Reformation Day

Instead of Happy Halloween when the trick or treaters come to your door, try Happy Reformation day and see what kind of faces you get from the kids.

Today is a very important day in Protestant History. Today is the 49oth anninversary of Martin Luther's posting his 95 thesis on Wittenburg Door in his protest of several of the Catholic traditions, one namely being the tradition of buying indulgences to get their family members out of purgatory.
This created a snowball effect all over Europe and its results carried over to the Pilgrims and Puritans who came to the New World in 1620 and later years.
The Puritans desired to stay within their Catholic churches and purify it from within while the Pilgrims (otherwise known as Separatists) left and came to what would later become the United States of America.
The names of some important Reformers in our Protestant (Baptist) history are Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, John Huss, and John Knox.

Halloween, Hauntingly horrid or erroneously evil?

For years as a child I looked forward to Halloween as a time to dress up and get candy. It was as innocent as could be. For much of my young childhood I was raggedy ann and we went to my Great Aunt and Uncle's house for a get together where we would all dress up. My dad was dracula and he really looked the part. One particular year comes to mind when my dad dressed up and answered the door and growled at the kids who just wanted candy. They ran down the street screaming. He ended up calling them back to get their candy.
For my early teen years my friends and I would get together for Halloween parties at each others houses where we would dunk for apples and all the other fun stuff. I dressed up as an Indian. We would go to a few neighbors houses as a group and "trick or treat". It was years of fun.
Then I met and married my husband who never went to Halloween parties or trick or treated in his neighborhood (maybe it was the Detroit thing) . They went to community activities at the VFW hall or things like that, but they never dressed up and went from house to house.
Now as we are parents, we are trying to figure out our own traditions. It is not easy. I am of the belief that for a kid to dress up and go to houses of people that you know is innocent fun, but is it really? How well do you really know the people whose houses you are going to?
In the past we have gone out to dinner, or taken the kids somewhere away from the house and left our lights off. This year our kids program at our church was our activity to stay away. Well, certain circumstances called for us to cancel our kids program, so that presented a different situation.
As Christians should we bury our heads in the sand and run from the darkness that the holiday presents? I don't think so. Should we take part partly by giving out candy and/or tracts, or totally by allowing our children to go trick or treating? The lingering question is how much should Christians really do on a day like this where the darker side of our lives is glorified.
We are trying to figure out our own family Halloween traditions. This year we are experimenting by giving out candy to the kids and sending our kids to "trick or treat" as little princesses at their Uncle and Aunt's house.

The irony of it all.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, my kids were able to go with their homeschooling group to the firestation, little did I know that just days after that trip, we would get to see the firemen in action.
I heard a brief siren and saw a firetruck go by on the cross street with its lights on, then I saw it come back and go into our alley. I thought it was strange so I watched them. I initially thought it was a lights test or some other drill that they were doing until I saw them rushing around in full fire gear.
I looked up the alley and to my surprise and amazement was dark smoke billowing into the sky. Well, where there is smoke there is fire. I opened my back door and peered out to large glowing flames going up to the sky.
Two houses down, a woodpile and a car were on fire. It was so close that we could feel the heat. I called my kids and my husband and we watched them put out the fire from our back steps as I was explaining to the girls what the fire fighters were doing in comparison to what they had seen at the station. We then opened the garage where the firetruck and firemen were and watched from there for a few minutes.
Several neighbors mentioned hearing an explosion.
News crews and a newspaper reporter showed up, so we will see how big a news day it was.
My usual Sunday afternoon usually entails a walk, a nap, or watching a football game, or sometimes all the above. I certainly was not expecting something as exciting as a fire.

Movie Review

We watched a great movie last night. We felt that it was very God honoring for a movie production of our time. It is called Facing the Giants. It was put together by a Baptist Church in Georgia.
It is about a high school coach in Georgia who has many obstacles to overcome such as infertility, a losing football record, and various other odds. He is able to use his faith in Jesus Christ and (without giving anything away) a revival happens and various obstacles are overcome in miraculous ways.
I definitely recommend it to others who are looking for good films to watch as a family.

