Pictures and Things

by Grant

    I need to update more often so I don't feel like I have to say everything in each blog post. The live-ins are still here but they do have an ejection date. December 4th.

After Turkey day, My family and my MIL (mother-in-law) will head to Fairfield for a day or so.

Probably nothing much to say so I'll post some pictures and stuff. My MIL has lots and lots that she has taken. I might get some of hers and post them as well.


Serenity Bouncing


Serenity gnawing on toy


Hitting the bottle

Blogged with Flock

Late October update

by Grant

    It's been busier than normal recently. Rebekah was getting ready for her Mother and Grandmother coming out. Then I obviously had my Grandmother's funeral. So, let's start there...

    My Grandmother had suffered quite a bit recently as her body continued to deteriorate. As she required frequent care, she had migrated to various assisted living homes to a nursing home and finally to hospice. So, as much as one is sorry to see a loved one pass, it truly was her time. While I was at the funeral, I was very surprised to see the amount of socializing going on. But, it was actually a nice surprise. All of my siblings were able to make it back, although Forrest suffered a horrible trip being delayed and turning a 12 hour trip into something much closer to 24 hours. Because none of us from remote locations had been able to bring our spouses or children, we were actually able to spend a good amount of time in fellowship.

    My Grandmother and Mother-in-law or MIL for short, have been here almost a week. They have been very pleasant visitors (so far the rule that visitors are like fish has not been applicable). Other than giving up our bedroom for their habitation, and sharing a bathroom, it's been nice. Rebekah and I have been sleeping on a fold out couch, but my #1 Dad just got us a bedroom set with a pillow top mattress for $150. Way to go Dad! He and Mom are even gonna bring it down on Sunday. Now, who could ask for better parents?

     BTW, if you need a custom door made, then Sav-on in Payette will do it for a bargain. I'm used to patronizing Home Depot for my needs but a door through them was going to be in the neighborhood of $300-$400. At Sav-on in Payette, I can get the door for $145 + $25 for them to chop it down for me. What a bargain! :)

Oh, and I guess before I sign-off, the girls got sick last week. That was very rough as they ran high fevers and were very fussy. When we could get them to take meds they did fine, but if they were feverish then no way jose. I'm still trying to recover, Serenity is struggling (she lost her voice the poor thing) and titus is having a rough go. Do you think we can get a group discount at the Dr.'s office?     

Please stand by...

by Grant

    I have just spent over an hour getting pictures and videos uploaded, etc. I will try to take some more time very soon to post these but until then watch this dizzying video (literally)

Please stand by...

by Grant

    I have just spent over an hour getting pictures and videos uploaded, etc. I will try to take some more time very soon to post these but until then watch this dizzying video (literally)

Nothing Clever

by Grant

    My Grandmother died on Monday. Rebekah was going to go with me to the funeral but decided to stay home with the kids. Probably best. I contracted some illness on Monday night so I'll be making the trip solo and sick. Don't cry for me Argentina, I'm sure I'll be fine. Rebekah graciously offered to let me take Forrest so I wouldn't be lonely (a teeney tiny part of me questions her motives) but that's not a good idea as I can barely take care of myself when I'm not sick let alone when a contagion is battling my immune system for dominance.

    I think that a death can spark some thoughts about the meaning of life. I know many people think it's tacky to "promote religion" at a funeral, but if you think of it bluntly, that's the most appropriate time. If you are a Christian, muslim, budhist, etc. you don't get a lot of benefits in this life. Frequently, you get persecuted for being the wrong religion. Jews, especially the jews. I think that doing a funeral service for a person that didn't know Christ would be extremely hard. I'm very grateful that my grandmother believed that Jesus died for her sins because she was a sinner (as are we all). I'm very grateful and joyful that she is with God now and no longer suffering. I think that it is perfectly natural to mourn her passing but with bitter sweet tears. She had suffered quite awhile and her health had deteriorated. My Mom called me Sunday to tell me the end was near, but we didn't know how near it truly was.

I'll miss my grandma; I loved her and I know that she loved me.

Tautology

by Grant

    Ha! to all those who never thought I'd use that information. My wife said "What's done is done" the other day. I made a comment about the tautology not being helpful (or something).

BTW, Rebekah SPRANG back quite well from her stair falling incident.

Also, Howard Carter found the tomb of King Tut (thank you Lisa Simpson).

