One of my very favorite Christmas songs!!!:) From one of my favorite groups. Enjoy :)... & Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!
I've always loved the holiday season & felt the magic it brings. But even when I was little, before I knew about Santa & all that, I had never felt it be as magical as I do now being able to watch my babies experience & enjoy it! And for how little they are, they sure do express quite a love for it already & it just makes me happy!
If the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, then the next best thing is to go on a ride around the neighborhood or to the Mesa Temple to see the lights with my babies! It's all "Ooooo's!" & "Aaaaah's!" I LOVE IT! Haha yesterday before we went to pick up Shane, I had put the babies in the car & then went to turn on our lights outside. As soon as they lit up, Drake started cheering & said "YEAH! Good job, Momma! Good job! WOO HOO!!!" I turn on our Christmas lights & all of the sudden, I am an AWESOME mom!!!:) Haha if only that would be all it takes for the rest of his life...
They did a really good job helping decorate the tree... They still like to help UNdecorate then REdecorate it to this day! (Jax has a bit of a problem NOT touching the trees...) It's just cuz they love it so much!
So after hearing the boys' reactions to just the neighborhood lights, Shane & I thought they would LOVE Temple lights... & we were right!:)
It's so much fun seeing how in awe they are of the beauty of it all... Not only the lights, but the Temple itself as well. And one thing that fills me with absolute JOY & encourages me that I might be doing something right as a mother is that Drake recognizes the Temple & knows it's a special place...
If the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, then the next best thing is to go on a ride around the neighborhood or to the Mesa Temple to see the lights with my babies! It's all "Ooooo's!" & "Aaaaah's!" I LOVE IT! Haha yesterday before we went to pick up Shane, I had put the babies in the car & then went to turn on our lights outside. As soon as they lit up, Drake started cheering & said "YEAH! Good job, Momma! Good job! WOO HOO!!!" I turn on our Christmas lights & all of the sudden, I am an AWESOME mom!!!:) Haha if only that would be all it takes for the rest of his life...
They did a really good job helping decorate the tree... They still like to help UNdecorate then REdecorate it to this day! (Jax has a bit of a problem NOT touching the trees...) It's just cuz they love it so much!
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| Mr. Helper Elf & Daddy |
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| What's a Christmas tree without a star??? |
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| Our little "Charlie Brown" tree:) |
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| Drakey helping decorate Nanny & Grampy's tree |
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| Daddy & the distracted-by-the-pretty-lights boys!:) |
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| Drake Man & Mommy |
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| Any lights that were in arms length were fair game for Jaxon!:) |
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| My rosey cheeked, big blue eyed baby boy! |
Seriously... I got the Christmas spirit!!! And it's all thanks to my Drake & Jax... I'm not gonna be able to sleep on Christmas Eve just like the old days all because I'm excited for my babies!!!:)
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| I sure LOVE these guys!!! |
Playing a little bit o' catch up!
I was doing so good there for awhile with the blogging! Urgh... Well here's what's happened in the Hunsaker house since the last post, mostly in chronological order!
Uncle D!
My younger brother, David (DP) got his mission call on October 29th... He'll be serving in the Everett Washington mission. And yes, I've already checked & we believe that mission includes the famed town of Forks, for all you Twilight lovers!;) DP rolled his eyes at me when I told him that... Anyway, I have started a mission blog for him with all the details, incase you didn't already know... elderpedersen.blogspot.com... Check it out when you get a moment!:)
1st REAL Halloween!
For Drake's 1st halloween, we dressed up but didn't go out. Last year, Jax's 1st halloween, we were REALLY lame (and sick, I think), so we didn't even dress up. Because of those reasons, those 2 years didn't count ssince this year was our first year dressing up AND going trick-or-treating! We actually just did our ward trunk-or-treat which was so fun & a good place to start for the babies. Drake didn't understand the concept at first that all he had to say was those magic words & he got candy. The 2nd person we went to gave him some candy & he tried to give some back to them:) My giving little boy... But he got the hang of it about 2 cars later. And... This being our first "real" halloween, I didn't know to take the pics BEFORE going out... Here's the tired boys, candy faces & all:)
Thanksgiving
This year, we spent it with the Pedersen's:) Good food, good fun... The usual! My Grandma Pat came down for the holiday & helped with the cooking. Thanks to her & my fabulous Mama, we had quite the feast!
