Susanna’s Blog

Really early, I know, but I plan to get most of my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving to avoid crowded stores.

The girls will be happy with whatever you pick out, but I thought I’d give some suggestions. Juliana wants a wallet and fairy wings for dressing up. More dress-up clothes would be a great gift for Juliana. I got her a Snow White dress already, but other than that she only has generic princess dress-up things. Emma won’t tell me what she wants, except she’s really into cats, dogs and her dad. Those are three things she is always excited to see. She loves music and dancing, so I’m sure she would love a new kids music cd or instruments.

Our toy boxes are overflowing, but we got new bookshelves and have space for more books. I have a friend who sells Usborne Books, and I have a frequent buyers account there, so I get free books when you purchase. Click on my name, which appears on the right of the page for me to get credit. I set up a wishlist and to view it you’ll need to type my email: susanna456@msn.com and name: Susanna Oakley. Please feel free to choose books on your own.

Juliana and Emma were dancing to a Wiggles movie called “You make me feel like dancing” and Juliana wanted to dress up for the occasion. She needed fairy wings so she picked up a tutu and said “this looks like wings!” How creative!

As a kid, I didn’t do Halloween for religious reasons, more information here. I know that most people don’t celebrate it as pagans once did. Most kids dress up in cute costumes and have fun collecting candy, innocent enough. Juliana and Emma are not going trick or treating, because I don’t want them collecting nuggets of sugar, food coloring and chemicals AKA candy. They devour fig newtons, Trader Joe’s ABC cookies, and homemade sweets and then bounce of the wall the rest of the day. Give them candy and it’s a very scary picture.
They can dress up all they want though!
Our neighborhood gets really carried away with Halloween. Remember that picture of the neighbor’s house I posted a week or two ago, the one with excessive decorations? Well, they’ve since doubled their decorations, it looks like a hauted house! Another neighbor boarded up all their windows and garage door and put a graveyard in their front yard…this economy is so stinking bad, but they can afford all that junk! Here’s a picture from John’s phone, a bit dark.

Then there is the house with 16 scarecrows, they’re cute, but come on…16 of them is excessive!
Aside the tackiness of it all, it really scares Juliana. I have tried to convince her that it’s just pretend, the sculls are just bones and not scary. She’s not buying it and we can’t take our usual walk because she’s afraid to walk by scary stuff. There are dead guys hanging from trees, a singing frankenstein, a guy with a skeleton head wearing a black cape, a witch with a green face….pretty scary to a three year old.

Some funny things Juliana said recently:
“When I turn into a dog, I’m going to poop in the grass”
We were talking about Jesus on the cross, and Juliana asked “are they going to kill me on a cross too?”

And a funny picture of Emma, who fell asleep on a walk yesterday and stayed asleep in the backpack while Juliana poked her and kissed her hands over and over.

Check this out: http://www.barackobamaantichrist.blogspot.com/

Obama is too ridiculous to be the real antichrist. He’s been called the Messiah, the One (by Oprah – who is more of an antichrist than Obama). He requested to enter Jerusalem through the east gate, just like Jesus did. People worship this idiot, but who really cares…
I’m ready for election day to be over with. I’m sick of seeing his ugly face.

If you haven’t watched this speech yet, watch it!

John McCain and Sarah Palin will be at a rally on Wednesday at 3:30 at Lunken Airport. Anyone want to go?

I put lots of new pictures on our website today. John and Juliana went to Disney on Ice this morning! They sat in the 5th row!!!

Last weekend we went to Iron’s Fruit farm for pumpkins.

Emma helping cover Juliana with stones at the park.

Juliana and Emma are both taking classes at the Cincinnati Nature Center. Juliana’s teacher emailed parents photos yesterday. Here is one of her making a leaving rubbing.

I LOVE this class! The teacher is great, and sets a very high bar for future teachers. This will make choosing an elementary school very difficult. I plan to keep her in this class as long as possible, so until she’s five and starts kindergarten. I sat in for about 30 minutes yesterday and was so impressed – the kids learn through fun. Yesterday’s theme was squirrels and the kids wore squirrel tails, collected nuts outside, played in a squirrel nest (leave covered tent), walked along a down tree trunk to practice balance just like the squirrels. Juliana comes home singing songs that I’ve never heard. I think she really loves it!
Emma’s class is really unstructured…age appropriate for a small toddler. There are 7-8 stations, which change for every class depending on the theme that day. The teacher is very attentive and always guides the babies through at least one station. The second half of the class is always outside, even in the rain! It’s nice to explore the woods, and the kids love it!

