On fallen walls, cats and other things...

Sometimes when you are least expecting something, it just happens. Like when you have a door at the bottom of your stairs one morning and then that afternoon, it's gone. We decided a long time ago to take out the wall and door in our basement and last Saturday it came out. I think certain members of our house had fun knocking it down. The absence of a door and wall now leaves the cat at our house a nice exit from the basement at night, allowing him to meow at will wherever he pleases. Cats can be queer animals at times.... at a large number of times. This particular cat loves to be petted, finding a drink of water that is not from his water dish, and has an extra loud purring mechanism. His new favorite activity- attacking the Christmas tree.
I discovered pictures on our camera today that pretty well documents the life of our cat. If you are so inclined to watch, I will provide you with a slide show of the exciting event. And for a bonus, you can watch what happens when your three and six year old find the camera without mom knowing. I think dad knew because he was in some of the pictures.

This week's lessons from a three year old:

Being three for nine months is long enough, it's time to move on to being four.

"Why?" is a good question for EVERYTHING.

A winter hat is a good place to hide a cell phone.

A Veteran's Thanks

Halloween and the Veteran's Day Parade have been our latest activities. It was neat and humbling to see veterans from past and current wars in the parade to remember their service.

Wouldn't it be nice if the dishes just blew away?

I wouldn't really want my dishes to blow away. Well, maybe for a few minutes. Then I would want them to blow back home.
You know when it has been a long time since you did your dishes when...... you unload half your dishwasher before you realize the dishes you are unloading are dirty. Then you try to remember which dishes you put away and load them back into the dishwasher. This takes a lot longer than starting the dishwasher in the first place. One of my lifelong questions. Well maybe one of my since I've been married questions is: Can you really finish ALL the dishes? It goes along with another burning question: Can you really finish ALL the laundry. There always seems to be a dirty dish somewhere in the house and I don't think the laundry is ever really finished. I count my blessings though and I'm glad I have people here share my never ending supply of dishes and laundry. I suppose I should end... I hear the dishes calling.

Lessons from a three year old: "opster dupster" should be official words in the dictionary.
Lessons from a six year old: Waiting to go trick-or-treating until after six o'clock is much to long to wait.

Consumer Warning

A warning for those who decide that leaving your good tuperware in the car for an undetermined amount of time with leftover lunch remnants in it is a good idea. It's not really. Someone may drive your car for a day to have the oil changed and decide to clean it out, find the offending tuperware then take it inside to wash it. Your kitchen may therefore smell like a science project as well as your dishwasher and all the dishes that were washed at the same time. Your children may also question the smell and say, "This cup smells like peas!"
Note: not all leftover lunch remnants smell the same.

Nature's Masterpiece

Friday we went for a hike to "The Pond". The leaves were changing colors and it was cool. Signs that Fall has come. We gathered some leaves from the ground and discovered a some-kind- of- nut tree with a prickley covering. It was nice to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

The Place to Be

This was "The Place" to be on Labor Day weekend. We had fun horseback riding, crafting, playing bingo and other such games, and of course, eating. Thanks to all who made it a fun time.
I've ment to post these pictures for a few weeks but things like pears and little people seem to take a lot of time. That's okay, they're kind of cute. The little people, not the pears.

Lesson for this week: It should cost three pennies to go to Disneyland.

A Special Day for a Special Little Guy

Last Sunday we had a nice day. Thanks to all who made it nice (yummy food, tables, chairs, yard, eating of the yummy food). We were glad to see all who came.

This weeks Lessons From a Three Year Old: Everything is better with ketchup on it and Cheetos should be their own food group.

Lessons from a three year old: Don't put bunny slippers up your nose

When your three year old says, "Dad, will you help me get this out of my nose?" You think it will work when Dad says, "Go get a tissue." And you are glad your three year old asked her dad and not you. When blowing in the tissue a few times doesn't resolve the problem you think, Mmmm... I'm still glad it's Dad solving this problem. When your three year old says "It's still in there," Dad asks, "What's in there?" and the response is, "A little shoe," you become more alert, try to keep from laughing out loud and run to the bathroom to find the twizers to remove the shoe. Hopefully the lesson will be remembered that little doll shoes in the form of a bunny slipper do not belong anywhere near noses. We thought Aunt M's episode with the crayon up her nose was lesson enough. Maybe not.

