the BoUnCiE seat

     Back on Nov. 20th, I had told you about visiting the consignment shop called 'Once Upon A Child' while on one of our 'date day Friday's'. Click HERE if you want to see that particular posting. Yes, it was on our xanga site.
     In that posting, I also promised you that later I would post pictures of our purchase. This is 'later' you know o;-p
     About ten minutes after they arrived here at the end of that week, we put Analyse into her new seat. She had only slept a short while en-route here, and ab-so-lute-ly  h-a-t-e-s being confined in that car seat for very long!!!! She views the thing as a torture seat!!!!! !!!!! I think it is compounded (not only for her, but for many of our young ones) by the fact that until she gets quite a bit bigger, her seat must not only be in the back seat, but it must also face the back of the car. Therefore, all she can really see is the back of the back seat. And the way she is strapped in, she can't lean forward enough to look out the side windows. B-o-r-i-n-g!!! You mix total confinement with that much boring and you get a most unhappy child!!! 8-/
     Once she gets free of the seat, especially if she's been in it for more than twenty minutes (and riding here is w-a-y longer than that!), she wants to move, move, move!!!
     Another thing I should tell you about our little sweetheart, is that she is a lot like her daddy and uncles, in the fact that she gets bored with things extremely quickly (and according to the other grandma, she's also a lot like her mommy in this). Oh my goodness does she. It was 'the norm' that something only entertained her or kept her attention for under ten minutes. Then she was all done with it. Period. Gracious.
     So they had only been here about ten minutes when we put her in the seat thing we had picked up. She moved once. Got a quizzical look on her face and tentatively moved again. And then beaming to the max, that girl took off!!! BoUnCiE, BoUnCiE, BoUnCiE .... for fifty minutes!!! Okay, so she did slow down a bit here and there. But she made no indication what-so-ever of tiring of it for fifty minutes. FIFTY minutes!!! We were amazed!!! Grandpa and Grandma were thrilled that their find had scored like that!!! Her parents were passed thrilled when they learned that 'yes, they could take it home with them'. :-D We just asked that they give it back once she out grew it. They too got kind of bouncy ;-p
     And as for the out-growing it part. The frame is adjustable. It can be set to four different heights. It should last for a while yet. ;->
     When I was there after Christmas, I was totally amazed with how high that six month old girl gets that thing going! Gracious!! She is so-o-o-o strong!!! And there is no denying that BoUnCiE, BoUnCiE noise. Grandma Connie says she can always tell when Analyse is in the thing, by the type of noise coming down through her ceiling ;-p. She told me that she also always says, "That other grandma knew what she was doing when she bought that thing!! :-D W-a-y better than hearing her screaming!"
     I knew that Analyse enjoyed the thing, but just how much she does was made apparent one morning. I had gotten her up, changed her, gotten her dressed, played with her in my arms a bit, etc.. Then she started bouncing a little in my arm. Okay. But then she leaned in front of me looking me straight in the face. I grinned. She moved back and bounced some more. Then leaned forward looking me in the eyes again. She then again moved back, bounced harder, stopped, and leaned forward looking me in the eyes. "Aww ... okay, Grandma gets it, you want to be put in your bouncy seat." She turned her head towards her bedroom door, anticipating us leaving the room. That girl is just too smart for only being six months old!!! She is going to keep us on our toes!
     {Yes Byron, I realize that as of the 4th of Jan. she is now seven months old ;->}
     We went into the kitchen where the bouncy seat currently was, and off she took, beaming ear to ear. So adorable!!!
     Okay, I've talked long enough. Wait. (o;-p) I had forgot to take pictures of the seat, or her in it, when they were here at Thanksgiving, so I took these when I was there after Christmas. Now for the pictures.

