dirty little secrets

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DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS RADIO SHOW>>>>>>>>

We started our Internet Radio Show a few weeks ago. It is called Dirty Little Secrets.

The show consists of hard hitting interviews with special guests, call ins, traffic and weather from Junior and Rob, and a segment called "questions you can't ask your mama" where Mike and Craig answer a hot topic question sent via the web.

Check out www.xxxchurch.com/insidex3/x3radio.asp for all the details! A new show is available every Wednesday.

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Dirty Little Secrets is now available as a Podcast through Itunes. It is simple. Click the link below and then hit "Subscribe" once you are into Itunes. Every time we put a new show up, it will automatically download.

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sufjan

Scott and I went to see Sufan Steven's with our friend Jonny Walker on Friday night. We saw him at the Metro down town Chicago. The Metro is across the street from Wrigley Feild where the boring Cubs play. I have to tell you this was the pReppiest part of Chicago ever, YUCK!

The concert was a lot of fun and Sufjan ROCKS! He is just amazing, no above and beyond awesome! He is touring his new totally amazing album Come on! Feel the Illinoise! This is such beautiful album. My favorite songs off of this album are John Wayne Gacy, Jr. and Come on! Feel the Illinoise!, and Casimir Pulaski Day, and The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!

I am still feeling the affects of this concert. Sufjan Steven's is a Christian and a man I respect deeply and I love that he sings for secular crowds. He has a Christian album called Seven Swans which he sold out of at the concert, how amazing is that! Also for his hi encore song he sang, To Be Alone with you, which is from his Seven Swans album and it is about Jesus. AWESOME!!

Here are some pictures from the concert...

maddie speaks again!

WOW! Maddie has now said three words, uh-oh, hi, and kitty! I can't believe it, she actually said KITTY!! On Sunday she pointed at our cat, Pippy, and said kitty. She said it at least 6 times yesterday. She is growing up so fast, what a little blessing she is to us.


Maddie at 2 1/2 months


Maddie at 11 months

DINE FOR AMERICA!!

A good friend of mine sent this to me....

This is such a great thing!
Dear Fellow Americans,

Please consider going out to dinner on one important night at a
participating restaurant.

WEDS. OCTOBER 5th there are over 6,000 restaurants joining a cause
for Hurricane Katrina Relief in a coordinated effort called DINE FOR
AMERICA!!

Just about every single CITY has a RESTAURANT that has already signed
up to DONATE 10 to 100% OF THEIR PROFITS that day to the RED CROSS.

It doesn't take any extra work on your part or any extra cost.

It's pretty much just like having a regular dinner out.

http://www.dineforamerica.org/

Click here to find a restaurant in your town and then call to
reserve a spot for you and your buddies!




Also if you dine at Chili's on September 26th 100% of their profits goes to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital .

Chili's Grill & Bar is committed to enriching the local communities we serve. Each of our restaurant teams identifies local charity groups to support. Funds raised through their efforts remain in the local community and serve as a source of pride to the team.

Nationally, Chili's sponsors St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the fight against childhood cancer. During the month of September, Chili's sponsors the Create a Pepper to Fight Childhood Cancer campaign in which guests are invited to donate $1 or more to color the Chili's signature pepper logo.

In addition to the St. Jude program, Chili's also makes significant contributions to Scottish Rite Hospital for Children and the Limbs For Life Foundation through its parent company, Brinker International.

some after school fun

We had a fun day with school on Tuesday, after the kids were all done with their work I colored on them.

Here are some pictures...

This picture is a picture of Emily's school "uniform" for today! One of the bonuses of home schooling!

Emily's new flip flops!

Emily chose a kitty cat for her knee.

She chose 2 bracelets for her wrist.

Emily looking as sweet as could be.

Frankie chose an alligator for one hand.

AHHH....

He chose a shark for the other.

He also chose a shark for her face.

And a watch for his wrist.

This was such a fun day!

maddie's first words!

On Saturday Madison spoke her first words, or maybe her first expression? She said uh-oh. She said it all day Saturday; every time we said it she said it. It was so cute, but when it came time for her to perform on Sunday she would not say it! She started to say it again yesterday and is still saying it today!

good times in micigan

Michigan was a lot of fun and I am so glad we went. We left Sunday to go see Scott's mom's cousin Gary preach. We did not know that when we went it was his last time preaching because he and his family were moving to Arizona to start another church. He was awesome and I can see why God has called him to preach. It was so beautiful to watch him and his family pray together during worship and cry together. I was so touched by the whole service.

Monday morning we headed over to Kooi's house. What I did not mention before in my previous post was the reason we were going. We headed up to Michigan because Kooi was throwing her husband a surprise party for his 30th birthday, isn't she sweet! Anyway, we hung out at her house most of the day. We later picked up her kids from school and headed over to the beach. We had a lot of fun there and Scott especially had fun, when you check out the pictures you will see why. Later we rushed backed to our hotel to clean up for the party. We were a little late so we did not get to see Jeff surprised. We had to leave the party early because of our little tired and fussy baby. The next morning we went over to Kooi’s and she made us blueberry pancakes and they were D-lisious! They had some overnight guests Scott and Matt and they were just awesome. So fun to be around!

