In addition to moving our family to a new house recently, we've also moved the location of the blog. www.mcgurr.com (our home page for almost a decade) is now where you can get updates to this blog.

Be sure to update your blog reader with this feed: http://www.mcgurr.com/atom.xml

Enjoy!

Happy Gotcha Ya Day, Madeline!

We love you!

The Ladies McGurr Love the Indiana McGurrs (and Their Super Awesome Slide!!!!)

I started this post weeks ago, but Blogger has not been cooperating with uploading the pictures. So, here is our fun weekend in Indiana finally!

It was Ella's big 2nd birthday party this weekend and a fun time was had by all. We loved seeing the Indiana McGurrs, chatting, hanging out, and doing all the fun things we usually do. I have to say, though, that the girls loved the super mega slide the best though.







I liked the slide too--it was hot and the kids splashed me a lot coming down. You can see my arm in a lot of the photos. I think my favorite thing was seeing Jeremy, Courtney, Aedan, and Ella and Mrs. Corbin's potato salad.

Bettie did not actually want to get wet. I'm not sure how that is supposed to work, but someone had to hold the one water shooter down while she came down the slide. I think she was ok with getting her body wet, but not her head.





Maddie, of course, could care less. She looks like she had a pretty wild ride here.





Maddie could also chill when she needed to come down from the slide high.




It was a really fun party and great to see everyone. Somehow I have no pictures of Ella, but she looked beautiful in a special birthday dress. Bettie loved the Mickey Mouse cake when she was not whining about being wet and Maddie loved the Indiana sweet corn!

We are trying to be more aware of good places to stop with the girls--picnic spots, playgrounds, or playlands. We've been meaning to write down places on our different regular trips to Cleveland, PA, and Indiana. For example, Lodi Outlet Mall has a really nice playground, but you might not think that would be a good place to stop.

Anyway, we have not written any of this down of course. We found a new place to stop this trip---the Warm Glow candle outlet. If you have spent some time with Bettie lately, you will know she has a candle problem. When we go to the dollar store, she wants a candle. When she can buy a special treat for doing something good, she wants a candle.

She has quite a collection now spread all over her room. It REALLY smells like Yankee Candle Co. in there. My favorite is a square candle that Aunt Sarah gave her (with no scent!) She has one that is so strong that it makes me want to faint just smelling it. We don't light any, of course, but she likes to just have them around.

We have joked that we should stop at the giant candle before, but we actually did this time on the way back. You can get a drink, some ice cream or a little something to eat, and walk carefully through the store (lots of breakables). There were tons of candles for Bettie and pumpkins for Maddie to look at.

It takes her forever to pick out a candle. She wants to smell every possible one. I've spent more time in Wal*Mart and the dollar store sniffing and discussing candles that I care to admit.

Maddie thought the place was pretty fun, but it was not a pumpkin outlet.



Here is a pic of Bettie in her element. I think she thinks she is going to be on America's Next Top Model or something. She got a candle (of course!) and a butterfly lollipop. That is a big score for her. Maddie does not look as pleased with her choice.

The Ladies Love Their New House (but Might Love the Splash Zone More)!

We have been very busy lately, moving, visiting, being visited, and being obsessed with Peter Pan (Bettie) and Veggie Tales Jonah (Maddie). We finally have everything moved, out of storage, and are now home owners again (well, kind of--I guess we are mortgage holders again).

We were not sure how the girls would react to having their own rooms, but they have done really well. The only time Bettie wanted someone to sleep in her room with her (she wanted the dog to), was when she was not so sure about the live action Peter Pan movie she saw.

We have attempted to take some change of address type pics for weeks. We finally have them printed and ready to go, but not sent out yet of course. Here are some of the pics we rejected. None of them were that great--don't even get me started on Bettie's attire. One girl or the other always looked away from the camera.....

Or my bright idea to take a picture under a big tree in our back yard.....




We eventually settled on one inside. Here are a few of the rejects....

Bettie actually wore this outfit to Wal-Mart when we took the pics to get printed. I am just hoping everyone thought it was some sort of Christmas in July prank. Maddie was fine with wearing the nice outfit I picked out for her.

We also got a small pool so we could have some back yard fun before the summer is over. They have water day at day care every Tuesday, also known as the easiest day to get them to go to day care. They don't have a pool there, but seem to have an intricate succession of sprinklers and hoses. Regardless, it is the highlight of Maddie's week. But, she likes swimming in the back yard too, as you can see.

Well, swimming in the back yard was fun until Sean made the Splash Zone discovery. We live near a quaint downtown area that has all sorts of cute shops, restaurants...you know the drill. Most of the other part of the neighborhood is "quaint" McMansions, but whatever. They do have a very cool Splash Zone that is free to residents. So, even the people from the other side of the tracks (this means us) can come have fun. When Sarah and Chris came to visit us we thought it would be a great time to try it out.




As you can tell, the girls loved it! It was really nice and not that crowded since the day was overcast. Bettie was not into getting wet, but she loved spraying people with the water gun. Luckily, some clever engineer rigged it so it would not spray people behind you (in other words, you can't spray your parents or uncles and aunts).



Maddie spent the whole time running around or just standing and staring. It blew her mind!



I think after a bit it was all too much for her, so it was not as hard to get her to come home as we feared it would be.



