Link to Life Purpose

Uncle Pastor Barry has maintained a very regular blog for a while now. Visit the link in the left sidebar to see why we feel so blessed to have him as our home pastor.

Currently, Uncle Barry is using the blog to reflect on his thoughts about everything from politics to missions trips.

The "Family" Party!

The birthday weekend closed with a blast. Aunties and uncles, cousins and grandparents came by the dozen to help celebrate David's sixth birthday.
We recreated the four levels of Rescue Hero training from yesterday, only with the help of some very flexible and accommodating aunties, uncles and grandparents.

Whether it was Poppa Bear's runaway firehose, Auntie Bucky and Auntie Anne's record-breaking times up and down the bunkbed or Uncle Ryan's fleet-footed "Little People" rescue, they humoured our birthday boy once again. Sadie & Taylor joined the festivities and Sadie was even brave enough to enter the "lightning cave" with the help of her dad bedecked in his ERT gear.

Closing out the evening was Uncle Marc & Auntie Natalie's generous return from Manchester. Despite my own distaste for ManU., David was smothered with more souvenirs than he could wear at one time!

The house is now clean and we're all ready for bed. It's been another amazing party. I don't know how CaraLee does it, but she can really throw a doozy.

Mini-MudBowl II

When it rains, it pours... in this case, we're talking literally and figuratively. We've been under siege by rain for the entire year 2006. We were one day from setting a record for the most consecutive days of rain. We had a dry day to spoil that chance, then began our second attempt at the record.
The good news is that it makes for perfect MudBowl weather! The 2nd annual Mini-MudBowl preceded the big-boys' game on David's actual birthday. It was almost like a present for David. He is so hardcore when it comes to mud football. This is where the figurative "pouring" comes in. It's been a busy weekend!
All the boys had a great time getting filthy and soaked... oh yeah... and playing football. It really was like the side-attraction, though.
Highlighting the festivities was Conbo & Caleb's death-lock, where the two boys stood toe-to-toe and tried to get each other to the ground. They were - litereally - locked together for about a minute before we pointed out the fact that the next play was about to begin.
David doesn't realize that he's still only six, and that there are 9 year olds that are a lot bigger and stronger than he is. (Note the size difference between David and DJ - behind him. DJ's not standing on a bench... he's just a lot bigger.)
We're looking forward to MudBowl III in 2007!

David's "Friends" Party...

We began the tradition of having two birthday parties/kid each year. One would be for some friends while the other was for the family. Both David and Connor get so excited about showing their grandparents what they did for their "Friends" party.

This year, David had a bunch of his school/soccer buddies over on the Saturday before his real birthday. It was a riot...

First, the boys put on my big boots and tried to shoot down some flame targets with the "firehose". This degenerated into spraying me a couple times and frequently turned into a waterworks display when the boys would shoot the hose at the "viewing window".

Next, the boys learned to do "the Robot". The significance? Modern Rescue Heroes have to be able to work with technology in this day and age... also, David really likes doing the robot.

They finished with a search through a "lightning cave" (my camera flash) for missing people, followed by a "baby rescue" game where the kids braved ther perilous climb up and down from David's bed. When I described the game, I spared no gory detail and warned that they might not live through the experience. When Joshie entered the room to do the climb, he nervously asked, "Where's the deathtrap?" The kid's a quote machine.

A final noteworthy quote came from one of David's school/soccer buddies. When singing a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday", it degenerated into add-ons like, "...and many mooooore... on channel foooooour." and "...and channel eighty... with delicious ladies..." one boy added (after the delicious ladies comment), "...like David's mommy!" I can't believe my son's friends are already hitting on my wife. She's still "got it"!

Connor starts soccer!

Our soccer club has a new weapon in its arsenal... Conbo. I forgot to bring a camera to his first practice, but we documented the second!

Connor has been really excited, waiting for soccer to start. Now that it's here, his excitement has only grown. In the car - getting changed after David's game - Connor could hardly contain himself. His enthusiasm has less to do with actually playing soccer than it does with being with other kids his age. True-to-form, Connor has been like a party waiting to happen.

I was suprised by Connor's skills! He's very good at kicking the ball with both feet and is really fast. I was equally suprised with Connor's concern over winning and losing. We haven't been very proactive with teaching him sportsmanship, because he's never really been that competitive!

Long story short, soccer's off to a good start. We're looking forward to the craziness of having two boys playing through the winter.

Daily Verse...

Consumed with my need to find more bells and whistles for our family blog, I came across this method of inserting HTML to link to a feed which generates a new verse every day.

So check it out. You can even click on the little speaker icon if you're too lazy... err... unable to read the text. It will narrate the passage for you.

Our little piggies...

I received an email from CaraLee at work today. She sent me pictures of Emily wearing her first pigtails. The note attached read something like, "I don't know if these'll last until you get to see them, so here they are."

She's so stinkin' cute.

