Christmas at the McCoy's House

Santa Clause visited the McCoy household. Unfortunately, the Tribal Elders forgot to take many pictures. Papa loaned the family his camera so we could take pictures and post them on the tribal website...but alas, here is what we did remember to take!
Santa delivered Andy a Craftsman "My First Toolbench". Many hours were spent Christmas morning hammering and constructing with the tools and accessories that came with the bench. I think Santa made Andy happy with his choice of presents! By the end of the day there were little wooden nuts and bolts all over the living room floor.

That smile certainly makes all of Santa's work on Christmas Eve assembling the bench worth it doesn't it!

We spent lots of time with Aunt Ginny, Uncle Matt, Nonna, PaPa, Mimi, PawPaw, and the Stanford clan during the break. All of the presents were well appreciated! Thanks to everyone!!! See Aunt Ginny's blog to see what the papparazi took....at least someone doesn't forget to take pictures on such an important day in a little man's life!

TurkeyDay Insanity!

During a visit with Aunt Ginny the weekend before Thanksgiving, the McCoy Tribe Elders had a moment of temporary insanity! About a year ago, Dad decided that we should purchase a turkey around Thanksgiving to grind because that is when turkey is at its cheapest in the US....skip a year to this visit when we found out that the Houston grocers had a much better price on these big birds than Picayune does....so we bought two! Tipping the scales at about 50 pounds for both...we lugged them home from Houston and made it our mission to get them in the freezer! Mom used her dexterous skills with the knife to good use! Years of training from Mimi on how to properly butcher anything came in great handy as Brandy quickly fileted both birds.

Dad's job became moral support and processing the meat through the grinder attachment on our KitchenAid Mixer!

The mission proved successful as we got a little over 20 pounds of ground turkey and 12 quarts of fresh turkey stock and only spent about $18 on both turkeys. Since the stuff in a tube in the store costs over $1.50 per pound this was a worthy investment.

A trip to Ginny's House

The whole McCoy tribe visited Aunt Ginny's house in Houston during our Fall Break at PRC. The youngest member of the tribe immediately made best friends with Aunt Ginny's puppy, O.D. We had anticipated a trip to the tribal elder's favorite fall Houstonian Hangout, the Texas Renaissance Festival, but Friday night found our gracious host getting called into work. Slightly disappointed at first, we ended up going to Dewberry Farms out from Katy. Turns out, it was an absolute blast! The McCoy gene that Aunt Ginny recieved can always make a great day happen even when you don't get what you expect!

Little man was completely wiped after a day of feeding goats, investigating the living styles of our furry farm friends, climbing pumpkins, riding tractors and sliding on slides...Mom, Dad, Aunt Ginny and Uncle Matt were pretty tired too from chasing after an energetic 17 month old! That night he slept an AMAZING 13 hours!

Poor fella was wiped!

Pictures were provided by the Ginny Papparatzi! Thank you Aunt Ginny for making us a copy of them! We really appreciate it since Mom and Dad don't have a camera of their own!

The reason why....

... In-Door Ice and Water is a BAD idea when one has toddlers that like getting wet!

Hurricane Gustav

Well, the Tribe faired well during the "Storm of the Century"(So named by the mayor of the Chocolate City). We had torential rain fall, lost cable and Internet services and lost power for about a minute and a half. The Elders were without power for about two hours at their domicile. Dad stayed on the coast to help weather the storm there, lost about half of the shingles on one roof at the coast, sounds to me like some Mexican wasn't doing their job on the nail down for that one. While going out to secure the property in Caesar, B and Maw-in-law took a couple shots of the contraflow from NO. Thought those who weren't there might want to see a little about it.

We got TP'd!

It appears that someone decided that our extra supply of TP was in the wrong place so it has been relocated from the bathroom to underneath our bedroom aquarium stand.

After that, the day progressed....and we thought someone was being a bit too silent. It seems that he is really liking to play with the TP these days...
Then he decided to pose for the camera!
Eyes closed, but this fella loves getting his picture taken! As soon as he hears the beep he has to come get in front of the camera and smile...too bad usually the camera is still saving the picture it beeped for when the smile happens. Daddy has finally figured out that if you half press the button it beeps...he smiles...and then finish pressing the button to capture those beautiful pearly whites!