Watch out world, I'll be driving soon ;-p

     The toy she is chewing on did not come with the seat. Her smart parents linked them to it. There is no hesitation what-so-ever in her eye to hand (to mouth) coordination. Yup, she keeps us on our toes, already, gracious. ;-p


For the record, Yes, I filed this under the label "the grandchildren". And yes, we currently only have one. And no, there are not any more currently 'on the way'.  This grandma is just sure that someday, there will be more. some-day .... Yes, I can wait. Honest! Right now I am having no trouble following Paul's advice in being content with what I have o;-p

Yesterday -

     Yesterday turned out to be "one of those day's". You know, one of those that made me very sorry I had gotten back out of bed. Remember, I originally had been up super early ... then went back to bed. I had then slept wondrously. But shortly after getting back up, things just started unwinding ... and heading the wrong direction ... and going from challenging to being in tears .... and I went from not just snapping at people - but S-N-A-P-P-I-N-G at people .... and then not just being in tears, but out and out crying .... and it seemed like I could not do even one single little thing that I was suppose to do right .... and 'circumstances' were interfering left and right .... and ....
     I won't bore you or bring you down with all of "the details". I know you 'get' what I'm talking about. In-fact, I know that at least most of you will admit to having been there yourself before.
     Last evening someone asked me about it. I just answered, "I'm clinging to "it came to pass! It didn't come to stay, it came to pass", and I'm ready for it to pass right on out of here!!!!"
    The person had chuckled from their heart and said, "Cling to that!! We've all been there! May it pass soon!!!"

    Before heading up to bed, I had stopped at the computer desk. My eyes were drawn to a book sitting on it that Robin P. had given me quite awhile back, and yet for whatever reason, I had not yet started reading. Honestly, I know the reason - God's amazing, wonderful, provision filled timing. He is just so-o cool!
    The name of the book? "Through the Rocky Road and into the Rainbow Sherbet". The subtitle reads, "Hope & Laughter for Life's Hard Licks". Hum mmm do ya think that fits? Like I said, God's timing is amazing. And yes, I had been pondering fixing a bowl of ice cream. o;-p
    Oh, the author of the book is 'Laura Jensen Walker'.
    I had it in my possession as I headed upstairs, and yet I was seriously questioning how much of it, if any, I would actually read last night. Why? Quite a length of time spent fighting tears, crying, c-r-y-i-n-g, and then back to fighting tears, makes for weary tired eyes. Wasn't sure they could even handle reading.
    But then, God had pointed the book out to me, right?
    Okay, I'll at least read the introduction. I read the introduction another author had written. Then I read the authors introduction. And then ... well, I ended up reading the first six chapters last night. The word laughter being in the subtitle is very appropriate!
    In the book, the author shares tales from her life. But the tales are always told from a humerus perspective. You know me, I LIKE that! And yet while I was laughing, I was still getting the points she was using the stories to make. And she includes these wonderful quotes from varying sources both before and after every chapter. And she ends each chapter with a reference to some type of ice cream that totally ties in with that chapter. Very creative! And yet also still very realistic. I love seeing God's whit and humor via the talents he has blessed his people with!
    I also appreciate the encouragement he gifts us with through those same sources. He is just so amazing!!!

Blog news

~ I am both honored and yet rather embarrassed to tell you that I was featured yesterday by one of my blogging friends named Jen. Via blogs, I have met and interacted with some really wonderful / real people. 'Real' as in they don't put on pretenses to glorify their lives. But also 'real' as in they really do exist. :-}. Certain males in this family (actually, I think it's been all of the males in this family 8-p), have teased me about whether or not my 'blogging friends' really exist, or whether they are just made up people. I have tried (although my attempts have not been totally successful) to reassure them that "my blogging friends really are real people, not just figments of my imagination as some of your friends have been o;-D".
     While I have met and interacted with a lot of people, there are a few which I have actually struck up friendships with :->. Two of them just happen to be named Jen. So in conversation (yes, in real life, I talk about my blogging life friends o;-p) I refer to them as "Jen from Mexico" and "Lipstick Jen". "Jen from Mexico" is an American living in Mexico, and the name of "Lipstick Jen's" blog is 'Lipstick and Laundry'. You can click on the names I refer to them as (in parenthesizes above), to link straight to their blogs ;-}.
    P.S. here, your being able to link straight to their blogs via that method, is a blogging first for me. :-D :-> I finally understand the 'how to' that people had told me, as well as got brave enough to ... always scared of shutting everything down / goofing everything up ... .
    As I started to tell you, I am both honored and yet rather embarrassed to tell you that I was featured yesterday by my blogging friend 'Jen from Mexico'. Honored that she chose my posting about different uses for pastry blenders to feature for her "Yours" section of her "Homemaker's Monday's" "theme" day. {You can click on the words "pastry blender" above, to take you straight to that particular posting of mine ;-)}. The "rather embarrassed" part is actually combined with more of the "honored". I am rather embarrassed and yet definitely honored by what she said about me personally. Definitely both. Click HERE to go to the posting of hers that I am referring to.
     While your there, make sure you click on and read the comments left for that particular posting. :-p

