Updates

Okay, so let's try this again.

As you all know by now, Anna had her 4th Birthday party. This year she picked a theme of Hello Kitty. Not quite sure how she decided that, but that's what she wanted.

Here she is calmly waiting to open her presents.
Here she is once she was finally able to start opening.Here she is with her cake.

And of course Drew didn't want to be left out. Pretty much all the pictures I take of him right now his eyes are closed because he's trying to smile as big as he can. It's kind of cute.Oh and I can't forget my friend Kathy. I know she checks this out every once in a while, so she may kill me, but eventually she'll forgive me for sharing this attractive picture of her.

Okay, now on to Halloween. Anna decided she wanted to be the Tooth Fairy. How do you make a Tooth Fairy costume, well, this is what we came up with.
We used her flower girl dress from Loretta's wedding, some Barbie wings and tiara that she already had and some glitter. Of course she wanted everyone to know that she wasn't just any fairy, but the Tooth Fairy, so she drew a tooth and cut it out for a necklace. She was happy, so that's all that matters.

Drew on the other hand wasn't so thrilled. Anna wore this same costume when she was one. It definitely makes it difficult to get them in and out of the car seat and they just end up frustrated. I think he ended up having fun anyway.

Last but not least for this post. Thank you Aunt Carrie for the books. As I said before, Anna is a bookworm, so she was ecstatic when she received these in the mail.

Grrr.

Okay, I've been trying to post for over a week now. I just can't seem to get pictures to work. I was having trouble with this site and now I can't get photobucket to work. So, I will hopefully repost tomorrow with pictures.

Aunt Carrie, Anna says "Thank you" for her new books. I have a cute picture of her holding them, which I will hopefully post tomorrow. Like me she is a book lover and I immediately had to read her "The Cat in the Hat." She has now declared that her favorite book.

So, tomorrow's post will include birthday party pictures, Halloween pictures, and Anna with her new books.

Have a great day watching football!

Success!! Well, Sort Of

Okay, just to get this out of the way. Yes, I am way behind on my blogging, and yes, I will try to be better.

Now on to the important stuff. Andy and I have an extremely stubborn daughter. She only wants to do what she wants when she wants. She will be four at the end of October and we have been unable to get her potty trained. We've tried everything. Sticker charts, stickers, candy, wearing pullups, wearing underwear and just plain bribery. Nothing works. The child plays in her pee if she's wearing underwear, so obviously being wet doesn't bother her.

Well, we've started preschool and they promised to help us out. At first we sent her in pullups and they make her sit on the potty three times during the three hours that she's there. She can't go outside or play until she sits for a certain amount of time. She went the first two weeks without ever going in her pullup or the potty at school. So, her teacher thought underwear would be a good idea. That hasn't worked so well. She had three accidents in the four day she was there this week. At one point we thought she may have went, so we gave her a coveted prize that's been in our closet for the last six month. Share Bear the Care Bear. However, after that she wouldn't go on the potty again. So, Daddy took Share Bear back and put her back in the closet.

I've received two phone calls today. The first to report a success sitting on the potty and going. The second to let me know Anna asked to go and actually went. You would not believe how excited that makes me. We've been working so hard to make this happen for the last few years. And of course I don't want her to be the only kid in her class still wearing diapers. Now, I realize that this doesn't mean we're out of the woods, but I can see daylight!!

I think Share Bear will be coming out of the closet tonight. At least for a visit. We'll have to determine if he can stay and play.

Last Weekend

Well, I did promise to post about our weekend, however another weekend has passed since. But that's okay, I'll still tell you about it.

Andy and I took a much deserved weekend away without the kids. This is very hard for me, because I've never left either of my two kids for more than one night at a time. Yes, it's true, and yes this was only two nights, so I got over it. It's not that I don't trust my children with other people, it's just that working full time, the weekend is really the only quality time I get to spend with them, so I feel terrible when I don't.

Where did we go, you ask? Well, we have some friends who live in Sutton's Bay. So, we took Andy's fathers boat up with us and had some fun. Unfortunatley, the weather didn't quite cooperate with us. It was a great day for boating on Saturday, but a little to cold and windy for swimming.

Here we are hanging out in the boat.

We were out on Lake Leelanau and apparently you can boat down a chanel and dock. A quick walk across the street and you find yourself here.

Yup, Fish Town. The only thing we really did while we docked here was get some ice cream and take this picture.Okay, generally I'm not all that impressed by boats, but if you look closely at this one you'll see another boat on top. The boat on top was about the size of the one we had, approximately 16 feet. On the other side of that boat? A Jeep. I have no idea who owned this boat, but I bet it's gorgeous inside and most definitely bigger than my house.

I'll leave you with one final picture of Lake Leelanau.