We had the turkey cooked under ground this year..... BEST TURKEY EVER!!!!!! No lie... I helped contribute to the feast with some homemade rolls. I got the recipe from my mother-in-law, whose rolls are to DIE for! I didn't do too bad considering it was my first attempt- they were all gone by the next day, so I guess that means they were alright, right? But still... did not even come close to Kathy's!!! Gimme a few years of making & I might get it down.
Again, I wasn't thinking & busted out my camera AFTER everyone was all turkey'd out & on our way home! Haha But I sure do love these guys...
No Shave November!
Haha I just HAD to put this in & since Shane never really looks at the blog, I probably won't get in trouble for it either:) Shane got talked into doing No Shave November by my brothers & this is the result!
Uncle D!
My younger brother, David (DP) got his mission call on October 29th... He'll be serving in the Everett Washington mission. And yes, I've already checked & we believe that mission includes the famed town of Forks, for all you Twilight lovers!;) DP rolled his eyes at me when I told him that... Anyway, I have started a mission blog for him with all the details, incase you didn't already know... elderpedersen.blogspot.com... Check it out when you get a moment!:)
1st REAL Halloween!
For Drake's 1st halloween, we dressed up but didn't go out. Last year, Jax's 1st halloween, we were REALLY lame (and sick, I think), so we didn't even dress up. Because of those reasons, those 2 years didn't count ssince this year was our first year dressing up AND going trick-or-treating! We actually just did our ward trunk-or-treat which was so fun & a good place to start for the babies. Drake didn't understand the concept at first that all he had to say was those magic words & he got candy. The 2nd person we went to gave him some candy & he tried to give some back to them:) My giving little boy... But he got the hang of it about 2 cars later. And... This being our first "real" halloween, I didn't know to take the pics BEFORE going out... Here's the tired boys, candy faces & all:)
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| My cute little Buzz & Woody!:) |
This year, we spent it with the Pedersen's:) Good food, good fun... The usual! My Grandma Pat came down for the holiday & helped with the cooking. Thanks to her & my fabulous Mama, we had quite the feast!
We had the turkey cooked under ground this year..... BEST TURKEY EVER!!!!!! No lie... I helped contribute to the feast with some homemade rolls. I got the recipe from my mother-in-law, whose rolls are to DIE for! I didn't do too bad considering it was my first attempt- they were all gone by the next day, so I guess that means they were alright, right? But still... did not even come close to Kathy's!!! Gimme a few years of making & I might get it down.
Again, I wasn't thinking & busted out my camera AFTER everyone was all turkey'd out & on our way home! Haha But I sure do love these guys...
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| My turkey'd & passed out little guys!!! |
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| I yike him... :) |
No Shave November!
Haha I just HAD to put this in & since Shane never really looks at the blog, I probably won't get in trouble for it either:) Shane got talked into doing No Shave November by my brothers & this is the result!
Of course, he had to shave it a little bit for work. But this was Day 30 & it started getting "mountain man" bushy... Happily, it was mutual agreement that it needed to go. Impressive just the same.. Way to go, Hun:) Hahaha
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Taking to my political soapbox again:D
So... Anyone that knows me knows my religious views. And anyone that REALLY knows me knows my political views & that a lot of my religious beliefs influence those views greatly. For some things, I think they go hand in hand. For instance, my belief that life begins at conception, that a fetus is living, growing being with a spirit, GREATLY affects what I think about abortion & the politicians that condone it... That's just one example.
I came across this article awhile back & just never posted it. But I can't not post it because I FULLY agree with the things said in it! (Maybe not generalized to all liberals because I know people who share relious but not political beliefs...) What this article shows is a very bad thing happening happening in our country. History has shown what happens when you take God out of the picture... I just felt there were some terrific points & was very well put, overall. And a great warning American's would do well to heed...
God, Liberals, & Liberty
By Dennis Prager
In a recent column, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote: "It's sometimes easy to lose sight of just how anomalous our (America's) religiosity is in the world. A Gallup report issued on Tuesday underscored just how out of line we are."
Given Blow's leftwing politics and his point was that all rich countries except for the United States are secular and that all poor countries are religious, he was obviously not making this point in order to celebrate America's "anomalous" religiosity.
He should have. America's anomalous religiosity is very much worth celebrating -- not because it leads to affluence, but because it is indispensible to liberty. Had Blow made a liberty chart rather than an affluence chart, he might have noted that the freest country in the world -- for 234 years -- the United States of America, has also been the most God-centered.
