Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

Wagon time! I love the built-in babysitters.
What? A picture of me?  Oh right, I took it myself!
Boys and their guns. They ran out and got 
them asap before the bans...
Everyone wanted to ride in the wagon with Skylar! I love Austin's face!
Bella telling the pup-pup to come here. 
The girls had to play too. 
Running for base!
The porch was safe. Skylar wanted to play too.
Love this face!
Football princess.

Thanksgiving part 1 with my family. 

All the grandkids, except for Chad. 
Skylar made herself at home by putting her 
feet on Bella's lap. You can see how excited Bella was. :)
All the great grandkids. 


Fall days

Cute baby with a leaf.
We've only worn this hat and gloves set once. 
We've already lost a glove...
Trying to find Cheyanne's bebo. 
No, Cheyanne, you cannot put your shirt
 back down. So bossy Skylar, gosh.
Aww! 

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Tea Party with friends... :)

Feeding the dog with the fork... She does much 
better with the dog that with herself. :)
p.s. I love how she is opening her mouth too...
Making sure doggy doesn't have too much 
food in his mouth. Silly doggy. 
Doggy must be sooo thirsty- you better 
drink your milk doggy!

Having fun at granny's!





We arrived at granny's house late Saturday night and have been playing all day ever since; in between seeing family and friends and going shopping, (see previous post...) Granny has a really nice doll house that Skylar loves and her new play kitchen just arrived today (her Christmas present though I'm sure she will forget in the three weeks she will be gone). Skylar also LOVES my mom's dog Lucy and spends most of her time chasing her around the house and yard. 

R.I.P Froggy #3



R.I.P. Froggy # 3. You will be missed. You had a short life, but it was a well served. You did your duty well. I'm terribly sorry that you had to end your life in a tragic meeting with Mr. Hoover. After multiple surgeries and two day of recovery you just were not able to make it. Luckily, you bore a child to replace you before you passed. You were always thinking of others before yourself. Mr. Hoover will too meet his end one day. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The passing of the defense!

Yay for me! After months of preparation, weeks of constant writing, and days of agony, I have finally passed the oral defense of my master's thesis. I actually wrote a thesis, defended it and it passed. I can't believe it! 

Imagine giving a 20-minute presentation on a thesis that was an archival analysis of your advisor's pet project, a subject in which he is a leading researcher. Then having to field questions related to your thesis and accompanying research for the next forty-five minutes. I'm sure I would have sounded brilliant to someone who was minimally versed in the subject of person-centered planning in functional behavioral assessments; or the difference between a multi-element and reversal design with a partial interval system recording. However, I'm sure I was a blubbering idiot in front of my advisor and second reader. Two people who have each published more research than I am old. 

Imagine me throwing up a little bit in my mouth shortly before speaking. Especially when I realized that, true to myself, I saved the unedited version of my powerpoint to my flashdrive. Oh yeah, that was a great move, B. 

However, it is all over. I now have to do some last edits and figure out how to get it bonded for the college. And of course, catch up on the weeks worth of schoolwork that I have neglected. 

-B

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Conflicted about abortion. Pro-life or Pro-choice?

Lately, the cause of abortion has come up several times in several ways in my life. With the election, learning about failed abortions and providing life-saving treatments, to the substitute in my school's class, to my housemate posting a note about the website www.abort73.com. So, I decided to take a look at this website and have rarely been so conflicted with anger and sadness for these little babies. I have always heard many things about abortion, but never knew what exactly takes place through my own ignorance as there have been available answers for many years now if I cared to look online.

 The bottom line is, I needed to make a choice. Either I was pro-life or pro-choice as there is no in between. I thought I could secretly be pro-choice and just not force my opinion on other people- especially those that were forced into having to make a choice themselves by someone else's act of violence (i.e., rape victims). I always said things like, "oh, I could never do it myself, but who am I to tell other people what to do. I can't be their moral judge." Basically I was just coping out from making a truly informed decision about how I felt on abortion because I did not want to put myself in the same group as a radical christian or republican. As if the two are the same. This is not a religious decision for me. 

Now, I realize how wrong I was. By not being pro-life, I was pro-choice. And although the term "pro-choice" sounds great, it is actually just a way to disguise what abortion really is. The murder of defenseless baby. Please see the website www.abort73.com and look at the philosophical section as it lists out all of the reasons why abortion is wrong- even for those babies of unwanted pregnancies, rape, poverty, drug addiction, etc. It is not about choice or circumstance- it is about humanity. The bottom line if whether or not you believe a baby become a human after it is born or while still in the womb. For me, it was the video of the baby being aborted at 12 weeks of gestation that finally convinced me to be "pro-choice" by choosing to be pro-life. When I saw the video of the baby innocently sucking his thumb in the womb seconds before trying desperately to get away from the suctioning instrument (vacuum) that would tear his limbs from his body, there was no doubt left for me that the baby sensed danger and tried to save his own life- however defenseless he was. And this baby was only at 12 weeks gestation. Imagine what it is like for the babies who are aborted at 21 weeks of gestation- when they are viable. 

And what angers me even more is to think that even after being aborted, some babies are still born alive. They are failed abortions that are born and are still alive. Please tell me that you don't think that innocent baby is not in pain, not aware of being in danger. The only difference between an aborted baby and an infant is where they live. One lives in a house (hopefully) while the other lives in the womb. In fact, some aborted babies are bigger and more developed that premature infants who live. This is wrong. 

My favorite quote from the website was from a well-known feminist Naomi Wolf who said, "How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted by them, then we are making the judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view of women is unworthy of feminism." 

All I wanted to do here is state how I feel, and what brought me to that conclusion. Now I know what I will saw when the  next person asks me how I feel about abortion, because lately it seems to happen frequently. And I will be proud to say it. I am pro-life. 

p.s. I found it interested what the site said about Planned Parenthood and how it began; something I never would have known before.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Its a poopy of a day...





Today, Skylar had a record number of poops (past the age of 2 months). One this morning when she woke up, two more before 10am, then two more this afternoon.  Yes that is right. A total of five poopy diapers today.  We were just a butt-changing machine. 

The Park with Friends!






Today was a beautiful day, so we went to the park to walk! We met up with our good friends the Hamms (minus one little man) and walked around, played on the playground and fed the ducks! It was a great way to keep up the little ones so they can adjust to the time change without being stuck at home cranky!