Colm - 18 months

Can you believe the little man is 18 months old already? 

Here are some of the cute ones from his "18 month old pictures" 

(he's at that wonderful age that you cannot say "smile" and expect an actual smile!)

Here are both boys at 18 months.......... though they look like brothers, I think you can certainly tell them apart!

little girl clothes

"Gee, that's alot of pink............"

that was Kieran's response to the pile and bags of little baby girl hand-me-down clothes I was sorting through. Thanks to a couple older cousins, Alannah will be well dressed for awhile! 

This outfit is her "coming home" one, I found it at Target and just couldn't pass it up. It's just a simple little sleeper style, but it says "precious girl" on it and since that is the meaning of her name......... well, it just seemed perfect.  I am getting more and more excited and cannot wait to see her in it!

"worker men"

And just in case you don't think the boys are big helps around here........ there's always lots to do for little worker men............

Colm screwing my table leg

Colm still screwing and working, Caeden measuring

"Painting" the other table - there's nothing but air in their cups, but it sure entertained for awhile!

Carrying in firewood - he can get one piece at a time in his wheelbarrow. Good thing he had help from Da's wheelbarrow too, or this could have taken awhile.............

Colm had to go out and help too

Our week in pictures

Here's a collection of photos from the last week or so - 

Caeden and his castle he and Da built

Caeden and his "tower with windows"

This is a cute story........ Caeden was watching the McCain acceptance speech with us and he noticed rather quickly that the cameras panned often the crowd holding signs up and cheering - he went and found his own "sign" and then held it up and cheered on with the rest of them. But, seeing that it was rather late, he was asleep on the couch about 15 minutes after this picture was taken :-)

Colm Michael - 18 months old - telling us he is "1"

I should have taken him out in the dirt for this picture, but he's cute none the less!

Caeden and Colm

This was school the other day - Caeden laid out all the letters and then we put the blocks on the proper letter

These 2 pictures are of Caeden's log cabin. We went out to Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site for a preschool field trip yesterday. (Auntie Em gave the tour and did a great job!) When we got home Caeden was piling the kindling up and when I asked him what he was doing (besides creating more of a mess for me to clean up!) he told me "making a log cabin like Auntie Em was telling us about" - well, how could I not let him finish and then take a picture of it!

Alannah

Technology is so cool. 

We had our 4D ultrasound yesterday. It was so fun to see Alannah- we saw her moving around and put her fingers in her mouth. Here are a few of the pictures. 

little sleeping beauty

her foot

Her leg and foot from the side

you have to look at this one right, her head is tilted a little sideways, she has a little smile and the umbilical cord is between her hand and face, running along her mouth and nose.

Just in case you were wondering, we changed how we are pronouncing Alannah. We will be using the "A-lon-ah" version, sounding like Donna. Rather then the "A-lan-ah" version, sounding like Anna. After looking into what might be the more proper pronunciation, we found that either way is acceptable and we decided to go with "A-lon-ah" - the spelling won't change though - it's still Alannah.

Colm has come up with his version of saying her name - it is too cute. It sounds somewhat like "a-la-la", with an exaggerated sticking out of his tongue. He came up with it all by himself, if you see him you will have to get him to say it for you!

Tomato Soup/Marinara Sauce

1 cup beef broth, divided

1 TB brown sugar

3 TB balsamic vinegar

1 TB soy sauce

5 garlic cloves

1 cup chopped onion

2- 28 oz cans whole tomatoes, drained

¾ cup half and half

Cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 500

Combine ½ c broth, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce in a small bowl.

Place garlic, onions and tomatoes in a 9x13 pan, greased

Pour broth mixture over tomato mixture

Bake 500 degrees for 50 minutes or until vegetables are lightly browned

Place tomato mixture in a blender, add remaining ½ cup broth and half and half. Blend till smooth. Strain mixture thru sieve into bowl. Garnish with black pepper. Serves about 4.

When I made this, I didn't strain it. Just blended it till it was pretty smooth, maybe 3-4 minutes. It ended up pretty thick as made above, so I would either add more milk, half n half or water to make more soupy or just make as a sauce and serve over pasta. Also, I didn't have enough cans of whole tomatoes, so I used some diced. Seemed to work fine. The flavor was great. 

Enjoy!

balloons

We went and saw the hot air balloons this morning - 

this was one of our favorites, it's a ladybug.

Colm pointing out a balloon

Caeden watching one coming over the trees

This was too cute not to include......... It needs a good caption!