Giving thanks...

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! M and I were happy to have my parents visiting for Thanksgiving! It was a small group but the merriment was large! :) We had a terrific time! B. joined us on Saturday for Thanksgiving part 2!! The only bad part of the holiday was that it had to end! Thanks for everything Mom and Dad!!

Did everyone have a chance to think about what you are thankful for?? Family & friends definitely top my list. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Our local grocery sold bread cornucopias which totally made my day!! I have always wanted to decorate with a cornucopia for Thanksgiving and this year I got my shot! I had great fun!

Dad and I had a blast setting the table again! It is such a good time to have everyone busy and bustling around to cooking, chatting, and doing little things to make the holiday so special!!

Mom and I tried our hand at adding little pastry leaves to the pumpkin pie!

Here is where the home grown lemons ended up! YUMMY!! We sliced a few for tea as well!


Odie had more family visiting than we did--his parents AND his brother came! They got into lots of trouble together but had lots of fun! Remember my famous red boa from Vegas??? Well, the boys thought it was great fun TOO!! See Odie in the corner of the pic trying to pretend he is not involved?? :)

AND Teddy even did some hunting...

Bathtime!!

Thanks goodness for bad weather forecasts...I still have some company at my house. I was lucky enough to get home from work tonight in time to see my littlest nephew before he went to bed! :) I even got to give the babe a bath!! We had a splashing good time! There was blue soap everywhere and no tears were shed even during hair washing!

Andy is the cutest right now! He won't imitate something you say right away but give it a minute and there he is chatting to himself the very thing you wanted him to say before! He followed me around tonight when I got home from work and that TOTALLY made my day!!! *beam* He makes the most precious car sound when playing with anything that can be a real or pretend car! He says "Bye-bye", "NO", "All gone", "Mama", "Daddy", "Cucu" (for coffee milk), and "More" really clearly. He tries to mimic most sounds anyone says and is babbling up a storm! He loves to play with my umbrellas in the stand by the door and with any big people shoes he can find! He even was sweet enough to bring M a bottle of wine from the wine rack! (YIKES....looks like we missed a few things in our baby proofing moments!! *heehee*) His biggest buddy here in Texas is Odie! They have spent literal hours chasing each other with Andy giggling and Odie barking the whole way! Andy loves to steal Odie's toys to tease Odie and to play with them! I think Andy has spent as much time playing with Odie's toys as his own on this trip!

What a great extended weekend it has been! AND of course the COOLEST part of the day--> IT'S B'S BIRTHDAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY B!!! I feel so happy to have a silly sister in law that I love dearly who LOVES my little bro so much!! She is such a loving mother! It has been fun to hang out with the birthday girl and family this weekend!!!! HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT BIRTHDAY B!!! WE LOVE YOU!!! :)

OK....you know the picture sharing is coming! :) Enjoy the latest pics of my favorite little shadow from tonight!!

Tub time FUN!!!!

Playing amongst the blue foamy waters... :)

Odie is never far away when his buddy Andy is around!

Even when getting dry & dressed...the playing never stops!!

On a completely separate note, here is my lemon crop harvested by M. if anyone is following the continuing horticulture saga :) Any suggestions for what I should make out of them special for the Thanksgiving holiday??

Playing in Aunt J's shoes

Sweet smelling clean boy ready for bedtime :) I just LOVE this kid!
GOODNIGHT EVERYONE!!! HUGS & BEDTIME KISSES FROM HOUSTON!!! :)

Quiet Sunday

We had a calm & quiet Sunday spent at home! We celebrated B's birthday one day early since M and I have to work a long day tomorrow! HAPPY BIRTHDAY B!!! Happy Birthday wishes go out to John too!! Hope they BOTH have a fun day tomorrow!!

Is everyone ready for some turkey soon? I'm looking forward to my "list" of all of the things I'm thankful for! Take time to reflect and put together your own list of thanks ;)! It's fun! It is nice to think about all of the blessings in our life!

Take care all! Enjoy the pictures of the little one at play!

The Little People school bus hasn't lost its charm!



Play ball!


Dancing with Ernie for the Mango Tango! Brought to you by healthy tunes at Sesame Street! Did you know "Cookies are a SOMETIMES food!" *heehee* Cute!


White chocolate & raspberry --> YUMMY!!

Texas Renaissance Festival 2008

We are so excited to have my little bro and his family visiting this weekend for the kick-off to their Thanksgiving WEEK off from school!! (I am SO VERY jealous!!!) They got in late Friday night and after a bit of a slow morning we drove out to Magnolia, Texas for the big Renaissance Festival!! The traffic was a NIGHTMARE but we had a great day anyway!! :)

I'll share some pictures from our adventure!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! HUGS FROM HOUSTON!!!


It is a bit like Renaissance Disney! I was amazed at how elaborate the buildings are! This is the outer gate!

WELCOME to the Ren Fair!! Come one! Come all!

Check out this Bier Garten SMILE!!! :)

Andy had his 1st carousel ride.....on (you guessed it) a MONKEY!! :)

I think he would have liked to ride on ALL of the figures!

Barbarian Invasion was the weekend theme! I think this is my vote for the best (& scariest....if you dismiss the "Oh NO they didn't!" costumes we saw...) costume of the day!

Another troupe of barbarian costumers

I can't WAIT until Andy wants to ride this one! FUN!!

Scene from the fair! It really is very pretty with the beautiful wooded setting!

