family blog.

I have decided to add another blog. It's here. I'm not going to close this one, as this is more of a journal for my private thoughts. I really wanted to make a family friendly one as well. I won't be making Rubyjade private, but I also will not be giving out the blog addy. Those who know I am here, can still find me here. Thank you for all the warm wishes about grandpa's surgery. He is doing well and I'm sorry for the lack of an update. Things have been pretty busy around here.

Today...

CABG rears its ugly head again. This time, grandpa is the victim. He was just here visiting last week with grandma. We watched the inaguration together, and I made a mental note of how cool it was to share that historic experience with them. He made sure we were all quiet as the Marine Corps band marched and played in the parade. I know this sounds morbid, but right now he's having his chest cracked open for a triple bypass and I can't stop thinking about it. All I can do is hope and pray.

just for fun

I thought this was such a cute picture of them laughing together - until I looked closer and realized that that laugh of his was really an evil mocking one, because he's squashing her hand under his boot. Such a nice boy...

This is the one I used for the 5x7.

I wanted to share these. Some of you who have facebook accounts have seen these, but for my blog stalkers I'll put them up here too!

I wanted to do something inexpensive but still meaningful for the grandparents for Christmas. About a week before Christmas I came up with the idea to take shots of the kids at our park and print and frame them. I absolutely LOVE the way they came out. In some of the shots I really should have used a flash, but I'll know for next time. Let it be known that most of these poses required bribery.

Pinewood Derby

This is serious business. Forget that it's just a bunch of kids racing tiny little wooden cars on an aluminum track. Oh NO. It's much more than that. These people mean business. And, by "these people", I mean the parents. There are 6 lanes on the track, and each car races once per lane. So, essentially, every car races 6 times and they average those times to make one final time per car. (and since there were 150 cars there, it took FOR-EV-ER) *sigh* I hope this is making sense. Once the car reaches the finish line, an electronic sensor tells the computer what times each car finished, and the computer displays the winner and times for each car. All of this is displayed on a projection for all to see. Now, each car is allowed 5 oz. That's it. If the car weighs over 5 oz, it's disqualified. So, the goal is to get as much weight as you can on the cars without going over because the weight is what makes it pick up speed. So, people buy weights, bring their drills, glue, whatever and adjust their cars right before the race begins. Also, and this is a VERY big must, graphite apparently is used on the wheels to make them spin faster. For REALS. Doug knew all of this and supped up Jared's car 5 minutes before it raced. And, so did the rest of the parents. Let me just say this, at least Jared painted his own car. I'm willing to bet a whole bunch of chocolate that many of those poor tiger cubs didn't even TOUCH theirs. Yep. It's all about the parents and pinewood-derby-speed-racer-glory. Jared came in 6th out of 18 in his division.

Sidewalk paint...

Does wonders for my sanity. Sometimes it's nice to scrub toilets alone - in peace.

My world.

Prickly pear. This blooms in a few months.

These red flowers are in bloom right now. They're everywhere.

I'm guessing a javalina got this little guy.

This is a palo verde. There are nests in just about every one.

This one is a teddy bear cholla. In the spring it sprouts flowers, like most cacti around here. I'll take pics of that too.

I'd like to share with you a bit of what I see every day. Arizona in the winter is amazingly beautiful, and thanks to the trail system that winds through Anthem I take advantage of the gorgeous weather and scenery as much as possible. The Sonoran Desert receives the most rainfall of any desert in North America, which is why it's so strikingly green. I love it here, the plant life is so diverse and so is the wildlife. The birds were too quick today to get any great shots and same goes for the lizards. Plus, the kids do a pretty good job of scaring away anything within a hundred feet. It rained last night, and the scent this morning was amazing. They need to make a "desert rain" candle or something. I'd buy 1 or 50.

Birthday party!!

Jade's 4th birthday party was last Saturday. When we first moved here one of the things I was looking forward to the most was Jade's birthday. We FINALLY have a house big enough to host an actual party, so I really wanted to make this a big deal. Unfortunately, she's not in preschool like I thought she'd be, so we've had to do some recruiting of neighborhood kids. I also recently put her in dance, so after her first practice she decided to invite a girl she met there. Anyway, in three months she has made 5 little friends, and luckily they all showed up to the party. I had very ambitious plans a month ago to rent a big bouncy house and a ramada at the park on our little catch and release lake. For some reason I had this delusion that we'd have 20-something kids to entertain. I think that was just wishful thinking on my part. Plus, could you imagine how much money that would cost? I'm actually really happy with the way her party turned out. We played "pin the antennae on the butterfly"(no pics of that, because I was busy blindfolding all the children), and we did a pull-string pinata. Since when have they started making those stupid things? Isn't the point of a pinata to beat the snot out of the darn thing until candy falls out onto the heads of greedy little children? I thought so too. Maybe they figured little girls really didn't want to put Tinkerbell through that torture, so about 12 ribbons were attached to the bottom. Each child grabbed hold of a ribbon and they all pulled at the same time. No beating, just pulling. I don't have pictures of that either.

All in all, it turned out really nice, and Jade just loved her little party!