Hannah made yummy bread and pasta with our Hungarian neighbor!

Very very happy Esther.

Esther is getting so big… she is really strong and already wants to stand up.

Save me!! (She’s sitting up now, too!! )

Fruit tray at Hannah’s party

Lovely ladies at Hannah’s party

Posing with our tea cups…

Esther!

“We like this color.” “We do, really.” “Is this going to be okay??” “It’s fine, we like it.” Yeah, after it’s on the wall… (This is what happened when papa told us he wanted bright colors in the new store front we’re opening for tile… haha. )

Ada and I…

Hannah and I painting blue!

Mostly done painting…

Happy tired painting ladies..

Um… I think the paint was getting to us.

Blue!

Papa doing a maze Matthew made for him.

Big grin!

Aw!! I LOVE this picture…

Hehe.

The day before Hannah’s birthday, her friend Ada came down from Pennsylvania!! We are very glad to have Ada here… she’s lots of fun and a big help.

Best friends!!

Being weird… (isn’t that what best friends do? )

Hannah with a scarf Ada gave her… Ada gave her 20 gifts for her 20th birthday. (I’m still having a hard time realizing that my little sister is 20. )

Hannah and Suki with their horse tea cups… their birthdays are right next to each other (the 29th and the 30th) and they both like horses and tea, so they started this tradition.

Last night we set up our Christmas decorations! William kindly took pictures for us.

Fixing the tree up…

Matthew with the (almost) completed living room.

Candy canes!

Paper chains…

We made popcorn and cranberry garlands finally… we’ve been talking about it for a long time now.

P.S. Are you all liking the bigger pictures or did you like them better small?

A little background on this essay… we were writing in response to this (hypothetical) statement: “We see evolution going on around us every day. There’s lots of variety among living things and a constant struggle for survival, so obviously the fittest survive. That makes living things get better, ‘pond scum to people,’ just like Darwin said. Evolution is a fact. Believing the Bible today just makes people laugh at you–and at Jesus.” We were instructed to respond by explaining and supporting the following points:

(a) “Fitness” is a circular argument, an error in logic.

(b) Darwinian fitness can’t explain the origin of new traits in anything–giraffe, moth, or even “Darwin’s Finches”.

(c) Adaptations with many parts (woodpecker’s drill or bombardier beetle’s canon) can’t “evolve” one step at a time.

(d) Darwinian “selection” works only “within kind”, so it can help Scientists explain how kinds “multiply and fill a fallen world” but not how they could change from one species to another.

(e) In summary, so-called “natural selection”, yes, but evolution, no– and Creation, Fall and Salvation, YES!

And now for the essay, finally… (The bold sentence is what Dr. Parker said to start with.)

Actually, scientific evidence contradicts evolutionists’ belief about the past and supports the Biblical record of earth’s history: God’s perfect Creation, corrupted by man’s sin, restored to new life in Christ. To help show you what I mean, I’ll explain a bit about a few parts of your statement, starting with the term “fittest” as is used in the statement “survival of the fittest”. “Fitness” is determined by reproductive success: whether they survived (And were healthy enough) to produce offspring. So, in essence, “survival of the fittest” boils down to “survival of the survivors”. It really doesn’t mean anything besides the obvious, “well, they’re still here, so they’re the fittest, and they are the fittest, so they survived.” Basically, you end up going in meaningless circles –which may be fun, but it isn’t very scientific. (a)

Another thing I’d like to point out is that this survival of the fittest really only means that the weaker animals/plants, etc. die– not that there were better ones than normal. It only explains how a species maintains a level of health–it does nothing at all to explain how they could have added completely new features with no genetic code for them. The features that help them survive–or lead to death–were already in place–thus making it possible for there to be natural selection at all. (b)

Another serious problem with the idea of very slowly adding different parts of new features is that most (all?) systems need every part–not only in place, but working properly. Otherwise, either it would flat out kill the poor creature, or the useless parts would be “selected out” by the very process supposed to produce new features. Take a Bombardier beetle, for instance. This astounding little beetle has a very complex system in which it is able to shoot boiling, toxic liquid at its hapless and unsuspecting attacker. There are three chemicals, two separate holding tanks, a tube for the chemicals to combine in, and a “canon”–which can even be aimed in all different directions–including in front of the beetle! Now, suppose it had all the chemicals–but no holding tanks to keep them separate. BOOM! Dead beetle: end of that “experiment”. What if we had holding tanks, but only two of the necessary chemicals? Fizzle– no explosion. Predator eats beetle–no more beetle, no baby beetles. And on it goes. In order for an explosion to occur outside the beetle, all the elements must be there–and all must be arranged properly. Thus it is for the Bombardier Beetle–and thus it is for the giraffe, the woodpecker, and every other creature living, really. (c)

Interestingly, Darwin’s “selection” only works within kinds–for instance, the slower zebra is eaten by the faster lion–so the slower zebra is “selected out”, while the faster zebra gets away and produces offspring: hence it is the “fittest” of the two zebras. It is not a competition between the lion and the zebra–but between zebras and zebras, lions and lions. And, as such, it does much to explain how the group spreads out and maintains health–but does nothing to explain how one animal could “evolve” into a completely distinct, “new” creature. (d)

From all of this, and from many other observations–both from science and from studying people and God’s word, the logical conclusion appears to be that there is, indeed, a natural selection process–however, there is no evidence at all that such a process “creates” an entirely new species.

In the world today, we see beauty, order, and design–pointing to an intelligent Creator. And yet, we also see this horrifying “war of nature”–struggles, death, disease–why is that? Well, the Bible sheds some light on the subject–it is a result of the curse that man’s sin brought on the world. It seems hopeless–we are doomed to die; a fitting and deserved punishment for our sin.

