A Blur

 The time from Halloween to today is very much a blur. It seemed I was busy at every moment and never got to sit back and take it all in, until today.  Anna had a fabulous 7th birthday.Maggie, the Chihuahua came back for a visit. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving followed by some snow days due to wicked cold weather and then some snowmobiling fun. And our Christmas, while stressful in the planning, was fun once it finally got here! Maggie finally went back home yesterday and today Anna and her Dad have headed up north for some more snow fun with cousins, if it doesn't melt first, and I am taking time to get us back to "normal" and ready to start 2011.  I will be posting pictures of all events soon.

Happy New Year!!!!

Halloween So Far...

My treat for school party

Anna and her BFF Olivia at school party

Farm Trick or Treat

Batgirl at the Farm

Fall

Well Fall has definitely arrived in Michigan. The leaves are changing, the cider mills are packed, hunting season started and the weather is getting colder everyday! And we have been spending our weekends at the football games cheering on the Patriots! Tomorrow is the big cheer off and the girls are all excited to perform their dance and cheer. Personally I will be glad when it's all over as it has been an interesting experience, but that's a whole other blog!!

Anna has been doing great in school and she adores her teacher. I love her too and the kids are really enjoying her teaching style. She has a way to make each child feel special and have so much fun they forget they are learning something. It should be a great year! 

Halloween is coming up so fast. Anna has decided to be Pink Bat Girl. It's very cute and I will post pictures after Halloween. We have a few Halloween activities planned and hopefully Anna won't be sick this Halloween and she will be able to go trick or treating.

Our kitten Emma, is getting bigger every day! She is quite a character and really should be a performing cat. She can open and close the cupboards, jump every where and is trying her hardest to figure out the door handles. And despite a few falls into the bath she insists on being on the bathtub ledge whenever anyone is in the tub or shower! And that picture was one day after surgery, so much for no climbing or jumping, guess the vet forgot to tell her!

Randy has been hunting of course, but no deer yet. We celebrated our 9th Anniversary last month. And other than the usual stuff I haven't been doing much. I did get Anna's birthday party reserved at the cake and candy place so I've been working on the invites and figuring out what goodie bags I want to do. Should be fun and I can't believe she's turning 7!!!! Time really does fly when your having fun!!

Lunch Sagas

Check out the cute Japanese Bento box I got for Anna. We've been doing fun snacks and lunches at home in it. She really enjoys my "cool" lunches and I found she eats more with less complaining when the food is fun. I plan to continue my "cool" lunches into the school year. And speaking of the school year...

In my last post I talked my search for that perfect lunch box. Well I think I've found it. It the Go Green Lunchbox and so far we totally adore it!! It has a single lid that closes the sections individually so nothing leaks to the others and even came with a stainless steel water bottle and super cute case. So this school year we will be having waste free lunches! Good for the earth and good for my pocket book too! Imagine all the money I'll save by not buying all those plastic baggies!

I plan to experiment the next few weeks with fun lunches so she'll be excited to eat at school!! Stay tuned!

Give Me an A !

This weekend Anna starts Cheerleading. She is very excited and is going to be on a squad with her cousin olivia. She will be cheering at a local flag football leagues' games. They have cheer camp Saturday and then practices start and the games start labor day weekend. Should be fun! Hopefully the weather cooperates and we aren't out in 95 degree heat and humidity.

In other news we are only 26 days away from the start of school! I cannot wait,lol! I have run out of activities to keep her busy and she's driving me nuts. We have most of our back to school shopping done, except for clothes and a lunch box. We have been on the hunt for the perfect lunch box and it's turning out to be harder than I thought. I know we want a Bento Box stlye but so far all the ones we have found just don't fit our needs just right. I did just find this one,https://www.gogreenlunchbox.com/products/products.html and it looks almost perfect. I just wish a store near me carried it so I could avoid shipping and actually see it in person. I also plan to hit a Japanese market this weekend to see what they have. And so the lunchbox quest goes on.

Otherwise things have been hot and humid and pretty quiet here. We could really use some rain, it's been very dry. Our kitten,Emma, is doing really well and just adores rides around the house in the doll stroller. She even sleeps in the thing! Drake is good too. The cat wants to be his friend but so far he's giving her the cold shoulder. I think it has to do with her attacking him while he naps,lol! I can't say I blame him.

August is here!

I can't believe it's August! We have been so busy this summer. School is just over a month away. Time flew by this summer and I feel like I all have done is run, run, run!

Last week Anna and I went on a road trip with my mom and My Aunt AnneMarie. We went to the Columbus Zoo, it was really fun. Anna had a great time and the zoo was really HUGE and nice. It was fun to take a short getaway for a few days. Bonus for the adults was the free beer and wine our hotel offered each evening!! On our way home we stopped to drop off Aunt Anne and celebrate her birthday with some yummy cake and Anna's favorite cousin-Alexandra.

We also got a new kitten and we named her Emma. She was a feral kitten that was hanging out in my mom's yard. It's been about 3 weeks we have had her and she is doing great and learning to be a house cat and not an attack cat,LOL! Anna loves her and I think she will turn into a very great cat. That's her picture above. She's a really cool black/chocolate brown stripe color.

Our garden is doing okay. My pumpkins got powdery mildew and I think that they won't make it :( But my cucumbers are still out of control and so are my watermelons. The corn is doing well and when the deer don't eat them we have tomatoes too.