~ Recently while I was visiting Byron and Cyndi (aka: B1 and C2), I had Byron help me look into and then set up our new blog site via blogspot.com. While I like our xanga site, and have learned how to set things up on it all by my little ole self (;-p), via emails I have heard from numerous ones that xanga is not 'visitor friendly'. In other words, other people whom visit my blog can not easily leave me comments. You know me, I love to talk (o;->), and no I don't always want it to be one sided conversations!
    Byron was the one whom originally set up our xanga site for us. Originally, it was so that we had an easier method with which to communicate with and get information out to all of our "part time kids". Then it grew from there into oh so much more. And as you know, I got to where I really enjoyed it. And yet I, like 'Johnny 5', "need(ed) more input". {;-p}
    So with Byron's help, we looked into a blogspot blog site. Turned out that they too were free. :-D. Definitely an important feature ;-p. He totally understood how to set it up, explained everything to me as we went along, and didn't get upset when I'd say, "your going too fast", or "slow down", or "regular English please". What a blessing!! THANKS Byron!!!
    Another important feature is that blogspot blog sites are much more 'visitor friendly'. Anybody can leave comments on a posting, whether or not they personally have a blog site of their own. If they don't, all they have to do is start a "google account", which is so easy I had already done that all by myself (o;-p). {Also, (another great feature) is if somebody crosses the 'dumb line' and leaves an offensive comment, the blog owner has the ability to delete that particular comment :-)}
    And yet another important feature is that any and every body can sign up/subscribe to get notified when you post new postings. They don't have to have a blog site of their own to access this feature either. I like that.
     Later in the same day that Byron had helped me set up our new site, he told me that he had just started a site for them as well ;->. I figured those of you whom know them "in real life" might be interested in visiting their site too. Then again, those of you whom just feel like you sort of know them due to my talking about them, might be curious and want to visit them too. Here then is their new blog site: "A Lord, a Lady and a cute little Princess" (click on their blogs name to go straight to their site). I LOVE the name he gave their blog!!!

p.s. - the heartburn pills I took when I got up due to that burning problem have now kicked in, so I'm headed back to bed. So-o-o glad I no longer have to get kids up for school in another couple of hours!!!!!!!

wrapped prettily

     When "our boys" were young, they thought that wrapping gifts was "stupid!!". "You buy paper, or use the paper from dad's work, buy tape, take the time to wrap it up, which in the end only takes that much longer for us to get to the present. Dumb. And then the paper gets thrown away any ways. Double dumb."
    So we went to putting their gifts inside paper grocery bags, and they had to carefully un-staple them so I could use the bags again ;-}.
    Over the years, different uncles made comments about how guys didn't care if their presents were wrapped or not, and they really didn't need bows. "But if you are going to bother wrapping them, use the Sunday comics as your paper, so at least we can read them. ;-p".
     But the grandma's didn't approve of that idea,and we don't get the paper delivered, so we stuck with wrapping paper, just omitted bows.
     Grandma's and aunts always appreciated prettily wrapped presents. How they would ooh and aww over them, while the guys would be rolling their eyes. ;-b! And then the year that we followed our 'in house' tradition with girlfriends, we learned that it was fine to keep giving "our (now grown) boys" gifts in paper bags, but the girls preferred actually wrapped gifts.
    And so it is done.
    Way back when, my father-in-law provided me with end rolls from the paper mill he worked for. A huge printer machine (can't think of it's proper name / terminology) prints off of these huge rolls of paper. However, it always causes trouble if the machine operator lets it run to the very end of a roll, so they would change the rolls before that point. However, there was still quite a bit of good paper on those rolls! So my father-in-law brought home some, and I used them for all kinds of things. After he retired my husband worked for awhile at a place that also had similar machines, so he continued providing me with paper. Nice!!
     The rolls were white paper, and I used them for gift wrap (just add pretty ribbon, or twine for more down home style, or have the kids use stencils to color themed pictures on them, or what ever hit my fancy for that occasion). But I also used them just to let the kids color on (one time in fact, when I was heading up watching a larger group of kids during the adult practices at church, I used duct tape to attach the paper along the cement brick walls of one of the church rooms, used a marker to divide the papered walls into sections, and the kids had a blast being allowed to "draw on the walls" ;-p We then cut the sections apart and sent them home with each child - easy clean up!). And I wrapped it (the paper) over zip-lock bags to store certain meats, etc. in the freezer. And on the uses went.
     Now-a-days, I no longer have access to those rolls, so I had to start actually paying for gift wrap. You know me, ever the "frugal to the max" one. So I'd wait till a week after Christmas and buy up rolls of paper when it hit 75% off or more. And I always scanned clearance bins, and if I stop at garage sales, and I followed a tip I saw on some blog (sorry, do not at all remember which one, or I would give the appropritat credit!) and found that rolls of wall paper work great as gift wrap! You can often pick those up at Goodwill, or garage sales, or even in clearance bins.
     If I happen to get good deals on seasonal gift wrap, I use it for the appropriate season. But if I don't, no big deal. You can pretty much use lots of different solid colors of paper and just use ribbon if you want them to look seasonal.
    And of course, the ribbon too I only pick up when it's very much on sale!!! Anytime I enter a Jo-Ann fabrics, I check their clearance bins!!! As well as when I go to some place such as a Michael's store, or even Big Lot's. And I don't only buy seasonal ribbons. Just cleanace priced ones that I'll be able to use 'sometime'.
    Below is a picture of the gifts which were headed to the out of town relatives this now past Christmas. Even though all of the paper and ribbons were a few years old, I think they still made up pretty gifts!
  