But then we read on in God’s word: and we see hope. Not only did God provide a way to be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to Him–He has also promised to make all of Creation new–no more struggle and death–only peace, beauty, and order… Exactly how He created it. (e)

(I have to put Dr. Parker’s comment on too, Papa says so. )

“One of the best essays–both style and science–I’ve ever read. (And I’ve read LOTS, almost all college and some graduate school.)”

(In which we feel a little bad for Dr. Parker, because I really didn’t put much effort into that essay (in typing it out here I keep finding things I could’ve improved.) and if that’s one of the best… yeah. )

I looked like this. (only worse…) I was hit in the mouth with a softball, for those who don’t know… If you’re interested in reading it, the story and what I learned from it is here.

It healed shockingly fast… looked almost normal after a week, and months later finally stopped being sore. I still have (and always will) a little lip bump (Which you can see in this picture if you look closely… it just looks as though part of my lip is wider.) and a chipped tooth.

However, I’m very blessed and thankful it wasn’t worse… and the things that remain are a good reminder of lots of things: how fast God healed it up; to always be looking for things to be thankful for even in hard times; how quickly life can change; that external beauty isn’t all there is; and so many other things. Besides, it’s kind of cool having a chipped tooth. God is good.

Happy Thanksgiving!! And don’t get hit by a softball, if you can help it…

Esther’s eating carrots! Or at least sucking on them…

And plates! We all love this picture.

Playing legos with her big brothers…

Looking out the window together.

Big grin!!

Part of a skit at our Bright Lights meeting Monday…

All the Clarke and Mann girls!

Future best friends–Esther and Amy.

Dr. Parker looking like the scientist he is.

My awesome lab partner and I (that’s Josiah, in case you’re wondering for some reason) getting ready to start dissection on our fetal pig. (Our pigglet was the best, by the way. We picked it. )

Oh, by the way, if you look close you’ll see that my bun is held up by knitting needles and my friend/adopted sister Elisa has pencils holding up her hair. Yay homeschoolers with long hair!

Table one (no pictures of table two, sorry…)

Josiah and I tying our pig down (so he wouldn’t run away…) (Now you know what I look like in a lab coat, in case you ever wondered… )

Cutting open the mouth (I think I was trying to explain something to our neighbors in this picture, actually). The epiglottis was super cool!!

(and back to Esther, for the sake of squeamish peoples…)

Aw!! Esther has discovered that she has toes!

And they are yummy!

New addition number one! Most of you probably didn’t know, but our old computer died. Technically I killed it, since I was the last to touch it, but it was dying anyways… And last night we got our new one all set up! Yay!

The key board and mouse (wired optical for those who care about such things). (thanks to Emily for these pictures)

Annnnddd… announcing the arrival of “The Scruffy Blue Jay” aka our new old little Buick Century 1995! It’s an awesome little car (And we got a great deal on it!)

Another angle (Thanks to Cheryl for the pictures!)

Isn’t she so ADORABLE??

Napping with Esther is one of my favorite things to do.

I love looking at the sky… it’s always different, always beautiful. I think it’s so awesome that God put this huge, constant reminder over us of Himself–of His power, His glory, His creativity… and the list goes on.

A long time ago (I don’t know the exact number of months, sorry. ), we had this…

… and now we have this!! Praise God for babies!

Isaiah, Esther, and Amy! Isaiah has 9 other siblings, Esther 7, and Amy 8. Naturally, all of us are friends. Also naturally, we all claim that OUR baby is the CUTEST. And there’s a bit of matching making going on… ahem. Plus Amy and Esther have been declared best friends, though we’ve barely been able to get them to look at each other… haha.

Yummy homemade pizza, ready to go in the oven!

I just thought this was cool… one of the tomato ends looked like it had a cross and the other looked like a star.

Esther in the traditional Cheerio box. Ever since Emily, we’ve taken pictures of our babies in cereal boxes… odd tradition, I know.

7 of us working on clearing a space for a garden… nothing in the garden, yet, but it was fun clearing it.

Esther loves her papa!!

Lovely ladies! Emily and Cheryl weighed themselves and found they had about TWENTY pounds of clothes on each. They pretty much put on all their skirts and all of Hannah and I’s… so yeah.

Me at my desk reading the best Book in the world…

What did you do with your extra hour yesterday? We made two apple pies. (Hannah was making samples for her bakesale… she’s raising money to go to Guatemala in January!!! )

Esther is drinking from cups!! She LOVES water… it’s quite amusing. She spreads her arms out and then wham! Brings them in really quick to get the cup.

Is this not THE cutest picture you’ve ever seen??

Aw!!

Esther with a cup on her head.

Last night Esther got stuck on the loveseat with some laundry… (yes, she is actually by herself on occasion now…)

Examining a book.

Reading the book.

Oooh! A camera! Can I grab it? (She has discovered grabbing… in fact, she spilled her first cup of liquid a few days ago. )

Very happy!

I’m gonna get you!!

She’s so CUTE!!!!

Okay, hopefully that is enough cuteness to tide y’all over for a while… Esther is getting really big. As in, chubby. And as in development. She’s been teething quite a bit lately… (poor baby) and is playing with toys, hitting wind chimes, “eating” everything she can, grabbing noses and hair, rolling off of us, trying to scoot along, all that sort of thing.

P.S. I only took the laundry picture… all the others were taken by various siblings.

Here’s a two minute video we took of Esther last night… and yes, we were all sitting around watching Esther and laughing. Who needs TV???