A Baby and a Pie

Well, I did promise a baby picture, but I was gone all weekend and extremely busy since I've been back. So here's the newest member of the family.

This is Hannah Grace McCann. She was born on 8/14/08 at 8:01 am. She weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 21 inches long. Loretta is doing great, although still a little sore from the C-section. John is still getting used to changing those baby diapers. Big sister Chelsea is pretty much the one changing all those icky diapers that daddy doesn't want to change. Her hair may look black in this picture, but she's definitely going to be blonde. She's got some nice blonde highlights going already just like her big sister had when she was born.

I'm sure I'll update you on my weekend before the end of the week. First, I would like to share my first experience with baking a blackberry pie. I've never done one before, even though my husband says I'm a pretty good pie maker. Although his favorite is apple.

Here, Andy is pretending that he's helping me measure out the fresh blackberries that he and our friend Kathy picked Sunday night.

Here's another picture of the berries and the pie almost done. It just needed a top crust.Yes, that is definitely a homemade crust. I figure if I'm making a homemade pie, the whole thing will be homemade. Besides, a beautiful flaky crust is the best part. I didn't take any pictures of the completed pie after it baked. Just trust me when I say it was a beautiful golden brown. I did try a piece last night, and I'm going to rate it 3.5 out of 5. Why such a low rating? I'm not a fan of all the seeds in the blackberries, and I was picking seeds out of my teeth all night. However I do have a ton of blackberries left. Does anyone have a good recipe for blackberry cobbler? I think I'm going to try that one next.

Well, I'll update you on the weekend in a day or so.

A Little Bit of Everything

I too seem to be a little behind in my posting duties. However, I was on vacation from work last week, and just didn't feel like touching a computer. No, we didn't go anywhere, I just needed some time away and Andy couldn't get the time off anyway. So, what did I do on my vacation? Absolutely, pretty much, nothing. The kids had dr appointments on Monday. I cleaned closets and dressers on Tuesday (I'm still not done), and went clothes shopping on Thursday. I'm not big into shopping, about once every six months is plenty for me.

I did do one thing important thing though. I attended a hunter's safety class and got my certification so I can rifle hunt this year! I'm ure some of you are suprised, but yes, hunting has become a sport for me. Andy has bow and rifle hunted since he was young, and apparently he has influenced me and gotten me into it. Last year, he suprised me with a rifle (a 243) which is great. It has very little kick and I shoot it better than he does. I was able to hunt as an apprentice hunter last year. These were the results. If you don't like pictures of dead deer, I would suggest you skip right by it.

Andy and I sat together one night. This was my third time sitting and I decided to go for the Doe that came out because this was pretty much my last chance. So, I took my shot and she ran off into the woods. We decided to wait it out in the blind until it got dark, but about 15 minutes later that beautiful buck came in. Now, my wonderful husband did offer me the shot, however, I have a booster seat I have to sit on because his window in his blind is too high for me, and I had already removed it. So, I told him to go for it. He dropped him right there. We searched about two hours for mine and finally found it.

All in all, I'm very excited to have gotten my hunter's safety certificate. It will definitely get good use this year.

On the agenda this week, work. Pretty much. Loretta is scheduled to have her baby by c-section on Thursday morning, so I will probably come into work a little late. I'll make sure I post pictures for you all to see. I'm also taking Friday off. Andy and I are going away without the children. We're going to Sutton's Bay to visit our friends and have a grand time. I'm sure I'll have pictures from that as well.

Well, have a great week everyone!

Drew's 1st Birthday Party

Well, Drew did indeed have a great time as his party. Mostly because he was the center of attention and he loves that more than anything. Here is a picture of him being cute for everyone.

He actually did a great job opening presents. He sat with me the entire time, and of course, big sister Anna helped him out with unwrapping all those gifts.

And then of course there was birthday cake. This was the one he had to share with everyone. He loves Mickey Mouse Club House, so we had a Mickey party and he loved it. Here comes the good part. He got his very own cake. I must say, he does love cake. As you can tell by the fact that he ate almost half of it.
So this was pretty much all my weekend was. I still have a mess of toys to clean up in the living room, but he's having so much fun, I'll think I'll leave them out a little longer.

Happy Birthday Drew!

My not so itty bitty baby

Is celebrating his 1st Birthday today!

Ohh, were'd my little guy go?
Happy 1st Birthday Drew-Drew!

Sunday Baking

Well, today was the day for baking in our house. I had a few bananas that were too far gone to do anything with but bake and Andy pulled the first zuchini of the year from the garden. In our house that means its time to make bread.

So Andy and Anna started out with the zuchini bread.

Then Anna helped me out with banana cake.

And here is the finished product for both.

