Blog Linkage, Pinterest Stuff (17 Movies to Watch with Family AND Object Lesson - A Family Walk), 400 Water Balloons, B-Team Bowling AND The Enchanting Belinda's Birthday

Good Thursday morning!

We have a good bit to talk about today, so let's get busy!

Blog Linkage - Go to www.thepioneerwoman.com/confessions and read her latest post entitled, "The New Frontier Cookbook Tour." She gives the release date AND all of the places she will be signing books. Unfortunately, Alabama isn't listed YET, but Atlanta and Nashville are both on the list for anyone interested in a fun day trip.

Pinterest Stuff

17 Movies to Watch with Family

DISCLAIMER FROM THE ENCHANTING BELINDA - I haven't seen all of these movies. I don't particularly like old, old movies (black-and-white), but I know there are families out there who love them. Also, when the kids were young, I loved to introduce them to movies and TV shows Mike and I watched when we were their age.

I'm just going to put a "*" beside the movies I've seen and enjoyed.

1. Hook (1991)*
2. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* (1954)
3. How to Steal a Million (1966)
4. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
5. Mary Poppins* (1964)
6. Strongest Man in the World* (1975)
7. Holiday Inn* (1942)
8. 101 Dalmations* (1961)
9. Cool Runnings* (1993)
10. You Can’t Take it With You (1938)
11. Father Goose (1964)
12. The North Avenue Irregulars (1979)
13. The General (1926)
14. The Parent Trap* (1961)
15. Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968)
16. Singin’ in the Rain* (1952)
17. The Emperor’s New Groove* (2000)

Object Lesson (Also from Pinterest)

A Family Walk

We took a family walk one night last week. We used this short object lesson as our daily devotion for the day.

Lesson No. 1 - Mark 12:31 “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

1. Have each person trade shoes with another family member before the walk begins.

2. Talk about the Bible and how it tells us to love our neighbors.

One way to do this is to try to understand them better. There’s a saying about putting “ourselves in the other person’s shoes” when we are having a hard time understanding someone.

3. Talk about if you had to suddenly live one of your neighbor’s lives. Would it be easy? How can we be more understanding?

4. Pray for your neighbors as you walk by their houses, or at the end of the walk pray for them as a family before heading to bed.

RANDOMNESS #1 - 400 Water Balloons - I am a HUGE proponent of the package of 100 water balloons you can fill with water in five minutes or less for sale in many of our local stores (Walmart, Target, etc.).

HUGE!

Up until last year, I also had no objection to paying $7.99 per package because back in the day, I prepared 100 (or more) water balloons by hand at my kitchen sink on a regular basis.

It was work.

Hard work.

Work worth MUCH MORE than $7.99.

But last Labor Day, I walked past the Summer Toys aisle in Target and saw a Clearance sticker on the balloon packages.

Instead of $7.99, the end of Summer price for this item was $2.38.

I kid you not.

I bought nine packages...

And if you do the math...

You will discover that is 900 water balloons.

I used four of the packages last week and filled up two baby pools in the driveway. After RT and Judith arrived at the house around 3:00 in the afternoon, we had a little fun.

I have five packages left, and my plan is to wait until late September OR early October when the temps "surprisingly" jump into the 90s one more time before Fall decides to stick around, and let the kids have one last water balloon fight before the giant "leaf piles" start to take over as our Favorite Outside Activity at Nana's house.

And on Labor Day, I will also be strolling around Target and Walmart looking for next Summer's water balloons...

Hopefully, marked down to $2.38...

OR LOWER!















RANDOMNESS #2 - B-Team Bowling... and The Enchanting Belinda's Birthday - All I wanted for my 58th Birthday Celebration was a family meal at Buenavista Mexican Restaurant in Cullman followed by an afternoon of bowling at Cullman Bowling Center.

Everyone was able to be there except Miss Melia who was under the weather and needed to recuperate before teaching a roomful of preschoolers bright and early Monday morning. (I totally get that, by the way.)

Before we get to the pics of our bowling exploits, have I ever told y'all about my bowling prowess back in high school?

Have I?

Did y'all know I was a member of the B-Team Bowling Team?