Homeschool field trip

Yesterday was our first homeschool field trip. Our group of 20 kids and 10 adults (including one 15 year old) went to a local firestation for a tour. We had a great time and it was a good learning experience. The firemen who did the tour had great personalities and were great with our kids. They taught them fire safety and not to play with lighters. They opened all of the doors on the large fire truck. This is the truck that has a 105 foot ladder and is the one that will respond to the hotel fires and some of the downtown fires in buildings with multiple floors.
One of the firemen demonstrated how he would get into his fire gear in seconds. It is amazing what all they have to put on to protect themselves. He breathed through his air mask and sounded like Darth Vader. The kids (and us big kids) liked that. It has been a long time since I have been on a tour of this nature.
This is also the only Haz-Mat team in the area. It would respond to any hazardous material scare in the whole stateline area. He showed the bright green radioactive "alien" suit that they would wear in the event of that happening.
After that we all went to a local burger king for refreshment for the adults and playtime for the kids.
Over all it was an informative , eventful, and fun day.
I will post a couple of pictures after I download them from my camera phone.

I couldn't resist

I couldn't resist this one. Obviously I am not going to post when we have a new letter for our Dr. Seussisms, but this is too good.
Those of you who know me know that I have three children all beginning with a certain letter. This week our lessons just had to do with that letter.

Here it goes.

Big B, Little b, what begins with B? Brianna, Brookelyn, Bethany, B, b, b.

Awkward

I took a survey by phone a couple of weeks ago and last week got a phone call from a local company who sells "air purifiers". They said that my name was drawn for a trip (everyone's name was probably drawn) or I could have a set of knives. My husband chose the knives. It is a more certain choice.

They then wanted to come and demonstrate their machine and just for doing that they would put my name in a drawing for a gift card to a local restaurant, so I said why not. I scheduled an appointment, then realized that it would not work as I had a pampered chef show the night that I had scheduled. In the meantime, my husband was confused why I had went along with this demo as we had no intention on buying it.

I called back to reschedule and just assured them that we had no intention on buying and did not want a high pressure sales person to come into our house to pressure us into buying something that we really had no use for or the $$$ to purchase at present time.

They showed up last night, earlier than the scheduled appointment which of course made me happy because I had been waffling on my decision all day and really did not want to do it, so I thought "good, they are here early, we can get this over with".
She came in and introduced herself and complimented on our house.

Then I asked her where she would like to set up and she said the living room was fine, then she sat down on the couch and had a small tote bag on her lap (I was thinking, this must be a small machine to fit in that bag). She asked if I was familiar with the machine. I said no (duh, that is why you are doing demos). Then she went on to explain the machine and asked us if we called to request the demo. I again said no and explained how her visit came to be. The machine she was selling was a VACUUM CLEANER, not an AIR PURIFIER. Problem: I have no carpet.

She proceeded to ask if I still wanted the demo even though I had not carpet. The way out of this demo presented itself. I said no as it did not make any sense to do it as it seemed pointless.

That is the fastest product demo I had ever seen. It took a whole wopping 5 minutes. I felt bad sending her away, but it really would have been a waste of her time. Now if they would have said vacuum cleaner in the first place, we could have been saving them the trouble. I think she was a little confused. I did get the knives, but who knows if my name will actually be entered into a drawing for that restaurant gift card. Time will tell.

Answers to Friday Fifteen

I got the list from another blog. see www.lefthandedrabbit.blogspot.com for her answers and the list.

Endearment you call your husband most often -- Hon (short for honey).

Endearment your husband calls you most often. Hon (I think) I probably don't listen enough.

Endearment you call your husband when you want something. handsome

Endearment your husband calls you when he wants something. I don't think he has an endearment for that.

Endearment your husband doesn’t like. Stupid (just kidding)

Endearment you don’t like. Sweetie

If “the fall” had never happened, which wild animal would you most like to pet? Grizzly Bear

If you could shop for free in one store for one day, what store would you choose? Coldwater Creek or Christopher and Banks

Which actress/famous person have people said you look like? I don't think I have ever been mistaken for an actress.

Which actress/famous person would you like to look like? Jane Seymour--gotta say, she looks great after having twins.

