Celebration Weekend

This weekend has been full of parties and visiting. Saturday we attended Seths first birthday bash, great food, great company and one handsome one year old. After that Scotts friends from college Rami and Xueying (he's a rocket scientist in Maryland originally from Palestine, and she's a web designer from China... needless to say that was an interesting wedding... that and they are Greek Orthodox... anyway...) they were in town visiting and we got to enjoy dinner with them.

Sunday we attending the Pancake Flipping party for Matts graduation. Hard to believe he is a high school graduate already! It was a great party and it was nice to get to see Melissa who was in town. After that we stopped in for a quick visit with GG, who had just been around the block so to speak, walking on her new knee. Hope you are feeling better soon GG! After that visit we got a visit from Uncle Andy and Christie. We had a great time and enjoyed some vegetarian fare at Seva.

Today it was Amys wedding shower, and once again there was great food and company at the Pattersons. While we were there Scott and the kids attended the annual Memorial Day parade. Scott hates parades, but seeing as this one runs right through our backyard he was a good sport and took the kids. When I got home they all had their swimsuits on and were having fun in the nemo pool and running through the sprinkler. Happy Memorial Day, and welcome to summer!

The Straight and not so Narrow...

My new hairdo, at least for today. The stylist at the salon did a great job with the highlights and the cut, then she asked me if I wanted her to blow it out straight...why not, and here it is. It is always so strange for me the couple of times I have had this done, I don't think I could handle straight hair all the time (it gets in my face too much) but it is fun for a day or two!

Down on the Farm and Other such adventures

Today was the first of two days down on the farm. It is farm week at the preschool so field trips are the order of the day tomorrow and today. All 3 kids went today and they all had a great time, except for a small portion of the day when Avery had a goose flying at her. They got to pet goats, sheep, donkeys, ponys and had a hayride where they got to feed a bunch of cows. As much as Quinn and Avery enjoyed it, I think Kaleigh had the best time. She couldn't get enough of petting and feeding all the animals. It doesn't surprise me as she is the only one in the household who pays any attention whatsoever to the dog. That and her excitement about the horse last week make her the animal lover of the family I think. Of course Quinn spotted the tractor straight off and had to have his picture taken on it with his buddies.

In other news... Tree found out that he has a long lost cousin today...her name is Flower and she is under Ellas charge, apparently Grammy must have purchased the litter at some point at the dollar store for an Easter/Valentines/Christmas or something present. It was interesting to see Trees counterpart all clean, white, and fluffy. Emily and the girls came for dinner tonight and the kids had a picnic out on the new table...really a table not another stuffed dog. :)

Oh, and this is what Kaleigh did with her party favors from the other day... I'm glad she is creative... yeah. nice.

(They are miniature bowling pins for those of you who can't tell with them shoved up her nose)

Birthday Bowling

Saturday we had a great time Birthday Bowling for Quinns 5th birthday. We decided to have his friends for a bowling extravaganza this year, and boy it was great. No prep (except for picking up the balloons) and no clean up. Gotta love it. It was a little chaotic with 14 preschoolers for awhile there, but I think they all had a good time and I'm pretty sure most of them beat my score. We ate pizza and cake and had a round with the shark pinata. Quinn got lots of nice presents and he was very polite in saying thank yous (we had a talk before the party just to make sure). After the party we worked hard opening new toys and playing with them and working on the yard. We spent the better part of the day Saturday and today doing just that, with a little time out at Grammy and Grampys to have more cake and shoot the new rocket launcher. It was a great weekend. I can't believe Quinn is going to be 5 though.

Avery's Turn on the Horse and Dentist Day

Tuesday it was Averys turn on the horse and boy was she ready for it. There was no wind and she was right up there, no questioning it. What a difference being alert and awake makes. This is her ride with her friend Ashlyn who was a little scared to ride so Avery agreed to ride with her. Ashlyn is my friend from freshman year of high schools daughter. Kaleigh got a turn to go solo as well. She was all about that horse.