Yes, I know that the Islamic world has also been God-based and that it has not been free. But that is because Allah is not regarded as the source of liberty, as the America's Judeo-Christian God has been, but as the object of submission ("Islam" means "submission").
Since the inception of the United States (and, indeed, before it in colonial America), liberty, i.e., personal freedom, has been linked to God.
America was founded on the belief that God is the source of liberty. That is why the inscription on the Liberty Bell is from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible (Leviticus 25):"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
The Declaration of Independence also asserts this link: All men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Because the Creator of the world is the source of our freedom, no state, no human being, no government may take it away. If the state were the source of liberty, then obviously the state could take it away.
Both reason and American values therefore make these claims:
1. The more important the state is, the less the liberty.
2. The more important God is, the smaller the state.
3. Therefore, the more important God is, the more liberty there is.
A proof of the validity of these assertions is that as this country -- the country, not the government -- becomes more secular, it becomes less free, just as has happened in other Western countries. We have far more laws governing human conduct than ever before in America's history. And Western Europe has even more, including limitations on as basic a liberty as free speech.
So, too, every totalitarian state except Muslim ones (because a religious government is the Muslim ideal) seeks to abolish religion. Stalin, for example, murdered virtually every member of the clergy, and came close to destroying all religion, in the Soviet Union. He understood that a totalitarian state cannot allow a competing allegiance.
And in democratic Western Europe, the ever-expanding state is inevitably accompanied by an ever shrinking God and religion.
This is largely what the current culture war -- actually a non-violent civil war -- is about. The left seeks an ever-expanding state with, by definition, ever-expanding powers. And a fundamental aspect of that program is the removal of God and religion from as much of American life as possible. This is pursued under the noble-sounding goal of ensuring "separation of church and state." But whatever the avowed aim, the result is the same: secularize as much of society as possible, its institutions and, most importantly, its values.
Over time, much of America has belatedly awakened to the realization that two counter-revolutionary (as in American Revolution) trends were occurring at a breakneck pace: God was being replaced by the state as the source of liberty, and liberty was eroding.
To use a Civil War simile, the secular Fort Sumter took place in 1962, when the United States Supreme Court (Engel v. Vitale) overthrew the decision of the highest court of New York State, and ruled that the following prayer, said in New York State schools, violated the Constitution:
"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."
Few rational, let alone religious, Americans believed that this non-denominational prayer, which no school child had to recite, violated the American Constitution. The purpose of the ruling was to impose secularism on America.
Since then, the leftwing attack on religion in America has proceeded at a rapid clip:
-- Though Los Angeles ("the Angels") was founded by Christians, the tiny cross on the seal of Los Angeles County was removed by the three liberal members of the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
-- Wishing a fellow American "Merry Christmas" has been widely rendered unacceptable.
-- A speaker at public high school graduations may not say "God bless you" to the graduating class.
-- The Bible, the basis of American values instruction for most of American history, is not taught at virtually any non-religious school in America.
Examples are too numerous to list.
And now, commensurate with the removal of God from American society, the most leftwing government in American history is expanding state powers to an unprecedented degree.
Our leftwing party has passed -- more accurately imposed, since it did so without a single vote from the opposition party -- legislation that will massively expand state powers. And it is preparing to govern more and more of Americans' lives without passing any legislation. As reported by the Los Angeles Times last week: "White House staff changes are being made with an eye toward achieving goals through executive actions rather than by trying to push plans through the next Congress."
It was inevitable.
From its inception, the left has regarded God and religion (especially the Judeo-Christian varieties) as impediments to its goals: "Trust in Us (Leftwing intellectuals)" has supplanted "In God We Trust." And so, God-based liberty gives way to state-based controls.
Whichever side you are on, at least you can now better understand why the non-left is fighting. For liberty's sake, not just for God's.
I came across this article awhile back & just never posted it. But I can't not post it because I FULLY agree with the things said in it! (Maybe not generalized to all liberals because I know people who share relious but not political beliefs...) What this article shows is a very bad thing happening happening in our country. History has shown what happens when you take God out of the picture... I just felt there were some terrific points & was very well put, overall. And a great warning American's would do well to heed...