Did you know there was such a thing as a B-Team Bowling Team?

Yeah.

I'm a pretty rare breed.

Also, I was the only one who tried out for Varsity who didn't quite make the team, so the B-Team was created.

Technically, I would have also subbed in whenever a Varsity player couldn't make a game.

Fun Fact - Varsity bowlers have to be nigh unto dead before they don't make a game. They are just that dedicated.

Another Fun Fact - My picture wearing a bowling jersey made it into the high school annual, but nary a game did I get to bowl.

That brings us to present day 2019. The Enchanting Belinda still loves to bowl, and although not considered one of the greats, I have a very good time.


We had a bit of a wait for our two lanes (about 30 minutes), so we bought a Play Card for $10 and we played Air Hockey, Basketball and Roxie and RT rode a (kinda) real back-half of a motorcycle.






I believe you can play Air Hockey for fun...

Or you can play Air Hockey to win.

RT plays to win.


But because he is only two, he doesn't realize when someone else actually wins.

Oh, how I love two year-olds...

And four year-olds who understand the ways of winning a little bit better.


This girl made at least two strikes thanks to her Pop's "maneuvering and situating" of the Bowling Helper.


And this guy was able to use a ten-pound ball because of said Bowling Helper.

Now if they would make a geriatric Bowling Helper for the 58 year-old PLUS crowd, Nana B would be happy, too.




This is the face of a girl destined to be on the VARSITY Bowling Team one day.


She is such a good baby. If you weren't holding a bowling ball, you were holding Little Miss Eden.



I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week. I'll be back soon with Pre-Fall stuff...

Also known as Dog Days of Summer stuff.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda

Me (Texting Boss) - Are we still on for today?

Boss - Yes. You don't need to text me this every morning. We are still "on" for work every day, Monday through Friday.

"Whatever you're doing today, do with the confidence of a four year-old wearing a Batman t-shirt."

Quotable Quotes, Used Parts, Cullman Wellness & Aquatic Center... One More Time, I Went A-Shootin', A Little Eden AND A Little RT

Good Friday morning!

I need to tell you before beginning, Judith asked at the beginning of the Summer if we could spend the night on the deck one night.

I'll be honest. I thought my "camping out" days were in the past, but sometime between now and September 21, the two of us are going to blow up the air mattress and "sleep" in the backyard.

Full disclosure...

I'm kinda looking forward to a camp-out with a big screen TV and a big ol' ceiling fan blowing down on me.

And having MY bathroom only 22 steps from where I am sleeping.

With NO spiders in the shower.

And a cooler of ice packs on the floor next to my pillow.

Yeah.

A cooler of ice packs!

This might turn out pretty well.

Quotable Quotes - "Life is like a camera. You focus on what's important. Capture the good times. Develop from the negative. And if things don't work out, take another shot." Anonymous

RANDOMNESS #1 - Used Parts - I am dangerously close to turning 58, and for the most part, I am okay with the number.

However, as I begin my yearly how-am-I-doing-in-the-parts-department review, on the outside I have a little less to work with this upcoming year.

For example, on close inspection of the facial area, I am happy to report my eyebrows are still "pretty good" according to the fashion industry's definition. They aren't "bold," but I do have the tools to make them appear "bold" on a day-to-day basis.

I am not as happy to report, I apparently do not possess the specific skills necessary to make them EQUALLY bold.

One is always lighter, so by the time I darken the light one, the previously dark one is off by a shade or two.

The end result is not just scary...

It is terrifying.

Also, I think it makes people spend WAY too much time staring at my facial area trying to figure out what exactly is wrong.

Moving on, I don't have 20 year-old hands, but I thought they were fairly acceptable. Over the past 12 months, I've noticed more and more how unphotogenic they appear in pics...

And so I must assume that is how they appear in real life, too.

They look, dare I say, gnarly...

And not "gnarly" in a good way.

To remedy this, I will soon be "bringing gloves back."

Since we're in the vicinity, the gloves will cover the elbow because that part started not being very attractive in my 30s.

There are some other problem areas, too, but excuse me if I just skip ahead to my main point.

