At last count, Madison caught 5 fishes and Will caught 3 (that doesn’t include the ones that fell off on the way to shore!).

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I love to play games, and I think my love of games has rubbed off on my children.  I’ll play any board game against anyone.  I personally love Monopoly, but in 12 years, my husband has only one a few times (so for some reason, he doesn’t want to play with me anymore).  However, this year, I think our game playing will be on our Wii.  We are having Christmas at my house, and we are the only one with a Wii.  Besides some Wii games, I think we will be playing War and Go Fish, since Madison is four and that is about all she knows how to play.

What games do you play on playing over the holidays?

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As a mom, how often do you hear this question?  At my house, this is a daily question.  I never grew up with pets.  My husband grew up with a ton of them.  Right now, we use to have fish (and we are getting a little fish tank next week).  That is the only pet Madison has known.

She asks all the time for a dog or a cat.  However, she does ask if we can keep the rabbits, squirrels, ants, chipmunks, and pretty much anything else she sees on the ground.  If she’s sees a commercial for an animal on TV, she has to have it.  She’ll even go as far as pausing the tv (we have a dvr, so she can do that) to make sure we see it!  Yes, I think she needs a pet.  However, we are often gone on the weekends which does not make our house too pet friendly.  I am also allergic to both cats and dogs (not a bad allergy, but one nonetheless).

What kind of things do your kids want as pets?  What do you have as a pet?

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.

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Spc. Monica Lin Brown
19 years old from Lake Jackson, Texas
4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown has done something only a very few female soldiers in American history have ever done. She’s been awarded the Silver Star.

Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province of Afghanistan in April 2007. “I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there.”

“We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag,” Brown said.

She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.

“I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire,” Brown said. “So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit,” she said. “I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of.”

For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.

“I did not really have time to be scared,” Brown said. “Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous (since) I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary.”

The military said Brown’s “bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat.”

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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