Memories from the Forgetful

My sweet baby just turned 4 months old a couple weeks ago. We have tried cereal many times and had little to no luck. So I bought a few different kinds of food to have him test them out. I don't think he is too crazy about it. Hopefully he'll acquire a taste for some of them soon.

First the applesauce.


I think it was a bit sour.


Do you think he likes it?


Now on to Sweet Potatoes.


I think he liked those a bit more.

Now just a few cute pictures of my sweet baby Lincoln.






Where's Harrison? Oh he's doing his regular thing. Drinking juice. Does/did anyone else have a child who always has a juice cup in their hand? Is this normal?


Oh and why does my 2 year old fit in this infant seat? But my four month old does not?

I grew up with 3 sisters. No boys! Ryan is the closest thing I've ever had to a brother. Ryan (my brother-in-law) posted a link to my blog on his blog thisisreverb. (Without warning!) I would've had told a really great story about when we first met him, but that will require some photo scouring. So here is a previous post that features Ryan, to satiate anyone who hopped over here from his blog.

http://memoriesfromtheforgetful.blogspot.com/2009/07/just-like-dog.html

Dearest Ryan,
There will be a great memory posted in the days following. Just you wait... and believe me when I tell you.... there will be no warning.
Love Andrea

Wait, I think I just warned him while telling him I wouldn't warn him. Well, I will just have to tell a story he would never expect.

Pictures will be included.

Ok, That's a lie. I actually LOVE donuts, but I hate them for making me love them. I'm not making any sense but sometimes love will do that to you
.
I found a recipe that is going to be the death of me.

Firstly, because it is so easy.
Secondly, it is cheap.
Lastly, it is delicious!

Look!!! Only three ingredients.

Cut holes in the middle of each buttermilk biscuit.

Use the donut holes to do a quick test of the oil for frying donuts.

I burnt it to a fried crispy! Good thing I tested it!

That's looking a little bit better! 3 or 4 minutes on each side on medium heat.

Toss it in the powdered sugar!

Repeat!


Mmmmmmmm!

Now enjoy with a big glass of milk!

Yesterday was beautiful. Chris and I thought it would be a great day to take the kids to the park and snap some cute pictures. Sometimes it doesn't matter how cute your kids are, you just can't get a good picture.

Here are some examples of Baby Lincoln.







Here's Harrison.



I have no clue who they take after.



Ok, we might have gotten one or two good ones.

I just realized yesterday, after my post, that not everyone has even had one campaign experience. I wrote something about my earliest campaign experiences. I have been campaigning for the Winkler name since I was a wee tot.



It never seemed odd or foreign to me. You go to fundraisers, parades, festivals, go on photo shoots, and commercial shoots, wear your t-shirts, pass out campaign materials and smile. Nothing more natural to a girl like me.




Last night my Mom had a fundraiser, she is running for Green Township Trustee. As I looked around I felt so proud of her. There were people there who supported my mom for the work she has done over the past four years. For the decisions she has made, not all of them popular. For the kind of woman she is, strong and a good leader, but loving and kind. For her love of her community.



I sometimes say negative things to my Mom about her job and how people are too mean to her. I mean, her and I are people persons and nothing makes us more happy than to be loved by others the way we love them. As you can imagine not everyone is going to love all of your decisions. So it would often times be hard to hear some of the hateful things people will spew out of their mouths in politics. Even when people are rude and hurtful I watch her try to be calm and listen. I'm sure many times she would like to take both sides of an argument and work it all out so everyone would be happy, but this is not possible. I've seen her make hard decisions (even when people will be upset) because her decision is truly best for the township that she lives in and is proud of.



So there I go unintentionally campaigning for my wonderful, smart, and beautiful mother. I really know she cares and does what is best for her community. Mom, all of the times I've told you to quit because it's not worth the hurtful words and hateful looks, I just want to say I'm proud that you haven't given up and keep standing up for what you believe in. From the fundraiser last night it looks like I'm not the only one.





















I mean look at the pride on this kid's face.

This year my mom is running for Trustee in her township. She has a fundraiser tonight and this brings back memories from my earliest campaign experiences.
There was the time I was in a commercial when my grandpa was running for Judge. It was classic. I don't know how to get a formatted version of it for the computer, but that's probably a good thing. I said things like "Vote for my Grandpa." and other judge type things like "justice", "Bop you in the head with a gavel", "lock you up for life". You know all the regular stuff. (I'm making that up..... Or am I?)
One of my favorite campaign memories is riding in parades. We've done this as long as I can remember, but one year when my father was running for judge something funny happened. We always gave out stuff like notepads, cups, pencil, etc. This year in particular we were handing out candy. All of my cousins were there in the walking in the back of the campaign mobile and we were told to hand candy to the people in the crowd. Well, my one cousin (who will remain anonymous at this time) missed the operative word in the sentence. HAND!
We got tired of walking after a while and decided to hop in the back of the big truck with my Dad's name plastered all over it. A lot of kids were screaming stuff about no candy and maybe even had some booooo's thrown in. So An---, I mean my cousin, started throwing candy out to the kids. We all joined in! Everyone loved chasing after the candy. Now Ann--, I mean my cousin, is not the most athletic of all of my cousins and eventually the inevitable happened. She pegged some unsuspecting parade goer right in the face with some candy. We all ducked down into the truck and giggled. I think we got caught by our parents and were told again not to throw the candy any more. But to us I think getting yelled at was worth the laugh.
After the parade we all went out for pizza and probably had a lot more laughs about the person Annie (oh man I gave it away) hit in the face with candy.