     You can sort of see that there is something red in the middle of the white bow on the silver package (I forgot to instruct the person snapping the pictures for me while I hurridly got dressed, that I wanted a closer up shot of that .... sorry!).
     A couple of years ago I got inspired (yeah, hang on). I kept spotting these seasonal lapel pins at the missions stores. While I never bought one if it was priced over a dollar, I did nab a whole bunch of them. I then started pinning them onto the middle of the bow for grandma "honey" and a couple of the aunts gifts. The oohs and awws increased greatly!!! The pins added a personalized 'zing' to the gifts - all for super inexpensive prices. Bonus!!! Bingo!!! ;-p
     Grandma "honey" then made the ones she'd been given into a display of sorts, on a small bulleton board in her front entry. But then grandpa "honey" took advantage of them. He pulls (different) one(s) off on Sunday's and uses them as tie tacks :-D While Grandma still is unamused about it, people at church have been complimenting her on grandpa using them ;-p!!!

      Your 'assignment' (o;-p) is to start looking for papers and ribbons that you too can use to make prettily wrapped presents. And yes, you are most welcome to also use the lapel pin idea ;-} And yes ("Aunt" Billie), soon I will show step by step instructions on how I make my bows. I will share however, that it is the "easy cheat method" (<-- as one woman told me once, and she wasn't being complimentary. Aw well, I still use it and like the end results ;-p).

I 'plan' on linking this posting to:
~ "Make-Do Mondays", hosted by Shari, at 'My Practically Perfect Life' (www.practically-perfect-life.blogspot.com).
~ "Happy Homemaker Monday('s)", hosted by Sandra, at 'Diary of a SAHM' {SAHM = Stay At Home Mom} (http://familycorner.blogspot.com),
~ "Homemaker Mondays ... Yours, Mine & Ours", hosted by Mom2my9 (Jen), at '11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven' (http://rtheyallyours.blogspot.com/).
~ "Make Your Monday('s)", are hosted by Kim, at 'Twice Remembered' (http://twiceremembered.blogspot.com/).

~ "Tightwad Tuesdays with Canada Girl", hosted by Mary, at 'Raising 4 Godly Men' (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/canadagirl).

