RED - Red Envelope Day March 31, 2009

http://www.redenvelopeday.com/

Let's make a difference! If you are pro-life, then please, please, please help out by participating in Red Envelope Day!

Red Envelope Day was started because the founder had been praying and fasting before God and asking Him what he could do, and God gave him the idea for Red Envelope Day (the intials of which, he later discovered, also spell RED). This individual acted in obedience to what God told him, and here we are!

Red Envelope Day is March 31, 2009. What you do: Take a red envelope and seal it (empty). On the front, address it to:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington D.C. 20500

On the back of the envelope, write:

This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world.

Responsibility begins with conception.

Put your return address on it, add a stamp, and mail it out March 31. And that's it!

Another option: Go to http://http//redenvelopeday.com/send.html and they will send one out on March 31 for you. It is $1.10 per envelope you send to cover the costs of postage, the envelopes, and credit card/paypal fees. If you really just can't afford the $1.10 or don't have a credit/debit card, etc., then leave me a comment or contact me and I will send one for you!



FAQ about the Red Envelope Project

Why red?

The envelopes represent the innocent blood shed through abortion, and the plea for the blood of Jesus over the sin of our nation. This campaign is a symbolic act to flood the mail with red. The more we send, the more powerful this symbol will be.

Why March 31?

Although that date was chosen arbitrarily by Brian Potter when he created Red Envelope Day, it also reinforces the symbolism of blood. The envelopes will be arriving near the beginning of Holy Week, just prior to the start of Passover. I don’t think it is a coincidence that these arrive so near the annual remembrance of the Passion and Death of Christ. I joined with the Red Envelope Day effort because it had the most momentum, and Brian Potter was in communication with me. The other dates that have appeared on the internet did not originate with me, and those anonymous individuals never contacted me–and have created a lot of confusion.

Where do I send them, and will empty envelopes be delivered?

The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington D.C. 20500.
As long as you have proper postage, federal law requires the delivery of all mail. Messages on the outside of an envelope will not hinder their delivery. There are many strange urban myths about where the mail is going, and that no empty envelopes will be delivered by the USPS. Red envelopes are not a problem for the postal service (hand addressed envelopes are more of an issue and require hand processing) and can be scanned. Although empty envelopes may not be opened, they will be delivered.
Postal workers have contacted me to tell me the letters are coming through the mail, but that they need to be standard sizes. If you send square red letters, please put 62 cents on the envelope. They will be returned without proper postage.

Where can I get red envelopes?

A Christian printer has given the best deal I am aware of and you can get it here.
You can also send them online from here.
Both of these sources have negotiated agreements with me, and they are not profiting from their involvement or using this to raise money.

What organization is behind the Red Envelope Project?

This movement is a true grass roots phenomenon. There is no entity behind this project other than the thousands of men, women and children that have volunteered their time, money, and effort to be involved. The Red Envelope Project has spread largely through emails and word of mouth. I believe that many have been moved by the Holy Spirit to do this. It has crossed all denominational lines, and has brought together the efforts of Roman Catholics and Protestants in our common value for life and the blood of Christ. Churches, schools, CCD classes, youth groups, religious communities, and small groups have joined in this effort.
I have endorsed redenvelopeproject.org and redenvelopeday.com as officially representing this concept, although there are countless blogs, several other websites, and many youtube videos carrying the message. Brad Miller created Red Envelope Project, and his effort was the first to count the envelopes sent. He has joined forces with two other websites that were started in the beginning. Red Envelope Day was started by Brian Potter. I am receiving emails from both sites.

Who is funding this effort?

The individuals who are volunteering their time are also volunteering their resources. I have requested that the red envelope idea not be used for fundraising. I am a prayer missionary, and live by faith. I am not using the red envelope project to raise funds for my ministry.

What kind of feedback are you getting?

I would guess the feedback is roughly 99.9% positive. I have been contacted by more women who have had abortions than any other group. These women have thanked me for giving them a way to have a voice. After post-abortive women, young people, including many children, have contacted me and thanked me for sharing this idea.
The small amount of negative feedback can be broken down into three groups. First, pro-life activists (no, I don’t understand). Second, pro-choice people telling me I don’t care about raped women (nearly all say that–even though rape victims are a tiny percentage of abortions). Third, obscene or insulting comments. The last two groups have largely been anonymous. I guess it’s safe to say they aren’t willing to put their name on the freedom to take innocent life. About one email in a hundred is negative.

