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.