Oh, sweet Sesame Street. There is some serious parent pandering going on right now, and it is totally working in my house! We were devestated when Arrested Development was cancelled, but now we can see Will Arnett reprise his role of a narcissistic illusionist on Sesame Street. They are even using the same background music . . . The Final Countdown. I love it! Usually my kids watch Sesame Street while I get ready for the day, but today I sat down and watched it with them, and laughed and . . .

Seriously? Where does she think she's going?This is what happens at every nap if I forget to pull the crib into the middle of the room. . . .

Sometimes it's fun to just give yourself permission. This afternoon I did something rare: I took a nap. I stayed up too late tonight, and then we spent the morning at the beach, so I allowed myself to lay in bed all afternoon. It was heavenly. I don't know why I don't do it more. Then this evening, we were planning to go to church, but daddy surprised Jafta with a new surfboard. So they decided to skip church to test out the new board - and went back to the beach. I am usually very type-A, but . . .

We are back from Seattle, and I've been wanting to write a post where I give a re-cap of our trip, and my thoughts about it. Only Jodie beat me to it, and I'm so lazy that I'm just going to quote her. This pretty much sums it up: This week, we had visitors. Mike's whole family (9 1/2 of them!) ventured up to the rainy city to spend a week with us. They know Seattle as a gray, rain soaked place with tall trees, and flannel clad environmentalists. They came prepared, their suitcases packed with . . .

The OC Howerton kids get an introduction to picking your own food from the Northwest Howerton kids. I am green with envy over their cool CSA, that has a plot of veggies and flowers just for kids. . . .

Why is it that America is so keen on restoring democracy only when it benefits us? How can we pick and choose when we decide to become the moral police? Why do we have unending American troops in gas-rich countries where we are trying to "champion democracy" and yet we ignore the atrocities happening in Zimbabwe? Why is genocide, tyranny, terrorism, and evil accepted in African nations, and squelched immediately in countries that have something we want?We have been to Zimbabwe and the people are . . .