Do you really think that this will make a difference?

Yes. But not because it is an effective form of protest. I think it will make a difference because it was done out of obedience to what I thought God was guiding me to do. Any time you obey God you will make a difference. I am astounded at the response so far. The fact that it has brought so many people together, encouraged them, and also changed a few hearts along the way is exciting. The fact that it has motivated thousands to pray is also exciting.

Do I think it will change the President?
I don’t know. Seeing how the mainstream media is covering up the tea parties, I doubt they will cover this story (Although, from my math, the White House should be receiving at least 20,000 red letters daily). Last week I received an unsolicited call from a senator’s office. They thought that I was in Washington, and that I must have a huge PAC. This gave me indication that someone on Capitol Hill knows about these envelopes. So, I guess it is making a difference.
Ultimately though, this is about the war of ideas. These red envelopes in the mail are igniting a lot of folks to think about the value of life. If a new generation can begin to care about life, we are going to win the war of ideas. I think the red letters have done this.

Doesn’t Responsibility begin BEFORE conception?

Absolutely. Lots of folks seem to be bothered by that last line. I think a lot of people are overthinking it all. (I have even been accused of creating a ploy to get good Catholics to promote contraception!) This line is a reference to the President’s inaugural address, in which he called Americans to begin creating a culture of responsibility. Part of this culture was not taking innocent life, according to the new President. As you may know, the next day his actions spoke otherwise. Sadly, either a lot of people weren’t listening, or didn’t understand.
For those who are interested, I have been involved in working with young people to make good choices regarding relationships and sexuality. I myself have suffered the consequences of bad choices, and want to help others avoid making my mistakes. Sexuality has been devalued as another form of entertainment, and because of that, life has been devalued as well. The conception of a child is intended for the sanctuary of holy matrimony.

Why is your name misspelled on the website?

It’s not. My name rhymes with “mist” and I am named after my Great-grandfather, Christ Masse. It was at one time a common German name, and means “christian.” My name is also misspelled on my passport, my driver’s license, and my birth certificate.

What is the goal of this project?

This project is a living parable of my philosophy of life, “listen to the Lord and do what He tells you.” If you make listening to God a habit, and you do what God tells you, you are going to impact the world around you. My main goal is to show people that anything is possible if you listen to God.
My second goal is to communicate the message, “Fear not, God can be trusted.” By simply trusting God, this idea has reaped amazing results.
Finally, we are trying to change the president’s heart. This is a message to a man that God hears the cry of innocent blood. It is not a political stunt, although I hope it changes policy in Washington. If the capitol is flooded with so many letters that no one can deny it, I am hoping the image will be burned into Barack Obama’s mind that this is about human blood, and that he lies awake at night until he cannot resist doing something about it. Even if the mainstream media ignores this, I know I was obedient, and SOMEBODY in Washington will have to cope with 50 million red envelopes.

What can I do after I send my envelopes?

You can pray. I recommend this prayer:
Jesus I plead your blood over my sin, and the sin of my nation. God end abortion and send revival to America.
You can begin to listen to God and do what he tells you.
You can turn off the TV, and BE NOT AFRAID.
Bad ideas are always bad. Truth and time go hand in hand. Good ideas are always good, they often just need a new medium.

Who has endorsed the project?

The Diocese of Scranton
Life Issues Institute
The Eagle Forum
Concerned Women for America
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Coral Ridge Ministries
And many, many local churches. Thank you!

1-5-10-Timeout!

Koltin is Mr. Personality at our house, and his little mind just cracks me up. When the kids aren't minding us, we usually count to 3, and if they don't do what they are supposed to do by the time we count to 3, they go to timeout. Usually, it's Koltin that is misbehaving. One day, Koltin decided to exercise a little timeout counting of his own. He stood up on one of the chairs in the kitchen and, using a random toy as a microphone, starting pointing and sending various things into timeout, including me! "One, five, ten, TIMEOUT! One, five, ten, TIMEOUT, Mom!"

On another day around this same time, I went into the kitchen where the kids were having a snack and saw that they had put their toy giraffe into timeout. "Uh-oh," I said. "What did the giraffe do?" They just told me he was in timeout so I went about my business. After a few minutes, I came back into the kitchen, and saw that the giraffe was wet and some of their milk was now on the table. I got a little upset at this point and starting getting on to them about playing in their food. Then Koltin got all upset and protested, "But Mom, the giraffe was eating my cereal!" He made it sound like it wasn't his fault at all that the giraffe was eating his cereal, and see, they had put him into timeout for being so bad. It was so darn cute, I just had to laugh!

