Go Broncos!

They beat the Cowboys! And in their honor here are a couple of pictures... (see below for more updates).

Updates on our lives

See below for a post about New York.

Greg and are I both in school. Grad school is KICKING my behind. I am quickly approaching the end of this term and will be taking a hiatus until at least the new year. I just do not have time (and/or motivation...you pick...). I am also training for the Rock n Roll half marathon that's coming up, YIPPEE! (read sarcasm). It's something I'm excited to do, not so excited to train for. At least it's getting cooler, finally! Work is work. Bruce is big and growing bigger by the day. We finally have some molars coming in, boy has that been fun. He has two more that are going to break through any day. That's pretty much my life in a nutshell!

And now, some pictures...these are in a random order, but Blogger's annoying and not worth messing with.

Bruce on his first day of school. Yes, his bag is a Bronco's bag.


Different day, same shirt...he "asked" to eat lunch in his play room at his table. I made him a sandwich and he kept pointing to the playroom so we went in there and he wanted to eat at his table.


Bruce at the beach...okay so in the condo. We went with the Bravenec's and Jonathon's parents were there for a day and got out some coloring supplies for Bruce. It was his first experience with markers and he just looked too cute not to take a picture!


Bruce on his "meet the teacher" day. He LOVES the sensory table, they trade out it's contents weekly and that and chapel are apparently his two favorite activities. Okay, and lunch...



When Greg's mom was here I made a chocolate sheet cake (I had to prove I can cook...) and we gave Bruce the spatula. He LOVED it. He kept signing "more please" afterwards, he didn't want it to end!


Bruce loves to give hugs (his teachers always talk about it too) and when we went to Dallas to visit our friends from college Bruce kept giving Jacob hugs. It was super cute.


And from Colorado, a cute pic of Bruce, one of the only pictures I actually took.

New York

I know, I'm a bad blogger...and I started off so good. Well that's the story of my life. Just ask Greg how many started projects we have lying around the house!

So because I'm so behind, here are some pictures of my trip to New York from LOOOONGG ago. I'm trying to be a teenager...did you know that in order to be cool you need to have as mannnnyyyy leeetttttttterrrrrsss as posssssibllllleee???? Oh and multiple forms of punctuation??!! I digress.

Pictures below for your viewing pleasure.

In Vermont, did you know in other states you can just quickly pop on over to a different state? Crazy huh? :-) Us Texans don't know what it's like to get to another state when it doesn't take us 5 hours!:


At a lake (name has escaped me...):


Also in Vermont:


At an orchard (it was cold...Lindsay should have told me to take my hands out of my pockets....ummm awkward...):


Dinner at a brewhouse, good food, cool atmosphere, awesome decorating!:


So we're back at the lake again (still the same day, pics out of order, not worth re-ordering.)


Awesome restaurant close to Lindsay's house...SUPER good sandwiches:

Bruce's 15 month appt

Bruce had his 15 month appt yesterday. Things are rolling along! He weighed in at 29 lbs and measured just shy of 35 inches.

He's so much fun at this age! He just "learned" how to use his "pointer." He points at everything! And follows the point with "uh uh uh" meaning he wants to go to it. He signs the words: please, more, all done, and occasionally food, drink and thank you. Unfortunately the last three are all very similar to blowing kisses so it then becomes a guessing game...is he signing or blowing kisses. He also loves to walk around yelling on his cell phone.

He's super silly, and currently loves to run into your arms and give big hugs. He has begun mimicking everything...which includes the hand slap game my 22 year old sister and 28 year old husband were playing. I don't know which one of us talks loudly on the cell phone...ahem...Malinda...ahem...but he's mimicking someone! He definitely loves to be the center of attention. Someday there will be a big wake up call whenever a second sibling arrives (no I'm not pregnant, no one go starting that rumor!).

Well I'm procrastinating, my mother in law comes in a few hours and I need to vacuum and probably take a shower... but let's be honest, sometimes showers are overrated!

So behind as usual...

I have all kinds of pictures to post, maybe someday I'll get around to it...

We just got back from Colorado and had a great time! I also went to New York a few weeks ago and need to put up pictures from that...not to mention that I never bothered to put up pictures of Bruce's first haircut which was, oh, about 2 months ago...

Bad mom...oh well! What can you do?

