Welcome to Despair.com

We LOVE the despair.com website and have since 2004 or so. The demotivators just keep getting better. We bought Nathan and some of his cousins some t-shirts. The following picture is the one we got for Nathan.


The one that best describes me at this point in my life...


I received this one in my email and it got plenty of laughs out of me.


If you are unfamiliar with this site, now is the time to familiarize yourself with their hilarious and sometimes too true for comfort demotivators! ENJOY!

Liberty's Plethora of Birth Announcements

I can never decide on anything it seems and so it was with her birth announcements. Here are the many versions I made. I finally printed the last two with her smiling since it took me nearly two months to figure out!

I had to make one with her brothers.

Why I need a backyard...

Presenting evidence dated, September 10-11, 2008:

I let the boys play outside on our patio while I tried to fix dinner and these pictures show why I am in desperate need of a backyard. Here is the evidence I am presenting to Dave to win my case for a new home! Although with the latest happening on Wall street and the credit crunch it might be safer to just buck up and get by for the next few months. We'll wait and see.

The boy in the red shirt is a neighbor we've never met, but would you pass up getting involved in this mess. Nathan says they were only playing construction. Duh, mom! What did you think you would get when you put construction vehicles, flower pots full of soil, and the male gender together in one evening? Flowers blooming on the concrete or dirt spread out everywhere and anywhere!




This picture was snapped the next morning when I found Nathan had snuck out before I even woke up in the morning. Not only do I need a backyard but I need a key-only dead bolt, too!! We had cleaned up the mess from the night before and he made this mess all over again by himself.

Airline calls for liquids review

I wanted to share this story/video with you about the reasons for the airline liquid ban. I never knew the details and this tells the specifics about it and how some simple ingredients can be explosive.

Scary! Sometimes the little inconveniences at the airport are for a good reason…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7607043.stm

Why Define Marriage in the Constitution?

Many have questioned the necessity of defining marriage within the Constitution or under any law for that matter. Such persons reason that marriage should be left to individuals and couples to define for themselves. However, as outlined below, defining marriage within the Constitution is the only remaining method of protecting man-woman marriage as the fundamental institution of society.

The purpose of defining anything under the law is to preserve and to promote the order and stability of societal institutions. If people were left to define these social institutions for themselves, there would be no consensus on why these institutions exist and what purpose they serve. In effect the law would have no function. For example, imagine if people were allowed to define for themselves the meaning of terms defined under the criminal law such as "illicit drugs," "child pornography," "speeding," or even "murder." In that scenario, the institution of the criminal justice system would be useless.

The most important institution in our society is the family, and marriage is the foundation of a family. Marriage is and has always been the union of a man and a woman. The institution of marriage is ordained of God for the happiness of His children. Why is man-woman marriage as opposed to genderless marriage so fundamental to our society and so essential for our happiness? Because man-woman marriage is, among other things, the optimal and most effective means of (1) bearing children; (2) raising children and providing for their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual welfare; (3) transforming males into husbands/fathers and females into wives/mothers, (4) bridging the male-female divide, and (5) channeling healthy sexual activity and discouraging unhealthy sexual activity. These well established benefits of man-woman marriage, and the consequences of eliminating these benefits, affect not only individuals, couples, and families, but society as a whole. An omniscient God, knowing all of these things, ordained marriage so that we as His children might be happy.

Of course, man cannot change institutions that God himself has ordained because such institutions are eternal and unchangeable. Nonetheless, God has instituted governments for the benefit of man, and He has given us our agency to allow us to learn between good and evil. He teaches us correct principles and lets us govern ourselves. Unfortunately, although God has taught us correct principles and invites us to accept and live those principles that are necessary for our happiness, there are some who cannot accept or have even denied the divine source of those principles. Turning away from God, they engage in a process of self-discovery and experiment with principles that are contrary to those taught by God. Without accepting and living the principles established by God, the result is always unhappiness.

In our democratic republic, we have the freedom to voice our opinions to establish a moral consensus and develop man-made laws. Those laws not only establish boundaries of right and wrong for society but enable us to exercise our freedoms and to suffer (or to enjoy) the consequences of our actions. Because removing these boundaries does not remove the consequences, such boundaries (or laws) serve to teach and reinforce the consequences.

