Sorry we haven’t posted in the longest time!! We’ve been having some computer issues here at the Wilkinson house. My computer still is dysfunctional…but now that Dale is at work, I’m stealing his newly fixed computer for a quick post of a few pics of Ethan from about a month ago or so. So this should give you a few new pics to look at. And trust me, I have a lot more to go up soon…as soon as my computer is working I’ll have much more access to post. So for now…

Ecstatic!! Wish it wasn't so blurry!

Doesn't he look just like Dale? He's got his little frown going on...Funniest picture ever!

So concentrated...I love that face!!

Ethan and Noah get their stare on...

Ecstatic again!!

Eating an apple from our apple tree!!

A clockwork orange...little psycho baby!!

Our sweet Chloe kitty...

I’ve been meaning to put up a post about our trip to San Diego to visit Grandma and Grandpa recently. I have so many pictures to put up!! We had so much fun! We went to Sabbath school and hung around the house with my parents and Grandma. The highlight of our trip was when we were able to go to the symphony and see Lang Lang perform with my parents and Ted. It was the first time I left Ethan with someone besides my mom for any length of time. He stayed with my Grandma and some of my parents friends from church. We were only gone for two hours, but it was definitely nerve-racking! We put him to sleep before we left, hoping that he would sleep the whole time, but he woke up about a half an hour before we got home. Luckily, they were able to entertain him until we got home and he wasn’t too upset. So overall it went remarkably smoothly! And Lang Lang was amazing!! It was a seriously awe-inspiring concert! So here are some pics from our weekend…

Grandpa and Ethan

Great-Grandma Harriss with Ethan on her lap. Both of her wrists were broken, so she couldn't hold him! How sad : (

Ethan with some crazy sunglasses on at Sabbath school!

So for the past couple of weeks we have been trying to get Ethan to start eating some solid foods. We have been having varying degrees of success. For the first week or so he would grimace and just let the food dribble out of his mouth. That was rice cereal. Then we tried buckwheat cereal and he seemed to like that a little bit better. He would at least open his mouth once in a while and on occasion he would even dive for it like he really loved it! Then I decided to make some pureed acorn squash and see if he would like something besides just cereal! This was his reaction…

He was not too thrilled. At least at first. After some time and a little persistence, this was the result…

Amazingly he finished the entire bowl!! We were very impressed! However, since then he still seems to prefer the buckwheat, so we’ll see. Dale seems to think it’s very funny that his son likes buckwheat. I’m not really sure why…

Here’s another cute picture of Ethan ready for his bath…

And here he is exploring for something!! He’s so curious…

And here he is looking cute in an outfit from Grandpa Cecil and Grandma Ann…

This past weekend Dale and I headed down to Temecula to our friend Tori’s house for a Halloween costume party. Dale and I got all dressed up! We went political this year…I dressed up as Sarah Palin and Dale dressed up as Obamessiah!! That’s “obama gonna save us from ourselves” in layman’s terms. A bit of a controversial costume I admit. But too good to refuse…Dale and I weren’t sure who we would offend more, Christians or liberals. We’re hoping liberals. : ) Our cute little baby dressed up as a chick-a-dee…when he was awake that is. Lucky for us, he actually fell asleep in Tori’s baby’s crib and slept the whole time pretty much. We had a lot of fun and can’t wait for actual Halloween so we can take our baby out in his little costume again!

Obamessiah...Dale was voted most original costume and he won a prize!!

Sarah Palin and our little chick-a-dee. Everyone let me know that I looked like a real nerd! Thanks guys!

Obama and our baby chick...he was scared of Daddy's mask, so Dale could only wear it when Ethan wasn't looking!

With our lovely host who dressed up as Cinderella in a gorgeous Cinderella dress!

One of the kids at the party...he won best kid's costume! His face was done with spackling paste!

Over a month ago Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke said that we should be really scared because credit was going to completely and immediately dry up, making it impossible for thousands of small businesses to get loans and make payrolls.  They also claimed that the commercial paper market was in major trouble.