The fact that I even spent a millisecond worrying about bold eyebrows this past year is very telling, I think.

If at the ripe old age of "almost 58" I am still so concerned about outward beauty rather than inner beauty, I may not be maturing as well as I should.

Eyebrows and earlobes and elbows are not going to hold up as the years march along...

And just that sentence alone makes me realize how silly and shallow and unimportant those parts are in life.

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight." 1 Peter 3:3-4

I think in my 58th year of life, I'm going to try much harder to work on my inner self...

The part of me that doesn't have to be plucked or tucked or hidden.

The part of me that actually has a chance to obtain unfading beauty.

The part of me that would actually be so happy to be known for having a gentle and quiet spirit.

Anyway, that's the plan.

So if you see me around and my eyebrows aren't looking quite as bold as they should, or my hands aren't as smooth as they once were or my elbows aren't...

Well, we won't even go there.

Just keep in mind, I'm working on a part that's much more important and much more beautiful than any of the other parts I've been so concerned with over the past 50+ years.

And it's about time.

RANDOMNESS #2 - Cullman Wellness & Aquatic Center... One More Time - We met Josh, Courtney, Judith, Eden and Sara Grace for one final twilight swim at Cullman Wellness before it closed the outside pool area for the Summer.

We swam outside for a total of 34 minutes before a big thunderstorm rolled in, and then we ran inside for the duration of our stay.

The inside is nice, but it isn't a water park. The kids, however, were perfectly happy with the big pool, the whirlpool and the shallow part of the pool. The adults liked the large, rectangular hot tub. And the food was exactly the same with a nice little eating area.

All in all, a nice evening.




"What do you mean I have to sit out with Pop and Nana? Put my bikini on NOW!"


Courtney and Sara Grace.


See?

Inside or outside...

Still a big smile.


This little whirlpool area is a lot of fun. It is very fast and the kids go around and around and around in a large circle beside a wall. It takes an adult to pull them out of the fast current into the regular pool, but eventually they all end up back in the whirlpool.


I love this place. We will frequent it much more often next Summer, I am sure.

RANDOMNESS #3 - I Went A-Shootin' - We had a Cousin Night last week, and spent a little time at Sheepdog Firearms in Trussville. My cousins, sister and niece were all pretty proficient at shooting pistols, but Roxie and I were not.

Hopefully, with a little more practice, we can catch up with our kinfolk!




Best hair while wearing noise protector ear muffs. (I don't know the correct term. Can you tell?)

Roxie.

Most definitely Roxie.




Roxie, Abbie, Monica, Amy, Katie, me and Bev.

Very worst shot?

Me.

Most definitely ME.

RANDOMNESS #4 - A Little Eden - This little one is four months old now. She giggles, smiles, wants to sit up ALL the time and eats and burps like a champ.




I love that she is our granddaughter.

RANDOMNESS #5 - A Little RT - And I love that this guy is our grandson!



I hope you and yours have had a good week. I'll be back soon with more pre-Fall stuff.

I cannot even make myself type the word "Summer" one more time. It's just too, too hard...

And hot!

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda

From now on, I am going to call this little section "Things That Make The Enchanting Belinda Smile."

Or maybe TTMTEBS would be better.

I'm going to have to think on it!

"I am not an early bird or a night owl. I am some form of permanently exhausted pigeon."

"You know who doesn't care about personal space? Kids! Kids don't care about personal space. They would crawl right inside your eyeball if they could."

Blog Linkage, White Texas Sheet Cake, Pinterest Stuff (Teaching Your Toddler About God AND Unique and Fun Things TO DO in Birmingham), Cousin Day at the Zoo AND Three Weeks with the Chick (An Update)

Good Saturday afternoon!

Lots to talk about today. Shall we get started?

Blog Linkage - Under Pinterest Stuff (below), I copied something from the following blog (www.steadfastfamily.com written by Liz Millay). I spent a little time at her blog, and I love her ideas and how she thinks. Check it out when you have a minute or two.

White Texas Sheet Cake

You will need the following for the Cake:

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
1 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon almond extract (or vanilla)
1 teaspoon baking soda

You will need the following for the Frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
1/4 cup milk
4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (or vanilla)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 15" x 10" x 1" baking pan (jelly roll pan).