I have on the other hand been a busy "bee" (ha ha, pun intended...yeah, I'm that cool...) and put a few new things up on the "littlebeesdesigns" blog. Check it out if you get a sec!

Homemade Lara Bars...

I found this recipe on Oh She Glows. I've been trying to find a way to make a nutritious bar because we eat Kashi bars like they're going out of style and they get really expensive after a while. Well I tried these out and they turned out really great!

They kind of look like bars of, well, something else...but they taste good!

I edited the recipe a bit to stretch it and to make them lower in WW points so here's my recipe:

1/4 cup dates
1/4 cup bananas
1/4 almonds
1/2 cup Quaker multi-grain cereal (could just use oatmeal too)

- Slice up a banana and put it on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 2-3 hours on 175 (or until the edges are crispy). You could also use a food dehydrator if you have one.

- Put the cereal into a dish and bake for the last 30 min to an hour that the bananas are baking.

- Coarsely chop the dates and add those and the bananas to a food processor or blender and chop for about a minute.

- Take the mix out of the food processor.

- Put the almonds and cereal in the food processor with about 2 tbs of water and blend for about a minute.

- Now put both mixtures together in the processor and mix together.

- Divide into four sections, put one "blob" on a piece of Saran-wrap and shape into a bar.

- Store in the fridge.

I promise it's a lot easier than these directions sound...

Oh the dog door...

Here's a cute video! It's already on Facebook, so if you watched it there, it's the same one. This is really for the grandparents!

Little Bee's Designs is born!

Please head over to Little Bee's Designs and take a look around! I plan on getting my etsy shop up and running soon!

Cute beach picture

Here's a cute picture from our not so recent trip to the beach! It
was too cute not to post!

Bruce's Birthday!

Well now that I've figured out the easiest way ever to get pictures up here you may get to see them more often.

Here are pictures from Bruce's birthday (only a month late...)

We had it at the park down the street, there was a little while that we had no idea where we were going to go because it kept storming here, but the rain stopped long enough to have the party. Here is our rugby themed party, and yes I made the cakes...

Step aerobics...

So is it a bad sign when the aerobics instructor comes up to you after class and says, "have you thought about taking our Thursday class? We teach a lot of the steps in that one..." ummm right. This is after she had to tap me on the should since I was facing one way and she was facing the other...it's not like it was a huge class. It was the instructor, one other severely overweight lady (who was definitely more adept at step aerobics than me...) and myself.

Oh well, I burned lots of calories even if I did look like a spastic noodle...

One more thing, this blog is going back to my "witty commentary" (snicker if you must...witty is in "") instead of pictures because as it turns out, I'm just no good at updating pictures and if I keep waiting to post to do that this blog will never be updated!

So, on the homefront, Bruce is walking...okay stepping (not like the ACU SHADES kind of stepping...just "stepping"). He walks about 4-5 steps at a time. Yippee! One more reminder of how UN-childproofed our house is. That kid's a fast one, I tell you! The other day Malinda (Bruce's rockstar babysitter) was washing dishes and looked over and Bruce was staring at her from the back porch. He's been playing with Kaya's dog door for a while now and apparently now knows how to get outside!

Oh, and you guys, he is SUCH a ham! He looks around constantly to make sure someone's watching him and then starts showing off! He has all kinds of silly "tricks". His latest is rolling over...I'm not kidding. Hey we started with a dog! We're learning this kid stuff as we go! :-)

Maybe someday I'll post videos, but who am I kidding, we all know it won't happen!

In case you've forgotten, Mother's Day is Sunday. Go out and buy your mom something good, and if you can't get good, go with the chocolate!

Read this, it's good for you...

Learn some history. Anyone ever heard of DB Cooper? I had not...someone saw my dooney and bourke wallet and said, oh is that for DB Cooper? Um, no, good try. Then he started telling me about DB Cooper and it sounded pretty interesting so I googled him.

You should read the wikipedia article about the one and only US plane hijacking that's never been solved. It's outrageously interesting...but then that could just be me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper

If you don't already...

Read this blog: "little april rose"

God is so good.

5 k pictures...

There are pictures from the race on my fitness blog! No point in posting them twice, so head over there if you're interested!

Our beach trip...

Here are just a couple of pictures from our recent trip to the beach. Bruce's friend Jude has some more pictures so when I get those from his mom I'll post those too!

Here's Bruce sitting on the balcony...


And here's Bruce pitching a fit! Just thought it was cute...


