This song is very dear to my heart. When I recorded it I prayed that it would touch hearts in a very real way as it does mine each time I sing it.

John 18

37 Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." 38 Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, "I find no guilt in him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?" 40 They cried out again, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" Now Barabbas was a robber.

19:1Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3 They came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him." 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, 

"Behold the man!"

6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." 7 The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God." 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered him,  "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."

 12 From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar." 13 So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews "Behold your King!" 15 They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

It's a Happy St. Patty's Day, to us all! Bein' Irish an' all this is one of those days when my Irish brrrog gets polished up and put to good use and no one looks at me like I'm crazy... lol! But mostly it just keeps the kiddos in stitches!

Me dear Grandpa is as Irish as they come. He immigrated from Ireland in his early 20's and met and married me Grandma in Canada. Me mum is their oldest daughter so I'm proud to call meself a bonny lass!

Pictures to come of cookie making and Shamrock cutting!

As a girl who, like most people, I'm guessing, puts her name in drawings from time to time, I have been extremely unlucky for the most part. But today I won something of value!! I won Kimberly_Jarman's iTunes gift card drawing! How fun is that?!?! I've never bought music on iTunes, although I have dearly wanted to, and now I get to try it out! Wahoo!! This amazing photographer decided to do this drawing to find out a little more about her readership and get to know some of her "blog stakers" who never comment. Cool idea, huh? Anyway, I wanted to give her a big shout out and thank her for such a fun idea! So run on over and check out her fantastic work! (Oh, and leave her a comment... She loves hearing from you when you stop by! )

This little dolly is proving to be quite a challenge to photograph. She avoids the camera like crazy (unless it is to see the little images of her siblings displayed on the back...) These were taken up at Smithville Lake on one of those crazy warm days early last week. I dressed her planning on doing a full photo shoot but she had no intentions of cooperating....

Here she examines a leaf...

...before popping it in her mouth to taste it.

And then she cut her finger on a blade of grass and this is the face I saw for the whole rest of the shots...

Oh, well such is life... I did get one shot of all the kids together that I liked. I wished I had dressed them all with this shot in mind but I still like it...

I've finally gotten more comfortable leaving my camera on Manual and adjusting the settings for the look I want. (Thanks Kim, for that tip!) It really pushed me out of my comfort zone but I'm getting really excited with the results!

So Friday, I crawled out of bed for a few hours and tried another go at Tegan. I got one I loved so I put my camera away and went back to bed... I hate Strep Throat!!

This afternoon my little nephew, Kyle, was over playing. It was the first beautiful day of the year (69 degrees!! Wahooo!!) and I followed him around the yard trying to capture his flaming red hair glowing in the afternoon sun. Isn't he sooo handsome??

What a sweet little guy! Thanks for comin' over to play... See ya next week!

As I was driving the children home from school the other day Trina mentioned an interesting encounter with a boy in her class during music. He apparently sang "Skip to the Zoo" with his own verses to the music class. He told her after that his brother, who is in Trenton's class, had come up with the idea in class a few weeks ago and that Trenton had only done "his take" on the idea. Naturally Trina was surprised and wanted me to know about. Upon further inquiry with Trenton it seems that this was true but he kept insisting that most of the song was his idea! I was furious (as you might imagine) and spent at least 30 seconds counting to 10 before I could fully tackle the discussion and inform him that what he had done was a terrible thing. He didn't get it. I explained, calmly and cooly (well, not quite...) that adults get in huge trouble for doing what he did and explained in depth the concept of plagiarism and it's ramifications. He was stunned. Somehow he thought that just doing a better version of the verses constituted coming up with his own song but I was so mad I could hardly drive home!! I felt lied to and deceived. After I pitched my fit I think it started to sink in and he felt very bad about his deception. Amazing... I didn't know we were going to need to have a discussion about plagiarism at 9 years old!!

Yesterday, as I was making supper, Trina asked me what our family thinks of Hannah Montana. I blinked. I'm not really sure why this was surprising to me but it just seemed to come out of left field. Todd and I have always strived to have our children listen to the highest quality music we could and constantly expose them to classical, folk, celtic, and Christian hymns and praise music. While I enjoy some of the more current music as well we usually steer clear of that with the children. Todd is very concerned with their minds developing fully and unhindered and strongly feels that high quality music and classic literature helps with this development. So Hannah Montana isn't exactly in our iTunes list, if you know what I mean. I asked Trina first how it had come up at school and what the other girls were saying. She said one of her friend asked her if she liked Hannah Montana and she said she didn't know who that was and then several of her class mates mentioned that they LOVED Hannah Montana but one of the girls said she HATED her. I looked at Trina puzzled and said, "Do these girls know Hannah Montana?" She shook her head and said, "No, they just like her music, I guess." It was a great lead in to a discussion about fame, and just liking someone 'cause their famous or popular. I told her it was fine maybe for other girls to like and listen to her music but our family preferred to listen to music that talked about things we care about and believe in and that wasn't so loud and self-glorifying. She responded so well. I didn't want her to develop a judgemental attitude toward her friends because of the music they like but give her a balanced perspective. That's hard when children prefer for things to be black and white; Trina especially. But we feel it is important for our children to love others and show kindness and respect, even when they don't necessarily agree with their opinions or beliefs. I encouraged Trina to challenge her friends and ask them if Hannah Montana is someone they know personally well enough to warrant their adoration. Not sure how that will go but she was satisfied and the children enjoyed the discussion.