Body Found, Foul-Play Suspected

Good nights said, prayers prayed and kids tucked-in, I passed by Connor's little Hopjump, the frog. Sadly, he was lying on his back... an unusual position for Hop.

Tears were shed; more prayers were prayed. It was really hard to see my son so sad. At first, Conbo kept it together. "Maybe I'll try tapping the glass..." That didn't work. I had to let him know it was final. Hopjump was with us no longer.

David soon came home with Mommy from Wee College. The tears ran anew and the investigation thickened. I had to remove the corpse or it would be fuzzy by morning. In the process, I was given a clue as to how Hopjump may have met his demise. We thought it might have been my erratic feeding schedule. David was quick to remind me that "the lady" had said, "1/2 a pack of bloodworms every day." Instead, I cut corners and gave him a full pack every other day. David was concerned that this wasn't "following the rules" that "the lady" had established for us. I was wracked with guilt.

However, as I removed the body, I just about scalded myself. Someone had turned up the heat on our little, amphibious friend. Some quick research led us to find that David had thought Connor turned up the heat when he was "fiddling" with it. David dutifully "turned it down" to compensate for his little brothers mischieviousness.

Long story short... Hopjump got cooked. What a way to go.

Emily can read!

We've got to give equal time in our house, so I figured we should include this little clip of Emily, our child prodigy. You can all guess who she got her smart jeans... er genes from.

HutYaw video

Woohoo! I think I figured it out!
This is an older clip, but it's a beauty. Inspired by the traditional Maori war dance performed by the All Blacks rugby team (New Zealand's national team), David and Conbo came up with their own rendition of the "rugby dance".
Just like Donny & Marie are "... a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll," David & Connor are a little bit Maori warrior, a little bit Broadway showtune.

Subscribe to our Blog Updates...

I'm always trying to keep up with my blog-mentor, Tawny. So - naturally - when I visited the Day to Day Douglas site I had to try some of her new tricks.
Now, you can subscribe to get updated every time a new posting is added to our blog. Hopefully, we won't melt any servers with the high demand for blog updates.
Finally, please excuse the gratuitous picture. I'm always looking for ways to show off the kids.
Next lesson... showing videos!

Day to Day Douglas

Day to Day Douglas
We've now got a link to our sister site. Check it out to get updated on the world of Douglas.

Bringing in the New Year...

To some, it might be sad to say that we can't regale you with tales of mind-blowing adventures or life-changing experiences to bring in the new year. For us, we did it just how we like it... for the most part.
December 31st, we joined our church for bowling in Maple Ridge. This went much better than last year because I didn't slip and fall while carrying my very young daughter. We got to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law from California while my parents were there to cheer us on and watch my neice, Julia. Right next to us were our Douglas-in-laws which means that there's never a dull moment. The boys, (David, Joshie, Conbo & Caleb), were all in fine, bowling form and the girls, (Emmers & Abby), enjoyed crawling around the alley.
After bowling, mom & dad took Julia back to their place and we went to Ryan & Tawny's for the rest of the festivities. We put the kids down - which went pretty smoothly for the most part except for my wipeout down the stairs... while holding Emily. This made for our New Year's Eve tradition of crashing while holding her. I vow not to pick her up next year.
We hung out and played games until Dick Clark brought in the new year and I got to smooch my wife.

Christmas, Buzza-style...

Our Christmas traditions have become well-entrenched in the Buzza family. Years ago, we started to celebrate Christmas at different times with different parts of our extended family. It's a delicate dance to perform considering the fact that we also have Connor's birthday, (Dec.17th) Grandma Bear's birthday, (Dec.25th) and Poppa Bear's birthday (December 31st) to remember as well.
This year, (as you know), we celebrated Conbo's birthday early in December. For Grandma Bear's birthday, we engaged in the much-anticipated, annual Carol Keating Bonspiel Curling Tournament (well... we play one game). It's always a blast except for that the good guys keep losing. I think it's three years in-a-row now that CaraLee, Tawny & Shane have smoked us under the skipperage of Poppa Bear. I think the inner turmoil on the Bucky, Ry, David & Delnor team has been - quite simply - too much to overcome. Much like Manny Ramirez, Bucky has requested a trade for three years in a row. We'll get 'em next year.
The pre-Christmas tradition of chopping down the tree and decorating it has been extended to include (as per David J's request) the traditional fondue dinner and dessert. Nobody's complaining about that added tradition!
Christmas morning was wonderful. Us Buzzas enjoyed a quiet (as quiet as it can be with three little'uns) morning, then made our way over to the Keating house for the afternoon and evening. It's amazing how relaxing being with 6 noisy kids and 8 noisier adults can be. :)
Boxing Day was Buzza-Christmas Eve this year. Tan, Glenn & baby Julia came up from California this year to have Christmas with us. We locked ourselves in Mom&Dad's house and did the whole thing all over again! The glaring difference between this Christmas and others was the plethora of puke. Just about everybody got sick on the 27th. Still, it was so nice to be with family again.