2. In a medium sized saucepan, bring butter and water to boil.

3. In a large bowl, combine flour and sugar. Mix. Add in eggs, sour cream, almond extract (or vanilla) and baking soda. Slowly pour in the boiling butter/water mixture. Stir until smooth.

4. Pour into greased baking pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 to 22 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake for 20 minutes.

For Frosting:

1. In a mixing bowl, add powdered sugar and almond extract and set aside.

2. In a medium sized saucepan, add 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup milk. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat, and pour into bowl of powdered sugar/almond extract. Stir until smooth and combined. Spread over warm cake. (If frosting is too thick add a little extra milk.)

NOTE FROM ENCHANTING BELINDA - I have to admit, I do the following fairly often. If there is any way possible, I use The Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake recipe and copy the icing.

I make the cake from time to time, too, but the icing goes on a multitude of things in this house.

Pioneer Woman's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Frosting:

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1-3/4 stick butter
4 tablespoons (heaping) cocoa
6 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound (minus 1/2 cup) powdered sugar

1. While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop pecans finely.

2. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat.

3. Add the milk, vanilla and powdered sugar. Stir together.

4. Add the pecans, stir together and pour over warm cake.

ANOTHER NOTE FROM ENCHANTING BELINDA - Sometimes I use pecans and sometimes I do not. It's fantastic either way.

Pinterest Stuff

Teaching Your Toddler About God

(See Blog Linkage above for blog address.)

1. Read a Toddler Level Bible - This one seems a little obvious, right? You probably aren’t planning on opening up 1 Chronicles and reading it to your two year-old, so you go for the children’s Bible. However, it isn’t long before you realize there are dozens of children’s Bible options! Which one do you choose? For me, a toddler Bible needed to have three things:

Short stories. Attention span issues, remember?

Engaging stories. No dry and boring allowed here.

Accuracy. A little creative license is fine, but let’s not miss the main point of the story.

When choosing a Bible for my son to use, we looked at a number of options, but ended up loving The Rhyme Bible Storybook and The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers. The stories were short, the rhymes made them engaging and they were true to Scripture. Win-win-win!

When the time comes to actually wrangle that toddler and have Bible storytime, I found these five things to be helpful to remember:

Don’t worry about delving into every detail or implication of the story. At two or three years-old, you are just trying to introduce them to the very basics: what happened, the characters’ names and the simple truths about God. It’s easy to feel like you’re skipping a lot, but I always have to remind myself that we can dive deeper later.

Point out details in the pictures and explain new words/concepts. For example, after reading the story of Noah, we might go back through the pictures and point out all the different animals and talk about how an ark is a really big boat.

Add in silly voices and use motions while reading the story. Use a big, deep voice for Goliath or a slow, sad voice when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. Feel free to break up sitting down with a short activity. Run away like Jonah or flip the light switch on and off for the creation of light.

Read the same story multiple days in a row. It might drive you batty sometimes, but little ones love the repetition. Plus, every time we read the story they understood it a little better and remembered a little more.

Use a real Bible sometimes, too. If a verse or story is simple, look it up in your Bible and read that as well. My son can already tell that my Bible is special, so he loves when we read something from it. We have also tried to memorize short verses from time to time. A favorite for a while was saying Psalm 3:5 as part of the bedtime routine.

2. Play the Stories - Learning about the Bible doesn’t have to end at storytime. Toddlers and preschoolers learn best through play, so once the story is over climb down onto the floor and join in for some Bible play fun.

Here are four ways we play our Bible stories:

Act out part or all of the story. After reading about Noah, we spent some time pretending to be him. A laundry basket became the ark, a blanket the water and stuffed toys the animals. My son had a lot of fun and the story of Noah was reinforced in his mind.

Use toys to play out the story. We have an ever growing collection of animal and people figurines that we often use to play out the story we’ve read. I’ll usually sit down with him at first to play, then, he’ll get the hang of it and play out the story later on his own.