Thank you Kooi for another fun trip to Michigan! I miss you!

Abbi (Emily's BEST friend) and Emily

Seth (Frank's BEST bud) and Frank

Emily and Abbi

Maddie

Maddie had so much fun playing in the giant puddle.

Abbi and Emily

Mad

Scott about to pour water on Frank

Frank and Lydia (Lydia wants to marry Frank, aww)

My favorite kids

My crazy kids!

All of the kids buried Scott in sand

They all had so much fun!

Kooi (my bosom buddy!!) and me

The littlest Kooi, Hannah Marie, 7 months old. She is such a sweetie and a very good baby!

gone again!

Yep, we are going away again! This time we are going to Zeeland Michigan to visit one of my best friends, the Kooi, and her family. I am SO excited; we are leaving tomorrow right after church. My husband's parents are in Grand Rapids (which is about 20 min from Zeeland) right now. They went up to Flint, Michigan for a family reunion today and are now in Grand Rapids visiting a cousin of Scott's mom named Rich. Tomorrow night we will be going to hear Rich preach at his Baptist church, I am really looking forward to it too. Oh ya, I forgot to mention that another one of my best friends, Stephanie and her husband Mark and baby Malachy are going to Michigan this weekend to visit Kooi too! So anyway we will be back home on Tuesday and I hope to have lots of fun pictures to post!

Today we had a very productive day, which is always awesome! One of the things that we did was make invitations for Emily, Frank, and Madison's birthday party. We are having their party at Randall Oaks Park and we got the hayride birthday package. This includes a sheltered area to picnic, a 30 min hayride that promises to see most of the animals in the park, and a bon fire. We are going to cook hot dogs and roast s'mores. It should be a great time and I can't wait! Emily is going to be inviting her small group from church and Frankie is inviting some friends from church too. I am anxious to meet and get to know their friends and parents.

Here are some pictures Scott took today of me and the kids making their birthday cards. We got Emily's cards in the $1.00 section at Target. They had blank pink cards and envelopes, birthday stamps, and the ink pads! Frankie just had to have the Star Wars invitations and he stamped the inside with the birthday stamps. We had a lot of fun working on the invitations together.

The next group of pictures are some pictures I took today of the kids. I was trying to get a picture of all three of them together to put in their invitations. It was so hard to get Madison to look at the camera and when she did look Emily and Frank were so tired of waiting for Mad they weren't smiling when she did smile! So we did not really get a good picture of the 3 of them together. But I did get this cute one of them all looking at each other that I love. I also got really good ones of Emily and Frank.

Frank and Em

Our BEAUTIFUL Emily

Frank and Em

Frank and Em again

Our GORGEOUS son

This is the one Scott and I love of them looking at each other.

This one was the only one our sweet pretty Maddie would look at the camera and Frank and Emily are out of focus and look very tired. GRRRR...

Me and my boy

Me and my sweet silly boy

Just so you have a lot to look at while I am gone I am also posting some pictures of the kids with our beloved cat Pippy. She is a little over one year old and has brought so much joy into the lives of our kids. Especially Emily, they are inseparable.

for the ladies

As I said in my Porn Sucks post I was going to post some of the comments made about the letter.

This is the comment that stuck out to me the most:

"i've been hearing about this site since it first started but this is the first time i have checked it out. its amazing. just to read all the personal testimonies almost brings me to tears. everything on here is so true. porn is everywhere. on tv, in magazines, on teh streets, in our schools and im sad to say in our churches. because sex has been so de-purified it is ruining this generations morals. im almost 20 and im getting married in just less than a year. i made the mistake of having premarital sex with my last boyfriend and it haunts me daily now. my fiance is very supportive of me and prays with me everytime i get down about it, but it doesnt change the fact that i desecrated the gift God gave me to give to my husband. the way i dress now has even changed. my fiance has never seen me in anything shorter than mens swimming trunks and he wont until after the wedding. i refuse to feed into the worlds standards of acceptance. it makes me physically sick to see my own youth group members coming to church dressed in such a way that my fiance feels tempted to go back to looking at internet porn like he used to. when will we as Christians realize that porn is not just a problem at strip clubs and adult movie theatres? when will we see that we continually HELP porns cause by our own actions or lack of actions?"
Posted by: gina July 16, 2005