Here's Bruce and his daddy at the water. Bruce did not like the actual water, but he loved walking along the beach!

Post 1 of 3 Misc pictures

We went to Lufkin a few weeks ago to visit my grandmother. Here's Bruce and Grandmommy at the church potluck.


When Greg's mom was visiting we went down to the riverwalk for lunch and Greg got this cute picture of Bruce!

Ideas?

I'm going to start an etsy account to list my embroidery crafts, but I want a unique name.

The two ideas I have so far are: "Nibe's Designs" as in the pronunciation of my last name and "Little Bee's Designs" as in my own "Little B". There's a poll to the right with these ideas... Please vote! Despite my sewing creativity, this kind of thing is definitely not my forte!

Anyone else have anything better? Heather? Lindsey? Lindsay? Anyone else creative??

And ignore the messed up background, I'm at work and can't mess with fixing it right now...

I can't think of anything to title this post...

We went to Dallas this weekend for a friend's baby shower. It was a very nice shower with AWESOME food! :-)

I decided to try something new for the gift and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. So, in order to toot my own horn I'm going post pictures here! I'm hoping at some point to start selling these, but I need to get a few more under my belt first.

I made a "flower pot" out of hand embroidered onesies and bibs.

I started with this:


Then I dyed the onesies and embroidered them and the bibs and got this:


Then I put it all together into this:

I wish I had taken better "after" pictures, but it was 4:00 AM when I finished it and I just wanted to snap some pictures and hit the sack for a little bit! It was a hit at the shower so I'm excited to make another one!

Whelp, I did it...

I started a fitness blog. Now this starting of the blog did not come easy. For some reason losing weight is not something that people like to talk about and honestly it kind of makes me uncomfortable knowing that there are people who I haven't seen in years that read this blog. I'd like everyone to just think I'm tall and skinny and what have you. Well I'm not, okay so I'm still tall, but not so skinny anymore. I'm working hard to get there though!

I started this blog in conjunction with a challenge from another blog I like to read. I decided it was just time to do it. Who knows, maybe it will help someone... at the very least it gives me one more blog to forget to update frequently!

So here goes! http://c25kchick.blogspot.com/

I know, I'm horrible...

Okay, I've been a bad blogger! I'm one of those people that when something starts overwhelming me I just put it off and put it off. I knew I had a ton of stuff to put up here and as that list grew longer and longer I procrastinated more and more. So to get over the hump I'm going to do a quick flash by of all of the recent events and someday I'll upload the corresponding pictures!

Here goes:
- Went to my grandfather's funeral. It was an emotional event, but very touching. My cousin Katie read a wonderful story about him that touched us all, and I don't think we'll ever get the song "On the wings of a snow white dove" out of our heads. Not to be forgotten, Bruce definitely let out a big fart right in the middle that had the whole family section cracking up... he also ate practically an entire container of puff's just so I could keep him relatively quiet. Despite the fact that we were there for a funeral, it was nice to see all the family and tell some of our great memories of a man who has left a big impact on this family.

- Bruce went on his first airplane ride to Colorado. He did marvelously! He slept the entire time...granted he was under the influence of Benadryl. He was horribly congested and I was really worried about him on the airplane so the pediatrician told me to give him Benadryl 30 minutes before take off.

- Bruce got kicked out of his first casino! We went up to Black Hawk while we were in Colorado just to take a look around. Bruce being under age and all, got escorted out along with his parents and grandparents. After that, we went on down to the blue collar gambling also known as Central City where Bruce hung out in the restaurant with his grandparents while Greg and I played some nickel slots. Fun times! I love Wheel of Fortune slot machines!

- Bruce went to his first of hopefully many Sing Songs in Abilene. For those non ACU'ers, Sing Song is an annual student production that is way too hard to describe, so maybe I'll put a video up someday! Again, he did beautifully and slept through the whole thing!

- Next, I got a text from Bruce's babysitter saying that she suspected teeth within the next week. She was correct! After 2 weeks of horrible sleeping, I was about to lose it. Next thing you know, Bruce has the beginning of a tooth popping through the bottom. We're still on only one tooth, but ever since that tooth has popped through Bruce has slept through the night! Woo hoo! Especially now with daylight savings time, we've had even more success with him sleeping until around 8:00!

