The Rock Wire: November 2011

First World Thanks

The last summer, we were introduced to a concept called "First World Problems." It is all about the crazy inconveniences and problems we have in the first world how they come along based on our luxuries, not our true problems. To get a greater picture on the concept, watch this video:

We love having an attitude of thanks for the most basic levels of luxury, because when you look at it in this perspective, we are more blessed than much of the world. We are thankful for:

Life
Access to clean water & the variety of food
Shelter & warmth
Family & friends
A place to worship without persecution
More changes of clothes than there are days of the week
Health & access to great healthcare
A great country & relative safety
And so much more... we are blessed!! We are thankful!

Below is our Thanks Tree. We eat took at least 5 leaves and wrote what we were thankful for. We were all thankful for different things, but top of the list was relationships. Happiness isn't real unless shared! Relationships, beyond our most basic needs of food and water, are our greatest gifts.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!! May your "thanks" continue into each day of the year!

Parenting: Beautiful Heart Charts

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, it's said. One thing that has worked well for us as parents is charting. And one of our most successful charts is the Beautiful Heart chart.

This is Zoe about to redeem one of her Beautiful Heart charts. :)These charts are our way to recognize behavior that goes beyond actions, but is the result of a beautiful heart. We like to reward generous loving, (sharing, thinking of others), servanthood (doing a task or chore that isn't yours), etc. But the thing is, there is no formula. The things we recognize should be abnormal and a stretch and something to be recognized.

We keep it simple, just use paper we have around the house & stickers. When we run out of stickers, we color in a circle. The chart itself doesn't need to be fancy, the concept is still caught.

The good thing about it not being a formula is that your motivation for good cannot be greed. It has to be genuine. We do our best to really look at the heart behind the actions. When Zoe has filled up her chart, she does get to go to the store to pick out something fun.

We hope doing these charts affirm our girls' character and help them to become a quality ladies one day. And it seems to work well for us. So far, we just use the charts with Zoe, but as Sophia becomes older we will use them with her too. Zoe really likes getting affirmed in her character and of course picking a toy out is a bonus for her.

Zoe's Broadcasting Premiere: REST TIME

Enjoy Zoe's unsolicitated broadcasting premiere.

(The sound volume is low, so listen carefully.)

Baby Odds by Karl Stavem

Our friend Karl is GREAT!

On Friday before our gender reveal, he sent us this mathmatical analysis of baby odds to venture his guess.

We thought it was really funny, so we asked his permission to post it so others could enjoy his creative scientific work as well. :)

BABY ODDS

A BRIEF STUDY OF “THE PELISHEK PROBLEM.” OR “HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB”

BY KARL STAVEM
ONE BABY
Okay... so the odds of having a boy or girl are 50/50, right? So, when you conceived (ha, sex) Zoe, there was a 50% chance that she could have been a boy.
So what is this saying? If 100 women had babies about 50 of them would be girls, and 50 would be boys.
TWO BABIES
NOW... What are the odds of having two kids - each of them girls?
Well, conceiving (ha, sex again!) is an independent task. Meaning it doesn't matter what happened before, each time you conceive (do it) the odds are still 50%.
SO... to find the probability of two independent events occurring in sequence, find the probability of each event occurring separately, and then multiply the probabilities. In math words... when two events, Z and S, are independent, the probability of both occurring is:
P (Z and S) P (Z) P (S)
So, the probability of Zoe, Z, being a girl:
p[Z] (.5);
Probability, of Sophia Justice, S, being a girl:
p[S] (.5);
Probability of both of them being girls:
p[Z and S] p[Z] p[S]
0.25
Printed by Mathematica for Students

2 gender.nb
So there’s only a 25% that if you have two kids they will both be the same sex. Weird, right?
So, what does this mean? That if 100 women all had two babies: 25 of them would have two girls, 25 would have two boys, and 50 would have a mix of boys and girls.
THREE BABIES
So, since you are being mysterious and not letting anyone know what you’re having, I’m left to guess.
Well, it’s a coin toss as to what happened when you conceived (BOOM). So what’s the likelihood that you’ve got a girl on the way? 50%!!
I feel like we’ve covered that part. BUT...
Remember we're not looking at individual cases. We’re looking at your whole family and asking the question, “What are the odds that a family could have three children, and all of them are girls?”
The odds of the same result occurring three times in a row is pretty low.
Think about doing a coin toss three times. It seems more likely that you will have a mix of heads and tails instead of three heads with no tails. (In this example, tails are penises).
So we go back to our formula with independent tasks, and this time throw in one more variable... G for girl.
P (Z and J and G) P (Z) P (J) P (G)
So... the probability of having a girl:
p[G] (.5);
The probability of having three girls, and no boys:
p[Z and J and G] p[Z] p[J] p[G]
0.125
So, the odds of having three girls in a row is 12.5%.
So what does this mean? That if 100 women had three children each, about 13 of them would have 3 girls.
Printed by Mathematica for Students

gender.nb 3
SO WHAT’S YOUR POINT??
So... you’ve got a group of 100 women. Each of these women had three babies. Only about thirteen of the women have three girls.
Meaning there are 87 other women who have AT LEAST ONE boy.
My conclusion: You are having a boy.
It HAS to be. I mean the odds of having three children with AT LEAST ONE boy are 87.5%. But that’s just a guess...
TO THE CENSUS DATA!!!
Do census figures back up my theory?
OF COURSE:
.
See the bottom there. That means in the US 12.1% of three-children families have all girls. EVEN LESS THAN WHAT I PREDICTED. SO... you’re having a boy.
THE END ###
(By the way: If I am wrong, ignore this.)
Printed by Mathematica for Students
3-Children_Families
Ii 14.151915 Actual
12.596 Predicted

It's a....

We had a cross-country gender reveal. While our parents had cakes delivered to reveal our newest Pelishek's gender, we hosted a gender reveal party at our home.
(Click on any of the photos to view them larger.)

We had a UFC themed night.
U will C
amIright Night

Matt made an amazing UFC ring where a Barbie battled Casey Jones.
Our guests ventured a guess and wore a bow or a mustache to represent.

Here's our decor for the night. The mustaches & bows, ultrasound pics, and our blue & pink food.
Unfortunately when the photo was taken not all our food was set out. Here's what we had.
Blue: blue chips & blue hummus, blueberries, York pieces
Pink: whoppers, rasperries, baked apples, pink whipped cream