, maybe I'm not remembering right. Maybe there was just a pause that seemed like forever. Maybe people did react and pray. I just remember the stares she received and the awkward feeling that hung in the air. Shouldn't we have fallen immediately? Shouldn't we have been on our knees even before she said that?

Five years later, I am much more aware of the world around me. And more importantly, I am quicker at the draw when it comes to prayer, whether it be for people close to my heart or those thousands of miles away that I have never heard of before. And maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I have also been on the verge of tears more times today than on that tragic day five years ago.

Ah Ha....

I think I figured out how to get a profile pic...

I'll have to see if it worked tomorrow. Usually changes I make to Blogger don't take effect right away. I couldn't tell I'd added that movie about Olivia helping Daddy until the next day! Anyway, all I had to do to finally be able to add a profile pic was:
1) Find picture I wanted of Olivia
2) Open in Paint (Only picture editing program I have that resizes and then saves pictures!)
3) Resize in the "Stretch/Skew" category of "Image" menu, cutting in half twice.
4) Once the pic was under 50kb, I saved it.
5) Upload the pic to my blog.
6) Click on pic
7) Copy link at top of page
8) Go to Edit Profile in Blogger
9) Paste link in for Profile Pic (no other image hosting site I use (Yahoo & Dotphoto) has links short enough for Blogger, how annoying!
10) Save profile
11) View profile tomorrow to see if it all worked out alright.

Breast-Feeding Ruins Marriages?

A friend sent me this link which completely shocked me. I couldn't believe a self-proclaimed man of God could take this stance! I have always seen it as God-honoring to use my body the way God intended. Giving birth and breastfeeding are among the top ways I can imagine doing that. Now this rabbi thinks that by husbands witnessing either of those two events, they will be less attracted to their wives and the children will in the end suffer because they will not see love in their parent's marriage. What do you think? Guys, honestly, would you rather not see these two - in my opinion - blessed events? Of course it will change the way you see your wife; she is now a mother! But shouldn't you see your wife that way? Because that's what she is! But she is still your wife as well. And girls, would you switch to the bottle even if you had a strong conviction to breastfeed because it made that part of your body less attractive to your husband?

Olivia Helps Daddy

Josh was fixing the TV and Olivia insisted on helping, and she knew when she was just being placated.

Global Warming

We're all going to die!

Yellowstone!

Hope you enjoy our pictures and appreciate the fact that narrowing 300+ pictures down to 32 took me literally all day. So, with that in mind, there are 32 pictures below, so if you have dial up, you may want to go make yourself a cup of tea, go to the bathroom, watch an episode of Scrubs or three, and take a short nap while you're waiting. Sorry!

These pictures are backwards, because that's the order blogger puts them in. One of these days they'll realize the folly of their ways, but until then, scroll down and read up. Thanks! :)

Finally, after four long days, three *very* long nights, with two full memory cards, and one slightly sun-kissed baby, we head to Utah for Josh's satellite conference!

And a chipmunk!

And some butterflies...

The whole way to the Hidden Falls, people coming back warned us of bears they had seen. Josh wanted to turn around, but I convinced him to keep going. And we never saw any bears. Just a marmot!

Our little tree-hugger.

We found them!

On our last day at the park, we went on a 5 mile hike to see some hidden falls.

Livi was in love with our rental car, the PT Cruiser.

Josh was in love with these mountains!

Look, she shares! How sweet.

Here, Livi was in a good mood because she has her very own apple.

And here's the last leg of our journey - the Grand Tetons! (Olivia took the picture... j/k, she was napping in the car a few feet away.)

Here's more Mammoth Hot Springs. Hard to believe that there are times of the year when this whole area is covered with a beautiful steaming spring.

The Mammoth Hot Springs... it wasn't hot and there were no springs.

I especially thought it'd fly off in the breeze of this waterfall!

By the end of the trip, Livi was absolutely exhausted and a little sunburned. We had to teach her how to wear a hat. Every time we'd put it on, she'd rip it off. We'd just have to walk with a hand on her head until she forgot it was on. I'm surprised it's not at the bottom of some canyon.

Isn't this a great picture of Josh?

This was our humble home for four wonderful days and three loooooong nights. It got so cold at night I slept in 2 pairs of socks, a t-shirt, 2 long sleeve t-shirts, a hoodie, shorts, jeans, and under three blankets and still froze. And of *course* being so very first trimester, I had to get up at the coldest part of the night to go to the bathroom. Usually, I woke around 3 a.m. and tried for a couple hours to convince myself I really didn't have to go that bad and finally went around dawn. Yeah, not much sleep. Livi, though, slept great - snug as a bug inbetween Josh and me.

I can cook anything, anywhere.

Buffalo! (Yet another wild/living thing!)

A gorgeous rainbow at the foot of the lower falls.

Livi liked the Lake Of Fire.

And what is this? The Lake Of Fire? I always thought that would be underground...
Note all the dead trees in the background.

It's wild...and it's alive...it must be
WILDLIFE!


How about now?
Yep, it's Ol' Faithful.


Can anyone recognize this famous landmark?

There were so many dead trees, everywhere we looked. Apparently there was a huge forest fire in the 80's.

What IS a bacterial mat? And why am I not supposed to mark them?

She thought they all looked alike.

This is how Livi toured most of Yellowstone. She looks a little grumpy here because she's about to go to sleep. She was bored with all the steaming hot pools that smelled like sulfur.

More wildlife! Anyone know what kind of bug this is?

Yay, wildlife.


So here we are a Yellowstone National Park, ready to enjoy all of God's glorious creation! If you're reading this before seeing any of the pictures, congratulations, you can follow instructions. If not, grrrrr to you. You've ruined all the humor I worked so hard for.