Thursday, March 29, 2007

Cookie Time

As promised here are the pictures of Miss Maddie eating her half of an Oreo cookie. What a mess.
And we can't forget about Brendan~mister takes for ever to eat sometimes. Madelyn takes while to eat b/c the girl can eat quite a bit and that takes a while, Brendan on the other hand sometimes takes forever. I think he wants to save room for dessert. (I am on to his little games, he-he)

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Brendan Logic

Master Brendan today after dinner said that he was hungry for dessert. Well his plate was still on the table with some food still on it. So of course we said that he needed to finish his dinner. He took his plate and put his food into the trash. We said then you can't have dessert, he said that the trash can was hungry too. How very clever. So in a little bit of course we are suckers and he will have dessert. I just thought that I would post this before I forgot.

And as a teaser tomorrow I am going to put up pictures of Miss Maddie eating her dessert - a piece of Oreo cookie! This you are going to love to see these pictures.

Okay one more Brendan logic happened while I was typing. He hit or bumped his arm, or course he started to whine about to try to get attention, he started to flail his arm like a crazy person. Brian asked what he was doing-Brendan's replay-I am shaking it off!

Spring Fever!

On Monday we really warm weather up here in Michigan. So what to do.......go to the zoo! Maddie loved being out in the fresh air and Brendan was running around like a mad man. Also all most all of the animals were out enjoying the really warm weather. Tee shirts all around.
Here are the pictures that we have from our outing...Brendan checking out the lazy tigers sleeping in the sun.Maddie showing us her big mouth!The baby snow monkeys out running around with a watchful mommy just behind.All the bear were out checking out the digs and getting feed when we walked by too.The Kangaroo in the front is the 1 year old Missy.Brendan thinking that he is a prairie dog.And of course everywhere we go Miss Maddie takes a nap so here is one of her sleeping. What an angel doll.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Madelyn's 1st Birthday Party

On Saturday we had Madelyn's first birthday party! What a party girl. Of course there are pictures:
Eating Lunch - cheese burger & baked beans for her.Brendan helping to open presents, baby-bling from Sharon & Jim.Making mommy happy & wearing her tiara for 2 seconds.Eating her cake - very lady like, used her pinchers to break off small pieces to eat, no mess cake pitcures here.Still eating her cake - she ate the whole piece while Brendan had TWO!

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Presents!

The presents are coming, the presents are coming! Brendan and Madelyn get so when they see packages on the front porch. Maddie got three adorable dresses, a birthday dish set & a monogram picture mat with frame. Also Bunky got three pairs of p.j.'s (one spiderman, batman & superman) and one Spiderman outfit for summer.
Here are some pictures:

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Baby Steps

Maddie can now take two steps by herself before falling down. Today when we were getting ready to go to Chuck E Cheese, Madelyn took one step towards daddy. So when we got home we had daddy on the floor with Lulu and mommy on camera duty.
Here is Maddie taking one of the two steps that she took towards Brian.(You can see that the right foot had moved between the two photos)
And also taking one step towards the couch.
What a big girl!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Dinner

Dinner time, or really any food time, is Maddie's favorite. But lately she has had a disliking of baby food. So now she is eating what we eat. Tonight was spaghetti. What a mess. And of course you have to get those spaghetti photos. So here she is with her spaghetti face.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Baby Violet

Ashley sent me some more pictures of baby Violet.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

New Cousin

Brendan and Madelyn's new cousin arrived late last night near St. Louis in Illinois. Miss Violet Marie Hutchinson. Born 3/9/07 weighting in at 7lbs 4oz & 19 inches long. With a lots of dark hair like her mommy. Here is a photo that Ashley sent to me from her camera phone. I will put in more information when I get it.
Congratulations to Mike & Ashley. We love you guys.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Cookie Time