I had to include this one! When what to our wondering eyes should appear but a tiny reindeer!

Thinking about Life...

Been a while since I had a real thinking about life moment...Tonight we watched a great movie called "The Bucket List". Nothing like a good death movie to start you thinking about how great your life is, and how simple "real" requirements are to make a happy life. I think we all get so caught up in the material world that we forget about what we really NEED in life to make us happy. While those material things are fun, I can't stop thinking about the two questions that the movie said were asked upon arrival in Heaven...Did you have joy in your life? My answer, is a definite and resounding YES! Everything that brings me joy is constantly around me. My wife, my son, my Mom and Dad, My Sister and the remainder of my family, and all of my friends bring me more joy than I could ever express. Second Question: Did my life bring Joy to others? I certainly hope so.

I know at times we are all ready to strangle those around us when they do something that doesn't mesh perfectly with our pre-defined ideals of how something should work...So take every opportunity to tell those around you what they mean to you, and how much you love them!

On a lighter note! Officially went to the county planning office today and applied for our 911 address at the Caesar property! Yeah! Also started the process while I was there to get our location approved for our metal building to be erected! Stuck three white flags on the property to mark our driveway and the future location of the "Shed"...hopefully tomorrow we will talk to some building companies about how much this endeavor will cost. At least the building permits won't break the bank...shouldn't be more than $100 for the permits! Yeah!

First Haircut!

Today was the day when our little baby became a little man. Here is his very last picture of the baby curls. After a short drive to Fantastic SAMs the haircut begins. Little man was a big boy and sat all by himself in the barber's chair.
You can see the transformation! The lady that did his haircut was VERY good with him, I would have ended up having to just shave it all off...he was interested in looking at everything in the store! Himself in the mirror, his hair as it fell...he even tasted a bit of it (he didn't like that too much!).
All done! Mr. Man got an orange sucker for being a good boy! The sucker ended up all over Mom and Baby! Think we got most of the sticky off. :)
Our mischievous boy back at tormenting D and T! He looks so grown up! We will miss the curls, but I am sure he will find this haircut much cooler for this summer heat!

Happy Birthday Nona!

Happy Birthday Nona! Hope you had a great day! Nona and Papa spend Nona's Birthday mowing and then went out to eat at an old family favorite that was relocated thanks to Hurricane Katrina (I do so wish they would rebuild the old Rat's Nest). They closed down the joint, and had a great time (despite the bones in Nona's Flounder)! Sunday, The McCoy Tribe went for a visit to celebrate! I attempted to bake Granny McCoy's Famous Pound Cake...needless to say I need about 30 more year's practice to get it as perfect as Granny used to be able to make it (Nothing is the same without her special touch...but I am going to get it close one day!). Papa cooked Shrimp Etouffee (Brandy peeled the Shrimp), and Green beans...Nona and Brandy made Pineapple salads...it was delicious!

Andy gets his 1 Year Pictures taken

Tired as we were this afternoon after having been fussed and cussed today at work (Student registration is this week and some of these parents are just down right rude! Do you think any of us at the schools are any more excited about entering data for 3200 students every year than parents are of having to fill out that data for 1 or 2 students?...enough of my rant...sorry for that diversion), we took our little man for his one year old photo shoot at Sears Portrait Studio...we are only about 2 months late getting them done, but it has been a bit busy. So with much ado, here are a few of the shots that we had done. Enjoy! We will be picking up the prints we ordered from Sears on July 22...

And yes, we do have permission from Sears to Reproduce.

Other than that, nothing much else happened today....We had the worst experience ever possible at South Seas Chinese in Slidell...I left our Sub par service waitress a 1 cent tip. And I must say that was a first for me to do...three stikes and she just kept on trying to get more.

After that, the family brought up our spirits by going to Lowes and started to spend our Christmas Gift from M.A. (Thank you so much M.A. we can't thank you enough!) We bought some replacement mower blades for our new lawn mower (Taking a lesson in history from Aunt Harriett and M.A. by keeping an extra set of blades already sharpened.), and a nice dump cart to pull behind the tractor so we can start filling the holes in the yard and picking up limbs. Hopefully that will be some of our projects for the weekend! Looking forward to this weekend...I will be glad to have student registration behind me at the work place!

More to come tomorrow from our little corner of South Mississippi!

