Potty Training begins as the Terrible Twos have arrived EARLY!

The time has come for little man to start learning how to use a big man's potty! This week we purchased a "Prince's Throne" and we are starting to learn how to use it! The first attempt with pants down ended up with the floor wetter than the potty...but such is the task as we are told by those who have been there before us!
Recently little man figured out that if he pulled a chair into the kitchen from the dining room that he could climb on it and "help" Mom and Dad with dishes and cooking...he hasn't quite figured out that once the dishes are in the strainer to dry that they don't go back into the dish water...but that is okay!
The next day after breakfast, we noticed that quite a bit of time had passed and it was very quiet in the house. Deciding that we should check and see what our little bundle of energy was up to we ventured into the kitchen and found this... This was a muffin...we must have needed a few muffin crumbs for something, I suppose!

Catching everyone up! January and December - Minus Christmas!

Our tool supply is growing! You might think that the McCoy Tribe is planning on doing a lot of yard work this year. Last year we bought our trusty Craftman lawn mower with our Economic Incentive Check...lets just call it a parting gift from our former President! Thank you GW! We are getting a lot of use out of it!
Last Christmas (2007), my late Aunt's BFF Mary Alice sent us a wonderful gift certificate to Lowes...we spent part of it on some attachments for the lawn mower! They have come in big handy spreading ant bait around the property and hauling loads of bark around to fill in some of the holes and low spots around the property. This year so far with that same gift certificate, we bought ourselves a weed eater to help trim around the trees after we mow!

Our goal for the day was to get our new weedeater assembled as well as the wonderful wheel barrow Nonna and Papa gave the Tribe for Christmas. Mission accomplished! Now the fun begins!

Papa and Nonna came out the the Caesar property before an adventurous trip to the Big Easy to look at an Organ Papa purchased and plan its safe voyage to Carriere where it will find its new home! Papa helped the decision challenged McCoy Tribe elders to find a home for the fruit trees and grape vines we purchased from Pine Hill Nursery back in Early December!

The decision has been made! Now the work will really begin! Planting the trees and vines. We currently have two apple trees, two pear trees, one fig, four blue berries, four Muscadine vines, and a Japanese magnolia (a gift to the Tribe from Brandy's work mates in memory of PawPaw James who passed away in Early December).
This should be real fun getting all of these plants planted. I think we are going to need to buy a few more now that we have our space picked out...this property is larger than I first imagined.

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.