Helpful People

by Grant

    My Mother-in-law was sweet enough to gracefully, sweetly, tactfully, inform me that Rebekah's birthday is on Thursday. Heck, I was just saying Tuesday because that's what Rebekah told me. Silly me. Does it really matter? I'm sure on Tuesday Rebekah is going to be thrilled with me if I just say, "Honey, it's not your birthday yet." Who really thinks that's going to fly. There will be tears and accusations that I don't love somebody and I'm not the man that she married (that's true, he's been tied up in the basement for the last two months) and things like that.

    Rebekah tripped on Forrest coming downstairs this morning. She thumped her way down a few steps hurting her wrist (it's swollen), her neck (wrenched) and her tail bone. Life is hard, when you can't walk down the stairs safely. She's still in pain and moving slowly, but thankfully not hurt seriously.

    I went to get the last of the wood on Saturday. Forrest had been sick with the stomach flu, but he'd been pretty good so I took him along. Yeah, bad idea. He vomited all over the back seat. Quite a mess, let me tell you. Of course, we didn't have any spare clothes and I was just a couple miles from my destination. So I stopped and took all the defiled clothing off of him and put in the bed of truck with the chainsaw sitting on it. Then we continued on. He did fine the rest of the time, contentedly sitting in the truck in just his skivvies. I tried to find some good music for him to listen to (he likes classical) but all I could find was country gospel. That was acceptable to him so he relaxed in the truck with the warm rays of the sun while I bucked big pieces of wood into the truck.

    So, this week we've had Titus sick and throwing up all day and then Forrest sick on Thursday night and throwing up every 1.5 hours. The girls each had an incident somewhere during the night (on subsequent nights) but it didn't seeem to phase them much. So far Rebekah is healthy as am I (except for my bronchitis struggle).

    Rebekah bought tickets for her mom and grandmother to come out and visit. Since we don't live in a platial palace we're going to give up our bed for them. I've never been a very good host, so I hope they don't expect much when they get here. (think of Shrek in the first Shrek when he greeted the fairytale creatures: "Get off my land!")

Screaming Banshee

by Grant

    I'm trying to figure out if Liberty is upset or not. She's been shrieking for about 5 minutes. I looked over at her (she's right by my foot on the floor) and she gave me a me a look that seemed embarrassed. It's getting close to bedtime so I'm sure that she's getting tired. I'm staying home with Titus and the girls while Rebekah takes Forrest to Church. I always like Wednesday night as Kelly teaches and I learn a lot. But, it's not really fair to always leave Rebekah at home. The girls are doing well, very noisy right now, but healthy. Titus was super sick yesterday, but seems to be doing better today.

Rebekah's birthday is Tuesday and I'm trying to get something ready for her. I ordered her something from Amazon, but I like to try to do something a little more thoughtful every once and awhile. We haven't made any plans but it'd be nice to get a babysitter or something.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet. I'm still working on getting ready for winter. The oil man cometh yesterday and charged us for 99.9 gallons. We have a 100 gallon tank. Pretty amazing. $2.76 a gallon adds up in a hurry, thus my obsession with wood.

Hey, did I mention that I learned what a tautology was by watching the Simpsons? Also, (but I already knew this) a lawyer in England is called a barrister.

P.S. Yes, the song from my last post is "Monday, Monday" but I prefer Sunday.

Sunday Sunday

by Grant

    Who sang that anyway? The Mamma's and the Papa's? Well, it's sunday evening and the girls have been put to bed and Rebekah has just taken the boys up. I will go up in 30 mins or so and take over guard duty. I use that time to do some Bible study and/or read. I have found that when you really start to learn things in the Bible, it gets a lot more exciting. There are quite a few things that I've read and just not fully understood them. Or even when I understand the text, I don't grasp the contextual significance. Let me put this in Simpsons terms. I was watching the season premiere tonight and Homer's "life coach" professed to not be very good. He said that he went to the "Harvard of the South." I know from following comments that it's not Duke or Vanderbilt. I can gather that it's not a good school in some fashion, but I fail to understand the deeper significance. Yeah, I know comparing the Bible to the Simpsons is probably the ultimate in blasphemy, but as I always say, "In for a penny, in for a Canadian penny." Coincidentally, the Canadian penny is currently on par with the American penny. Dirty rotten Canadians with their Monopoly money. But I digress...

I was diagnosed with Bronchitis last week. I'm taking some pretty strong antibiotics and they seem to be helping but I am still suffering. Rebekah went with Keren, or "Old Ironsides" as I like to call her, to a "Ladies Retreat" in McCall on Friday. I talked to her once late friday and it was so loud with hens clucking that I couldn't really hear her. But she managed to get up and back safely (windy and dangerous roads). The boys stayed w/ Uncle Tim and I spent most of friday night in a theological discussion with Kelly (a guy who said Calculus in college was easy. He did the four hour final in 25 minutes).