- Bruce then got to spend the night at his Francie and Pops' house while mom battled the stomach flu. Greg had gone on the Survivor retreat with our youth group, and I couldn't handle the little one all by myself while being so sick. So we both got to spend the night. It was nice to have a mom take care of you again!

- Bruce went to his very first birthday party. His good friend Skyler turned two so he went to help her celebrate. He was the only non-family invitee so he felt pretty darn special. He also got his first sampling of cake, and was a BIG fan.

- And Bruce being so lucky, now gets to have his Colorado grandma all to himself all week. His babysitter is on vacation in Cali with her daughter, so Bruce's grandma came in for the week to watch him. He's had lots of fun going on walks, baking pies, and helping unload the dishwasher!

Okay, that's about all folks! Someday I'll upload pictures, we got some really cute ones in Abilene along with some cute videos of Bruce's "tricks". He's currently up to three words: Mama, Uh oh, and Up. He's a cutie!

He's just not that into you...

I'm really excited to see this movie. Who am I kidding, I'm excited to see any movie! (although I am going to the movies with a friend tomorrow...woo hoo!)

From another blog I read (cough, cough, bachelor recap blog, cough, cough) I came across this video. I thought it was pretty funny, so I'm sharing the love!

Economy troubles...

I'm a nerd...we could just stop there, but we won't.

Here we go again: I'm a nerd, and the economy very much interests me. My morning ritual includes going to fox news and seeing what the day looks like.

This article is really interesting: http://tiny.cc/uahZU

I've always considered myself to be a pretty good "deal seeker." Albeit a kind of lazy one, but a deal seeker none the less. When I put effort into it, we can keep our grocery bill exceptionally low, when I don't put effort into it... well, we just eat out! I can get to the checkout line at the grocery store and usually tell you what my total will be before it rings up.

I find it interesting that everyone is so on board with being frugal (finally!) because of this uncertain economy that now we are hurting the potential regrowth! That being said, go out and spend people! Just kidding, who am I to talk? We just paid off our car! Woo hoo!

I have pictures of our time in Lufkin that I'll get up here at some point, that is when I locate my camera... hey I can tell you the total at the cash register, can't that replace some of the judgement on my lack of organization?

Random musings by Allison...

So as I was making my nightly chocolate milk with soy milk and sugar free Nesquik I had a random thought. When do you become "grown up" enough that you don't just wipe off the spoon you used to scoop out the Nesquik and put it back in the drawer? I mean, maybe some of you already are, but to me that spoon was perfectly clean...only I can't imagine/remember my mom ever doing that. Along those same lines are drinking the milk out of your cereal bowl and making your bed. Maybe I'm alone and am the last 27 year old, married mother of one that does those things... oh well, drinking my cereal milk makes me happy! (don't worry dad, I don't do it at the table, only in the kitchen)

Another random musing, though not quite as light-hearted: Death doesn't really make sense at any age. My grandfather died Sunday. While he was old, the fact that he died two days ago was a surprise. It hasn't really sunk in. We are leaving for east Texas for the funeral and I kind of feel like we're just going to visit them. Like we're packing up for one of our typical family trips. Growing up is strange. You wait your whole life to do it and yet when you're here there are so many times I'd rather go back to being a kid.

I have so many good memories as a child hanging out during the summer in east Texas. My grandparents owned a country store/gas station that was on the property next to their house right off route 69 in what I lovingly refer to as "Podunk, TX." The water tastes funny, the air is thick, the humidity is crazy, the whole place smells like a wonderful mixture of fresh dirt and pine trees, the dirt is red, life is simpler, it's a magical place to a child. We spent our summers making pottery out of the red clay, running through old deserted saw mills that backed up to my grandparents property, wandering through pine forests collecting pine cones, running back and forth to the store to get cokes, ice cream, and pecan pinwheels, learning to sew, playing with cousins, and most importantly: watching satellite TV! :-) What a life!

My grandfather is one of the holiest men I have ever known. With a limited education he was not one of those PhD Bible scholars. He was Dail McGuire, faithful servant and follower of Christ. He could quote almost any verse in the Bible. He had STRONG faith. While I didn't always agree with his extremely conservative view points, he was always willing to listen to my opinions. He would tell me how he felt, but never straight out tell me I was wrong. About two years ago, my sisters and I took a trip out there by ourselves. I spent over six hours sitting in the living room discussing the Bible with Grandaddy and listening to his life story. He told me all about growing up, how he didn't really realize they were poor, how he dropped out of school to work, how he met my grandmother, how he became a Christian later in life. It is one of the best memories I have and I will treasure it forever.