Next week Anna will be going to craft camp at the local nature center. Hopefully I can get the house back to order while she is gone and fit in some coffee with friends. She starts cheerleading on the 14th and is looking forward to that. She also wants to take Hip Hop again so I have to figure that out too. It never ends!!

July?!

It's hard to believe it's already July!!

Last Friday Anna and I went to the zoo by ourselves and had a great time! It was fun to hear all about how she wants to become a zoo keeper. She loves animals and has a connection with them so I would not be surprised if she does indeed become a zoo keeper! The weather this week has been wonderful so we went to the zoo this week with friends. It was fun too and we got to see the 1 year old giraffe make her debut! She was so cute!

On the home front, our garden is doing marvelous despite the rabbits, deer and groundhogs! Our pumpkin plant is HUGE!


We also have cukes and peppers starting to grow:



And our zucchinis and cantalopes are getting really big too!


I also have watermelons, carrots, corn and cherry tomatoes. The only things that got eaten by the rabbits are the celery and broccoli. But the celery seems to be making a comeback. So I think we should be eating some fresh veggies soon! Anna is super excited about how they are all growing. I'll keep you posted on our harvest!

Goodbye 1st...

Hello 2nd grade!! Today was the last day of school and Anna is now a 2nd grader! That is just crazy!!

To kick off our first part of summer vacation we went to McD's with Aunt Anne and then Aunt Anne got Anna some Dairy Queen. After that we decided to go strawberry picking and dragged Aunt Anne along with us. We had a great time and got the yummiest strawberries ever! I thought I had too many but we have already eaten a TON!! I don't think there's anything much better than a fresh picked Michigan strawberry.

After Anne left, Anna's cousin Olivia called to see if she wanted to come over and of course she did. So her Mom picked her up and she's staying until her Dad gets her on his way home from work. Which is why I have a free and quiet moment to type this!

Looks like we are going to take a road trip to the Columbus Zoo with my mom and maybe Anne too. Anna is super excited to go and so am I. Looks like an awesome zoo and I love Jack Hanna. We plan to go late July. Next week we hope to get our zoo membership and hit the zoo if the weather cooperates.

My garden is doing well and would be even better if I could keep the stinkin critters out! They ate all my celery and broccoli and have moved to some of my pepper plants. I have to figure out what will work to keep them out. randy says a shot gun, I'm starting to think he may be on to something.

This guy is great!

I love this guy! Hooray for Rednecks! Helena, this is for you. I hope they are playing him on your local news!

8 1/2 days!

8 and half, that's how many days of school that are left. Then we are free to do as we please! It will be nice to not have to get up and not have to adhere to any real schedules for a little bit. I am not sure what I will do to entertain Anna for all those days but I do have a few things planned. I'm thinking of getting a Zoo pass if we can swing it and gas doesn't sky rocket in the coming days. We really miss the zoo and Anna has been asking to go alot lately. So I think it might be a good thing to add to our summer.

This year at school I helped Anna's teacher with their "home reading" program. Basically I and other parents would come in and the kids would read us a book then take that book home to practice. They would then bring them back and the next time exchange it for a new one. The kids loved doing it and it was great to see them move up levels and get more confident. Anna's teacher was so excited to tell me that this year the kids read twice as many books as in years past thanks to me coming in every week and keeping up with it. We even made them up certificates with the number of books they read. I am so proud of all their hard work and how far they have come over the year. I'm glad I was able to make such a difference in their reading!! Next week is Field Day which we are all looking forward to. I'm sure it will be a great workout for me,LOL!

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!! My foster puppy Baja was adopted today. A really nice couple came in today and fell in love with him. They seemed great and I am so happy for him. He was such a sweetie! They named him Bernie.

MORE BREAKING NEWS!!!! Anna, who was the defending champ, took 2nd place in this years fishing derby! Her fish measured in at 17 1/4 inches! She was very excited and is currently celebrating with her Dad and cousins up north.

Now if I could just fix this freakin' oil spill mess........

Must Start Blogging!

I apologize for being such a slacker! I blame Facebook for sucking me in everytime I get on my computer. But I WILL start being better about blogging here, I promise!!

Everything here has been going pretty good. Spring has finally sprung and Michigan is again a livable place. I love Spring, Summer and Fall here but would love to fly away for the winters. Been playing the lottery in hopes of making that wish come true! We have our garden plowed and ready to be planted. I started some seeds inside and they are growing really great. We had frost last week still, so hopefully this weekend we can get eveything in the ground. Randy has also been working on our front landscaping and it's coming along nicely.

Anna is doing fantastic in school and I cannot believe she is almost in second grade!! School has about a month left and we are looking forward to summer. So far she's signed up for Craft Camp at the nature Center and vacation Bible School at her old preschool's church. She did both of these last year and begged to do them again. Hopefully we can do some sleeping in too ;)

Because I am crazy and don't have enough dog hair from Drake, I have started to foster pets for a local animal shelter. We currently have a 12 week old puppy named Baja. He is very cute and hopefully he will be going to his new home tomorrow at the Adoption Fair. The great thing about fostering a puppy was that Anna has decided that puppies aren't really as great as they seem. They are cute and fun, but they also bite, jump, and chew your things. She said next time I should get an older dog,LOL!! I'm with her, puppies are trouble!! Although he's doing pretty good with house training it still stinks to have to get up in the middle of the night and to stand in the rain waiting for him to do his business. Today I plan to give him a bath which should be really fun.

That's all I can think of. We are pretty boring. Have a great day everyone!! love ya!