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!

4 of 6: More Thanksgiving/Christmas

Just some cute pictures! Bruce posing in his camo hat!...okay really dad's camo hat.


I love this picture! Greg's mom took it and sent it to us!

I had to put this one in. You can't really see what he's chewing on, but it's his Grandma's bracelet. Greg's mom had this gold bangle and Bruce was OBSESSED with it. He chewed, slobbered, and played with that thing the whole time they were visiting!

3 of 6: Lufkin

Just a quick picture of the WHOLE extended family (minus Grandaddy who was in the hospital and Greg who had to work). We had our Christmas celebration with everyone the weekend before Christmas and had a really good time. Unfortunately this was still during Bruce's extreme attachment phase so I was never able to put him down or pass him off. It made for a long weekend, but overall it was fun.

2 of 6: Misc

First off, here's Bruce with his good friend Jed. Jed is a few weeks younger than Bruce and they are really good friends. They even spent New Year's Eve together. This picture was on a Sunday after church where they chowed down some burgers!


This is my parent's dog, but I put this picture on here because it's a funny story. We left Bruce with his Auntie "K" for some babysitting during the youth group Christmas party. This was during his extreme attachment phase. He wouldn't even let me put him down for two seconds. It was AWFUL (thankfully we are quickly outgrowing this...). Anyway, he screamed the majority of the time she was babysitting and Robin (the dog) got so upset she went and got her toy from her room to try and calm him down. SO sweet!

It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but since Bruce has so much hair, we are always having to wet it down! He took a nap and his hair went all crazy so this was trying to capture it. We'll have to get a better picture another time to really represent his crazy bed head!

1 of 6: Thanksgiving

I realized I was REALLY far behind when I saw that the Thanksgiving pictures hadn't even been posted. Better late than never right?

Here's Bruce with his Grandma opening the presents they brought for him. He got all kinds of fun stuff!

And here's Bruce with both of his grandmothers! I LOVE that Greg's parents come down here for Thanksgiving. This is the third year they've done it and it's so wonderful to have both sets of parents together. We always have a really good time. During dinner we always go around the table and say what we're thankful for. This year, we even called Lindsay's boyfriend Case on speaker phone so he could feel like he was part of it too. That was definitely entertaining!

Want a background/header too?

Since I'm just starting this whole thing out, and since I don't think I have a terribly huge blog following, if one of you wants a "custom" blog header/background let me know. I'd love to start messing with other people's blogs instead of just my own all the time! :-)

Don't worry, I can help you upload it all... Just shoot me an email or leave me a comment.

I know what you're thinking...

Why is she changing the background on a blog she keeps forgetting to update...well I haven't forgotten. I have quite a few posts in queue that I'm just finishing up and then it will be SA Allison overload!

In the meantime feel free to admire my background! It's a hobby that has taken on a life of its own. My husband claimed he was a G1 (the google phone I got for Christmas) widower, but in reality, photoshop is my new spouse...