Just recently the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis released a paper entitled Facts and Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008.  In the paper they refute four myths about the current crisis. The four myths they refute are that :

1. Bank lending to non…financial corporations and individuals has declined sharply.
2. Interbank lending is essentially nonexistent.
3. Commercial paper issuance by non…financial corporations has declined sharply and rates have risen to unprecedented levels.
4. Banks play a large role in channeling funds from savers to borrowers

I checked FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which is a great resource of economic data.  A graph of the commercial and industrial credit market, which includes data as of Oct. 8, 2008, shows that lending has done everything except dry up:

Now, looking at a graph of commercial paper, which includes data up to Oct. 22, 2008, it is clear that the commercial paper market has not eroded significantly either:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the U.S. and the World are not in a serious financial crisis.  But instead of bringing calm and strength to the market, Hank and Ben brought fear and panic to markets by yelling and screaming incessantly about impending economic doom.  And they did this without evincing any evidence other than saying “trust us.”

Capitalism is a profit and loss system.  The financial sector is bloated, it needs to be allowed to shrink.

I found some great photos of the sun at The Boston Globe.  Catch a few of the great pictures courtesy of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory SOHO (ESA & NASA).

This illustration shows a CME blasting off the Sun’s surface in the direction of Earth

This past weekend we were able to have a little jaunt to the pumpkin patch with our bff’s the Sanders fam! Our little babies were able to pick out their first pumpkins together and we all had a really fun time hanging out on a beautiful fall day that was actually cold (by cold I mean 70 degrees). So here are some great pics of our weekend at the pumpkin patch.

With the Sanders fam at the pumpkin patch

Our babies at the patch

Wilkinson fam at the patch

What a good looking family!!

Pensive at the patch...(wishing it was nap time)

Two gens of BFF's

Daddy and son

Baby's first pumpkin

So cute on a hay bale!

What.

Cute drooly baby!

Mommy with her baby

Daddy with Ethan in the pumpkin patch wheelbarrow

You’d think we were there a year with all the pictures I posted. It’s a pumpkin patch extravaganza folks!! Too many cute pics to edit!! Hope you enjoyed…

Karl Marx, on page 243 of his infamous book The Communist Manifesto, states that the “proletariat will use its supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State.” He then states that “the following will be pretty generally applicable:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
3. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
4. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
5. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”

Marx’s predictions have not come to pass; there is no proletariat trying to wrest capital from the bourgeoisie. What we have are crony capitalists and politicians consolidating power, and implementing with great gusto the wishes of Mr. Marx. When Luigi Zingales stated his opposition to the Paulson Plan he asked some pertinent questions: “Do we want to live in a system where profits are private, but losses are socialized? Where taxpayer money is used to prop up failed firms? Or do we want to live in a system where people are held responsible for their decisions, where imprudent behavior is penalized and prudent behavior rewarded?” He then finished with quite a zinger: “The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists.” Amen Mr. Zingales.

Here is an excerpt from an article from 1999 about Fannie Mae and it distinctly shows how we ended up in the mess we are currently in. For some reason, people seem to be blaming republicans for everything and I’m not sure why. There is enough blame to spread around for sure, but this article highlights the main reason the housing and credit markets are such a mess.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990′s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980′s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

here is the whole article if you’re interested…

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Last weekend our baby boy was dedicated to Jesus! He was dedicated at the University Church here in Loma Linda. Our family and friends joined us in this special day and we were so happy to have everyone over for lunch afterwards. We had a really nice afternoon…my Auntie Jean made a really yummy fluffy lemon ice cream pie that we all really enjoyed! It was such a nice weekend and Dale and I were so proud to be able to dedicate our son to Jesus with so many of our family and friends there to witness it.

Wilkinson family portrait on dedication day

Grandma and Grandpa and Ethan

Ethan and Great-Grandma Carr

Ethan's really excited to have his friend over!

Joyce, Laura and Melissa (who's back from Okinawa for a while!)

With the Grandmas! My Great-auntie Jean, Grandma Haynes and Grandma Carr

bff's with baby bff's

So after Ethan’s dedication, my parents stayed over for the weekend and we had a really nice time with them, especially Ethan! It was so nice because they played with him for an hour or two in the afternoon on Sunday which gave me a chance to take a nap! Trust me, that’s like gold! Then they watched him for a couple of hours while Dale and I went to our friend Jenn Verhelle’s wedding in Beaumont. We had a really nice time as we were able to spend some time with our friends Haley and Tyler! We didn’t get to stay to the end of the wedding as we wanted to get home to our baby, but it was nice to get out and about and have a little bit of grown-up time!

Dale and Laura at the wedding

Haley and Laura at the wedding