I thought these were funny.....

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

This is a letter/story I read and appreciated

CBS Sunday Morning ShowSunday, August 17, 2008, 11:55 AMSubject: FW: Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning (everyone should read!)I can only hope we find God again before it is too late!!The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.My confession:I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisterscelebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to..In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.Are you laughing yet?Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in. My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,Ben Stein

Halloween

Well, I know I'm a little behind, but I finally am putting up some Halloween pictures! Cohen was an astronaut, for 6 months he wanted to be an astronaut, he specifically asked to be a green astronaut, but we figured silver would be okay... and it was, he loved his costume. I was surprised that he stuck with his costume decision for six months, I kept waiting for him to change his mind like most 3 year-olds would do, but no....
Kennedy was a lady-bug thanks to Ty and Trista and their cute gift!! I figured it was easy and a nice way for her to keep warm!
We went to our ward/stake Halloween carnival and trunk r' treat.. Cohen loved it and had lots of fun!

Twilight

Waiting for this to come out!!! woo hoo

We took some pictures of Kennedy and Cohen together and some of just Kennedy.... I thought I'd share them.
Also there will be Halloween pictures up soon!
P.S. We got a new car! Yay bigger! woo hoo!

Anniversary/Birthday

John and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary, Yay, that is about 5 x longer than anyone in Hollywood :P, and it still only feels like we have only been together for a short time! We went to 33 Steaks, Booz, and Jazz.. it was delicious, I got a yummy steak with crab meat and this yummy sauce. John got a pepper steak, it was so good! So here is to another 55 or more years!

I had my birthday today, 26... just a note, it was fun pizza and cake with the family!

Blessing

We will be blessing Kennedy Braelyn on November 2nd, for all those that want to know, or want to come, it will be in my Mom's ward, at the Stake Center at 9:00 am

update

Well, Kennedy is now almost 2 months old, she is cooing and smiling and has the cutest little dimple. Cohen loves her, and is protective but definitely has his jealousy/annoyed moments. When she cries in the car he pulls the sun shade all the way down so that he doesn't have to look at her crying... The other day she was crying and he said " I think she wants to go back in your belly....", He also tells people to put her down when he wants them to pay attention to him.

I would post some new pictures, but John and I need to get a new camera, cohen decided it would be fun to pretend the camera was a boat, needless to say camera's don't float, and don't do well in a sink full of water! So it may be a little while before there are updated pictures. Hopefully we will be able to steal some from my mom's camera.

It is so interesting how each little one is so different, Cohen gets in the car and is instantly relaxed, Kennedy, not so much... she won't be as good of a traveler as Cohen. But both of our kids are night time kids, they are not much for the sleeping.

Cohen is starting to assert his independence, I told him the other day that if he didn't do something he was going to go in time out. He looked and me and said "That's crazy talk." Nice, it is so hard not to laugh when he is trying to be serious and is not listening, he storms about the house in a very comical way to try and be defiant, very overly dramatic stomping with his arms cross, saying "I'm going to go away..." The things he says keeps everyone around here in stitches. His vocabulary is large for a little one of his age, and is constantly saying things that you have to question where he learned it.. most of the time he will say he learned it all by himself...

Well John's bank, Wachovia, was bought by Well's Fargo, so we will see how it goes we are crossing our fingers that everying either stays the same or gets better, as we know you will know.

Well that is all for now, I will try and update more frequently....

Kennedy Braelyn Michael

Well, we had baby Kennedy on August 20th at 9:06 am. She weighed 6.7 lbs and was 19 inches long.

Late on the 19th I started feeling contractions that kept waking me up, although I didn't realize that was what kept waking me up until about 11:00. I switched from side to side seeing if they would stop. When they didn't I got up and just sat seeing if they would stop then, when they didn't I started timing them at 12:55, they were from 4 to 6 minutes apart (watching my clock, not all that closely), finally at 2:00 I woke John up and told him that I was having contractions, pretty consistently.
Luckily the night before my mom had Cohen and he had asked to have a "slumber party" over at Grammy's house... We had said okay and it worked out great and took out the step of waking up Cohen and taking him over to Grammy's house because he was already there.

When I woke John up he asked how far apart they were, I told him every 4 to 6 minutes. He said oh we have a couple of hours before something starts happening. I told him that I just wanted to make sure this was the real thing and make sure everything was progressing okay, and that with the second baby things can move very quickly. So he dragged himself out of bed and kept joking that they were just going to send us home.

When we got to the hospital I was checked, still not much was going on but the contractions were there and consistent, they said they would observe me for an hour and then decide if I should go back home for a while or not. When the hour was up, I was still having contraction, but wasn't any farther along than I was the first time, but the nurse said she felt some "knobby things", not normal for the head, she had the charge nurse come in and see if she felt the same thing, and she did. Luckily Dr. Mazen was already there as one of his other patient's had just had a baby, he checked and felt the same thing and decided they needed to do an ultrasound. With a quick look, the head was in my ribs and the feet were down where the head needed to be.
I had a couple more good contractions and Dr. Mazen decided I should stay there to see if the contractions would stop on their own to see if they could maybe turn her around, although when he felt her, he didn't think she would do that very easily. So they checked me into a room to decide what I needed to do.

At about 7:30, when my contractions hadn't stopped they decided that I would need a C-section as the baby was in the worst breech position and if I did start to really get moving it could be dangerous to the baby, and her feet could get stuck. So bummed as I was about having a C-section, that was what happened.

They gave me some medicine to stop the contractions and started to get me ready for the surgery.

The surgery went very quickly, I believe it was about 11 minutes from start to finish. Very quick. She came out by the feet and upside-down. They were still getting Kennedy ready to come over to me when they were closing the incision.

So that is the story of Baby Kennedy..
Cohen loves her, and LOVES to hold her, there are a few signs that he notices the time difference that Momma gets with him, between Kennedy and the surgery healing, so hopefully as soon as I'm better, I'll get to work on that a little bit more.