Until recently, it was unnecessary to define what marriage is through man-made law. Everyone had always known and assumed that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Unfortunately, today, for the first time in the history of the world, a small minority is questioning this established truth by attempting to remove gender from the equation and establish genderless “marriage.” The central goal of this minority is clear: they are endeavoring to hijack the institution of marriage to push a broader cultural, social, and political agenda—namely, the acceptance and promotion of homosexual activity and lifestyle. Yet, because this minority cannot gain a consensus to create laws through the legislative process, they have turned to the courts to push their agenda. Even with statutes on the books that define what marriage is and what it is not, a few activist judges have struck down these statutes under the guise of principles such as “privacy,” “dignity,” “liberty,” “equality,” and “fairness.” Ignoring precedent and reason, these judges have attempted to create a new kind of “marriage” by legislating from the bench.

The only way to stop the advance of this minority rule and to protect our most fundamental societal institutions from judge-made law is to ingrain them in our constitutions, both state and federal. No state judge has the authority to overturn a state or federal constitutional amendment, and no federal judge has the authority to overturn a federal constitutional amendment. Because our Founding Fathers understood the permanent nature of a constitution and its ultimate supremacy as a form of law, they ingrained certain bedrock principles into our federal Constitution. Many of these principles were those that had been called into question by tyrannical rule and lawlessness—principles such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and due process.

Today, the very meaning of marriage—the most fundamental of all institutions in society—has been called into question. Therefore, the time has come to ingrain the definition of marriage into our state and federal constitutions. Without such protection, man-woman marriage as a vital social institution will lose the protection and encouragement of our government, and ultimately society will lose the well established benefits for which man-woman marriage exists.

Get Involved - Marriage Protection Amendment Arizona

Arizonans will vote on November 4, 2008 on Ballot Proposition 102 which reads:

“Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

I urge you to vote “YES” which will place this statement into the Arizona Constitution and secure this principle for our state law.

From the www.yesformarriage.com website:

On November 4, 2008, Arizonans have the opportunity to protect and reaffirm marriage. You, the voter, have the opportunity to maintain the most important element of society so it can be passed on to our children.

A “YES” vote prevents judges and politicians from redefining marriage and leaves marriage’s essential meaning in the hands of the people of Arizona.

Marriage is about the next generation. Marriage builds up communities family by family and provides for the next generation. It is the bedrock foundation of our society.

Judges should not distort the meaning of marriage. But that is just what is happening in California. On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court (by a narrow vote of 4 justices to 3) voted to redefine marriage. This radical and lawless decision struck down a marriage law passed by the people of California in 2000. The California Judges claimed that marriage is “discrimination.” They are just plain wrong! The California decision shows why the Arizona Constitution needs to reaffirm marriage:

• The same thing can happen here. Nothing stops an Arizona court from striking down Arizona’s marriage laws and redefining marriage, just as the courts did in California.
• The California decision means more legal attacks on marriage in Arizona. It’s only a matter of time before redefined marriages from California are used as legal weapons to change the law here in Arizona.
  Marriage should have constitutional protection in Arizona.
• Amending our constitution ensures that the essential meaning of marriage will be preserved, and that no Arizona judge will be able to force us to adopt California’s radical redefinition of marriage.

Moms and dads matter. Reaffirming marriage is the best way to ensure the best possible environment for as many children as possible. There is overwhelming evidence that children raised by a married mom and dad are more likely to do better in school, to be healthier emotionally and physically, and are less likely to commit crimes, use drugs, and have children out of wedlock. No one is saying there aren’t exceptions. But abandoning the meaning of marriage as a society puts more kids at risk.

If you want to get involved please visit www.yesformarriage.com or www.unitedfamiliesarizona.org. They need help in many areas: phone calls, community team leaders, cottage meetings in your home, financial support, etc.

Also please feel free to contact me by email or phone if you have some time to volunteer. All help is needed and wanted. We need to STEP UP and make sure this amendment passes this year because the chance of it coming up to vote on again is highly unlikely. We are at a crossroads. Do we as citizens define marriage or do we allow minority groups, who are always louder than the more passive "la-de-da" majority, and liberal judges define it for us.

I'm not going to sit idle and do nothing when it comes to protecting and defining marriage for what it is and always has been since the beginning of time, a union between one man and one woman.

Edited: I am adding more links to websites in hope that it will help increase the traffic or google rating of these sites. You can also join the Arizona Marriage Protection Amendment (2008) group on Facebook.

http://ProtectMarriage.com

http://isupportmarriage.com/

www.azpolicy.org