The girls are still doing well. Serenity apparently didn't like her dress (it was really soft) so she started chewing on Liberty's (normal cotton). It's fun to spend time with them. Rebekah thinks that Liberty is working on her own tooth as well.  

Try These instead

Too lazy to edit the previous blog. Let me know if you have trouble.

The first two are the girls wrestling (yes, we put them up to it) and then we got Titus singing to the Godfather book.

EIEI-O

Titus singing old mcdonald.
The book? "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo


baby/life update: Well a few things have transpired. The person that administers our insurance always likes to see the girls so We invited her to church. Shockingly, she accepted and two weeks later she went with us on a Wednesday night. I say shockingly, because I have invited so many people only to have nobody actually come. That went well though, and she said that next times she's in town she'll be sure to come back.

On Friday I managed to get another load of wood w/ my brother in law. It went pretty fast because I did a little cutting and he did most of the loading. That sure was nice. I'd have him help me cut wood too, but he doesn't have health insurance and with my luck he'd cut his leg off. Either that, or I'd be concerned about him and not paying attention to myself and cut my own leg off. Either way, somebody's losing a leg and that's no good.

On Saturday, we went to Meridian (right by the speedway) to celebrate the marriage of a cousin. Thankfully, it wasn't a wedding (although I would've gone) but rather a reception and they requested no gifts. Pretty cool huh? That was a good time and our kids played on the playground equipment a lot. It was fairly harmonious considering the number of kids there.

But alas, life fell apart for me on monday. Althought the wind cleared the smoke out of the air, I started having a really hard time around lunch time. I started coughing pretty badly. I missed today and went to the Dr. She diagnosed me with Bronchitis. So, apparently my problems are a little different than I thought. I've been sick on and off about 3 times in the past three weeks so I hope this gets better. I don't have any energy and feel really tired which is par for the course but a bit worse than normal :)

But some good news: The girls are developing well. They roll over all the time and are getting good at holding their bottles. We still don't know how much they weigh but Rebekah is going to get them a checkup soon and then we'll know. The boys are doing pretty well too. Titus is recovering nicely from his sinus infection. Forrest is a good helper most of the time. He was helping unload the truck and was getting some huge pieces of wood and he was successfully carrying them too! Soon I can start making him come w/ me and help. At least he can dial 911 if I cut my leg off right?

Another shocking discovery

Apparently lack of oxygen tires you out worse! I slept from 7:30 last night until 2:00 pm today. Yes, I did wake up several times in there, but went right back to sleep. I discovered that I was sick from something and that combined with the polluted air complicated my breathing problems. Today my chest feels tight but hasn't really gotten much worse as I move around. I imagine that this is what emphysema is like. And no, I'm not smoking. Well, steam comes out of my ears when I'm angrfied but that doesn't count.

Baby/Life update:

Yesterday I bought some wood from the local crimnal work gang. $90 a cord which is a lot cheaper than $250 a ton for pellets or $300 for 100 gallons of diesel for our furnace. Unfortunately, I was physically unable to do anything so my wonderful wife and bouyant brother-in-law took the kids and made a couple trips. That knocked a chunk out. Now if I can muster enough strength and oxygen to make 3 more trips tomorrow.

The girls are doing well. I watched them tonight and put them to bed. I haven't hardly heard them since. Rebekah said that according to the develpmental ladies the girls are progressing normally. Fore awhile Rebekah was concerned about Liberty because she wasn't doing some of the things Serenity was. But then within the last week Liberty started rolling over and grabbing things just like Serenity. The lady told us that's not uncommon for twins. One will get in the lead, and then all of a sudden the other twin will watch and figure out what's going on and just pick it up.

Breathing comes in handy

    When you can't breathe it can be a real nuisance. Today we had an orange alert regarding the air quality. Screw the environmentalists, I can't breathe due to the huge amount of smoke in the air. I guess there's a big forest fire about 60 miles from here. I say frickin' clearcut the dang forrest. Then at least there's nothing to burn so I can breathe.

Chicken-tastic

Why, pray tell, why is watching a bunch of chickens reenact an episode of Law & Order so blasted funny?

They even bleeped out some of the bawk bawks!

The Fourth Estate

by Grant

    From French history, via the Simpsons. The fourth estate is the press. What are the other three (Homer asks)? Commoners, Clergy, and the Nobility.

