I've decided I like Ron Paul for our next president and just thought I'd pass it on! I never was so interested in politics until I got involved in homeschooling and learned that you have to fight constantly for your freedoms. Here's a blurb from his website:

Congressman Paul is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies.

For more information on Ron Paul, visit his website at http://www.ronpaul2008.com.

Some highlights of Ron Paul’s record include:

• Ron Paul is in favor of allowing Americans to keep more of their own money by eliminating the IRS.
• Ron Paul is well-known among his colleagues for never having voted for higher taxes or unconstitutional spending.
• Ron Paul is a strong proponent of a secure border and against extending welfare to illegals.
• Ron Paul supports putting doctors and patients back in charge of health care decisions. He is a staunch defender of health freedom and against government-managed medicine.
• Ron Paul adamantly defends our 2nd amendment rights and opposes federal gun regulation.
• Ron Paul is strongly pro-life and in favor of repealing Roe v. Wade.
• Ron Paul does not support a military draft, and strongly opposes going to war with Iran.
• Ron Paul is in favor of capturing Bin Laden and believes that it is critical for the United States to have a strong national defense.
• Ron Paul is for protecting individual rights and opposed to unnecessary violations of our privacy like the “Patriot” Act.
• Ron Paul supports removing troops from Iraq as soon as possible and allowing Iraqis to take responsibility for their own protection.
• Ron Paul believes that it is important to maintaining our national sovereignty by opposing trade organizations like NAFTA, the UN, and the WTO.
• Ron Paul wants to stop corporate and banking interests from controlling the U.S. economy. He supports eliminating out-of-control inflation by getting rid of the Federal Reserve.

On other fronts, not much happening. My pregnancy is going well and McKenna already talks about the 'baby inside'. Kind of cool! I've been downloading some pre-school stuff to do with her and she's showing a good interest. Also likes having some sit-down reading time. Well, gotta go... I've got some yogurt that I need to check on... hopefully it came out all right this time!

Well, my last ultrasound showed a healthy baby and a breakdown of the blood that was in my uterus, which is very good. Heartbeat was 193, which is within normal. I'm experiencing light queasiness in the mornings, and have been really tired. I've tried to take a nap every day while McKenna has her quiet time. Doesn't always work out! ;) We finally pulled the crib out of McKennas room. I'd been on Noel awhile for that, and it took him literally two minutes to get it out! Only had to take off one side of the crib.

It's snowing like mad here. Noel took off in bunches of powder and hard snow coming down so I hope his commute to work was reasonable. He's starting his English class and has been dreading it. I helped him come up with a thesis and outline, as I think that will help him get started. He's doing it on the benefits of computers in our daily life. He needed something he knew a lot about. He's got a 10 page paper, 2500 words, due at the end of this class and I suggested he do it on the advantages of homeschooling since he knows a bit about the subject, and I'd be able to help him with it.

McKenna is talking more, and I think it helped having Annie here for 2 weeks... she's more of a talker than we are and I'm sure the added vocabulary helped McKenna vocalize more. She's expressing herself much more clearly now and I think when we see family in summer, they will be quite blown away! We had a wonderful Christmas, and took McKenna sledding up towards Bogus Basin with Noel's mom. Found a great hill with a small 7 foot drop off at the end, but we were able to stop ourselves before getting to that point, although Noel saw one guy go over, who was unharmed. McKenna went with us down at an angle, and that worked much better. We had more control and were able to stop. She LOVED it and didn't want to stop, but her snow suit was not completely water proof and I could see it getting darker from the moisture, so we were there maybe an hour, tops. We went up to the lodge at Bogus afterwards and had hot cocoa, and then had to leave because Annie was treating us to lobster. We picked it up at the Albertsons in Eagle where they had steamed it for us, and took it home and pigged out. We have some great photos of McKenna checking out her lobster and trying to feed it parts of itself. She never did try any of the lobster. Annie and I polished off 3 of the suckers. It was quite yummy!

So we had a good time and a good Christmas. McKenna's up now, so I need to wrap this up. Next post soon!