Archive for category Family
Dave Ramsey the third time
A few weeks ago Melissa and I went and saw Dave Ramsey in Grand Rapids. This is the third time we have seen him live. But we haven’t read his books or went to FPU (Financial peace university). After the first time we started working on our budget and debt, in our own speed and own way. Well we have been able to pay off all but two debts (college and the RAV4) its taken way longer than it should have. So In April we will be attending FPU and kicking these last two debts to the curb. Then it will be on to baby step 3 
Wish us look and I’ll update the site on our progress. We did a budget this month, but it wasn’t a REALLY tight one, we cut back but not a lot, maybe once we start the class we’ll see other ways to cut back. Right now it looks like it will be about 24 months before we have both debts paid off. I’ve been downloading Dave’s podcast and we listen to it during dinner. Why are we waiting until April to start? Well I have training this month for Sharepoint and its in Vegas. Melissa’s coming with me and we had this planned and paid for before we decided to go to see Dave Ramsey again.
They grow up so fast
Image by benwaynet via Flickr
I can’t believe my little girl is 3 1/2 and we are looking into pre-K for her already. I remember when she was born, it seems like yesterday she just started to walk. Wow, the miracles that are children, they can only be a blessing from God.
Brad has started standing by himself yesterday. Its funny because he gets a big grin when he’s standing there like he knows he’s doing something new and special. He’s eating normally food like a champ, but doesn’t have any teeth yet.
I look back over the last 3+ years and realize how much kids change you, everything changes, your world gets turned upside down and you realize it doesn’t matter.
We are planning Brad’s first birthday, its going to be a monkey theme
So before you go to bed tonight, grab your children and give them a big hug. Forget about whatever stress or issue you might have had for the day and just remember how special your kids are and how luck we are to be parents.
Great Christmas
We had a great Christmas this year. The weekend before we visited my side of the family. We spent three days traveling and visiting with them. Mr. and Mrs. Claus made a visit to Leah’s house and brought gifts and took photos with the kids.
On Christmas Eve our church had a short service with communion. Since I just accepted Christ in September, this was my first communion. It seems fitting that my first communion was during a service celebrating the birth of Christ.
We spent Christmas day at home enjoying time with each other and playing with the new toys. Grace seemed more interested in Brad’s toys than hers.
Melissa got me the monster icarplay 800 so I could charge and listen to my Iphone in the car. But its a FM transmitter and no matter what we did it sounded like bad AM. After looking online it sounds like all the FM transmitters suck. So I bought a cheap line in cable and used the AUX port in the car. It works SO much better. Now I just need to buy a car charger and I’ll be all set for half the cost of the Monster unit.
Grace got a sled from Santa and after I snow blowed yesterday she wanted to go out and use it. I pulled her up and down the driveway, the packed down snow make it nice and slick to pull the sled on. Then we made snow angels and had a snow ball fight. Its funny when your playing in the snow with your kids, you don’t realize how cold you are, you just enjoy the time with your kids.
I hope all of you had a great Christmas and remember the real reason for the season, baby Jesus.
Great Weekend
I took Friday off and we went Christmas shopping. We where able to get about 80% of it done. I really don’t like crowds so it was nice to get it done early. Melissa and I enjoyed a nice day together. Saturday we worked outside cleaning out the cars and the garage. Brad has really started to move around the house. Its not crawling on all fours yet, still an army crawl. But we have to get ready for him to be fully mobile. We had a wild Saturday night with the family.
Sunday we had another great service at Church. Came home and had a pretty low key afternoon. The Lions where fronted with a 14 point lead to start the game and still blew it. The offense looks like every other Lions team over the last 10 years, weak and timid. Stafford looks like he’ll be another Joey Ballgame. The Lions are the Cubs of football.
Tomorrow is going to be a ramp up at work. I haven’t worked a full 5 day work week in 2 weeks. Lots to do and get done.
later,jb
Happy Halloween
Image via Wikipedia
Another successful Halloween. Melissa is out of but her Dad came to help out. The rest of the crew from Melissa’s work showed up. Grace had a horse outfit with a cowgirl hat and vest, by the time we were ready to go out to trick or treat, it was down to just the vest. It took us about 2 hours to make the small loop in our subdivision. Everyone had a great time and got lots of candy. I took a few pictures I’ll post later.
