Today we decided to start Christmas early. The stores do, the radio stations do, the feeling is in the air and we might as well get in on the goods too!

We cleaned the house up and headed off the to attic to retrieve our Christmas tree and decorations! It was fun…and the girls got to see what the attic looks like (they were too young before to go up there).

We’ll start decorating tomorrow!! WOO HOO!!!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…Jingle all the WAY!!!!

Jillian and Leia have always been in a “love/hate” relationship….mainly because Jillian keeps trying to pick Leia up and ends up hurting her…putting her in traction for a few weeks. LOL!

Now that Jillian has seen Leia incapacitated, she has learned it is best they play from a distance rather than making Leia the “baby” and holding her as such (and dropping her).

Last night as I was working on my computer I heard whispering…behind me…and as I very quietly turned around, I saw this…

Jillian and Leia were playing “tea party” and the crayons were “special cookies, Mommy!” The doll in the “cookies” was Leia’s baby…and Leia was Jillian’s “baby”. Leia just sat there, for about 10 minutes…with Jillian…playing and smelling the cookies on que…just the cutest sight you’ve ever seen!

I have video…and will most definitely cherish that. You can definitely see Leia’s aging in this picture as she’s got the “old eyes” going on. Not cataracts (praise God!!).

Ever since the Hotel Concierge gave Jillian her very own copy of USA Today, she has held on to it so very carefully and read it from cover to cover. She reclines and sits with Mommy to read the paper (Mommy watches the news) …

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After she’s read it from cover to cover….

She retires to the bedroom, crawls in bed with Lovie and Pappies (lovie and pacifier) and her USA Today…

We know she’s absorbing all the information in this paper…here’s hoping she becomes a Libertarian and NOT a Democrat…

May the Force Be with You, Dear Padawan…

I subscribe to the American Family Association and this email came to me this morning from their founder and chairman, Donald E. Wildmon…

There is some good news

November 5, 2008

Dear Katherine,

No doubt, it was a disappointing night with overwhelmingly bad news. But there was some good news for those who support traditional marriage. In the states of Arizona, Florida and California voters said no to homosexual “marriage.” In fact, in the Sunshine State, 60% of the vote was needed to keep marriage only between a man and a woman, and our side was able to garner 62% of the vote.

We won in Arizona, too! This is significant because a couple of years ago the marriage amendment was defeated when the pro-homosexual marriage advocates played the fear card with senior citizens.

Finally, in California, our country’s largest and most liberal state, the citizens voted 52% to 48% to overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage. This is BIG news! Radical homosexual groups, Hollywood celebrities and the liberal media came together to try and defeat Proposition 8, yet the pro-family and pro-marriage citizens of California won a huge victory and, if I might add, put the arrogant California Supreme Court in its place.

Your American Family Association was deeply involved in all three challenges. We kept the people of those states informed and encouraged. In fact, AFA contributed $500,000 to help achieve the victory in California. We had been saving the money over a period of years because we knew that one day it would be needed for a fight like the one we had in California. Of course, these funds came from people like you.

So despite some discouraging news on the national front, 30 states have adopted a state constitutional amendment preserving traditional marriage since the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in Massachusetts. That is due to the hard work of people like you.

Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

After I got home from work today, about 4:00, I turned on Fox News to see this video.

Let FREEDOM RING!!!

We have been blessed. Blessed by God to have 2 of the most precious beings on earth. Dave and I were married 8 years before we were HUGELY blessed by Jayna Suzanne…and then almost 3 years later, we were blessed again by having Jillian Garrett.

I remember one week before Jayna turned 1, we went to Hurst, TX, to a book signing for Oliver North at the Lifeway Christian Store. It was really an awesome thing meeting one of our heroes. That day, Jayna felt hot…and my thermometer wasn’t working properly, so I knew she had a little bit of a fever. When we got home, I was making her lunch and getting the Tylenol ready when I heard a “thump” and found my precious baby girl seizing in the floor. Two more seizures when she turned 3 would determine that those were Febrile Seizures.

Last September (2007), while Jayna was at Mother’s Day Out at our former church, where I worked at the time, Jayna had a seizure that was unlike other seizures she had in the past. It was mild, however, clearly a seizure and the weird thing was she talked to me while having it. This type of seizure was called a Complex Partial Seizure. She had another one, just like it, this past June (2008). We went to a Pediatric Neurologist to have her evaluated and we had both an EEG and MRI done. Today we got the long awaited phone call to tell us what the diagnosis was.

Dr. M called us today and said that Jayna’s EEG and MRI scans both came back abnormal. What the MRI revealed was that Jayna’s Corpus Callosum never developed fully while in the womb. We have found a wealth of information on her condition at the University of Maine - Education & Health Development website. This is what causes her seizures, forgetful memory (memory loss or lack of memory retention), not understanding why/how. There are other things involved, but those were the most prominant symptoms.

What does this mean? Well, once a brain has developed and you either don’t have a Corpus Callosum or a partial Corpus Callosum, you cannot develop one…that means there are no surgeries or medications to take that will develop it. As Dr. M states, you can’t correct or heal something that was never there. Make sense?

So, this is not life-threatening by any means. This just means that Jayna will learn different than the conventional way. We have been advised to have her evaluated and begin therapy with a NeuroPsychologist to see how we can help her in school (and in life). This will be an ongoing therapy…so costs could be quite high, however, God is providing and we place our trust in Him fully.

We have also been advised to have her seen by a Pediatric Opthamologist to have her eyes tested to make sure that the glasses she now has are exactly what she needs to help her.

Jayna will most likely continue to have seizures and when that happens, we’re just to hold her, love her, reassure her that everything is ok. These seizures DO NOT hurt her in ANY way. They will NOT kill her or cause brain damage.

We are SO grateful for our doctor, pediatrician, and others that we’ll meet along the way to help make Jayna’s life easier to manage. We are so grateful for prayers and support and if you have had experience in this field, we would appreciate an email from YOU at kat [at create] thecurlees [dot create] com.

Dave found this today while doing some surfing on the web. VERY interesting. Take the time to read it all!!

Things You Probably Already Know, But Have Forgotten

1. Money isn’t made out of paper, it’s made out of cotton.

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

3. The dot over the letter i is called a “tittle.”

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

5. 40% of McDonald’s profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

6. 315 entries in Webster’s 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

7. The ’spot’ on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.

8. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.

9. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

10. Chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

11. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark’s stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

12. Most lipstick contains fish scales.

13. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

14. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.

15. Upper and lower case letters are named ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the ‘upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, ‘lower case’ letters.

16. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

17. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

18. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

19. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

20. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

21. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.

22. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

23. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original “Halloween” was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

24. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)

25. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand (and you thought this list was completely useless.)

26. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb (sign of a truely civilized society.)

27. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

28. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It’s the same with apples!

29. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

30. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

31. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

32. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it.

Here are the latest… Our girls are growing so fast…I have to keep snapping pics to make sure we don’t miss anything!!

Jillian received lessons on the iPhone today via our friend from GeekBrief.TV (www.geekbrief.tv), Neal Campbell. I think she already knows more than we do on that phone. She was almost giving Neal lessons! LOL!!