Other lessons from a three year old: Don't Paint the Cat and Always Bring Your Eyelashes

Where DO the Three Bears live?

By Bear Lake, of course. Next to the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. We spent last Friday and Saturday at the Bears' abode. It's a nice two bedroom, one bath house with a screened in porch with a nice view of the lake. It sleeps nineteen nicely if some don't mind finding small nocks and cranies to sleep in. But that's what bears like to do. We had a grandiose time exploring the house and it's surroundings, most exciting was the lake. Three of us were fortunate to come home with a $1 sweetshirt from Montpelier, Idaho because one of those three didn't pack warm clothes. Many, I dare say, all involved where glad the sun came out and the clouds drift off in the afternoon. I don't know if I have seen my outdoor loving husband more excited to see good weather beacuse then the new boat could be set sail. Others were glad to explore the beach and stick their toes in the water. We're glad the Bear Lake monster didn't appear. At least we think it didn't. Thank you to the Three Bears for the use of your house. We had a fun time.

Dirt Cheap(?) and Life on the Bunk

We've been discussing the increasing cost of dirt and rocks. This is what passes for stimulating conversation around these parts. Some of the cuter members of the household feel that dirt and rocks should not be very expensive, while the more mathematically inclined have noticed that, per pound, our 3 tons of 4" - 6" cobble is a bargain compared to cereal, fruit, and babies. Apparently if rocks were cuter, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

In any case, we are using the expensive rocks and dirt in a never ending battle against weeds. It might end up being cheaper to invest in therapy to just help us accept the weeds as they are.

On a related note, I was just asked to check on kid #2 who has a knack for kicking off her covers and then waiting until 4 AM-ish to let us know. As I wrestled her back under her sheet in the dark room, something didn't seem quite right. I finally had her settled when I noticed that her feet were on the pillow and I had just buried her head. She didn't appreciate that much, but all is well now.

By Way of Explanation

Sorry for the confusion with our blog address. You can probably tell that we have no business writing a blog and you should stop reading right now. Thanks.



If you are still reading, you will probably have noticed that we have changed our address to make it a little easier and to recieve fewer concerned looks at family parties.
Why "Life with a B", you ask? Our middle daughter insists that her name is not written correctly until it has a B written after it. It does no good explaining that we don't always have to write her last initial, we just get the not-to-be-trifled-with demand, "With a B!"

As for the other part of the title, we felt that something like "Where Memories are Made" would be too soft and fuzzy, so we changed a few words to create a slightly different spin on the same idea. Hopefully someone besides us thinks that it is funny. As you can tell most of our conversations are carried out late at night and we aren't completely sure if they would even make sense during the light of day. Oh well. With this understanding, please either never visit our blog again or be understanding that it all seemed like a good idea at the time.

Welcome to the Family

Welcome to our new little guy and to our new sister-in-law who married my only red- headed brother yesterday. Their wedding was very nice. Thank you to all who helped in one way or another or many ways all at once. Kudos to my skillful husband who built a nice arch in about two days for the lovely couple to stand by during the reception. It turned out great!

Home

We love home

We love Mom and Dad

God loves us too

We live and love and laugh

Family and Friends are love

There's no place like home

Families are Forever

Did you know that?

I hope that was yes!

Have faith and be good, okay

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Poem by the six year old in in our house

We are happy to welcome our new little guy to our home. He is sweet and cute and we love him lots!

Bowing to peer presssure, the trend, the thing to do- the story of a broken will

We created a blog. We have a cat. His name is Nigel. He's on loan but seems to be a permanent resident. He has pointy ears. We hope later posts are more interesting.