My Girlie

Here's my most favorite recent picture of Mazen. She's such a doll and I love her so much! I can't imagine my life without her.

Today Mazen was watching "Blue's Clues" with Daddy. The show was about trying to find what makes Blue happy. Joe asked Blue if he was happy. Daddy asked Mazen, "Are you happy?" She replied, "Yes, because my Mommy and Daddy makes me very very happy." She makes my heart melt.

Finally Writing

Well, I'm finally writing something on here. I bet everyone stopped reading it! SOOOO much is happening in our lives - hard to know where to start. :)

Mazen - She's 3 now - and she keeps reminding us of that fact. Although she seems to want us to constantly do things from when she was a tiny baby. Such as, sing the song I invented, "Mommies loves the babyyyyyy!" followed by a bunch of kisses! And "I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck, and a HUUUUUUUUUG around the neck!" Last night she went to bed very well, and as soon as we left the room, she snuck into our room and climbed under the covers on my side of our bed and went right to sleep. I'm not sure what's so much better about Mommie's bed when we aren't in it - but it's "better".

36 people came to Mazen's birthday! I will put up pictures soon. 12 kids and 24 adults. It was so much fun. Everyone made a lot of memories for Mazen. The kids played at the Eagle's Nest and the adults talked and talked. It was great fun. We are part of an amazing community of Deaf and hearing people who love God and love each other. What a blessing.

We've been teaching Mazen to say, "Go away, in the Name of Jesus" when she sees something scarey in her bedroom at night or in a dream. So, recently, she was tired of waiting for us to leave a place and she said, "Mommie, go home. Please, Mommie, let's go home. Mommie. Mommie! Go home in the name of Jesus." Oh my. We had to get going then!

Yesterday she got out her cell phone and said, "Mommie, my phone is ringing. Ringggggg. Hello. Oh hi! Mom, it's Jennifer. Hi Jennifer, how are you. I'm fine. That's good. Uh huh. Wow. Sounds good. What are you doing. I'm with Feepay. Oh that's nice. Yes. I love you Jennifer. Can I talk to Feepay? Sure. Ok, bye. Ringgggggggggggg. Hi Feepay. Mom, it's Feepay!" I replied, "Really, Felipe is Deaf. I didn't know he talked on the phone." Mazen said, "Yup. Hi Feepay. How you doing? I'm doing good. That's good. Are you coming tonight. Yes. Oh good, we can play. Ok. I love you. See you later. See you later. Bye."

Recent Doll names Mazen has invented:
New one from thrift store - Perfect
Baby doll gift from Karma - I can't remember the name but I'm sure Mazen will correct me when I say it wrong.
Bunny Rabbit - Shari
Twin babies in Doll house from Aunt Kelly - girl is Charlie, boy is MayDel
Baby in lady bug outfit from Auntie Jaymie - Macy
We still have Garis, Pocket Baby, Her, Big Her, Dolly, Baby, and a few more.

D3- This is the name of our new ministry. We started it just last night. Check out the website for all the info: www.D3Deaf.com We had a 25 year record storm for three days prior that ended sometime on Friday and still 25 people and 4 kids came! What a blessing. Our opening night! I believe God is going to do some great things through D3.

Dissertation - Still working on it. Applying for an extension to August to get everything completed, but I want it all done by June! Please pray for me. Ugh.

Family - Grandma and Grandpa Garrett seem to be doing very well. They got winds and snow this week too. (We got almost 2 feet here and Michael's had almost a full time job shoveling and snow blowing.) They came for Mazen's birthday. She talked about it for months before they came. She has so much fun with them. We use the Dora backpack they gave her EVERY DAY! It's her new "bag." We did away with her baby bag now that's she's 3 and she helped me pack her "needs" in her backpack. Coloring books, crayons, sticker books (of course), baby wipes (for cleaning her hands now that she's a "big girl" who uses the potty), a change of clothes, and a deck of Dora cards from Grandpa Lynn and Grandpa Velma. Then we always have to cram a few babies in there.

Gammama - She was sad she couldn't come to Mazen's birthday and she sent a BIG HUGE box! Mazen squealed with delight over every gift. Gammamma is having surgery on March 13th. We are praying for a great deal of healing to come from this surgery. She's been through so much the last few years. We hope we can go visit her this summer.

Okay.... I gonna sign off for now. Hopefully will write more often. :)

Merry Christmas

Today we had an early Christmas celebration with gifts from Gammama and Poppijoni. Here's some pictures of Mazen. They are to cute. She got some "My Little Pony" toys and thought they were "very cute" and "that's amazing."

Our New Kitty

Here's a couple of pictures of "Christmas Kitty." She came from the
shelter with the name 'Gizzy' and Mazen and Raelyn changed that to
Bella. Mazen says "Christmas Kitty Bella." She is very sweet and
friendly. A beautiful Maine Coon who we sprung from 3 months in jail.
So sweet. She's in love with Michael.

A new post

Well folks, after lots of trial and error, here we are back at this blog. Our mac website is still running, but people are telling me they are having trouble getting it up and running. Perhaps it's not a good one with dial-up. :) So, I'm going to try to catch up a little here.

