9 to 5 (and 31)

Eliyah Grace Tuleen is now 5 months old, Justice River is 9 months, and Aedyn Shepherd is a ripe old 31.

Imagine

This week Aedyn met 2 new friends. A few days ago I walked into the dinning room to find him standing on a chair that he had pushed up to the window saying, "Hello, Mrs. Star!" He told me she had black eyes like Eliyah and that the sun was 'so bright' to see her. Today I went to get him out of nap time and he said, "Get Thomas, too."

Me: Where's Thomas?

A: (pointing towards the pillow) "Right there. Thomas awake."

M: Come on Thomas. Let's go downstairs.

Aedyn held out his hand and 'held hands' with Thomas as we walked down the stairs. Near the bottom he said, "Let's go see the pretty flowers, Thomas." and they headed for the front porch. Thomas has blue eyes and dark brown hair and is big like Aedyn.

My 2 1/2 year old! What a fun kid.

Miss Congeniality

Eliyah has been with our family for just over 3 months and in 3 more she will be officially our baby! December 11 is our adoption hearing date. We should have a party. (You coming?) She is such a sweetheart! She's now so social that she would rather smile and giggle than take a bottle.

Aedyn is sitting next to me (we keep up with kid friends on the blog, some he's never met, "Hi" Z & M, Elliot & Isaiah, Micah & Eli). He just said, "The yellow sun smiles so pretty in the sky." It's overcast outside so he must be remembering.

Justice, our Joy Baby, is happily napping right now. He's teething his front 2 top teeth, speed crawling army style, and laughing at EVERYTHING.

I love the opportunity to raise these little people!

August in Review

I just uploaded 60 pictures, our record of August 2009. The kids and I were home, mostly; playing, eating, and sleeping. We did get to the farmers' market in the capital city as a family one Saturday which was a nice outing for us. We also went out to lunch TWICE as a family. These are Big Successful Events to me. You see, a two year old and virtual twin babies are major work. Eric has had some brutal rotations that kept him away about 100 hours a week and I have a hard time functioning cheerfully on the very little sleep I get.

Eric had the great honor of standing up in our friend's wedding in England last week, and, while that kept him away for 5 days, him mom and our niece came to stay with us and help. We loved having Grandma and Ashley here! We miss them already.

May September bring more good growth for our kids, more time with Eric (the second half of the month, maybe?) and more sleep for me. My mom's coming tomorrow and Aedyn is so excited!

Bearing False Witness

This post isn't about my family. I'll do that later. But first I've got to get this off my chest. I have been so disgusted by some of the comments made by people (famous and not) whom I consider Family members, Christians who are either deliberately misleading others about health care reform or those who are doing so with irresponsible ignorance. Of course people can disagree about any issue; but obscuring an opposing position is cowardly and rude. I urge you, my blog friends and strangers, to fact check so you can positively contribute to the conversation.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/settingtherecord

Below is an article from CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama appealed Wednesday to faith-based groups to help garner support for his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.

President Obama speaks at the White House Wednesday.

"I need you to knock on doors, talk to neighbors, spread the facts and speak the truth," he told religious leaders and reporters on a conference call that was streamed over the Web at faithforhealth.org.

"This debate over health care goes to the heart of who we are as a people," he said. "I believe that nobody in America should be denied basic health care because he or she lacks health insurance."

Some 140,000 people participated in the call, the coalition of more than 30 faith-based groups that organized the event said in a written statement.

Obama urged the listeners to reject misinformation about his plans, noting, "There are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness."

He referred to some assertions as "ludicrous," and cited as an example rumors that the government is planning to set up "death panels" to determine the fate of the nation's elderly.

"That is just an extraordinary lie," he said, adding that it was based on a provision in the House legislation that would allow Medicare to reimburse someone who voluntarily sought counseling on how to set up a living will for the end of life.

"It gives an option that people who can afford fancy lawyers already experience," the Harvard-trained lawyer said.

In addition, the plan does not provide health insurance to illegal aliens, it does not represent a government takeover of health care and it would not lead to government funding of abortion, he said.

"These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation: that is, that we look out for one another; that is, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. And in the wealthiest nation in the world right now we are neglecting to live up to that call." Watch a discussion of the emotion and rhetoric of some town hall meetings »

Obama, who took no questions, said the opposition was no surprise. "Throughout history, whenever we have sought to change this country for the better, there have always been those who wanted to preserve the status quo," he said. "These always boil down to a contest between hope and fear."

Prior to the call, Obama's director of domestic policy, Melody Barnes, said the president still believes that including a public option is the best way to achieve low-cost, affordable health care.

The public option has been a sticking point among some Republicans, who consider it to be the camel's nose under the tent of government-run health care.

But, she added, "he also said he's open to other ideas.

My Beautiful Children

The Lovely Angela shot these. Thank you, Ange. I treasure these photos.

Three Kids in a Row