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.