Child Death Awareness and Remembrance

I am thinking about and praying for the mothers worldwide who have been touched by child death, through miscarriage, stillbirth and beyond. Although it seemed, at times, a grace too hard to bear, it *was* grace that allowed me to know my precious little ones, Lael, Rose and Joseph. Please pray for the moms you know who have been touched by a tiny person who left footprints on their hearts, but didn't stay in their arms.

Iheartfaces-excited

This weeks challenge is excited. This is my sister and her kids welcoming home their daddy, her husband, our soldier and hero. This is excitement.

As an aside, anyone who gets the chance should go welcome the soldiers at the airport. Very cool, no matter what your political affiliations.

Iheartfaces-Blue

This week's challenge was blue. As you can imagine, I have a lot of blue in my life. Blue is my favorite color. Always has been. Good thing, huh? Now I have some pink. Turns out I really like pink too.

These are my kiddos, doing their thang, being who they really are, even picking their nose. Love it.

Check out all the rest of the blue challenge contestants, there is some really phenomenal stuff!!

This article from Elle (h/t Instapundit) has me amazed. It's definitely adult, and definitely secular, but so over the top in both areas, it's like a case study in what's wrong with the world.

The fact that women are selling their virginity is as old as sin itself. I won't comment on that. We've told, explicitly shown and encouraged young women to think of sex as tool, as a biological function, a scientific experimentation, a toy and a business for far to long to pretend I'm shocked when they treat it as such. News flash, nothing is sacred, everything is for sale.

No, the sentence that sent me reeling was this one: "the highest bidder, at $3.7 million, was an Australian businessman, and he reconciled with his wife."

He reconciled with his wife. He was married, although apparently separated, and while on this hiatus he makes bids for a young woman's virginity and his WIFE TAKES HIM BACK????

I'm sorry. Soliciting prostitution, desiring sex with a younger woman badly enough to pay 3.7 million for it, and being anxious to the point of idiocy to be a girl's first sexual partner would all give me serious pause in the reconciliation department.

I'm not in favor of divorce in most situations, I would prefer carefully considered separations that end in reconciliation. I actually believe that separation should only be a step during which both parties are working diligently on themselves in order to come back together and work toward an intimate relationship. It shouldn't be a "hey let's see if living apart works, no, well, ok let's just put some duct tape on it and keep rolling" kind of thing. It certainly should not be a time of experimentation in other relationships! Especially one night stands you just paid 3.7 million dollars for.

I think both he and his wife are fools.

These are the things that make me wonder if I'm the 2 yo or they are.

This rant is now over :-)

Iheartfaces-contemplative

This week's challenge was a very easy pick for me. Even though it is pre-digital point and shoot (and therefore scanned), it's my favorite shot of him and the one that immediately came to mind with the catagory name. This is my oldest on his 4th birthday. He was train obsessed, so we took him to Rusk, Texas to ride a steam locomotive (or as he said, a stinkamotive). He was so excited he barely spoke the entire ride. That's my little man, when he gets really emotional, he gets really quiet and thoughtful. He is now 13, taller than me and not quite so train obsessed, but I still see him in my mind as this little man.

iheartfaces-nostalgia

Another challenge, but I'm too late to enter the contest this week. Ah well, the challenge encouraged me to take a picture I've been meaning to take for a while.

I found a picture years ago of my great-grandmother bathing my mother in a gigantic bowl on her front porch. I don't own the picture, but I just loved it. A few year after that, my daughter Rose died and it brought me great comfort to picture Rose being bathed by my Granny. Granny loved babies, so I just knew she was there to welcome Rose, bathe her, care for her as I could not.

And now I have a baby girl here, in my arms, to love and care for, so today we got out a big bread bowl :

iheartfaces-crazy silly faces

Another iheartfaces challenge. I'm having a blast with these! All of my entries have been on my kids blog, as they are mostly pics of the kids, but I think I'm going to be moving them over to here as they are really about my hobby (or at least one of them).You'd think with 8 kids I wouldn't need to use someone else's kid in a challenge, but I just love this pic of one of my favorite little girls. I was getting ready to take some pics for her momma and new baby sister and R was helping me get my settings right. Isn't she gorgeous? She's got a dynamite personality too, as you can see.

I've got another of her baby sister that's pretty darn cute too. I might share that one later this week, if you're lucky. :-)