simple hit counter

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Dad this post is for you.

:)
Only A Dad by Edgar Guest
Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.
Only a dad with a brood of eight,
Working daily, long and late.
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.

I think this poem very well describes my Dad, and Grandpas.

What are your Blogger categories?

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

I knew the day would come: Blogger finally forced me to switch to the New and Improved Blogger a few days back, so now I have a question.
What are your Blogger categories? I don’t want mine to be too specific, lest readers (and I) be forced to scroll through a list of 117 categories, wondering exactly how to describe or find a particular post.
But I also don’t want them to be excessively general, leaving myself and others to scroll through 150 posts under a single category.
How did you divide your posts and decide on categories? What do you think is an ideal number of categories? Do you wish you had done anything differently?
Re-inventing the wheel while sifting through over 700 old posts doesn’t sound like much fun. I’d much rather have a look at your wheels first.

Are you a fun mom?

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

I am sometimes a moody, cranky mom. These are the times when a child will cautiously bring me a big glass of water and pour out a small heap of chocolate chips onto the table next to me. Then she might back away silently with a saucy glint in her eye. I often wonder if they draw straws before they do this.
But I love it when they remind me that I’m a fun mom too.
I let them make whole batches of cookie dough to eat right from the bowl.
I let them drink an occasional homemade coffee froo-froo drink.
I taught them to make double-decker peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I let them take off their seatbelts for the bumpy bridge near our house, and they laugh and squeal and compete to see who will bounce the highest. Extra points for anyone who hits her head on the roof of the van. BTW, if you ever come to our house, you should know that the best speed for the bridge is exactly 42 mph. Any slower and you don’t use the bumps to their full potential. If you go faster, your shock absorbers will take all the fun out of the ride. So 42 mph, OK? And remember to put your seatbelt back on when you get to the other side.
I pretend to be a blind, helpless driver on the quiet curvy gravel road near our house, following their directions to “go a little to the left. Now to the right! Not that much! Wait, more! Quick, Mom! Noooooooo…”
I have been known to take a detour to the creek on the way home, and let them all jump in fully dressed for 10 minutes.
I let them play on the trampoline. In the rain. Or use the hose to make their own rain. If this worries you, let me assure you that we do have an enclosure around it. If this still worries you, sorry.
Did I mention the cookie dough? mmmmm…cookie dough…

What fun and unexpected things do you do with your children or allow them to do?

sleepwalking

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

My family has a history of sleep walking, sleep talking, etc.
My Dad once accused my Mom of bringing a water buffalo into their bedroom when I was a baby. Mom was changing my diaper when suddenly he sat up in bed and glared at her and said, “You did it didn’t you!?! You brought that water buffalo in here!” and Mom fell off the bed from laughing and said “What? What did I do?” Then he woke up and got mad and went back to sleep.

My grandma said that my mom used to do perfect pantomimes of putting her shoes and socks on, and taking out the trash (without even touching the trashcan).

My sister Kaitlyn once went downstairs (when we lived in Ohio) really early in the morning when Mom was sorting laundry. She handed Kaitlyn some socks and underwear and asked her to put them away. Kaitlyn said “okay”…and then proceeded to put them in the china cabinet on top of the plates! Then in the morning she was telling everybody about this really strange dream that she had had last night and imagine her surprise when Mom showed her the very socks and underwear that she had put away in her “dream” the night before!

Lydia on the other hand doesn’t have any outstanding sleep walking incidents in her history but she talks a LOT in her sleep. Once Kaitlyn and I filled an entire notebook page with some of her midnight mumblings about “I don’t care…….it’s in my pocket…..crystals…..I’m telling Dad!”

Once in Ohio when we were moving Megan got up and sleep walked into the hallway and then she came running back in and headed straight for the ginormous dresser drawers that were in the middle of the floor! Then she jumped and her toe caught on the edge of the dresser and she flew over the other two drawers and landed on the floor and then she woke up, was thoroughly confused, and went back to bed.

Natalie once fell asleep on the couch in our living room and when I stood her up and walked her to the bathroom to go before she took her four year old little self to bed. She amiably said “alright” and went and sat on the closed toilet with her pants pulled up! So I kindly and gently pointed out that she couldn’t go potty like that and she looked at me with complete bewilderment on her face as if I was crazy and then ignored me. Needless to say for those who know me well I got veeeerrrrryyyy frustrated after a few minutes of this and Mom had to take over.

Becca, aside from the incident in the post below, once fell asleep on the couch. Then she got up and started walking in circles in the living room and then woke herself up with a fit when someone tried to put her to bed.

