More Snips

Not to be left out, Brynna and Hailey decided to cut their hair off for Locks of Love as well. Since they are still learning to wash their own hair, I figured this would be a big help to them.

I didn't anticipate how cute they would look.

Hailey's hair is just adorable, and Brynna's has the most beautiful soft curls.

P.A.P.A. - Yet Another Reason Not to Send your Kids to Government Schools

Texas has a new mandatory class that all high schoolers in public school must take, called P.A.P.A. - Parenting and Paternity Awareness.

“They talk about buying ‘x’ number of diapers -- over how many months and years and the cost,” explains Beverly Linkneyer, administrator of the Northside ISD health curriculum. *

The Texas Attorney General - who asked for the class to be taught (since when does the attorney general set curriculum policy?)- says that:

Key themes in the curriculum focus on the importance of father involvement, the value of paternity establishment, the legal realities of child support, the financial and emotional challenges of single parenting, the benefits of both parents being involved in a child's life, healthy relationship skills, and relationship violence prevention.**

Did you catch that?

The value of paternity establishment.

The legal realities of child support.

Now the government is wanting to teach your children how to be parents. Not only that, they are preparing your child for a life of single parenthood. No morality, just this will cost too much money - look at all the diapers you'll have to buy, the child support you'll have to pay, and how it will ruin your life. And since God and Christianity are banned from curriculum, does any Christian parent think that this class will be teaching their son or daughter how to raise their children up "in the fear and admonition of the Lord?" Do you really want the government teaching your children how to parent?

Setting the morality issue aside for a moment, in an age when everybody talks about how the education system is failing, and how we have to stress things like math and science, why are we spending millions of dollars and hours of school time teaching these things? Is this the proper arena for this? I think not. This is the job for parents, families, churches. Can schools who are failing academically afford to take the time to teach these things?

Finally, I did want to mention that the reason touted for this new curriculum is to address the extremely high numbers of teen pregnancy. While I share the concern for the problem, I completely disagree with their solution. Sex Ed has been taught in schools for at least 2 decades and the teen pregnancy numbers have just increased. Besides, what teenaged couple - or adult couple for that matter - will stop in the heat of the moment and say, "Wait, we can't do this. We can't afford the diapers."

*Click here for the local story. **Click here for the Texas Attorney General site describing the class.

Then and Now

Today I took these pictures of a 4 month old who really just wanted to be fed and put to bed, so was not cooperating very much.


Eleven years ago, I took these pictures of a different four month old who was being a tad bit more cooperative.

This was Kora's first Easter, by the way.

That dress has gotten a lot of use!

Great Quote

"Only a mediocre man is always at his best."

John Schuerholz

Does this include woman too?

Worth Its Weight in Gold

My grandmother came to my house when Ashlynn was just a few days old. While she was here, we got to talking about cooking. She mentioned that she had a "big" cast iron skillet that she couldn't lift anymore. Besides that, it is just my grandmother now, so she only needs the small 8 inch skillet. Would I be interested in the "big" one?

WOULD I???

She sent it home with my parents who brought it up to me the next time they came to visit. And I have been in love with this pan ever since. It's not quite a big as I thought it was from her description - one of those "eye of the beholder" things, I guess - but I love cooking in it.

I was explaining to the girls that this pan was probably 20-30 years old. They were stunned. When I called my grandmother to tell her how much I loved the pan, she informed me that it was older than that! My grandmother got married in 1943, and she said she had it most of her married life. This pan is so seasoned that glue wouldn't stick to it!

My "new" pan!

My (Exhausting) Weekend Project

When we bought this house I painted our master bedroom. Kelly loved it. It was a sponge painting treatment with two very different shades of green from the same family. With our brown carpet he said it reminded him of being in a forest.

After a while though, this forest feeling started grating on me. It felt dark, close, and busy. I hate clutter and my bedroom always felt cluttered and busy because of the paint combined with our floral comforter. Well I've been looking for two years for a new paint/bedding combo that would work, and this weekend I finally implemented it, much to my loving husband's chagrin.

Here's a few before shots.

Here's a close up of the paint treatment.

So I bought what I thought was a green color with a lot of blue in it. After priming the walls, I put one coat of this color. Oops! Too blue.
So I went back and got the next shade in the green palette for a second coat. Aah, much better! New bedding, new curtains, and next thing ya know, a new master bedroom.

Kelly still misses the forest and the flowers, but I feel like I can breathe when I go in our room now! Thank you, sweetie, for moving all that big heavy furniture so I could get rid of one of your favorite features of our house!

exhaustion

ex-haus-tion (ig zos' chen), n. 1. the act or process of exhausting. 2. extreme weakness or fatigue. 3. being the homeschooling mother of six children.