We

 officially

have

a

toddler!

We even have the bruise to prove it!  Today he took off walking and was doing really good until he saw a stool and decided he could reach it without taking another step... big mistake.  He couldn't quite reach the stool with his hand so he ended up reaching it with his face.  Now he's got a big ol' shiner :(

Chills

Yesterday on my way to pick up Eli I was listening to the radio and heard the DJ talking about a movie called "180".  I had to check it out and after watching it, I have to share.  It gave me chills.  This movie is a documentary-type film and is about abortion (and so much more).  It is 33 min. long so I suggest waiting until you have time to watch the whole thing before you start it.  Amazing how one question can change it all....



If you haven't watched the movie, don't read below...

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A few things in this movie really stood out for me.

1. The picture of the 24 week old baby... obviously, this one is tough for me personally because Logan was born around that time.  He lived, he breathed, he cried, he sucked a paci... the baby in the bed next to him was born at the same age and he thrived and went home with his parents... how could anyone think that's "not a baby".

2. At one point someone mentions that if the quality of life of the child is going to be bad, then it's okay to have an abortion.  How do we know what the quality of life will be like?  I've encountered people who thought their baby was perfectly healthy until the day the child was born or even discovered the illness/disability much later than that.  I've also encountered people who were told their child would be very, very sick for their whole life, if they even made it to birth and now the child is thriving (case in point, Stellan).  And just because we think a certain life is of "bad quality", who's to say it really is?  So many illnesses/disabilities are or have been very misunderstood.  People who were at one time sent to a hospital or group home because of their "condition" are now living on their own and doing just fine.  God can and does continue to perform miracles every single day.  Some are small, like the A on the test you didn't study for or the smile you know you saw from a child too young to smile.  Some are big, like remission from cancer.  Either way, if we step in we're taking away the opportunity for a miracle.

3. One of the girls said she thought it was okay for a mother to choose abortion in some situations.  Then Ray Comfort asks her what situation is okay, she hesitates and then says she can't think of one.  How many times in life do we just simply say "it's okay, sometimes"?  Not even talking about abortion here, about everything in life.  We accept excuses without stopping to think about whether they are valid.

To me, this video is about awareness.  We all have to hold ourselves responsible for being aware about what's going on.  Sometimes so much is going on in our lives we just let things slip by, we think "someone else will take care of that" (I count myself in this group sometimes).  We have all these ribbons and months and weeks marked for awareness: a pink ribbon and the month of October for Breast Cancer Awareness, November is Prematurity Awareness Month, this week is EB Awareness Week (if you don't know what EB is, please visit "EB"ing a Mommy).  I think we need a ribbon for awareness itself, it would remind us to be aware of what is going on in our community, our state, our country and our world, all the time.

Color

After painting our kitchen, office and both bathrooms last summer I have been itching to get the last of the "builder brown" out of our house.  We have known we wanted to paint the living room gray for a while but hadn't decided on an exact shade until this fall.  We bought the paint and materials weeks ago and this week we're finally getting it painted!

Here's the living room with it's new gray...

The wall part of the tray ceiling is painted the same shade as the hall, which is lighter than the shade in the living room.  Here's the hall...

We have so much more to do in these spaces.  We are going to do a photo wall in the hallway and a tree will be painted on the short wall in our living room and pictures will go there too.  Below is the inspiration for the tree which I found here

I am planning to make fabric circles with pictures in them instead of leaves.

And eventually I'm going to paint my frames in the hall so that my photo wall looks something like this but with more pictures (and my frames aren't that fancy)

Then there's the master bedroom.  We've just started on it this morning, so there are no pictures, but here's my inspiration...

The bottom will be "paneling" like in this picture which I found on Pinterest here

The top will be stripes based loosely on these

I cannot wait to see it all come together.  I am also painting two of the doors in my room a shade of red (more maroon-y than fire engine).  That part is a little scary to me but I've seen a bunch of painted doors on Pinterest that I really like so I'm going to try it out to see what I think. Worse case scenario I just repaint them later.

Before we painted our house the first time I was almost afraid to try out bright colors but now I say bring it on!  I love making my house "ours", I know that there are lots of people that probably think I'm crazy, but you know what, it's just a little paint :)

ONE