Chugga-Chugga CHOO CHOO!

At our house, everything is a train. If there is more than one, Koltin will line them up and declare it's a choo choo train. One day I came home from shopping and put up all the cold items but left the pantry items in the bags for a while. Koltin unloaded all the groceries and did what? Made a choo choo train of course! This was by far the longest train he has ever made. He even made the train by categories: canned goods (which he also categorized by height!), boxes, and he even threw in a few toys and some socks and shoes! Who knew that being interested in choo choo trains could help you classify things by object? Check out his handiwork:

Wow What a Week!

Wowzers! This last week was amazing! 3 significant things happened:




1. My little brother Levi and his new wife Johanna are now expecting for the first time. Levi is already Daddy to Johanna's daughter Rylee, but this will be their first child together. (And this will make niece/nephew #16 for us!)

2. One of my best friends got married. Aubree Sutherland is now Aubree Hahn! Yay!

Aubree on her big day!

Me and one of my other best friends Jessica Sutherland (Aubree's SIL)

I was the maid of honor, so it has been a very busy couple of weeks. I am completely exhausted, but it was totally worth it!

3. My sister Amber and her husband Rick came back from Ethiopia with my new niece Ayana! They live in a different state, so I don't get to meet her yet, but my mom flew down to help out. I am SOOOO jealous! She is gorgeous, and I can't wait to meet her in person!

Potty Training Success (for 1 at least!)

Woohooo! Kaylee has been officially potty trained for about a week now. She still wears "Dora pants" (aka easy-ups or pull-ups) when we leave the house just in case, but at home it is all panties from now on! She even wears panties to nap time and wakes up dry! Sometimes she wakes up in the morning dry, but sometimes not, so she still wears Dora pants to bed, but still, she is doing SO awesome and we are so proud of her!

(I have REALLY cute pictures, but I am afraid to put them on here because she isn't fully clothed and I have heard too many bad stories about pictures like those falling into the wrong hands! So, sorry you have to miss out but it's just not worth the risk!)

Here is what worked (and didn't) for us (at least for our daughter--Koltin's still workin' on it!):

1. Marshmallows. Every time Kaylee went potty, she got a large marshmallow. This worked pretty well for us!


2. Chocolate. We used Hershey's hugs, and this is what she got every time she went #2 in the potty. She had this part down in no time at all. Apparently she loves chocolate--Is she a typical female or what? (We have moved on to Starbursts, and that is working too. Basically anything extra tasty that she never gets otherwise).


3. We started using Dora Pants (Pampers Easy-Ups) instead of diapers so she could pull them up and down by herself. (FYI, Pampers Easy-Ups are designed for smaller/thinner babies/toddlers than Huggies Pull-Ups are.)


4. When she was going to the potty more or less on a regular basis, I put her in panties instead of Dora pants. I did this sometime last fall, when Kaylee was somewhere between 27 and 29 months old. I was hoping that when she wet herself it would bother her so much that she wouldn't do it anymore, but instead she would just do a funny walk around the house with wet pants until I figured out what happened. This did not work at all, so I decided that she just wasn't ready.


5. Back to Dora Pants.


6. After another couple of months or so, I starting letting her play around the house with no pants on. No diaper, no panties, nothing. This really helped her recognize when she had the urge to go.


7. When it looked like she had the no pants thing down for a while, I started putting her in panties. No pants, though. If she had pants on, she would pee, but if she had on only panties she would use the potty.


8. Finally, when she was in Dora Pants at church in toddler nursery and still didn't wet herself but asked to use the potty, we started putting putting panties on AND pants at home.


9. Voila! Potty success! Yayyyy!

I know that Koltin will probably not be so easy! With Koltin, he was going potty pretty much every single time in the potty (#1, not #2). But when we introduced Diego pants, he stopped. Personally, I don't think he was ready to be quite that grown up. It was like he was saying, "Whoa! What do you think I am, a big boy? I don't think so! I need to be taken care of thank-you-very-much!" Is he a typical male or what? ;)