A wedding processional! We had to "CLEAR THE WAY FOR THE BRIDE!"

My sweet nephew LOVES kettlecorn!

Check out this cutiepie smile while we were waiting for the show to start!

Promenade before the jousting starts

Pretzel anyone???

A stolen peek!

Here is a stolen peek at my little Andy's Halloween night! For more details see what I hope will be coming soon to: www.themccoytribe.blogspot.com!!!

Isn't he SO cute???!!! I found these PJ's at Gymboree and couldn't resist! They GLOW IN THE DARK!!! The REAL costume got taken off early....full details at The McCoy Tribe!

Tigers & trails weekend!

We had a late start to our weekend on Saturday! (maybe it was a hint of the gameday blues to come??) Poor tigers! We had a TIGER-WATCHIN' party at a friend's house! We passed a good time as dem cajuns say! It's a good thing we had good company and good food since the game definitely turned out differently than we would have liked! BUT WE SURE GAVE THAT CRIMSON TIDE A SCARE YEAH!!!!!

Today M and I loaded up the bikes and went to Addicks Reservoir for a ride! It was a beautiful morning and the trail wasn't very crowded! I still pathetically can only manage 8 miles an hour average speed :( (*heehee* but I AM carrying quite a load)!! We had a nice time despite my slowness!

I plan to cook my tindora rice tonight and M will grill us something! :) Hope everyone is having a FABULOUS weekend!!

HUGS FROM HOUSTON!!!!!

A view from the path!

Thursday Fieldtrip!!

I had a culinary adventure today with a sweet friend from work!! Some historical info to this story includes a fantastic evening for a "HOW-TO" Indian cooking class and yummy dinner with her family early in the spring! She is always giving me tastes of her delicious lunches at work and even sends snacks home for my man! We miraculously finished work about the same time today and had both skipped lunch---> so she decided we should go to a little place she knew for a snack and then go to the Indian store for the remaining goodies I need to make an authentic meal from India!

I let her order for me since I have NO idea what I'm looking at! We had aloo tikki (a spiced potato pastry), kachori chaat (sort of a tiny pie with spicy lentil filling), mint chutney and mango lassi (a drink with mango and buttermilk)! OH MY IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!

THEN--> we went to the store where I found the items I needed for my recipes as well as some fresh veggies I have never seen before! It was so much fun! The store owner let me taste an orange hard candy with a syrupy filling (I thought it was a piece of orange bell pepper from the distance) that was SOOOO sweet but good. She was giggling at me the whole time because I couldn't get over the look of the bitter gourd! I took a pic of my purchases (so you and Dad could see the veggies, Mom):
The knobby ones are the bitter gourds which M says she doesn't think I will like. It is apparantly an 'acquired' taste and very true to its name-->BITTER. But we'll see, I'm up for the challenge! The little ones are called Tindora. I have a recipe for Tindora rice that uses the "special" spice M's family made while she was home in India this summer. I can't WAIT to try it this weekend! Wish me luck and good cooking karma!

YES WE CAN!!

Today marks an historic event in our United States of America! I hope we can all join together to help make this great nation of ours better and better! YES WE CAN! Let's join as one voice to create good changes for our country!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!
and
GODSPEED President-elect Barack Obama!




Psst....pause the music player in the right side column to hear the video! :)

Our voting ADVENTURE!

Some of you, my friends out in bloggy land, know my PROCRASTINATING ways! :) So I probably don't need to say that even after a bit over a year in Texas...the hubby and I have NOT changed our voter registration and driver's licenses. Yea....yea...I KNOW about the 30 day deadline to become an official TEXAN! I'm really a rule breaker at heart! *heehee* [and YES, I hear you wondering if I am aware of absentee voting....there was a deadline I missed for that too! *rofl*]

SO then comes the problem of voting in this HISTORIC-no-matter-which-way-it-goes election!! I really do cherish my right to vote and believe we should USE it! EVEN IF it requires taking a day off of work for a 14 hour roundtrip home to cast the ballot!

WE HAD A GREAT DAY!! I was getting homesick anyway! :) We had a fantastic (albeit short) visit with Mom & Dad in the middle of the night and EARLY the next morn, a quick but good phone call with my little bro, a frosty mugged rootbeer with a chili-cheese-artery-clogging-loaded-with-onion-burger for lunch, a nice visit with the poll workers that included my 3rd grade teacher, Jeff's kindergarten teacher/our favorite bus driver, & two past band chaperones from the bandnerd dayz, a LLLLLLLOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGG drive with NO ARGUING beside my sweetie, a terrific dinner at an old favorite in Lake Charles before we hit the not-so-good-seafood border of Texas---->OH YEAH--AND we VOTED!!! :)
If anyone is looking for a good meal....we've been fans of this place since it was a "hole-in-the-wall" on Hwy. 14

YUMMY!!

Scenes from the swamp :)

A barge on the Atchafalaya

Teddy-sitting!

We surely didn't get much on our "list" (really I should say "my" list to be fair *heehee*) done this weekend but it was fun! We spent lots of time laughing at the antics of Odie and his 'little' brother Teddy! We kept Teddy this weekend while his family is in New York!

Check out these CRAZY puppies!!!

My little Odie complete with LSU dog tags!! :) (forgive the red eyes...my program couldn't figure out how to fix it!)

SO Vicious! :D

Rough & tumble ALL the time!

How can you NOT love this little face?!?! :) TEDDY!!