Tacey received an invitation in the mail today to the birthday party of a little girl in her class. She was so excited and wanted me to call the mom and say she would go. I was, again, caught off guard. I don't know this little girl or her mother! This is totally new territory for me! This is like the third invite we have gotten but I had been able to head off the others when I got the mail but this time the kids had gotten it and I was forced to face it head on. Am I just weird or is this something other moms struggle with? I just don't see how I can even think of sending my 6 year old little girl down the street to some person's house I have never been to, to hang out at a birthday party with total strangers! Do people really do this? Tacey was so upset and sad not to go but I'm just not comfortable with that... *sigh* It all just feels so strange... I'm starting to think my life is looking more like that of a "soccer moms" and well,..... that's just weird... Never thought of myself that way...

We are striving to raise our children to be thinkers so these discussions are becoming commonplace and while I am so glad we are having them and they are growing in their understanding of culture and the world in general I am humbled and driven to my knees for their hearts. All three of them love Christ and show no signs of wavering in that but I pray for wisdom to be faithful to my calling as a mother. Sometimes we forget how much our children need to grow and learn from the world around them and how daily we should be fitting them with a strong base to build a life of faith on. I must admit that before we put the kids in school I had grown lax in that. I remember what a shock it was getting out of my Sunday School world I had been raised in and seeing the depravity out there and feeling such... hopelessness, maybe? I don't know the right word for how I felt is but I wasn't sure how to process my feeling of being completely ill-equipped to face it. To be anything to it. Sometimes I think we focus so much on cranking out kids that will change the world when in reality we are just hiding away from it so we don't have to deal with it. It's cowardly really. There are so many people in the homeschool movement that think that having a lot of children and raising them to have a lot of children is changing the world. This is an odd concept to me.... How is that supposed to work?? Are we just gonna "breed out" the people who are "worldly" or who don't serve God?? If we never engage the culture how can we change it? There certainly is an important balance to strike in protecting our family while engaging the world around us but I think it's worth more thought and consideration than we have in the past. Todd and I talk about this often but find that many of our peers are afraid of casing a negative light on their upbringing. And while we fully and deeply respect our parents and what they were trying to do by getting involved in the homeschool movement we also see the need to challenge our hearts and minds to be more Christ-like and seek personally to live a life that honors Christ even if that looks different than the way our parents raised us. We are blessed in that both our parents support us in this and long only for us to glorify God in the way He is leading us. May we never grow comfortable and cushy in our spirituality! But may Christ ever push us to seek more of Him! To seek only to hold tight to His hand and follow Him and make His glory known to every person we meet!!

I woke up this morning and came down stairs to find my 3 oldest:
Trenton, Trina, and Tacey writing a song. The other day they had been
in music class and their teacher had given the class an assignment to
write alternate words to the tune, "Skip to My Loo". Trenton and I
talked about it but I didn't have any ideas for him. But apparently
last night, as they were falling asleep, the three talked about an idea
that they were just finishing putting down on paper as I came down for
breakfast this morning:

Skip to The Zoo

Let's go to the Zoo today.

Let's go to the Zoo today.

Let's go to the Zoo today.

Skip to the Zoo, my children.



We get there at Noon.

We get there at Noon.

We get there at Noon.

Skip to the Zoo, my children.



See the monkeys looking at you.

See the monkeys looking at you.

See the monkeys looking at you.

Skip to the Zoo, my children.



See your favorite animals.

See your favorite animals.

See your favorite animals.

Skip to the Zoo, my children.



Zoo, Zoo, skip to the Zoo.

Zoo, Zoo, skip to the Zoo.

Zoo, Zoo, skip to the Zoo.

Skip to the Zoo, my children!

By Trenton, Trina, and Tacey Francis

Can you believe they did this completely on their own?? I forgot to
take a picture of the paper before they headed to school but I will
tonight and post it. They even drew a picture of them entering the Zoo
at the bottom! Can you tell I'm bursting with pride??

*edit* For your viewing pleasure...

This kitty was born in my lap when we lived at the farm. Her mother was my darling most favorite cat ever, Cassy. When she was about 6 weeks old, my little sister (in the Christmas photo of my family from yesterday) came to visit and fell in love with all the cute little kittens but especially the tiny gray one. She was this poofy little bundle of fur so as Grace was pulling her out from under the couch to take her home with her she named her Dust Bunny.

   
Grooming in the sunshine.

Grace had to give her back to me early in 2007 due to alergies but these are dedicated to her. Enjoy, Gracie!