However...Grandmas and Aunties Rock
Grandpas and Dads can definitely be embarrassing to girls, but nothing beats Grandmas and Aunties. Who else thinks your the most awesome, fantastic kid in the whole world, buys you candy and clothes and generally does anything you ask? Nobody except a grandma or auntie!

Families can be sooooo
embarrassing!

While eating at Joe's Crab Shack Grandpa Tim got up and started dancing with the wait staff. Abby and Tory nearly died of embarrassment.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

Recently, Bob's parents and his sister Deanne came for a visit to celebrate his birthday. For his birthday dinner we went to Joe's Crab Shack...where, of course, we had to tell the waiter it was his birthday! What are family's for but to embarrass you? See next post for further comments.

Before heading home we stopped at Kohl's to do some shopping with Tory and Abby. Bob's patience is limited when it comes to shopping and he was griping just a tish, so his mother started singing Happy Birthday to shut him up. So, that became the theme song for the weekend. Anytime Bob got crabby we started singing Happy Birthday to him.

Spring has Sprung...

I love springtime in Texas. The shades of green are numerous. Everywhere you look you see trees budding, flowers blooming and birds nesting. This is probably the best time of year to live in Texas. Springtime always makes me want to garden, to get out of the house and into the open. I even love the weeds at this time of year. My favorite springtime activity is to go wildflower hunting. Thanks to Lady Bird Johnson we have wildflowers springing up all over the highways. Of course, no spring would be complete without pictures in the bluebonnets. My sisters and I will drag husbands and kids kicking and screaming to some highway field and make everyone squat down to get a good picture. Because we're making memories..."whether you like it or not!" Ahhh...springtime!

Hey...watch this!

Dads and their toys. Jim had a great idea for cleaning out the patch inside the old chicken coop fence. Why not burn it away? I wonder if he had to fill out a background check and wait 3 days to buy the flame thrower? B. was standing ready to grab the hose if necessary. Men...whaddya gonna do?

SMART CHILDREN...Misguided Parents

Check out the article below. Someone has studied the effects of telling children that they are smart. It turns out that's the worst thing you can do for a child. The better option is to praise them for the effort.

http://tinyurl.com/yo73qb

I have noticed some of the same effects in my daughter T. I've always told her she's smart, but if the task is hard she just gives up. Turns out that's a natural response for children who are told that their smart. For these children, they would rather not risk failure than try something new. They often need more assurance, etc.

Anyway, check it out. Turns out the self-esteem gurus were wrong...another strike out for the left. Hmmm, what are the public schools going to do with all that self-esteem curriculum they invested in?

NEWS AT ELEVEN!!

Peter the Cat snuffs out Peter Cottontail

During school on Friday we received a rather gruesome present from our "berry, berry bad kitty". Peter the Cat brought a baby rabbit that was about 5 inches in length to our back door. He was so proud of his catch and the girls were so horrified. The rabbit was still alive and tried to run away while Peter was trying to spit out rabbit fur. He proceeded to eat ALL of Peter Cottontail except the head. We couldn't watch the carnivorous cat enjoy his sumptuous meal. When we returned later to the scene of the crime all that was left was a trail of blood and a bunny head. Peter then came inside laid down and took a nap. Not long after this the Grandview rabbicide team was reading Peter his Miranda rights!

We went this last weekend to see "Amazing Grace" the story of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce worked for 20 years as a Member of the British Parliament to end the slave trade and eventually slavery. The movie was phenomenal. I had read about Wilberforce in a Christian History magazine about 10 years ago and knew him to be an amazing man, but I didn't realize that he was such close friends with William Pitt (the Prime Minister), Olaudah Equiano (the slave who bought his freedom and wrote about his experiences on a slave ship) and John Newton (the former slave trader who was converted and eventually wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace". I would highly recommend this movie. It is so well done.

Of course I dragged my husband and children to the movie. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from T. who had just checked out a book from the library and wanted to read that instead. It didn't help that we went to the cheap $2 theater in Cleburne. There's a reason its only $2. The film must have been formatted for a wide screen and played on a full screen because all the people were short and fat and looked like hobbits. Then, in most of the scenes you could see the boom mike used in filming just above the actors heads. So distracting. We asked for our money back then drove to two more theaters before we found one that was showing it.

B. and I really liked it. A. said she liked it and T. of course said she didn't like it. But I think she was determined NOT to like it. I think it was a little above their heads but it still exposed them to a great man. I will definitely buy this one when it comes out on DVD.

I am currently attempting to slog my way through Tolstoy's "War and Peace". It's one of my life goals...to read all the classics. The story is actually pretty good when it deals with the Rostov family, however, the war with Napoleon gets long. I must admit though it is giving me a more clear picture of why Napoleon was despised by the European royalty. I loved "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. If I had my life to do over I just might major in Russian Studies. I find them fascinating.

On a recent roadtrip I tuned in to the Michael Medved show. I like his show because he's conservative but he's even-handed in his treatment of most subjects. Well, on this day his guest set my blood to boiling. He interviewed Linda Hirshman about her new book, "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World."

I was so incensed I was driving down the highway hitting redial on my phone trying to get in to make a comment. I was swerving and dialing. Not a safe combination. About halfway through the program Mr. Medved said to quit calling because the lines were so jammed there was no way to get through. I guess I wasn't the only stay-at-home Mom with an opinion.