~ "Make it from Scratch", are held at 'Make it from Scratch ... Where creativity and frugality intersect'. (http://makeitfromscratch.blogspot.com/)

previous blog site: www.xanga.com/thehousethatlovebuilt

current blog site: http://thebzhousethatlovebuilt.blogspot.com

the licorice prescription

     On Christmas Eve we get together with my side of the family. This year they had decided to not do our usual name drawing for gifts, but to instead give money to a couple from church who are soon to be leaving for a foreign mission field.
    We (Brian and I) thought that at least the children should get 'something', and so we personally got small gifts for them. After the dinner part, I explained this to everybody, along with reminding them about how when 'my Brian' use to cater all of the time, he'd wear a stocking cap and red shirt with black pants at Christmas time, and combined with his beard and build, tons of youngsters were convinced he WAS Santa! Therefore he was going to pass out the gifts for the kids.
    He gave four year old Eli his gift first. Eli was thrilled, both that mommy confirmed he really was getting a gift after all (so-o cute!), and when he discovered the "cool cars" inside the wrapping paper. He jumped up to stand on the couch to show it so everybody could see it :->.
    Eli was then only to happy to do the 'big brother thing' and open baby Nathaniel's rattle for him. ;-b
    Baby Xander wasn't in attendance, so his was given to his grandpa to take to him.
    Then 'my Brian' handed the last package in the basket (yes, they were in a cute basket .... your not surprised are you? o;-b) to my dad, "the biggest kid here". The chuckles in the room confirmed it.
    The gift was addressed to both Dad and Joan and contained a loaf each of pumpkin and banana bread and a prescription bottle of licorice jelly beans. See, both Dad and Joan love licorice, and I had just a small amount of them still stashed away, so I wanted to include it in the package, but what should I put them in? Most containers made the amount look pitiful. But a good sized empty prescription bottle worked perfectly!
    Brian then had the idea (which we acted on) of taking all of the little warning labels off of our various prescription bottles and putting them in a row down one 'side' of the prescription bottle containing the licorice :-b. Dad had Brian read all of them after he opened the gift. They said such things as "do not take with food", "open pill and sprinkle on to food to take", "take immediately after eating", and of course the "do not operate heavy machinery or drive while taking this medication ...". All of them on the same bottle made for some good chuckles!
    Dad and Joan were the first ones to leave the gathering that night. Shortly thereafter, Brent left to take Kayla home. About ten minutes after Dad and Joan had left, my sisters house phone rang. It was Joan, and she was all shook up, they had been in an accident ... . My sister had a hard time getting information out of her, but finally learned where they were. She convinced Joan that all of "the guys" were on their way, and that Joan had to hang up and call 911.
    Brian had immediately called Brent had instructed him to head that direction before taking Kayla home! Brent had four wheel drive, and experience with cars, and might be able to help .... .
    After most of "the guys" left, the rest of us got in a circle and started praying!!!
    It turned out that Dad and Joan were okay, just rattled. And their van had not been damaged that much. But the way they were hit would rattle anybody, and then there was the fact that not two weeks before, they had been hit by a good sized deer which had totaled their other van. A-n-d, Joan and her first husband had been involved in a couple of very serious accidents when he was alive ...
    This time, they had come upon a vehicle which was driving rather sporadically, and weaving. Then at one point, Dad had felt she was far enough over he could pass her if he did it quickly. Dad was a semi truck driver for h-o-w many years? He's got plenty of driving experience!! But when they were almost totally past her, she had headed back towards them and even seemed to speed up a bit, the end result of which was she had side swiped them. Unnerving! Dad had then come to a complete stop and was calling 911 (on his cell) to report the reckless driver, when the lady again hit them, twice, in the rear end. She had hit them, stopped, backed up, but then in the process of stopping again, had somehow rolled forward again - right into them!
    No wonder Joan was so shook up!!! Goodness!
    Our guys got there. The police got there. The police told my dad they were giving her (the other driver) the sobriety test only because they were suppose to, absolutely no doubt she would flunk it - badly!
     When we got home there was a message on our machine from my dad, saying they had made it the rest of the way home safely :-}
    The next day (Christmas day) I found this email in my in box from my dad:
    subject - "important"

":-} I am very happy that I had Brian read the things on the "prescription bottle" last night. How would I have explained my condition to the police officer if I had taken those "drugs"? o;-p Thank you again for the birthday gifts and the" goodies" last night . I 'm sure you know by now, that we got home o.k. after the accident.


Hope you all had a good day today.             Love you all, Dad"

L-O-L !!!!! ;-p

A tale from this season

     En-route home after picking Benson up from work one day, he shared an incident from his day that I immediately knew I'd be sharing with all of you. Here it is.