My Dad said that once my Uncle Benjamin tried to sleep-sneak past his bedroom four times in the same night! He was a skinny little ten year old and he was acting all sneaky and he would get to Dad’s door and Dad would say “Ben! get in bed! Dad is gonna yell at you!” Ben would say “okay” and slump his shoulders and shuffle back around the corner (he couldn’t walk straight because he was asleep) and then a minute later he would be back, shifty eyes and all! Then he actually eventually got past Dad and Dad said that all of a sudden from all the way across this big old brick house he heard “BENJAMIN!!! GET IN BED!”

So all in all I guess that I come from a pretty weird family (I won’t elaborate on the time uncle Jonathan speared a goat’s head on a pole after they slaughtered it.) But this is the family that God gave me and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Cinnamon pull-apart bread

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

edited to fix the link to Crystal’s rolls.

If you’re wondering what to do with the monstrous amount of dough that Crystal’s 30 Minute Rolls produces, here’s an idea.
We mixed up the dough and decided that half of the dough shaped into 2 round loaves was plenty for our dinner. With the remaining dough, we created our own recipe:

CINNAMON PULL-APART

1/2 recipe of Crystal’s 30 Minute Rolls
1 stick of butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar mixed with 2 Tbs. cinnamon
1 helpful 5yo
1 helpful 10yo

Lightly grease a couple of pans. We used a 9×13 and a pie pan.
Set up a production line:
Mom breaks off small chunks of dough and rolls them into something roughly spherical.
Have the 5yo dip them in melted butter.
The 10yo rolls them in cinnamon sugar and drops them into the pans.
Sprinkle leftover butter and cinnamon sugar on top.
Let rise 30 minutes, then bake ~25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Sleep walking!

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Last night Dad said that I was sleep. Walking Dad said that I over to the bathroom and Dad asked what I was doing I said I’m putting something in the bathroom.I did it again. Then Dad said, ” Megan will you put something in the bathroom?”I said in a bewildered voice, “What?”

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

While we were at Covenant Ranch Andrew Torres and his sister Lordes each shot a pig. Lordes’s pig weighed 118 field dressed and Andrew’s was 86. Since thier father did not want to keep the meat they gave it to us. Last night we ate the backstrap for dinner. It was really good! And all Mom seasoned it with was salt, pepper, and flour.
Mom also made gravy out of grease and backstrap crumbs.

My blog

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Does anybody think it’s hard to read the posts with the new colors and stuff? If so do you have a color you would like to suggest?
Also does anyone have ideas on what I should post on to make my blog more interesting?
I’m open to suggestions. :)

New template…

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Do you like my new template?
I did the header and my sister Kaitlyn did the rest she suggested the colors and
made the daisies and put the template up for me.
It took a little while to figure out how to put it up but she still did.





Hi Aunt Yvonne and Grandma

Spiky post-partum hair: a scientific explanation

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Obviously I’m not the only one with a crew cut at 7 months post-partum:
Mama K said,

JUST YESTERDAY I was looking in the mirror saying, “What in the WORLD is going on – what are all of those spiky hairs?!?!” I thought maybe I’d pulled a scrunchie too tight (in the front???) and ripped it out and broke off a bunch of hair…but have no memory of any such thing!

But Abbie is 9 months old! I have never noticed this before with any of my other kiddos…I will have to pay attention in the future, that’s for sure!

As for now, I feel a bit ridiculous. I mean, it’s BIZARRE. Like a really bad bangs-cut-job!!!

Well, thanks for shedding some light on that. If anyone has an explanation for the phenomenon, please do tell!

