Heart Walk 2008

Saturday was a windy, cloudy and cold day for a 3-mile walk! We took the train and arrived at Forest Park just after 8 a.m. Evan seemed to enjoy his first train ride! He especially liked watching the people come and go from the platforms.

We met up with my friend, Andrea, and her husband. To help protect Evan from the wind, I put up the sleep hood on his carrier. He didn't complain one bit and in about 5 minutes he was fast asleep. In fact, he slept for the entire walk! All in all, it was a fun time and a nice walk.

Thanks again to everyone who made donations to the American Heart Association! Your contribution will be a great help to a great organization!


Big boy sitting in his own seat on the train! He wasn't too sure about that!


Evan and Momma on the train!


Andrea, Evan and I at the walk! See all of the people behind us? What was amazing wasn't the amount of people, but the amount of people in shorts!! Brrrr!!

All Geared Up!

Evan has a new carrier! We are all geared up and ready to walk for the American Heart Association. The walk is Saturday, May 3rd. This was a spur of the moment decision so we don't have a lot of time to raise support. If you would like to support our team and make a donation visit my AHA page! We'll post pictures from the event!!


In other news, Evan is now 8 months old! He is around 21 pounds. Quite a chunky monkey!! He is still rolling to get where he wants to go. I now call him "Mr. Independent Sitter" as he is doing very well sitting on his own. His new trick is "High Five." He loves for people to put up their hand so he can give them high fives! It's so funny and he gets a charge out of it, too! Today he has also been experimenting with his vocal volume. This time instead of screaming and sqealing, he was whispering to himself. It was cracking me up! Evan starts with a new sitter, Ms. Debbie, on Monday. His previous sitter was licensed for day care and could only have 2 infants at time. We are hoping that he likes his new playmates, he already likes the cat, Gabby, that lives there!

Making the Kindest Cut of All

I recently decided that I was tired of long hair and tired of always wearing a ponytail or braid. So I had it all cut off and have donated it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths campaign. They are collecting ponytails to be made in to wigs and given away free to cancer patients! I had around 10 inches to send. Check out my new do!!

Polar Bear Mania

The past few weeks I have been all about this sweet, little polar bear! Her name is Flocke and she is being hand raised by zookeepers at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany. Every so often there is a video on CNN of her. Here are some pics so you can enjoy the cuteness, too!! To see more, click on any of the following pictures.

Hams for Hanukkah or Why I'm Using Eid Postage Stamps On My Christmas Cards

This begins with a story about a conversation Evan and I overheard at the post office last week. We were waiting in line behind an elderly lady to mail our most recent mooched book to Israel. The conversation went something like this:

Elderly Lady: What are E-I-D stamps?

E-I-D stamps? A quick look at the poster by the window told me that they were holiday stamps.

Postal Employee: Oh, those. They're for the Muslim Christmas. whispered tone It's really such a shame, but we have to carry them. I don't know that anyone buys them.

Elderly Lady: Oh. How do the Priority Mail envelopes work?

She was full of questions.

I could not believe what I was overhearing from the mouth of my local Federal employee! Such misinformation and intolerance. If I had had the money that day, I would have purchased 3 books of Eid stamps just to make a point.

So why am I using Eid stamps even though I'm not Muslim? Let me count the reasons why...

1. The same constitutional amendment protects my right to go to a Christian church, read my Bible and pray to God that protects a Muslim's right to go to Mosque, read the Quran and pray to Allah.

2. Intolerance and prejudice never won anyone's hearts or minds.

3. A Muslim friend and co-worker of mine has a greater dedication to his faith than I do to mine at times. He puts me to shame when I claim in my heart that I am worshipping the true God, but can't find time to pray or read my Bible.

4. The Eid stamps are prettier than the Christmas stamps this year. I mean, really, whose idea was it to make "Christmas Knits" into stamps?

For more information on the Eid festivals check out this link. For more infomation on Hams for Hanukkah, click here.

What Are You Thankful For?

God has blessed us greatly this year. There is so much to be thankful for! My "short list" of thanksgivings:
Robert completing school and finding a good job
The birth of our son, Evan
Our good marriage

I hope that you took some time yesterday to reflect on what you are thankful for. It puts everything into better perspective when I think about all of the blessings we have living in this country at this time in history.

We spent the holiday with Robert's extended family. There were grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. So many people to be thankful for! So many people for Evan to meet as well. We were both pooped out by the afternoon. He from not sleeping enough the day before and me from too much turkey (is it possible to have too much turkey)? As you can see in the picture we had a nice catnap along side Grandpa Vincent. (Thanks to cousin Tracy and her "candid camera"!)

Just another moocher!

I was out surfing the 'net a few nights ago and had a cool website recommended to me! It is called BookMooch. How it works is that members list books that they want to give away and then gain points for sending them to others. With your points you can request books from other members. The only cost is the shipping to send out books. I'm psyched! I've got my inventory listed and have requested my first couple of books. Now I'm just waiting for others to request my books! It's free! It's fun! You should check it out. Go ahead. Being a mooch isn't always a bad thing :)