Sentenced to Death!

When Dad was cleaning out his office upon retirement from MGCCC, he gave Brandy and I four beautiful African Violets that had been growing and thriving under his grow bulbs in the classroom. Reluctantly, we accepted, knowing that these poor plants had just been sentenced to death as our track record for keeping plants alive isn't too good. To be the children of plant lovers/horticulturists, we are horrible at growing anything! Well...it has been over a month, and this is what Dad's African Violets look like now...

Can you believe that they are all alive! And blooming! Yes, all four plants have started blooming a new set of blooms since we have been in possession of these beauties! I am impressed, so far, it seems that they have a stay of execution. The secret: Keep them in a sunny southern window where you can remember to actually water them (They are in our kitchen window! Works to keep them near the sink so we can remember to water them.)

Our New Playtoy!

WooHoo! I have a new job! I can officially MOW my lawn now! Thanks to the wonderful tax refund from ole Uncle Sam, Brandy and I purchased a new riding lawn mower from Sears to help us keep up with our place in Caesar. And can you believe...it was delivered ON TIME! Yes, Sears called us Monday night to tell us that it would be delivered between 1:15 and 3:15 on Tuesday...expecting the same puntuality as the cable or phone company...Brandy went to the Caesar place while I was still at work, both of us expecting to still be waiting well after 3:15...well, Sears actually makes their appointments, they were arriving at the house at exactly 1:15, and in 10 minutes had the mower off the truck and were back on the road! Props to Sears!

Yesterday, I did a first cut of the nearly 4 foot tall weeds that hadn't been mowed since April when Dad, Brandy and I mowed about 3/4 of the front yard...needless to say, we got more done in three hours of mowing than in two days with a push mower! Yippie! I am so glad to have this new mower...it already needs a blade sharpening! Big Surprise there huh? I will have to post a couple of pictures of the mower as soon as I remember to bring a camera with me out there.

While mowing, I must have either upset an avian friend or either uncovered some good dinner for him...I had a hawk that was making repeated swoops down over the field as I was mowing it and at one point some part of him impacted my head! Didn't know if he was after me or the mice that were running out of the grass (I think I am a little big for him to have for dinner, so I am guessing I was just in the way of his dinner date). Again, wish I had pictures!

Due to a shortage in our last order from Fluker Farms to feed the Geckos we are baby sitting for Brad and Jen while they are in Germany, Brandy and Andy caught crickets out of the hay that I left behind while mowing yesterday. I think that D and T prefer "Wild American Crickets" than the store bought variety...they really scarfed them down!

Little Man caught in action!

Had to have a little fun with PhotoShop and Picnik today. Have been playing with the blog all afternoon! Brandy is probably about ready to hang me spending so much time on this crazy computer! We went to Nona's today to have dinner! Leftovers are just as delicious the second time around! Yummy!

Tomorrow will be fun! Have a special delivery coming from our favorite Chicago based catalog store...can't wait! Daddy needs a new play toy!

Jeff's Work Update: Tomorrow begins preparations at work for student registration! FUN! Today was spent on the phone with 54 million different people, trying to make sure everything was on GO for student registration. Ugh... Hopefully everything will be a little smoother this year than last...how do I let myself get roped into these things!

Sunday Blastoff!

Big Sister has suggested that I start a blog to keep everyone up to date on the progress and status of our little division of the McCoy Tribe...so here goes! Big Sis just returned to Houston today...we had a marvelous 4 day 4th of July with Jules at home! The paparazzi took tons of pictures of our little man. Hopefully she will post them to our picture site (Hint! Hint!) at Walgreens so we can print pictures for those in the family that are technologically challenged. We spent the fourth cooking, clearing the patio (haven't seen that since Katrina! It is looking great!), swimming, and visiting with the family in a typical McCoy fashion. One of these days I will get a camera of my very own that I can take pictures to post to this blog on a regular basis! My little boy child has just pushed his rolling hippo toy up to the TV cabinet so he can get a better look at the movie that we are watching tonight. He is SOOOOOOooooo bad! Call his name and tell him to get down and he puts one foot down, smiles at me and waits for me to turn my head to stand back up on the toy....R O T T E N! Can tell this sweet little angel is going to test the very limits of patience....just like his Mom, Dad and Aunt did to their parents!