God, Liberals, & Liberty
By Dennis Prager
In a recent column, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote: "It's sometimes easy to lose sight of just how anomalous our (America's) religiosity is in the world. A Gallup report issued on Tuesday underscored just how out of line we are."
Given Blow's leftwing politics and his point was that all rich countries except for the United States are secular and that all poor countries are religious, he was obviously not making this point in order to celebrate America's "anomalous" religiosity.
He should have. America's anomalous religiosity is very much worth celebrating -- not because it leads to affluence, but because it is indispensible to liberty. Had Blow made a liberty chart rather than an affluence chart, he might have noted that the freest country in the world -- for 234 years -- the United States of America, has also been the most God-centered.
Yes, I know that the Islamic world has also been God-based and that it has not been free. But that is because Allah is not regarded as the source of liberty, as the America's Judeo-Christian God has been, but as the object of submission ("Islam" means "submission").
Since the inception of the United States (and, indeed, before it in colonial America), liberty, i.e., personal freedom, has been linked to God.
America was founded on the belief that God is the source of liberty. That is why the inscription on the Liberty Bell is from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible (Leviticus 25):"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
The Declaration of Independence also asserts this link: All men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Because the Creator of the world is the source of our freedom, no state, no human being, no government may take it away. If the state were the source of liberty, then obviously the state could take it away.
Both reason and American values therefore make these claims:
1. The more important the state is, the less the liberty.
2. The more important God is, the smaller the state.
3. Therefore, the more important God is, the more liberty there is.
A proof of the validity of these assertions is that as this country -- the country, not the government -- becomes more secular, it becomes less free, just as has happened in other Western countries. We have far more laws governing human conduct than ever before in America's history. And Western Europe has even more, including limitations on as basic a liberty as free speech.
So, too, every totalitarian state except Muslim ones (because a religious government is the Muslim ideal) seeks to abolish religion. Stalin, for example, murdered virtually every member of the clergy, and came close to destroying all religion, in the Soviet Union. He understood that a totalitarian state cannot allow a competing allegiance.
And in democratic Western Europe, the ever-expanding state is inevitably accompanied by an ever shrinking God and religion.
This is largely what the current culture war -- actually a non-violent civil war -- is about. The left seeks an ever-expanding state with, by definition, ever-expanding powers. And a fundamental aspect of that program is the removal of God and religion from as much of American life as possible. This is pursued under the noble-sounding goal of ensuring "separation of church and state." But whatever the avowed aim, the result is the same: secularize as much of society as possible, its institutions and, most importantly, its values.
Over time, much of America has belatedly awakened to the realization that two counter-revolutionary (as in American Revolution) trends were occurring at a breakneck pace: God was being replaced by the state as the source of liberty, and liberty was eroding.
To use a Civil War simile, the secular Fort Sumter took place in 1962, when the United States Supreme Court (Engel v. Vitale) overthrew the decision of the highest court of New York State, and ruled that the following prayer, said in New York State schools, violated the Constitution:
"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."
Few rational, let alone religious, Americans believed that this non-denominational prayer, which no school child had to recite, violated the American Constitution. The purpose of the ruling was to impose secularism on America.
Since then, the leftwing attack on religion in America has proceeded at a rapid clip:
-- Though Los Angeles ("the Angels") was founded by Christians, the tiny cross on the seal of Los Angeles County was removed by the three liberal members of the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
-- Wishing a fellow American "Merry Christmas" has been widely rendered unacceptable.
-- A speaker at public high school graduations may not say "God bless you" to the graduating class.
-- The Bible, the basis of American values instruction for most of American history, is not taught at virtually any non-religious school in America.
Examples are too numerous to list.
And now, commensurate with the removal of God from American society, the most leftwing government in American history is expanding state powers to an unprecedented degree.
Our leftwing party has passed -- more accurately imposed, since it did so without a single vote from the opposition party -- legislation that will massively expand state powers. And it is preparing to govern more and more of Americans' lives without passing any legislation. As reported by the Los Angeles Times last week: "White House staff changes are being made with an eye toward achieving goals through executive actions rather than by trying to push plans through the next Congress."
It was inevitable.
From its inception, the left has regarded God and religion (especially the Judeo-Christian varieties) as impediments to its goals: "Trust in Us (Leftwing intellectuals)" has supplanted "In God We Trust." And so, God-based liberty gives way to state-based controls.
Whichever side you are on, at least you can now better understand why the non-left is fighting. For liberty's sake, not just for God's.
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