Today it was Dentist day. Quinn had an appointment this morning and he went in all by himself just like a big boy and the dentist said he did great, xrays, fluoride treatments cleaning etc. Avery did the same, and did awesome as well and she was at the adult dentist! (Quinn goes to the pediatric dentist because he couldn't cooperate when he was 2 at the regular dentist). Kaleigh will have to go to the pediatric dentist next time I think as she didn't do quite as well at the adult place. She and Quinn are definitely two of a kind sometimes.

Lots of fun this weekend! Lots of pictures, I need to figure out how to use that picasa thing.

We spent the better part of Saturday outside, first at Opas (this time I remembered the camera for the feeding of the sheep), then at Emily and Bobs helping to set up the new "park" the kids had a great time with it, even before it was finished. They played in the tunnel before it was placed, and made all kinds of things with the boxes. Ella and Quinn spent quite a bit of time surveying the progress, and had fun doing it.
Sunday we had a great Mothers Day brunch once again at Emily and Bobs (one of these days I should really do something at our house... but they've got about 2000 sq. ft. on me, makes it a little easier to spread out), and then it was home to play outside some more. Quinn and I took a nice walk and bike through town (I really like living in town), and the kids all made nice cards and were very excited to give me their "surprise" (3 yankee candles). Sunday night I gave Scott a fathers day present and let him go with Mark to the Red Wings game because Mark had suite tickets. They owe me big :) it is a good place to be :)
Today Quinn had school and when I went to pick him up the kids were horseback riding! It was very exciting, one of the moms has horses and she brought one because they are studying farms this week. All the kids went for a ride, there were a couple shy ones, but in the end they even got on and took a spin. Kaleigh even got in on the action when we got there, she would have stayed on there all day I think. Avery had just woke up from a nap and she was not happy about all the wind today so she chose to stay in the car, which was ok, because the same mom has a daughter in Averys class too, so the horse will make another appearance tomorrow.

The McClelland Press

In the News:

This week we have had 2 Mothers Day Parties so far, 1 Birthday Party for Quinn, Plenty of Outside playtime.

We have had one of our little yellow flagmen stolen and returned (by some not so smart teenagers who ran across the street with it, right in front of me coming out of the house, and a teacher who knows them across the street who called the police) He was returned safe and sound and apparently he wasn't the only victim, there were other things stolen from other people around town.

We have had our bathroom refreshed by a friend of ours who does great work! Thanks Ron!

1 Trip to Opas to borrow a truck and feed the sheep, the lambs are super cute (too bad I forgot my camera for that one, because one of them decided to jump in the feed trough while Quinn was swinging hale bales over at it... too cute!)

I would have posted some of this news earilier, but my computer has some sort of funk. It keeps shutting itself down every 10 minutes and when I do get it to work for a couple minutes it decides to sit on one screen and not let me do anything. I am hoping it is not some kind of virus. We'll see.

That's about it so far, there are no plans for the weekend, but I'm sure we'll find something to do!

Lack of Blogging, Kindergarten, and Happy Grandparents Day!

I was told by Ron today that I need to blog, and I do. He has been working really hard and things are looking great! One of these days I will take some pictures. It has been over a week and my intentions for last week were to blog at least twice, and obviously that didn't happen. May seems to be extremely busy already and we're only a week in to it. Quinn had his Kindergarten round up last Monday and boy was that a wake up call from what I am used to. There are 16 kindergarten classes this year with about 350+ kids in the classes total. A far cry from the 14 or so kids that were in my class. It should be interesting. Luckily we know quite a few families through the co-op and church, hopefully one of those kids will end up in Quinns class, but who knows, if not I guess we'll know more people. Tonight we went to the parent orientation at the school and it was again kind of scary, I don't know who will be more nervous the first day of school the kids or the parents. From the looks of the crowd tonight I would put my money on the parents. My plan is to blog more than once this week, we'll see, Scott is off to the southern most tip of Texas tomorrow to visit a couple plants across the border for a couple of days, apparently he has impressed the sales staff enough so that they want him to tag along on customer visits.

On another note, Happy Grandparents Day to all you grandparents out there...a day late. Too much going on in my head, I forgot to do it yesterday. But Happy Grandparents Day anyway!!!