Lady that got hit in the face,

If you are out there, reading this right now. I am sorry we laughed at your misfortune. But please remember we were only 11. From what I can recall getting hit in the face with anything is funny.
Sorry 'bout yo' face!

Andrea




That was the worst apology ever.

Ok guys I need your help to pull this one off. It may take a while to get together, but I think it will make us all laugh in the end. I want you to give me your most lucid back to school memory or any school memory is fine. If it could be in 3 paragraphs or less that would be awesome. I will make a conglomerate post of all the stories I receive! The more I get the more fun it will be. If you could send them to me by Friday the 21st @ midnight that would be awesome. My e-mail is puddlegirl@gmail.com

If you have pics that will make it even better, but do not fret over finding one.

When I was a senior in High school there was a foreign exchange student at our school from Macedonia. She was one of the funniest people I have ever met. A lot of the kids at our school didn't get her sense of humor, but she always made me laugh out loud. Here is what she wrote in my yearbook my Senior year.

"Andrea,
This is Alexander the Great speaking. Or the Egyptian... but whatever I'm still a flower in my soul. I liked hanging with you and you are nice and cool friend, but very unique.
I'm wishing you everything the best in the future. Good luch with college and art and I hope you become a great artist or something. Have a great summer.
(HEART) Milicza
DA MACEDONIAN!!!"

Every time I read this I smile. There are some entries that I will have to black out before my children ever see them, but most are very sweet. This one in particular makes me remember my friend from World Religions class that said funny/creepy stuff to me everyday and always made me laugh out loud.

She really told me every day that I was a flower in her heart. I miss being a flower in her heart.

I was checking out Ryan's blog today and will steal his idea for my blog today.

5 Things I am all about in mid-August.

1.) Beating up invisible alligators with Harrison.


2.) Putting Lincoln in hats and funny bathing suits. I love his little chubby face!


3.) My new lens and learning a lot about my camera from Kelly. (Who also magically gets my baby to fall asleep every time I cannot!)


4.) Hanging out with Allayna before she has to go back to school.


5.) My hubby. He's pretty cute.

I cannot wait for our family vacation this year. Last year we went to St. George Island. Never heard of it? I am not surprised. We hadn't heard of it before Mom booked the vacation either. It doesn't matter where my family goes we have fun together. We laugh until we cry. Everyone has a good time and it is just relaxing and fun for a week.

Here are some memories from Vacation '08




This photo here is Ava and I singing karaoke.

It was bad. Very bad. Not Ava... me.

So, I thought I could sing karaoke. I chose a song from my child hood, that I enjoyed when I was 12 or so. It was a mistake! It was "Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees. The song started and I quickly realized it didn't go quite how I had remembered. (Whhaaaaat?!? I have a bad memory?) It was a sad and pathetic attempt I was looking at my family and they were trying so hard to help me and sing louder to try to get me to sing it right. I couldn't get this DAG song! Chris was standing at the bar. (Most likely ashamed to claim me as his wife) He witnessed one guy lean over to his friend, roll his eyes, and say sarcastically "Killing me softly?" Soon Ava came up and sang with me. She must have felt my pain and wanted to save me. She might have known more words than me. I was sure I was going to be attacked by an angry mob afterwords, but with a cute baby saving the show I was pretty sure they forgave me. It was awful.



This is Grandma Cheryl, you may recognize her from my zoo pics. She makes everything fun, even dominoes. Well dominoes is pretty fun to begin with, but it's more fun when she makes trophies.



Guess who won?



Are you having a hard time figuring out which one was the winner? You were probably wrong. See I tricked you. I said guess who was the winner and then put up a picture of my trophy. I actually was the loser. Grandma couldn't find a horse at the thrift store for the "horse's ass" prize. (I don't really know what that means but everyone else seemed to think it made sense.) So she bought a unicorn instead. She was so excited to show us she ended up pulling it out of her bag-o-trophies and exclaiming "And the loser gets the U-corn's ass!" She doesn't cuss very often so she must've been looking forward to it or nervous about it because she just skipped a good portion of the word unicorn. Ryan's trophy is a crappy wad of aluminum foil and painters tape, he was in first place, and Chris' was a crab with eyes glued on to it and 2 shells for the "butt" and it was glued on top of a pinecone. (The best part about Chris' trophy is, it had it's real eyes but grandma couldn't see it's little crab eyes so she glued some on it's backside and she glued the shell butt close to the crabs real eyes.) Sorry Grandma, I called Ryan's trophy crappy! I meant it was an awesome wad of aluminum foil.

Here is a collection of just a few more pics from St. George Island.





Hopefully Harrison likes the sand more this year.