Maddie has been having problems in day care, but she is still doing really well with communication. She has started making random observations, which makes us very happy and also makes us laugh. On our way home from day care today, we passed a teenager riding his bike. It was humid out, so he had his shirt off. Maddie sees him and says "There is a naked guy riding his bike!" I know, he was not really naked, but it was really funny. When Bettie wanted to play outside with Dad this evening, and Maddie wanted him to stay inside, Sean asked her who was going to watch Bettie if Daddy stayed inside. Maddie told him "Peter Pan."

We have all sorts of fun things to do. We are not that far from our old apartment, so we have all that fun stuff, plus new fun stuff. So, do the in thing and come and visit! You will only have to watch Peter Pan and Veggie Tales 5 times a piece.

The Ladies Love Their Grandpa

This picture is from this past Christmas when Grandpa and Grandma came to visit. One of the very few occasions when both girls are smiling and looking at the camera.



Grandpa and Grandma also came to visit this summer at our new house. Those should be posted soon.

The Ladies McGurr Love Father's Day (and Daddy)!


We hope everyone is staying cool and relaxing someplace with the A/C on and a cool drink (pick your own beverage). The Ladies McGurr had fun hanging out with Daddy this weekend. On Saturday we went to the zoo for the first time in a long while, renewed our membership and are ready for a fun summer!

Actually, Bettie was at the zoo earlier in the week on a daycare field trip. Since Maddie is not allowed to go (too much for the teachers with a bunch of other kids in a big place), we told her we could go this weekend if she was good. It was so sad when she kept asking to go see the Manatees. As you can see, the girls brought their cameras. Bettie actually took some good shots, which I will show you below.

There is a new baby elephant at the zoo, so he is a big attraction. While you are waiting in line, you get to see a rhino. He was REALLY active the day we were there. Made us a little nervous. But Bettie got some action shots.









Unfortunately, her picture of the baby elephant did not come out. Many of her pictures are of random body parts or pictures of you are not sure what. She had a ton of pictures on her camera when we downloaded the ones from the zoo. Lots of pictures of her feet and about a dozen of her Hello Kitty pillow/blanket carrier. We call that the Hello Kitty Series.

Maddie talks a lot about taking pictures--mostly of dogs. She does not actually take many. I think Bettie took most of the pictures we downloaded from Maddie. This is our favorite one from Maddie's camera:




We have no idea what is going on here, but I'm pretty sure Sarah is possessed.

The girls were into crawling all over stuff at the zoo. We have about 8 pictures of Bettie crawling on the little statues they have around--warthogs, manatees, polar bears, you name it.

The girls still love the penguins and manatees. Maddie talked about them all week and woke up every morning asking to go to the zoo.

So, we made the pilgrimage to their favorite zoo spots. I think Bettie got some good shots here--very artistic.







Well, we will try to take a lot of pictures of 4th of July and the next few weeks of fun. Our camera is duct taped and not working that well, so we may need to spring for a new one to get the fun shots we want.

The Ladies McGurr say Some Things Never Change!

Hello, everyone. As Sean just said, I am a blogging machine! What I am, really, is a procrastinator. My 4th year review is coming up. I have all my paperwork in order, but am struggling with the narrative part. So, here I am.

This weekend we told the girls they could go wherever they wanted to around Columbus since they were good at school. I thought maybe they would want to go to the zoo, but Chuck E. Cheese won the day. As I said earlier, some things never change.

The great thing about this CEC is that they have a Teletubby ride! The best thing ever, as you can see from Maddie's face. They are all there---Tinky Winkie, Dipsy, La La, and Po. Even Dipsy's cool hat makes an appearance.

As you can see, Maddie soon became a little less enchanted. We go to CEC really early (9AM) if we can help it. We almost always have the place to ourselves for an hour before the parties start coming in. But I guess this meant that the TeleTubbies were really loud.



And by our third picture, Maddie is not so sure anymore. The look on her face is priceless! Actually, she rode it again a lot and did not really stray too far away from her friends.



Maddie also loves the basketball games except that she can't reach to throw a shot. So, you have to lift her up and let her throw it in the cage nowhere near the hoop. Since I am doing that, I can't take pics of that. As you can see, she also found her old phone friend. She did not have to stare anyone down or hurt any toddlers.




Bettie was all over the place. She loves to play all sorts of games. This time, however, she insisted on no pictures. I tried a few times and she kept saying no. So, I stalked her like I was a paparazzo after a celebrity and got this shot. She still does not know I took it, so don't tell her.




Notice she does no have on her striped shorts! They were conveniently dirty and look how cute she looks! We rounded out our morning by going to a furniture store (which the girls call a microphone store--long story) and lunch at Burger King with a playground. We also went to Toys R' Us where they were having a SuperWHY party, but when we figured out he was not actually there, we lost interest pretty fast.

As our parting shots, here are some pictures I was supposed to be posting all those months that I was not posting pictures! Maddie was very lucky and Grandma Paul and Grandma Shirley were here for her birthday. I think we gave Maddie a choice of what she wanted to do and she chose the Sesame Street exhibit at Cosi. Then we had a fun party at home and Grandpa Paul and Grandma Shirley were able to partake in that pink Foofah cake!

So, here are some nice pictures from our trip.







There were all sorts of fun things to do and look at. Bettie was especially intrigued by a machine that chewed, digested, and then pooped out food. She was all about that.