Grandma Tatz got Brendan and Madelyn a cookie decorating set for Valentine's Day and Brendan had such a great time making his 'creations' and one big mess that thought I would post the photos of it.
Mixing the frosting Maddie helped us, but for the rest she was on the couch drinking milk.Brendan using the piping bag to make designs with red frosting on his cookies.Brendan adding sprinkles and red hots to the frosting.Brendan's big mess, the floor, the counter, and himself.Once he was all cleaned up of course you have to try your creation to find out if you did a good job. The cookies were lemon, which were delish, and Brendan's artistic creations where just yummy.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Playtime

Brendan and Madelyn get along great. It is really neat to sit back and watch them play. Brendan is using him imagination more than ever now a days and Madelyn likes to be right there with her big brother. Brendan is teaching her the different animals, how to make cars go down the ramp and to make a BIG mess of the living room. But hey that is what it is there for.
Here are some photos I took a couple days ago of them playing together.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Maple Festival

Cranbrook had a Maple Festival this past weekend that we went to on Saturday. (Cranbrook is a Museum here in our area that we have a membership to). With the weather still being cool and knowing that we would be walking outside be busted out the backpack carrier. Maddie doesn't know what to make of it.At the Museum we started our walk by the Maple trees that they had tapped to get the sap out. I now way too much about how to make Maple Syrup. When they tap a tree, the tree has to be 10 inches in diameter, and for every additional 8 inches it can have another tap in it. A 'gusher' tap has one drop of sap every second, it take 3 hours to still fill a bucket. The sap only comes out on days when the weather is above 40', the sap travels up the tree and nights when it is in the 20's the sap goes back down. This upward/downward traveling of the sap is what allows the sap to come out of the tap's.Next we went to where the boil the sap into syrup. Sap is only 1.5 to 3 percent sugar, syrup is 68? percent sugar. So they boil the sap until it is 217'? to get the right mixture of sugar & water.They also had examples of games that Indians used to play to teach children the skills needed to do chores. Brendan was watching intently.Next we went to the Indians huts to learn about how the Indians made maple sugar. They would store it in the ground so that other animals wouldn't be able to get it.And this funny guy taught us some of the words that Indians used for different things. A maple tree means 'Man Tree' because it branch's out in pairs (like arms) instead of a branch and then another branch a little higher and not even.Finally we went inside for a snack and of course I had to buy some pure maple syrup.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

No More Little Ceaser Land

When we went out on our weekly Pizza Night a couple of weeks ago we went to Little Ceaser Land but to our surprise and very much disappointment it was closed! So now we are left with Chuck E Cheese's, which cost more so we go every other week and doesn't have that large a play area-they have games. Of course games take tokens so you have to get those too!
Here is Madelyn on one of the kiddie rides. Once she figured out she was moving she wanted off, she doesn't like rides right now. Yet she likes to be tossed around like a rag doll, go figure.Here is Brendan playing ski-ball, he is dangerous with this game. The balls go flying everywhere.Here is Brendan and Daddy playing a fishing game, I don't know which one liked this one more.Finally here is Brendan again, this ride is a roller coaster. It moves up & down & side to side a long with a large screen that has a movie of a roller coaster ride. Brendan was yelling 'WHEE' the whole time!

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Brian in the Kitchen

Brian and Brendan love to have fires outside. Brian know of a fire starter using cardboard egg containers, dryer lint & candle wax. You cut the top off the egg carton, place dryer lint in each basket and pour melted wax over, let harden and then cut the lines holding each of the baskets together. So you end up with 12 fire starters.

The first time Brian made these he used the double-boil method. He put the chunks of wax in a old soup can placed that in a pan with boiling water and waited. Well I guess he thought that took to long because the second time he made some fire starters he put the soup can directly on the stove to melt the wax. And that worked fine UNTIL, he poured the wax out and added more. There was still some wax on the outside of the can when he put it back on the burner, and once that wax made it down to the stove top, CA-BOOM we had a fire on my stove! Luckily we had a fire extinguisher under the sink. Warning those little fire extinguisher hold a powder stuff to put out fire, and it get everywhere!

Of course once the fire was out I had to get the camera out to take a photo of the mess that Brian had made.
Note: the fire was only on the 1 burner of the stove and wasn't tall enough to even reach the stove hood, even thought that was scary enough.