Melissa has been out of town since Thursday. I’ve had a few tense times dealing with both children, but overall its been great.
Melissa will be back late Monday so two more days with both kids.
Hope everyone had a great and safe Halloween.
later,jb
What a great fathers day
First off Happy Father’s day to all the fathers out there.
I had a great day today. Everyone slept in until 8:30 and we where still able to get up and make it to church on time! After lunch we head to the Grand Haven Pier for some Pronto Pup’s and ice cream. We hung out and watched the boats go by. I got a few good shots of Grace and Bradley well we where down town.
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| From Drop Box |
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| From Drop Box |
Then this afternoon I got a take a nice nap and have BBQ ribs for dinner. We took at nice relaxing walk to end the day.
Now I’m watching Ghostbusters on AMC.
I hope everyone else had as great as day as I did.
later,jb
She’s growing up so fast
My little girl is getting so big. She used the potty for the first time and she’s so excited to have a little brother coming soon (I’m sure that will change once he’s home) Grace also has moved into her big girl bed. She started out doing great, she fell asleep at bed time with little fuss and she’d sleep in until 8. About two weeks ago she started having nightmares and is being more difficult at bed time, wakes up in the middle of the night, and she’s getting up between 6:30-7:30, ick. Not sure what happened but we are working through it.
So far the terrible two’s have not been too bad. She’s to the age where she’s enjoying more things like Halloween and Christmas. She also likes to help out carrying things, vacuuming, and pretends to cook dinner.
I posted some new pictures of Grace on my flickr account. Time really does fly by.
It’s a Boy!!!
Melissa had her ultrasound and we found out we are having a boy!! Grace is really excited about being a big sister. She keeps rubbing Melissa’s belly and says “hello baby”
We are going to name him after our fathers. Melissa’s due mid-March, ‘09 is going to be a crazy busy,new, and tiring year for us. If anyone has any good tips for adjusting to having two children or tips for Grace being a new big sister let me know.
Grace is getting so big and expressing herself so well. She’s my little girl, she’s not a baby anymore.
I’ll post more pictures of Grace and the ultrasound pictures soon.
later,jb
heartbeat
Wow, fall is coming hard and vist. It’s getting cold and I’m heading to dear camp this weekend. Not shooting anything just hanging out. It’s going to be cold in the cabin.
Well Monday we had another doctors appointment and we got to hear the heatbeat!!! It was great, Grace said she could hear it too. We keep telling her she’s going to be a big sister and get her to be nicer to her baby dolls. She likes to change them and feed them, but she still tosses them around the house. We have the ultrasound at the end of October so we’ll know the sex at that point. I just want another healthy happy child.
We got Grace’s two year photos back, I’ll post some on flickr soon. she is getting so big. She likes to read her night time books to us now, its so sweet.
later,jb
The Lions, the ring, and the xbox
Posted by jayb in Family, General, Home Theater, Video Games on July 6, 2008
What a 4th of July weekend so far. We took Grace to duck lake state parks it was great weather and we all had a great time. Towards the end of the day Melissa and I were playing catch with a football in the water, I reached out with my left hand to make a catch and my wedding ring went flying off, we sent about 20 minutes but we couldn’t find it. Better mine then hers, I can get another ring much easier than Melissa can.
Melissa had to work Saturday morning, I decided that Grace and I would pickup some flowers and take them into work to surprise Melissa. Since we where all in Muskegon we decided to do some shopping. We stopped to look for a bed from Grace, I was checking out their home theater stuff and saw they had 
Lions furniture. I thought Melissa would get a kick out of it so I showed it to her. She went nuts over it and wants to get it for the basement. I like the stuff, but I can’t believe she’s so crazy for it.
We stopped by BestBuy to look at the Flip video and try to find the new two disc version of gears of war. The Flip Video was a bust, they couldn’t get their demo unit to turn on. But I did get Gears of War. Wow, incredible game, but either I’m really bad at it or its really hard!! I played for about 2 hours tonight. Anyone else get the game recently and want to play co-op let me know.
later,jb
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