Losing him this week has made me miss my granny that died right before Bruce was born. It makes me so sad that Bruce won't get to know either of them. They were both wonderful people who I look forward to reuniting with in heaven again someday.

If you've made it this far in my novel, please pray for my family. While thankful that my grandaddy is no longer suffering, it's still hard for his family left behind. Thursday will be an emotional day. I'm not completely sure what my grandmother will do now.

I make homemade yogurt...

Who does that surprise? I just thought I'd post on here how I do it. It's really really easy and WAY cheaper than buying it. I started making it a while ago, and now that Bruce has started eating it, it's a skill that's coming in handy even more. All of the baby yogurts are loaded with sugar, and I like to feed Bruce organic foods. The whole milk organic yogurt is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive for the small quart you get!

So here's what I do/have done. I now have a "yogurt maker" which is a pretty big misnomer since it doesn't do any of the "making." Basically the yogurt maker I have is just an incubator, but I've made it in the past in the oven and in the crock pot.

The "recipe" is as follows:
4 cups (1 quart) milk (I use whole/organic milk for Bruce's yogurt and skim milk for mine)
1/2 cup instant dry milk powder (helps make it thicker)
1/2 cup PLAIN yogurt (you can either take some from the previous batch you made, or buy it at the store, just make sure it has live, active cultures listed in the ingredients.)

Instructions:
- In a pot, combine the dry milk and milk and heat on medium to just below boiling. Basically when you start to see all the bubbles and know the boiling point is right around the corner. Make sure you keep stirring it to keep anything from burning to the bottom.
- Remove from heat and either put in a bowl of ice water or in the fridge for about 10-20 minutes to bring the temperature down to luke warm. (you want it to be cooler than 100 degrees or else it will kill the active cultures, but still warm).
- Add in the 1/2 cup of yogurt

Then you can do 1 of 3 things:
1) put it in your yogurt maker and let it sit for 4-10 hours depending on how firm/tart you like it. (it will continue to thicken when you put it in the refrigerator)
2) Pre-heat your crock pot on low heat, unplug and let sit for about 20 min to cool down a bit. Once you've done the above steps, pour in crock pot and wrap in a towel for insulation. Let it sit for about 8 hours away from drafts so that the inside stays warm.
3) Preheat your oven on the VERY lowest heat setting. Put a lid on the pot from above, wrap it in a towel and put it in the oven on a cookie sheet. Turn off oven and make sure the door stays closed for at least 8 hours. (MAKE SURE THE TOWEL IS NO WHERE NEAR THE HEATING ELEMENT!)

And there you have it...

To make it sweeter you can add sugar, artificial sweetner, or honey (no honey for babies though...).

To add flavorings you can add: baby food (even for the adult yogurt!), fresh fruit chopped or put through the blender, vanilla extract for vanilla flavored yogurt, cinnamon, or anything else you can think of!

6 of 6: Finally the end! Christmas Morning

NOTE: There are SIX new blog posts here...feel free to scroll through them all or ignore, but they go back to Thanksgiving because that's how far behind I am!

Bruce's first Christmas morning. There are more pictures on my parent's camera that show him by Santa's cookies and milk and some other classic shots, but those will have to wait. I'm sure I'll get them posted by next Christmas!

Pops holding up his present. Matching South Aftrican rugby shirts for Big Bruce and Little Bruce.

Bruce posing in his McGuire cap that you can't see. No the picture's not sideways, he's laying down.

Bruce took a nap for a little while Christmas morning and when he woke up all that was left was his "big" present. He got a leapfrog activity table that he's a very big fan of!

Phew! I'm done! That's all for now folks... I need to quit these marathon postings! But why be organized about this, it's not like anything else is. Might as well run my blog the way I run my life...by the seat of my pants! :-)

5 of 6: More Lufkin/My very favorite pictures EVER!

Here are some pictures we took at the farmhouse we stayed at in Lufkin. I LOVE these pictures!

Karen AKA Auntie "K":


Lindsay AKA Auntie "L"


Posing in front of the long horns.



More posing... and me testing out my phostoshop abilities trying to make parts in color and parts in black and white.


And now, my very favorite pictures EVER! We just took all these with my regular old camera! I was so excited with how well they turned out!