I could not have said this any better than Gina did. I posted her comment before on my blog because it was just so awesome. What this young woman said has been the same thoughts that I have been having for years. Sisters in Christ we NEED to stop dressing in ways that tempt our men. The part of this comment that really rocked my world was this, "when will we see that we continually HELP porns cause by our own actions or lack of actions?"As some of you know I have been on a truth seeking journey. I have been seeking to learn God's truth on modesty and looking at my own self, at the way I dress. I have found that I am not always dressing modestly and often my clothes are too tight fitting or my breast are either showing a little when I bend over, or my breast are just magnified by the tight fitting shirts I choose to wear. I have so many excuses for this but I want to stop making excuses and start changing the way I dress. I am still figuring this one out, and it isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

I found a great site called Shade Clothing. What is Shade Clothing you ask? "Shade Clothing gives girls of all ages exactly what they need to dress modestly, comfortably, and in fashion every day. With our great variety of undershirts, including strap camisoles, cap sleeve tees, and the new baby tees, you will be able to dress in all the latest styles without feeling exposed. No more tugging and pulling at your clothes because they don't cover you!" I am going to order some of these undershirts for myself.

This has been a really amazing journey for me and I am excited to see where God will lead me. I have been listening to some really good radio program by Nancy Leigh DeMoss from Revive Our Hearts teaching on modesty and boy does she really know how to make me think. I will be posting about one of her programs in the near future that really got to me. I wanted to post about it weeks ago but I am STILL digesting it. That's how good it was! Well until next time...

Victims of Hurricane Katrina need our help!

Dear Friend,
Tens of thousands of children and families have been forced to flee their homes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. They are grieving, as hundreds, perhaps thousands, are feared dead. The survivors are in shock. And they urgently need your prayers and your help!

World Vision has already begun sending shipments of emergency supplies, including water containers, clothing, cooking equipment, personal care and sanitation items donated by generous American corporations. A gift today to World Vision's American Families Assistance Fund will ship and distribute these urgently needed goods to the families who need them most.

World Vision is partnering with local churches and Christian agencies who are on the ground in the devastated areas distributing these vital supplies, offering prayer, counseling, and comfort for the victims of this disaster.

And in the weeks, months and years to come, World Vision will stay for the long haul, partnering with local communities, churches and Christian organizations to help rebuild homes — and lives.

Please join us in prayer for hurting hurting children and families in the Gulf region. For more information about how World Vision is helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina, please visit our web site today.

God bless,
Richard StearnsPresident, World Vision U.S.

wisconsin dells

We left for Wisconsin Dells, "the water park capital of the world", on Monday with my husband's family (also you can look on my left side bar to see pictures of them) and stayed thru Thursday. We had such an AWESOME time! We went to the Dells with my husband's family last year and stayed at this totally amazing resort called the Wilderness Hotel and Golf Resort. It is just absolutely gorgeous! We stayed at the same place this year. Scott's parents rent us all a condo that is a 3 bedroom, 3 baths, with a kitchen, loft, and family room. It is so fun to all stay together in the same place and have more than enough room to get around.

Last year we pretty much stuck around the water parks at our resort. This year we went on the upper dells boat ride. It was truly beautiful; I only wish I had my camera. In fact I don't have that many great pictures from the trip at all. Jeff (the most awesome brother-in-law in the whole wide world) and my husband Scott (the best husband in the whole wide world) video taped most of our vacation. Anyway, the boat ride was great!

I really am sad the whole trip is over; I didn't want it to end. I really wish we could have stayed one more day. I miss lounging around the pool all day and the company of my husband's family. Just to clarify who went with us, it was, my husband's parents, his Grandma Sofie, his sister Katie, her husband Jeff, and their kids Noah and Sofie. I love all of them so much. Noah and Sofie are the cutest niece and nephew ever! Jeff and Katie are truly devoted and amazing parents.

Thank you Jeff and Sue for creating more great memories for us and our kids. We love you both so much!

Now for some pictures.

The whole family except for Grandma Sofie, this was taken right before we went on the upper deck river boat tour.

Emily inside of the big play area.

Frank in the big play area.

Emily and Frank inside the big play area

Me and Frank inside the play area

Maddie

Scott and his girls at one of the indoor waterparks

Me and Maddie

Scott changing Maddie

Our happy girl

Me and Maddie

Emily at one of the outdoor waterparks, she is so cool!

Frankie didn't need the water wings

Noah getting warmed up and dried off, so cute!

Maddie

Emily and Frank being goofballs

Silly kids

Frank being silly for the camera

He just cracks me up!

Darling husband and I went out for a date after the kids went to bed and Scott's mom stayed to watch them. We had a LOT of fun!!!

Jeff took our pictures and this was us being "spontaneous" the picture above us was our "standard" pose. I know I look kind of scary in this one.

back from the dells

ALERT: Scott is back and he is angry!

Hello everyone, I am back from Wisconsin Dells and it was AWESOME!!!! I am going to post all about it later when I get some time, maybe later tonight. I have pictures too, and I will share a few right now....

Scott, Emily, and me

Emily and Frank

Madison