For the frosting on the banana cake I just kind of drizzled it on instead of completely frosting it. There were two loaves of zuchini bread, but the other is half gone already. We'll be sampling the cake later this evening. But as always, the zuchini bread gets five stars. We have lots more zuchini in the garden, so I'll be sharing a few recipes that can be done with zuchini. I have to admit though, that none of it is really all that great for you.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Deck pictures

Well, I finally got around to getting pictures of that beautiful deck on here. Personally I think it looks pretty good.

The steps were done last year. We've just added the lower portion and the flower beds. We still have to plant more flowers in the bed on the right. We're just not sure what else we'll add.

Here's a closer view. You'll notice that Andy added a built in bench on the right hand side. It's really comfortable.

And this is just a different view. We've already used it in the evenings a few times. I'm really excited to use it for Drew's party on the 26th of this month. We're planning a Mickey Mouse birthday party.

Fourth Weekend

Well, to begin, let me just say that we finally got internet at home. We've put it off so long, only because by the time we get home in the evenings, Andy and I are sick of computers. Well, Andy got a promotion, and along with it comes a laptop and the fact that he travels much more often, and his office is at home. This has required us to have some form of internet service. So, after weighing all the options, we decided to go with an Alltel USB type thing (Yes, that's technical computer language). We can pretty much plug it into any computer we want, and get internet service. And at a pretty good speed too. Way out here in the boonies, we don't get wireless, and we never installed a land line, so this made more sense.

On to the weekend. We spent a lot of time working in the backyard. I can honestly say, I was so busy helping Andy, I forgot to get out the camera. However, I will have an end result picture for you to see. We desperately wanted a deck out back, and we really needed it by this coming weekend, because I am hosting Loretta's shower at my house. Now, for Andy this means a COMPLETELY finished look. Rights down to flowers in the brand new flowerbeds that didn't exist until this Sunday. The flowers may not be blooming, but they'll be there. Of course, this project made us late for everything this weekend.

Loretta had a party on Friday the 4th at her house. We weren't really late, but that's because I was able to pretty much finish getting myself ready in the car. On Saturday, we had to be at the park by 2:00 for Drew to get his beautiful baby trophy. We made it a few minutes late, only to find out they had told us to be there a half an hour early. (Try keeping a 3 1/2 year old and 11 month old happy for that long).

That is where the weekend took a down turn. Unfortunately, I started to get sick. I was able to brave it through the fireworks on Saturday night, but never took pictures. I was pretty much down and out until yesterday afternoon. Yep, I called in sick yesterday. Oh, well, they handled it.

Well, that covers my weekend. Have a great night everyone!

I'll include a picture of the new deck next time.

Friday Jam Making

In anticipation of starting my new blog, I made sure I took pictures during my annual jam making. I always know summer is here when my freezer no longer has homemade strawberry jam stuffed in every available nook & cranny. So, Andy went to the Cooley Farm and purchased 10 quarts of strawberries for me to have oh, so much fun with. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of all those strawberries before I started work. Luckily I had a friend helping and she washed and cut the tops off the strawberries. However, here is a picture of part of the process:

I really don't mind mashing all the strawberries, that's the easy part. Actually the whole thing is pretty easy, but when you've done 5 batches of regular jam:

And two batches of sugar free jam:

And we can't forget about the strawberry pie I made at Andy's request:

You tend to get a little annoyed with strawberries. That did not however, stop me from trying the pie, and I must say it was the best I've made so far.

All this took about 6 hours. Yes, 6 hours of standing in the kitchen and over the stove. It's a good thing we have central air and that my children are pretty good at entertaining themselves.

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! Part of our weekend includes Andy finishing up the deck in the back. I'm sure I'll post the results of that project on Monday.

Beautiful Kids

My first post. What should I talk about??? I know! How about my wonderful kids!!

Now I know that you all have already seen these next two pictures, because they were posted by Aunt Carrie. But, here they are again.

What a beautiful little princess!

And this little guy, isn't he the greatest!

I must say that these two pictures of my kids are probably my all time favorite. As a matter of fact, I've had them made in to 8x10's and put them on my bookcase at the end of the hallway. My in-laws are dying for a set of 8x10's as well.

Now for the great news! Every year during Summerfest Clare has a Beautiful baby contest. I always entered Anna, but she never won. As a matter of fact, I never thought the babies who won were quite as cute as her, but that is just a mommy's opinion. As a result, I had resolved not to enter Drew this year because I figured he'd never win anyway. Well, I saw this picture of him and just could not resist. Well, Friday Andy got a phone call and you'd never guess but.....

Drew WON the Beautiful Baby Contest for his age group! I knew what a cutie he was but I still can't believe. We have to be at Shamrock Park at 2:00 pm on Saturday for the trophy presentation and photos for the newspaper. It's a good thing that he's a ham for the camera.

Well, I think you've probably heard enough from me for this time. In fact, you'll probably be sick of hearing about my kids, but that's okay.