Mazen is growing up fast. She's a very sweet and considerate little girl. She spends most of her time taking care of her "babies" and making sure all the animals and people in the house are okay. If I'm coughing, she will be right there asking me "Mommie, are you ok? Do you need some medicine?" She's very loving and very sweet girl. Lots of hugs and kisses in our house.

This week Daddy had an appointment in the morning and Mazen was running around playing. I was in one of those dazes where you are awake and asleep, etc. She came to me, woke me up, handed me a broken ornament from the Christmas tree AND a bottle of glue (I have no clue how she knew where to look for the glue and get it out of the cupboard) and said, "Mommie, the cow's head fell off. We need to glue it." It was the sweetest thing. I just loved the fact that she wanted to fix it, wasn't afraid to tell me it was broken, and was very sweet about it. I let her fall asleep with me last night. I went to bed early in order to be up early for a meeting I need to be at this morning.

We are all doing good. We have a new kitty in our home. I will write about her soon.

Blessings,
Let me know if you read this!

Are You a Democrat, Republican, or Southerner?

This is just in jest!
:)
Enjoy
__________

Are you a Democrat, Republican or Southerner? Here is a little test that will help you decide.
The answer can be found by posing the following question:
You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children.
Suddenly, an Islamic terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you. You are carrying a HK .45 cal pistol and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family.
What do you do?
..................................................................
Democrat's Answer:
Well, that's not enough information to answer the question!
Does the man look poor or oppressed?
Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
Could we run away?
What does my wife think?
What about the kids?
Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?
What does the law say about this situation?
Does the Glock have appropriate safety built into it?
Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children?
Is it possible he'd be happy with just killing me?
Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?
If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me?
Should I call 9-1-1?
Why is this street so deserted?
We need to raise taxes, have paint and weed day and make this happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior.
This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with some friends for few days and try to come to a consensus.
............................................................
Republican's Answer:
BANG!
............................................................
Southerner's Answer:
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Click..... (Sounds of reloading) BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Click
Daughter: "Nice grouping, Daddy! Were those the Winchester Silver Tips or Hollow Points?"
Son: "Can I shoot the next one!"
Wife: "You ain't taking that to the Taxidermist!

Thanks you Guys

Thanks for the comments. :)
I'm glad someone actually reads this thing every now and then! ha
I'm still trying to get our other website up and going - it's good and has a lot of things this one doesn't have, but this also has some really cool features that just can't be beat. I just wish it had a way to back things up. They better get that fixed soon.
I'm just taking a short break from dissertation work. My brain is kinda fried. I'm determined to meet my goal tonight though and get through some things. Argh!!!! It's hard being a perpetual college student. I can't wait to get this thing done with.
We are facing another round of "Deaf/Hearing" issues. I guess it will never change because the bodies keep changing and so we have to go through the same issues over and over. I think I should write a curriculum to use each Fall for the new Hearing students who are involved in the Deaf community. I know it's hard to learn to work cross-culturally, but RULE NUMBER ONE is to recognize that you DON'T know everything about the other culture just because you have a friend who is _______ (fill in the blank). "Yeah, I went to school with an Asian kid! They are really smart!" Grrrrr. I know I've done and said stupid things - but I know that for sure I have worked hard to be open-minded to learn new things and recognize when I was wrong, misjudged things, misunderstood, or just didn't "get it."
Isn't it ironic when a person who experiences privilege in our society most of the time is the first to get upset when they feel their "needs" haven't been adequately met? While their neighbor is constantly without? Materialism is more than just things - it's also ideology.
Okay, I'll get off the soap box and back on the dissertation train.
Love Ya'll

Stuff

Well, I got the new website up and running - sort of - I'm still not satisfied with the blog part so plan to work on that soon. Just so little time and no time to do anything. (Does that even make sense?)

Today has been a tough day. I guess I just feel like writing. Sigh. I doubt anyone will read this - this site hasn't been active and I don't think anyone is visiting anymore.

I'm learning that sometimes it doesn't matter how much you pour into the lives of people - they still will think the worst and say the meanest of things. No matter how much you love them, pray for them, care about them, they still judge, misunderstand, and say mean things. It's sad because those things are often a reflection of how they feel about themselves and so they transfer that onto someone else and get mad. I wish they didn't feel that way about themselves. I wish they weren't passive about it. I wish I was perfect and never did anything to hurt anyone. I wish people would see the heart.

We all have feet of clay and so it's going to be okay. I am okay with it and I can get through this because Love is bigger than this stuff.

New Website

After lots and lots of looking, testing, hunting, trying, etc. I have finally settled on the world's best ever website for us! We switched to dotMac (.mac) and published it on iWeb. It's awesome and we love it. Very exciting. Lots of wonderful pictures. There's a blog and several fun pages. I made the WHOLE THING!!! Woohoo!

So please go to this website: http://web.mac.com/garrettweb
(or click on the title of this post: "New Website" above)

It is password protected to protect our baby. So if you have not heard from us yet with the password info, please don't get upset, just email Michael and he will send our friends and family the password so you can view everything.

Yay!

I might still put a few things up on this, but for now, the .Mac is going to be our website.

Fw: Big fish!

Look at these COOL pictures of the BIG fish Michael caught! Wow! What
a catch!