When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
Proverbs 31:21

On the first bitterly cold day of the season, Norah had a coat, gloves and a hat that fits. They had been purchased a few weeks earlier and were hanging on the hooks where she could reach them, just waiting for the time when she would need them. When I zipped her up and we headed out into the cold air, I said to God silently, "It is no small thing that she has a coat. Thank you, Father." You can imagine my surprise when I heard His Spirit say back to me gently, "It is no small thing that you made sure she had one. Mother." So unexpected was this praise, His praise to me, that my breath caught in my throat. And just then, the wind brushed my face and His Spirit sent the verse above blowing softly through my mind. I was humbled and had to blink back the tears stinging the sides of my eyes.

As precious as this message was to me, as much as I am sure it was meant just for me and that I am free to keep it and treasure it for myself alone, weeks later now, I can't shake the feeling that it may bless other mothers I know. We get up to make breakfast when we are so tired we could easily roll over and sleep for four more hours. We stand on feet that are already worn and make yet another dinner at the end of a long day. We give up things we need in order to buy the things our children need first. To do these kinds of things faithfully, things many women in this culture deem "small" and just leave undone, to look well after the ways of our household, is no small thing, Mother.

Now.

And Then.

Norah this Halloween and Norah on Halloween two years ago.

Now and then I like to compare my pictures, to see how quickly my kids have grown. This serves to remind me how quickly time flies, how what seem like insignificant minutes add up to hours, days, years.

For what is your life? It is a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. James 4:14

This post was written by my husband Dwayne, my favorite (my only) contributing writer.

I was given this poem by an ex-navy co-worker who left after six years in “the hole.” While I cannot say I know what my brother is feeling, I do know his is a thankless job for a crappy employer. Brandt, our hearts and prayers are with you.

Fight through this. You will get through.

With much love from your little brother.

SNIPE'S LAMENT
Now each of us from time to time has gazed upon the sea
and watched the mighty warships pulling out to keep this country free.
And most of us have read a book or heard a lusty tale,
about these men who sail these ships through lightning, wind and hail.
But there's a place within each ship that legend's fail to teach.
It's down below the water-line and it takes a living toll
- - a hot metal living hell, that sailors call the "Hole."
It houses engines run with steam that makes the shafts go round.
A place of fire, noise, and heat that beats your spirits down.
Where boilers like a hellish heart, with blood of angry steam,
are molded gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream.

Whose threat from the fires roar, is like a living doubt,
that at any moment with such scorn, might escape and crush you out.
Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in Hell,
are ordered from above somewhere, they answer every bell.
The men who keep the fires lit and make the engines run,
are strangers to the light and rarely see the sun.
They have no time for man or God, no tolerance for fear,
their aspect pays no living thing a tribute of a tear.
For there's not much that men can do that these men haven't done,
beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make the engines run.
And every hour of every day they keep the watch in Hell,
for if the fires ever fail their ship's a useless shell.

When ships converge to have a war upon an angry sea,
the men below just grimly smile at what their fate will be.
They're locked below like men fore-doomed, who hear no battle cry,
it's well assumed that if they're hit men below will die.
For every day's a war down there when gauges all read red,
twelve-hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead.

So if you ever write their songs or try to tell their tale,
the very words would make you hear a fired furnace's wail.
And people as a general rule don't hear of these men of steel,
so little heard about this place that sailors call the "Hole."
But I can sing about this place and try to make you see,
the hardened life of the men down there, 'cause one of them is me.
I've seen these sweat-soaked heroes fight in superheated air,
to keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there.

And thus they'll fight for ages on till warships sail no more,
amid the boiler's mighty heat and the turbine's hellish roar.
So when you see a ship pull out to meet a war-like foe,
remember faintly if you can, "The Men Who Sail Below."

-Anonymous

Norah made this cool caterpillar out of a paper towel roll. Though... hers ended up looking more like a snake than a caterpillar since it is sooooo long and we didn't put antenna on it. But, it's a keeper, none the less. Click here and scroll down for the directions.

Our loving "Grand-neighbor's" brought Norah and Avril each a bag of treats and presents for Halloween. Norah's bag included these Disney princess dry erase books... Awesome! Our neighbor's are becoming terribly good at almost channeling my mind when it comes to gift preferences. But, as Norah was enjoying her new toys today, I was thinking about the princess stories when something struck me so hard I started laughing out loud. We all know and love these stories, but they don't exactly reinforce the best ideals for little girls. Take Ariel, for example, her story may persuade adolescents to ignore their loving father's advice and continue down dangerous paths, swimming with sharks, metaphorically speaking. Girls may go so far as to pursue interests and boys their fathers don't trust or approve of, thinking their dad and everyone who thinks they are acting foolishly will just be proved wrong in the end. Or take Cinderella. Girls will equate love with infatuation or worse, think the way out of an abusive home life is to marry as soon as they find someone willing! But, I think the most dangerous of all is actually Belle. The overwhelming moral of her story is that with enough virtue, love and dedication, a woman can go ahead and agree to live with a man-beast because she can believe that he will, someday, transform into the prince of her dreams. That said, I've allowed my daughter to see most of the princess films and I honestly don't think I will keep her from seeing the ones she hasn't yet. But, her current Disney favorite is The Lion King and this has to be one of the best story lines when compared to the morals the princess stories teach. I was about to go postal if I heard the song "Hakuna Matata" one more time, but now that I think about it, I have a new love for this film. I am thinking that Norah can watch it as much as her little heart desires now, since it won't be giving her so many bad ideas to work through later.

It was very windy and a little wet, but we seized the late Saturday afternoon to build a campfire in our backyard. We toasted bologna cheese sandwiches for a fun dinner before we went trick-or-treating.

Avril was all bundled up, of course. You can see her two teeth coming in on the bottom.

My big girl Norah helped toast her own sandwich, that is... until she almost swung her red-hot toaster around and hit me and the baby with it. Sigh... But, the pictures turned out nice.

Norah's costume turned out fantastic, if I may say so myself. She ended up loving it. How do I know? Besides the fact that she skipped everywhere, looking down at herself, almost running into walls all night, when I put this on her, she was overcome by joy, grabbed my neck, hugged me and said, "I love you so much, Mom!" Sniffle. Sniffle.

And, that's not a real knife, by the way. We covered her plastic toy kitchen knife's handle with masking tape, which Norah then painted brown...

This is one child's take from walking two blocks. Just two blocks! When I was a kid, we had to trick-or-treat for miles, up hill, both ways! and we still came home with mostly Smarties and Sweet Tarts!

Norah finished her goal of reading twenty pages and/or Bob's books on Friday afternoon, so we were able to take her to get her first free pizza with the Book It program.

This is the page she read to us right before we left to have dinner. Notice the page has the word "woodshed" on it. After reading it, Norah asked, "What's a 'woodshed?'" and at that, Dwayne and I had to ask ourselves through chuckles whether or not we were raising her right.

We haven't had Pizza Hut in years, literally, so we gave Norah a hearty and genuine "Thanks" for working so hard on her reading because we were able to enjoy a dinner out with her. Obviously, even though her pizza was free, we had to pay for ours, but Norah felt good about herself, about doing something we could all share in, and we felt good about saving our extra money up in order to do this, not eating out too much at other places so we could go out and celebrate with her.