Mr. Medved first asked if the choice for the cover of the book was intentional. The cover is a small, plain red cover with the title printed plainly. It bears a striking resemblance to the original cover of "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx. She claimed that the publisher chose the cover and she had nothing to do with the decision. That may be the case but the publisher knew exactly what it was doing. She then went on to claim that she certainly wasn't advocating communism in the book. Well, she may not outright advocate communism but she is certainly socialistic in her views. In her book Ms. Hirshman states:

"Bounding home is not good for women and it's not good for the society. They aren't using their capacities fully; their so-called free choice makes them unfree dependents on their husbands. Whether they leave the workplace altogether or just cut back their commitment, their talent and education are lost from the public world to the private world of laundry and kissing boo-boos. The abandonment of the public world by women at the top means the ruling class is overwhelmingly male. If the rulers are male, they will make mistakes that benefit males. Picture an all-male Supreme Court. We may well go back there. What will that mean for the women of America?
Educated women opting out and working mothers throughout society doing 70 percent of the housework reveals a hard truth. For all its achievements, feminism cannot make more progress, private or public, until it turns its spotlight on the family. Child care and housekeeping have satisfying moments but are not occupations likely to produce a flourishing life. Gender ideology places these tasks on women's backs; women must demand redistribution. "

She is advocating socialism. Look at the first line of the quote "...and it's not good for the society." She is proposing that I should subjugate my desires and choices to what is good for society. That is classic socialism. The good of the individual is subordinate to the good of society.

Let me take it one step further. Not only do I take issue with her basic motive but I also disagree with her conclusion. "Bounding home" is good for women and for society. The working mothers and fathers I know are exhausted. They are scattered and overwhelmed. I feel for the working mothers I know. I don't know how they manage to do it. Oh, and by the way, I know of two families where the fathers stay at home or took part time work to be home with the children more. So, her argument that the majority of household work falls on the woman is simply hogwash.

I don't know how old she is, but on the phone she sounded in her late 50s or early 60s. She needs to talk to the young women of today. Most of the working women I talk to have husbands that help around the house. The marriages of today are not the marriages of yesterday. Everyone pitches in, everyone helps.

I get so tired of the feminist left telling me what I should do. I have made my choice thoughtfully and have never regretted the decision I made. They just don't like the choice that I have made. Well, tough petutti, it's my decision.

Musings on Surfside...We had a wonderful time at Surfside Beach, which is about 30 miles southwest of Galveston. The water was much clearer and the beach less crowded. We rented a house with Lizzie's family. The house was absolutely gorgeous. It was new and cutely (is that a word?) decorated. We swam every day and ate way too much, but what a great time.

Dh and the brother's-in-law went deep sea fishing. Dh was the only one that caught a fish, a mackerel. He then proceeded to throw up everything, but the boat, the rest of the trip. He had to take a full day to rest afterwards. We fried half the mackerel and grilled the other half. We all agreed that the fried was better.

I love nature and so I am remembering all the animals that I saw. While out swimming one day I looked out about 30 feet and there was a Pelican sitting in the water. It was just sitting there, it was huge. When it took off it's wingspan was about 4'. I could not believe how big it was. The pelicans were fascinating to watch skim the water. They literally play follow the leader. If the leader is flapping its wings the bird behind starts flapping its wings, if the leader stops, then the fellow behind stops. They are flying in a row each following the fellow in front of him.

We also went crabbing every evening. The water was so clear that we could be walking along in the shallows, with the waves rolling in and see a little crab scurrying across the bottom of the ocean. If you leaned down, they would curl up inside their shell and you could pick them up. I also caught a stone crab. The kind that bury themselves in the sand with only their eyes showing. I saw it dig down, got my shovel out and sure enough it was a crab about 3" wide.

Then of course being the great homeschooling mom that I am I forced my daughters to go with us to visit the cemetery where Stephen F. Austin is buried. For the uninitiated in Texas History. Stephen F. Austin is the father of Texas. He brought the original 300 Anglo settlers from Tennessee. Dd #1 was not happy with me. She says "It's just a bunch of dead people...why do I have to go?" I brooked no argument. We all went. Of course when we got there it was raining, because after all we are 20 miles from the ocean and the mosquitos literally almost carried us away. Ah well, it'll give them something to tell their therapist in about 20 years. More on the trip tomorrow. Hopefully I can figure out how to load pictures onto this site.

God is so good! We received our new car yesterday. It is spacious and luxurious with leather seats, electric windows and seats and only 33,000 miles. We don't quite know how to act with two nice cars. My poor husband has been driving beat up cars for so long this feels like heaven. I am so happy for him. He has been so supportive and has sacrificed so that I can stay home and homeschool the girls. I'm glad God blessed him. This car will last for at least 5 years. I'm also thankful to the man who gave us the car. He was such a blessing to us. The day my dh went to transfer the title the car overheated. The car was officially in our name so we technically were responsible. But this wonderful man felt responsible and paid for the repairs to the car which totaled $1400. After the repairs were done the mechanic at the dealership offered to buy the car. But our benefactor said "No, it's already taken." Wow. I'm still amazed at God's provision for our family.