Here’s my understanding. Feel free to speak up and correct me if you’ve heard or read something different.
Normally, your ovaries produce the normal and necessary amounts of progesterone for your body.
Normally you would be losing 75-100 strands/day and the follicles would remain dormant for a while before a new strand grows. At any given time, most people have about 10% of their hair follicles in a dormant state.
During pregnancy, very little is normal in your body.
During pregnancy, the placenta takes over the production of progesterone and the levels skyrocket since this is primarily a “pregnancy” hormone. You are happy. Progesterone has that effect.
Your ovaries, sensing that they are no longer needed, go dormant.
For some reason, extra high levels of progesterone prevent normal hair loss. Your hair does *not* fall out at the rate of 75-100 strands/day, and your follicles do *not* go dormant. It all grows. Quickly. And keeps growing. Your hair is running at 100% instead of 90% and growing faster than ever.
You’re gorgeous.
Then you have the baby. The placenta is gone. Nobody is making progesterone because your ovaries are still sulking over having been snubbed for 9 months.
You have plenty of progesterone left over, so you can coast for a bit – 3 months, maybe more, maybe less. But finally, you run low.
You get moody. You get weepy. Your hair falls out. BTW, this would be a good time to find a tube of progesterone cream at the local health food store. It’s not cheap, but your husband will thank you. He might even use it on you when you’re sleeping.
I mentioned that your hair is falling out. But it’s not at the rate of 75-100 strands/day. Your body abruptly realizes that it forgot to shed for the last year, and it goes to work on catching up. You lose everything that you would have lost over the last year. You feel like you’re going bald. If this doesn’t stop soon, you will.
But wait – your ovaries look around and see how badly you need them. They quit sulking and step up to bat. They whip up some badly needed progesterone.
Hair loss stops, and your world looks brighter. Your husband’s world looks brighter too.
Hair growth starts. Lots of hair growth, all at once. All those resting follicles have received a kick in the pants, and you’ll have a nice crew cut going in a month or two.
C’est la vie.

Magnets

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

This is a picture of some magnets that are facing south to south or north to north. So the magnets will float right above the next one. The magnets came out of some old car speakers. The thing holding them up is an old pipe that I found under the house.
Dad broke the speakers open for me.
I wonder why the car speakers have magnets in them.
Hi Aunt Yvonne and Grandma

Music worth listening to

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Jamie Soles is a Christian father and musician in Alberta Canada.
His website is www.solmusic.ca and his music is top notch in my book.

It tells Bible stories tells, teaches remembrances and glorifies God through Psalms.
We downloaded 2 songs from his webstore tonight $1.75 Canadian (about $1.45 USD) for each song and are looking forward to buying more in the near future.

I mean what’s not to love about a guy who has 8 kids and describes his latest album this way:

“There are many things in Scripture spoken of as memorials, things which bring to remembrance – the rainbow, the priestly garments, memorial portions of offerings, Passover, jealousy tests, and ultimately, the Lord’s Supper. Memorials is a musical celebration of God’s faithfulness reflected in these signs of remembrance.”

Besides this is Scripture and good doctrine presented in such a way that you will be catechising your children and they won’t even know it. This is the kind of music that helps parent create a “When you rise up” culture in their home.

I for one need all the help I can get.

Click HERE for lyrics and samples of the “Memorials” album summarized above.

Click HERE for lyrics and samples to the “Up From Here” album containing the two songs we’ve purchased (so far :)As the Hart” and “Rats!

Hunting with Dad

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

We went to a hunting ranch and on the second morning i went hunting with him and in the deer blind kept dozing off but for the last ten minnits.

The night before my Dad shot a Doe!

Some friends gave us two wild hogs they shot. It was fun!

Hi Aunt Yvonne and Grandma.

Emily is gone!

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

I am very sad to say Emily my gerbil is gone. She kept on eating her babies. So we let her go.

Random happenings

Vision Forum Deal of the Day: save 40-90%!

Last night for dinner, we immensely enjoyed 3 racks of ribs from the boars shot by friends of our this week at Covenant Ranch. Pop over to Kaitlyn’s blog for a brief description of our first family trip to a hunting ranch.

5yo Becca finished her kindergarten math book today – hurrah!

My mom cut my hair for Locks of Love yesterday. 11″ gone and still comfortably below my shoulders. My hair feels thick and swing-y. :)
Speaking of hair, does anyone else (everyone else?) get a whole batch of new hair 6 months after the birth of each child? I know why it happens, but I can’t wait for my new-growth crew cut to get long enough to lie down with all the rest of my hair. All over my head I have spiky 1-inch hair coming in. I guess I’ll have naturally layered hair in a few more months.

Lydia found a few splashes of water on the floor around the sink yesterday, and without even being told she grabbed a cleaning towel to dry the floor. I was happy to see her do the job without prompting. So was 2yo Rachael, who was just coming to clean it up too. “Thank you, Lydia, for cleaning up my pee!”

True to my fallen nature, I have broken every one of my new habits for the year – except one. I have read my Bible every day before laying a finger upon the keyboard. I’m so thankful to be able to set that particular priority in order! Maybe it will help me with the others…

And we have a very nice review of our Geneva Bible Pages on Evangelical Outpost, so I’m busy with the Geneva website. There is now an FAQ page to answer everyone’s burning question, and we’re working on adding other features as well.