Molly Piper

‘Tis the season for giving, right? Well the folks at Fair Trade Services are giving to the readers of MollyPiper.com!

[image via]

Anyone want to win a copy of the new Sara Groves album Invisible Empires?

Yeah, I thought you might.

I have 10 copies to give away this week!

Here’s how you can win:

Simply “Like” the page for this site on Facebook.

You can visit the page or just click “Like” below!

See how easy that was?

On Friday I’ll pick 10 winners from the people who’ve “liked” and send you a message with your download code!

If you had already “liked” my blog page on Facebook, but don’t want the album download, just give the code to someone who does! Merry Christmas!

I’m very excited about this particular giveaway. I first heard Sara Groves at a concert I went to back in 2008, right in the early days of fighting through depression and PTSD after losing Felicity, our daughter.

As I moved through that very painful stuff, God ended up bringing particular songs into my life that hit me right where I was, right with what I was dealing with. I ended up compiling quite a playlist of these songs and they were a lifeline for me. Not surprisingly, for those of you who know her music, Sara Groves made it onto that list a number of times. I love that she doesn’t bypass really hard things in her lyrics. She even takes on bioethics on this album. Not many people singin’ about that, I imagine.

You can hear for yourself what was on her mind in crafting this new album:

PS-She gives props to Laura Ingalls Wilder in the interview. Remember how we love her???

My favorite songs on the album are “Miracle,” “Open My Hands,” and “Finite.” Any of you want to share your faves?

Thanks so much for reading and supporting this blog. Hope you win!

My husband Abraham started a new blog. You might know that he’s run 22 Words for a long time, but just recently he started a more personal blog where he can be more of a…well…person.

Anyway, he wrote a really funny post about how he’s been trying to manage the incessant potty humor going on between our two oldest boys.

BONUS: There’s a short video, too!

Happy Friday, everyone. Next week I’ll have a fun giveaway, so be sure to check back!

I had no way of knowing that asking a simple question about hand moisturizing would yield such response! Wow, y’all really came through on that one.

WORLD LEADERS! BE ADVISED!…you need some help out of a jam you’re in? Just ask a bunch of women.

(We would at least have lots to say about how they should deal with their dry hands anyway… And who doesn’t need help with that? Come ON!)

It just struck me funny that response came out of the woodwork! And the more I reflected on it, it reminded me of a couple things about people:

• They generally like to be helpful.
• They love to tell their experiences.

Isn’t that what communities do? They help each other and share their stories. Most times, they help each other by sharing their stories.

But seriously… I’m thankful for this little (maybe not so little?) community here. You all wanted to help me with my dry hands. It’s sweet. It really is. Thank you.

I hope you got as much help as I did from those answers. May we all have healthy hands this winter!

Who knows what we’ll help each other with next?

I have horrible dry patches on my hands in the winter. There are a couple isolated spots that get really irritated and sore (probably eczema).

Of course it doesn’t help that I have to wash my hands every time I turn around, changing 2 sets of diapers and taking Morrow to the potty (and then there’s cooking, doing dishes, taking myself to the potty…). You get the picture. My hands are wet all the stinkin’ time.

I’m trying to use rubber gloves while doing dishes to see if that helps at all.

But I’m also considering trying those overnight moisture gloves. Have any of you tried them? Do they work? I think you put some lotion on and then put the gloves on?

I have to be very careful with what lotion I put on my hands, as well. It can’t have any fragrance or dyes. If I use regular lotion on my hands in the winter it burns like crazy!

A friend of mine suggested shea butter for lotion, but I don’t know if that has fragrance. If so, it’s a no-no. (ha! a rhyme!)

Anyone have a good fragrance-free, dye-free lotion for hands they’d recommend?

Also, don’t forget to weigh in on the gloves! Should I try them?

from left: Superman, Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi, Spiderman, Batman

I can’t stop laughing at how portly Morrow/Batman looks in this picture! He’s actually pretty small for his age, so it’s just killin’ me!

As you can see, Orison was ready for action and couldn’t wait to get started conquering trick-or-treating, but Morrow obviously didn’t remember the experience from last year and took a few houses to “get” what was going on.

For instance, after he went to the first house, I said, “Okay! Go get some candy!” to entice him to chase after all those big kids. He holds up his haul (one piece) and says triumphantly, “I already got candy!”

He would’ve been thrilled with one house. But his candy-craving-kid gene was activated very shortly and today as I was putting him down for nap he looked at me all sad and serious-like–”I want to go trick-or-treating again.”

Here’s another pic of our superheroes (and Morrow looking more excited):

The babies spent the evening being fawned over and photographed by Grandmama and Aunt Talitha. Don’t they look so cozy?