The Healing Power of a Kiss

Don't you just love the way that kisses make things "all better"? My kids could have just fallen and gotten a bruise/bump on their head, but if I kiss it, they magically are ok. I hadn't realized though, that all this time the magical kiss was also instilling compassion. Our kids have a little "kid" table that they eat and do crafts at that sits in the kitchen. One day I was in there and somehow I jammed my toe on one of the table legs. I wasn't very happy about it (for some reason this one pinky toe likes to get jammed on a regular basis--it's quite maddening!). Anyway, my son Koltin saw that I was upset and asked, "What do, Mom?" (What did you do?) I told him, "I hurt myself." "Oh," he replied. "Table get you?" "Yea, the table got me." "Oh. You ok?" "Yea. Mommy got an owie, but I'm ok." "Want me kiss it?" My heart completely melted at this point and I allowed him to kiss my "owie". What a sweetie boy I have! And you know what? Kisses really do make it "all better"--My toe really did hurt less after that kiss!

Multiple Birth Freebies

Multiple Birth Freebies

As a mom of twins (or triplets, or quadruplets...), we have twice (or three times or more!!) the expenses as moms of singletons, so it would be nice if we got some extra breaks right? Well guess what? We do! Here is a list of freebies you can get as a new mom of multiples, in addition to all the freebies on the other list. Enjoy!

• BEECHNUT 1-800-beechnut
  
  Call for Beechnut twin or multiple coupon packs. They don’t make you prove multiples unless it is quads or over.
  www.Beechnut.com
• CARNATION FORMULA (NESTLE GOOD START) 1-800-782-7766
  
  To receive coupons towards 4 free cans of formula, you must send copies of birth certificates to the following address:
  
  Nestle Infant Nutrition
  P.O. Box AW
  Wilkes-Barre, PA 18703
  
  Call toll free number above first to get a case number—include number with birth certificate copies.
  
  1-800-524-0077 (magazine, The Verybestbaby)
• EVENFLO CO. 1-800-356-BABY (356-2229)
  
  This one’s great. They send you brand new bottle and nipple sets and sippy cups. Send copies of birth certificates and short letters requesting to become members of their Multiple Birth Programs:
  
  Evenflo Co.
  Attn: Multiple Birth Program
  1801 Commerce Dr.
  Piqua, OH 45356
• THE FIRST YEARS 1-800-533-6708
  
  Send copies of birth certificates and short letters requesting to become members of their Multiple Birth Program:
  
  RC2 The First Years
  100 Technology Center Dr.
  Suite 2A
  Stoughton, MA 02072
• GERBER Super Twins Program 1-800-4gerber
  
  They don’t make you prove multiples unless it’s quads or over. They will send 2 coupons, and more.
• HUGGIES 1-800-544-1847
  
  For multiple births, Huggies will send a one-time gift of coupons.
  
  Send copies of birth certificates to:
  
  Kimberly Clark Corp.
  Attn: Dept. QMB
  P.O. Box 2020
  Neenah, WI 54957-2020
• LUVS
  
  Participants receive a one-time gift of valuable coupons for Luvs baby care products. Just send your complete name and postal address, along with photocopies of the babies’ official government birth certificates, to:
  
  Luvs Multiple Birth Offer
  The Proctor & Gamble Company
  P.O. Box 599
  Cincinnati, OH 45201
  
  If the birth certificates contain sensitive personal information, such as social security numbers, please black this information out before sending.
• MEAD JOHNSON (ENFAMIL)
  
  For multiple births, Mead Johnson Multiples program:
  
  Not a toll-free number 1-812-429-6321
  Toll-free 1-800-422-2902; 1-800-222-9123
  Not a toll-free number 1-812-429-5000
  
  Physician must contact local sales rep. One-time shipment of free formulas. One case per child. Call for coupons, too.
• OSH KOSH B’GOSH 1-800-692-4674
  
  Osh Kosh B’Gosh offers the Multiplicity Club. The Club Card, available at Osh Kosh B’Gosh retail stores, offers a 10% discount off your purchases for the multiples only.
  
  consumer@bgosh.com
• PAMPERS
  
  1-800-PAMPERS (726-7377)
  
  Call their customer service representative to receive a special, one-time set of coupons for parents of multiples.
  
  
  
  
  For triplets or more only:
• Ansa Bottle Co., 1-800-527-1096
• Mother’s Little Miracle, 1-310-544-7125
• One Step Ahead Catalog, 1-800-274-8440 or 1-800-950-9120
• Proctor & Gamble
  
  Free diapers triplets or more only. They give you a jumbo package of diapers for each child. Send copy of birth certificates to:
  
  Michael Hass
  P.O. Box 599
  Cincinnati, OH 45201