Now it's time for some pictures.

Liberty holding her bottle (she's posing), followed by Serenity





Serenity, post bath (hair by Grant)


Forrest, Titus and cousin Rachel (Curtis and Kelly's girl) in a tree house in Fairfield.

A round

by Grant

    brought to you once again, education by the Simpsons. Woefully ignorant is I, as I just learned that that weird singing thingy where one group of people sing  and then another group starts on the same section a moment later is called "a round." Fascinating is it not?

    I have begun to obsess about minor details such as heating the house during wintertime. Our old farm house does not have the greatest heat retention, and the furnace system is old and inefficient. As such, we began heating with wood in recent years. Unfortunately, my wrist pain has made it difficult to swing an axe as I once did. Thankfully, my father, being the kind man that he is, has loaned me his log splitter. I spent a couple weeks of free time (which was about 13 minutes all told) and finally on this last Saturday I got it to start. Ornery cuss, kind of like my Dad. Maybe more like my Mom. I also don't have enough wood, but I still have a connection from last year. This means wandering miles from home with only a chainsaw for company. The good news is that I have 500k in Accidental Death and  dismemberment life insurance plus 500k for a natural death. Hey, find the silver lining, I always say.

Baby/Life Update:

Hmm. The girls are doing well. Serenity's rolled over a couple times. Liberty is still lagging a bit physically, but that'll probably be par for the course most of her baby life. It's amazing how different that they are for being "identical." The boys are doing well. Titus is becoming much more eloquent and Forrest is being a big help typically. I do have a couple videos and my brother Forrest has a bunch of pictures that I'll grab and post.

Murder!

Murder most foul. I just learned (yes, from the Simpsons) that a group of birds is called a "murder." How cool is that!

Food for Thought

During World War II, Adolf Hitler called Roosevelt a war criminal.*

I guess with this in mind, it surpises me less that the crazy lefties out there would call Bush a war criminal rather than that they would insult him by comparing him to Hitler.

*In the last letter he wrote from his bunker before the Battle of Berlin

Everybody is a critic

by Grant

I have subscribed to the blog philosophy simply because I ain't ramming stuff down your throat. You don't want to read about my ramblings, you can click that cute little X in the upper right hand corner. Or better yet, don't even view the page in the first place. I also have tried to break specific family issues into a separate section so you don't have to read my ramblings if you don't want to. Although, I have to admit that sometimes I mix the two. The perils of reading prose penned by yours truly. Now, to address one other criticism. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH THE GIRLS WEIGH! We know it's at least 13 pounds. But we have not been taking them in for regular check-ups because we have some people that come to the house and make sure that they're progressing normally. Unfortunately, they don't bring a flippin' scale with them. Now, I'll give you an update.

Baby/Life Update:
The trips went well. I spent 16 hours (2 8 hour sections) with a friend and talked about all sorts of stuff and would probably bore the socks off most of you. The Baseball game was cool (even though I'm not a huge fan) primarily because of great seats and great commentary from Kelly. Why I don't watch sports: Because my team lost and I wanted to punch out an annoying Mariners fan in front of me. If I want that kind of aggravation I'll tell my kids to pick up their toys.

The trip to Fairfield went well as well. Rebekah went up early while I was in Seattle and I guess things went ok, but she was happy to see me. Considering the sheer number of people and personalities, things went better (far better) than expected. Titus is pretty challenging as he wants to get into everything, but after a few days he would generally stay close to the rest of the Ballard fam.

Right now I am sitting on the floor by the girls as I am sick. Rebekah took the boys to church. Instead of having the TV on, I turned on some music with some cool visualizations that display on the TV. The girls have been pretty fascinated by it. What's the music you ask? Sometime mild that Rebekah had. Uhm, named after a city in the midwest. Oh, that's right Chicago! Wow. this could be considered child abuse couldn't it?

As far as pictures go, my other family members took far more than we did. Maybe I can get some from them.

On the road again

by Grant

    Rebekah and young ones have gone to my parents house. I am going to Seattle with a friend to watch a baseball game. When I get back, then I will make my own migration east southward. Hopefully we'll have lots of good pictures when we get back. Since we'll be gone for a week and basically w/out Internet access I don't anticipate posting anything for a week or so.

Baby/Life Update
    We finally connected with some babysitters. Two teenagers (late teens) and their mom. We took the little ones over (all four) and it went really well. Rebekah was able to go to her Bible Study and after awhile I went and visited a friend around the block. It went so well that I am still amazed. Now, if we can just get something regular going :)