I Love You More!

This last Saturday we celebrated my Aunt’s 60th birthday with a big 50’s themed party.

My church has a big hall that any of the members are allowed to use at no cost so it works out great. We had a bunch of food, lots of fun decorations like records and balloons, and so many people that we had to set up extra tables to accommodate.

The highlight of the party was an Elvis impersonator who was going to be entertaining us and my aunt especially. Her name is Addie and she has Down syndrome. She is my mothers older sister and the 8th in the family of 9 nine kids! My mom is the baby of the bunch.

When we were kids we used to live with my Grandparents and Addie. Me and my sisters grew quite close to her and I think know her very well. She is energetic, loving, hard headed, tough gal who taught me how to make movie cameras out of folded newspaper, build “Hollywood” out of Lego’s, and sing “What’s New Pussycat” over and over again. More than anything, Addie taught all of us about unconditional love.

Every gift you buy her is “Her favorite!” Ever person she sees she hugs. If you will sit and talk to her then she loves you. No matter what you feed her. No matter how you look at her. If you are around and you acknowledge her then she loves you. Without question. But if you are “The King” then she does not just love you…

“I LOVE YOU MORE!”

I must have heard her say that 1000 times on Saturday and each time, I loved hearing it even more. “Elvis” held her hand as he sang and entertained us. She stood by his side singing EVER SINGLE LYRIC and dancing throughout the performance. Every time a song would end “Elvis” would sing a line acapella and then stick the mic in Addie’s face and she would also sing the line but then sing “I LOVE YOU MOOOOOOORRREEE” to the same tune of the song. It was awesome!

At one point “Elvis” (who’s real name is George too!) came over to the DJ booth to hand me a different CD to use. He said, “Wow, she is awesome! She has so much energy I wish all my parties were like this.” I responded with, “Oh yeah man, Addie is the best!”

He went back out and took the mic from her after she was singing “He’s my guy!” and “I love you MORE!” over and over.

Elvis said, “Wow. You know if everyone gave this much love to one another, this world would be a perfect place!” Everyone at the party applauded and cheered. Righty O Elvis, Righty O!

He asked Addie, “What do you think about that? You are like the star up here! I am just the opening act for you!”

She said…

“I. LOVE. YOU. MORE!!!!”

Weight Watchers Update

Gain - 1.0 lbs.
Total loss - 40 lbs.

Not bad for a week with 2 parties. On to next week.

Child Dies Because Parents Only Prayed

I just found the news report on CNN of the 11 year old girl who died because her parents decided to pray instead of getting her treatment for her undiagnosed type 1 diabetes.

I have a few things I want to say about this even though it will probably not make many happy with me.

First, to everyone who believes in Christ or who considers themselves a Christian I would suggest that you pray for these people. Prayer is powerful and necessary for us. Pray for these people to find understanding about how prayer is a tool to talk to God. Pray that they will see that God’s hand is in everything including the medical profession and medicine. Even insulin. All of those who have studied the Bible or I should say the gospels, can see how Jesus healed people. He did not tell people, “Just pray and wait. That’s all.” He would heal with a touch, not prayer alone. There was something physical that happened. I do not see how medicine or doctors are against or the opposite of God or how prayer and a doctor’s visit can’t happen! Call me crazy but I do not understand that.

To all of you who practice other religions, I would say please do not think that this is the belief of most Christians. These people are not the norm. As much as I joke, cuss, laugh, and act like a dork I am still Christian. I am not perfect and would never claim to be. It is people that off the deep end that give Christians a bad name or at least, make people look at us like we are all crazy. Just please know, Master P will stay by my side until a cure or until death shall we part.

And to those who are Agnostic or Atheist I would say please do not think faith failed or that prayer is dangerous. We all have faith in something. Faith didn’t fail, these parents did. Prayer is important to us in that it provides comfort, hope, and it is our way of communicated with our God. We are not taught to pray and expect God to do the rest. We pray and act. We pray for guidance and peace. We pray for change and for the knowledge on how to create that change. We do not sit on the couch and wait for prayers to be answered. We are charged to act and work with God’s love directing us.

It is just like after the World Trade Center attack. We cannot assume that all Muslims are terrorists or are evil. I know some and they are not like that at all. As people we have to accept one another and not assume that just because one person in a group takes things the wrong way that the rest of us are on the same page.

We are not.

Ow! OUUCCCCHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

That’s the noise I make when I am tagged. Twice.

Thank you Araby62 and Nicole for the tag. Not so hard next time geesh!

I am sure you all know how this meme goes so here are my six words.

Keeping God first. Everything else works.

Here's how to play:

1) Write your own six word memoir

2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like

3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4) Tag at least five more blogs with links and

5) Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

I tag Kevin, Chrissie, Minnesota Nice, Keith, and Sara. I hope that didn't hurt. :)

You Tube Tuesday #65

My very good friend Lisa put together this Public Service Announcement on social workers and asked "little old me" to score the music for it. I have never done anything like this before so it was a cool challenge and I think it came out okay.

I really wanted to share this with you all because I thought it was cool to see some of the different facets of social work. I had no clue.

You may notice that a familiar disease makes an appearance in the PSA.

Thanks Lisa!