Make up a game from part of the story. Using part of the story to make a game doesn’t have to be complicated to be fun. We’ve adapted “Red Light, Green Light” to be “Don’t Eat the (Forbidden) Fruit.” We've played “Hide and Seek Jesus” (for when he was lost in Jerusalem as a boy) and thrown balls into a basket to “Gather the Leftover Bread and Fish” (feeding the 5,000). Playing games is a great way to involve those extra-active little ones.

Also, sing and dance to music. There are a lot of great age-appropriate Bible songs out there that tell the Bible stories.

Unique and Fun Things TO DO in Birmingham

NOTE FROM ENCHANTING BELINDA - I'm going to mark it in BOLD if I have tried the activity!

Take a jog along Vulcan Street for views of the city below.

Rent a Zyp Bike from one of the docks in town and spend the day exploring the city by bicycle.

Hit the hiking trails of the 1,500-acre Red Mountain Park.

Have a nighttime photo shoot under the LED lights of the 1931 tunnel.

Rent a tube and float down the Cahaba River.

Head over to the Alabama Theater for a screening of Grease or another summertime classic in the Summer Film Series.

Pack your own cheese and crackers for a summer picnic at Railroad Park or along the Rotary Trail.

Bring out the big guns and go skeet shooting at Selwood Farm.

Scout out the best in secondhand clothing at Sozo Trading Company.

Browse the screen printed art like license plates, pins and postcards at Yellowhammer Creative.

Play all day with interactive exhibits at the McWane Science Center.

Pay a visit to the Civil Rights Institute to learn more about the early stages of the civil rights movement in the American South.

Get your fingers covered in sauce with a Southern BBQ feast at Dreamland or Saw’s Soul Kitchen.

Get dumped and make it up with one of the super delicious, chocolate chip Breakup Cookies at Church Street.

Beat the heat with a popsicle even adults can get behind at Steel City Pops.

Explore the up-and-coming culinary scene of Birmingham at Birmingham Restaurant Week.

Dine on some killer pizza in a restored post office at Post Office Pies.

Nosh on the famed tomato salad at Hot and Hot Fish Club.

Suit up for a slip-n-slide block party of epic proportions at Slide the City.

Head over to Satellite Cafe to play Sonic the Hedgehog and other old school games on a classic gaming system.

See a play at Virginia Samford Theater or Red Mountain Theatre Company.

RANDOMNESS - Cousin Day at the Zoo - Austin, Melia, RT, Judith and I went to the Zoo for a quick trip last week...

And when I say quick trip, I mean we rode the carousel, train, played in the Splash Pad AND I asked each of the two kids which animal they wanted to visit.

RT chose the elephant, and Judith chose the giraffe.

Just to show how flexible I really am, we went through the Alabama Wilds portion of the Zoo just to check on the bears, the otters, the foxes and the goats.























Basically, just another fun day at the Zoo!

RANDOMNESS #2 - Three Weeks with the Chick (An Update) - The Chick came home last week after spending the past ten weeks in Asheville, North Carolina. She worked as Waterfront Director at Camp Crestridge…

The same Camp she worked as a Counselor two Summers ago.

Ten weeks is a LONG time, but I can honestly say I have grown as a human being, and while I am despondent and sad and lonely when she is gone for any length of time, I have matured a great deal, too.

That means I am not as outwardly whiny as I have been in the past...

Which also means I am pretty much exactly the same, except if you speak to me in passing, I kinda keep it to myself.

Progress for sure!

As has become our custom, Roxie makes a bunch of appointments during this break, and I go along to sit in the waiting room hoping we can go somewhere fun for lunch after said appointment. Also, I catch up on a lot of my magazine reading and correspondence during this time.

(That's only half true. No correspondence is ever involved.)

Next week, we'll be heading to Auburn to set up her next residence...

The "stuff" is already there, but it has to be situated.

She'll start work and Grad School later in August, and the next chapter of her life will officially begin.

I'm kind of excited. It's been a pretty good read so far!



I hope you have a good week and upcoming weekend. I will be back soon with more, more, more of the same.

Take care.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda

"Day 12 without chocolate... lost hearing in my left eye."

"If you want to impress me with your car, it better be a food truck."