Do YOU know what partial birth abortion is? The medical term is called “intact dilation and extraction.” Partial birth abortions are done after 16 weeks gestation. This is a 16 week fetus.

When does human life begin? Is this a baby yet? Definetly!

In a partial birth abortion, the baby/fetus is turned to the breech position (feet first) and the baby’s body is pulled out, leaving the head inside the birth canal. I’m getting sick to my stomach so I’ll quote the rest…”An incision is made at the base of the skull, scissors are inserted into the incision and opened to widen the opening, and then a suction catheter is inserted into the opening. The brain is suctioned out, which causes the skull to collapse and allows the fetus to pass more easily through the birth canal.”

Barak Obama voted to allow partial birth abortion (SB 230) in 1997.
In 2000, he voted to allow state funding of abortion and induced miscarriages (HB 709).
In 2002, he voted NO on a bill to save born alive newborns, which is when the newborn is born alive after an abortion. The newborn is refused medical care, neglected and left to die. In Obama’s own words about the abortion mishaps: “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”

Partial birth abortion was banned in 2003, but overturned in 2007. It is usually preformed on healthy mothers with healthy fetuses, and very rarely done for medical purposes. This is not a pro-life rant, I’m not talking about regular abortions… If you have an ounce of respect for human life, you cannot vote for Barak Obama. Unfortuately, he does NOT respect human life. If you do not agree with McCain, then abstain from voting. I would beg on my hands and knees to save just one human life.

On a personal note, I’ve seen a six week embryo and even that early, I knew it was human life. I would have done ANYTHING to save that….too see a picture of a six week miscarried embryo, click here. Sorry to be so graphic, but I think it’s important for everyone to know the details before they make a hasty vote.

I don’t watch much TV, just presidental debates and PBS kids shows. We’ve been watching X-files from Netflix for months, and are still in season 4 with 5 more seasons to go. Anyhow, my favorite show is 24 and it has been almost two years since it was on tv! I’m anxiously waiting for it to come back on November 23rd!!!

Emma’s not much into TV, but she loves the Veggietales theme song! She dances and tries to sing, just like Juliana did when she was this age! Emma has watched the Wizard of Oz for a few minutes at a time, it’s the songs – we had the soundtrack for awhile. Most of the time, she doesn’t even notice when the TV is on. I like it better that way.

This is a great toy, a birthday present for Emma from Mike and Elizabeth. Juliana had one when she was about this age, but she stepped on it (probably jumped on it) and the magnetic stuff leaked out. I was afraid that if I bought a new one, it would break too. Both the girls love it, and it’s so perfect for Emma, who loves to draw but can’t keep crayons out of her mouth.

We raked leaves today, and Juliana had so much fun with them. It doesn’t take much to make a three year old happy. Doesn’t take much to make them sad either.

We walk around the neighborhood pretty much everyday. Ducky and lion came with us this time.

Many of our neighbors get carried away with yard decorations. This one is the most interesting, and they are out there today putting more decorations up! Behind the fall decorations are a bunch of carefully pruned topiaries, attentively cared for by a middle aged woman who wears a mumu everyday. Her husband is just as odd, once we saw him in his front yard wearing nothing but boxer shorts!

We went to Veterans park this morning, an interesting park on the corner of Clough Pike and Gleneste-Withamsville. I say interesting because it attracts a really diverse crowd. This morning around 9:30am, it was full of preschoolers and babies with parents close by, many people know each other. I have run into people I recognize from the library several times. I avoid the park in the afternoons, evenings and on weekends, when it fills with rednecks and sorry to say, white trash. There are a handfull of teenagers who swear and smoke cigarettes around the playground….maybe they have kids? I don’t know. So, pretty much anytime other than morning, it fills with teenagers and lots of dirty kids with snot runny down their faces. There are adults around, but they sit around outside of the playground area, and they don’t watch their kids. That is why I look out my car window before I park, and sometimes we just drive away and on to the next park. John has never seen the nice morning crowd, he just hates the park all the time. Really, nice people do go there sometimes, and today is was really really nice!