     On this particular day, he had spent several hours working a register. (Yes, his job title reads "tech support" .... whole 'nother story some days). It was about two weeks before Christmas Day, and a mother with a young daughter came through his lane. He guessed the child to be about three (3) or four (4), and "she was causing her mother all kinds of grief". Benson explained that sometimes a mom with a kid or kids go through your lane and you want to grab ahold of the mom and remind her she's the mom!! YOUR suppose to be the one in control, not the one following instructions!!! But this time, he said that "it was very obvious the mom had just been pushed to the end of her rope. First the child had done this, and then that, and every time her mom had handled it, but you could tell she was about to snap!"
     Benson said he really felt sorry for the mom, "She WAS trying!". Then he got an idea. "You know, one of those ones that pop into your head and you just act on it". He had leaned forward towards the little girl "and in a lowered voice, yet just loud enough that the mom could hear me, I said, "You know, Santa's watching you right now."."
    The child had stopped in her tracks. Her eyes had widened hugely. She had kind of looked around, and yet seemed afraid to. And she'd gone totally silent. He had smiled.
     The mom however had at first seemed kind of taken aback, and Benson thought "oh no. Now I'm going to hear how they don't do the Santa thing ...". But then as the child had straightened right up, the mom had given Benson a conspiritual wink (with the eye on the opposite side of the child) and said, "I like your style". He had smiled and said, "glad to be of service Mam. Merry Christmas!".

New Year's Eve

      Happy New Year. Yes, I am again writing to you from my home computer. The original plan had been for me to ride both there and back with Wendy S., heading there on Monday and back again on Wednesday. But that changed an hour before we were to head back again. B1 decided that he wanted to come home for a couple of days, and Cyndi's mom said she would watch Analyse the day Cyndi had to work, so I ended up not heading home till yesterday afternoon. Aw darn .. extra time with "my girls" o;-D
Before I left, Cyndi asked if I was sure that I wanted to leave. She was implying that I was welcome to stay there longer :-D. My answer to her was very true - I was missing my man. Yup, it's good to be back in his arms again!!!
      Last night was New Years Eve. I had been asked what our plans were for it, I really didn't have a clue. I knew B3 was suppose to cater, but not how late. I figured whatever B4 would be doing, would include Kayla. B2's choice would be determined by his work schedule. And now B1 was going to be home as well. I have learned to "flow" (aka: go with the flow).
      It ended up being only Brian and I, and Boo and Rascal home last evening; and due to his actions earlier in the day, Rascal was banned to the upstairs, no matter how pitiful his begging/pleading was. 8-/.
     So we ended up spending the evening just the two of us. Wonderful!!! He had purchased a pre-flavored roast and cheese filled ravioli for dinner, which we ate while renting a movie via U-Verse. Calm, cozy, relaxing, uncrowded - just our style ;-p
    The movie? Julie and Julia - the one about Julie the blogger and Julia Child's. Yes, it came out quite a while back, but we had not seen it yet. I had been waiting for a chance to watch it with Brian. Last night was that chance, and we were glad we took it! Both of us thourally enjoyed the movie!!! We found it funny, realistic, and were glad we were already eating good tasting food while watching it!!! Some of the featured foods looked so-o-o tempting! Brian remembers watching the Julia Child cooking show and thought Meryl Streep nailed her character! And yes to any of you 'girlfriends' whom have not yet seen it, I WOULD be willing to watch it again with you! Renting it via our U-Verse account only cost six dollars. Not bad, especially when you don't have to bundle up and drive to a movie rental place to get it, let alone remember to return it in time later.
     After the movie we flipped around a bit (seeings how Brian had the remote) between different end-of-the-year/decade reports and Dick Clark's New Years Eve Celebration. There was one point on Fox's 'end of the decade report' that we saw differently on. They rated a black man as becoming president as the biggest event of the decade. We chose their lower rated bombing of nine-eleven as the biggest. May it never happen again!!!!!
      So we are now into the year 2010. We're curious (okay, so I am more than Brian is ....) how you you be enunciating that - the name of the year?
      ~ Will you be saying "Twenty Ten"
      ~ Or will you be saying "Two Thousand and Ten"?

Happy New Year!
Wishing for you a year where you draw even closer to God,
The Bz's ...