If you won the lottery, what’s the first totally frivolous thing you would buy? liposuction and a tummy tuck (it is those twins).

If you could change places with one person for one day, who would you choose? Laura Bush

If you could go back in time, which historical/famous person would you want to spend time with? Abraham Lincoln

If you could choose one day in history to be present – but not be seen, heard, or able to affect change - what day would that be? The first day of creation. If I thought that I could handle the violence of that day, I would say the day Christ died on the cross. I certainly would not want to alter that day.

What is your most unrealistic fear? Being eaten by a shark (seriously. And I live in the Midwest, but I grew up on the West and love the ocean!)

For those of you who don't see us every week at church. Here is a picture of my sweetie with a front tooth missing. It definitely is cute. This is the look she gives everyone when she is asked to smile.

Dental Joys

After the wild night the day before (in case you missed it, the previous post told about it), I made an appointment for the dentist to see my child.
At 3:45 in the afternoon I took her to the dentist to have her front tooth and gum examined.
She had damaged the nerve in her gum and because he could not tell in the x rays if her adult tooth was directly above, behind, or in front of the baby tooth and we want to do what we can to protect her adult tooth (she is only 4) which is still developing, we ended up having her tooth extracted.
My wonderful little girl now has a little gap there. At least people will be able to tell my identical twins apart without a problem.
It only took about 15 minutes from the time the dentist put the numbing agent on until the tooth was gone. My little girl was amazing. She did not move throughout the whole process. I was amazed at her disposition. She did not even cry or utter a sound when it was all done.

I truly found out how one twin reacts when there is a traumatic situation with the other one. The twin who is perfectly fine was so traumatized by the whole experience that a person would think she was the one who had the accident happen to her.

The joys of "k"ars and kids

We have been having special meetings at our church this week and we usually attempt to go to as many meetings as possible for our own Spiritual enlightenment.
We were just about ready to eat dinner on Tuesday night and one of my children came down the stairs, she says she was trying to jump the last stair. I just saw her lose her balance on the last step and hit the floor face first. She got up and had blood flowing from her mouth. Her tooth was loose and we were not sure of the extent of the damage. We decided to take her to the emergency clinic. I loaded her in the car and went to start it and it would not start. I tried again, still no luck. I called my husband out to jump start it with his company truck. It worked.
We got to the clinic and in a half hour we were done and found out that no major damage had been done, so we were instructed to go to the dentist the following day just to be safe.
We arrived at the van and once again, it would not start. I called my husband and he said that I should go back inside and find someone to try to jump start me. I thought "yeah sure, that is exactly what someone who has a medical emergency wants to do, jumpstart someone".
So, I did go back inside and announced my plight and a good samaritan did come to my rescue. He jumped it, but it did not work. We tried several times to no avail. I thanked him profusely.
My husband then suggested that I call the roadside assistance service and we made an appointment for a tow. My husband then called me back to say that he would come in his work truck with both of my other children (slight problem was that all the carseats were in the van, thankfully we had a couple of extra ones for the baby) so that he would then jump start it again and be there when the tow truck came.
In the meantime I walked with my injured child to get her some ice cream at a local coffee shop.
Finally my husband did arrive about the same time as the tow truck. Neither could start the van so we had to have it towed somewhere that it could get fixed. Meanwhile, I drove the company truck home with three children in the cab with me.
Since the tow truck driver could not give my husband a ride home, and the church service was still in session so there was no ride available, my husband had to walk the two and a half miles home from the mechanic along a couple of busy streets in the darkness.
We were only trying to go to church.

More Dr. Seussisms

For those of you who are wondering. I won't post any more of this for a wh ile as I know it will get old, but I came up with "O".

Big O, Little O, what begins with O?
Ostrich, Otter, Octopus, O, O, O.

So as a review

Big A, Little a, what begins with A? Ant, Apple, Alligator, A, A, A.

Big E, Little e, what begins with E? Egg, Elk, Elephant, E, E, E.

Big I, Little i, what begins with I? Igloo, Ink, Iguana, I, I, I.

Big O, LIttle o, what begins with O? Ostrich, Otter, Octopus, O, O, O.

Thank you very much.