This morning was the annual Easter Egg Hunt at our church. And this was the first year that LG was not in the first group of hunters. She’s moved from the toddlers to the preschoolers.

Here she is waiting for her turn. Notice there is already candy in her basket? That’s because it pays to know the Easter Bunny on a personal level. ;)

Here she is sitting on Rochelle’s lap getting instructions…

Unfortunately her good mood didn’t last too long as some of those wild and crazy preschoolers knocked her down on the way to the eggs. What did the mother of the year do? I stood there and laughed and called her a drama queen. But her dad was right there to pick her up. Poor little chickie.

Luckily, when your dad is a staff member at the church, then everyone knows you. That can work in your favor when you’re little because you get a little help when everyone feels sorry for you because you were crying.

You’ll notice there are plenty of eggs in the basket…

And the smiles came back…

She even posed with the Easter Bunny…

And compared loot with a friend…

Happy Easter!!!

Sunday seems to be the day we spend time in the back yard. This week it was Mike pulling the overgrown weeds that have taken over Melody’s dog run and our path to the big yard. You can tell we’ve gotten a good amount of rain this winter by the amount of weeds we have. They do make everything nice and green, though! (Read on …)

Okay, so! I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get to this post until later tonight or tomorrow, but due to unfortunate circumstances (i.e. Marlene having a sick kiddo or two and hopefully the puke stops there), what I was going to be doing tonight got postponed to a later date. No idea what the later date is, but we’ll try and work it out at some point!

Anyway, since I don’t have to finish my frantic house cleaning before people come over since no one is coming over, well…I can tell you about Valentine’s Day! (Read on …)

It was an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, perfect day here in the desert. And since the forecast is calling for rain the next couple of days, we decided to get out and take a little walk around the neighborhood and enjoy the weather. I took my camera and snapped a few shots of the interesting things I noticed along the way. And just so Marlene doesn’t wonder why we’ve never seen these things on our walks, it’s because we did all the streets that we don’t do when LG and I walk with her and her crew…lol! (Read on …)

I posted about our anniversary on the photo blog, so if you would like to go there to read it, click away!

As for Sunday? Well, it was eventful in its own way. First thing in the morning, our friendly neighborhood woodpecker was pecking away at the metal chimney cap. I went outside in my bathrobe to take his photo and throw rocks at him to get him to leave. The rocks didn’t work and it’s not the best photo, but here it is…

We had thought that it was a Gila Woodpecker, but after looking at the bird on the roof and then examining the photo, I realized it wasn’t. Luckily, I didn’t have to do much digging to find out it was actually a Gilded Flicker (also a member of the woodpecker family). Another bird to add to our list of birds we have hanging around our property.

Little Girl likes to eat bananas for breakfast (or banyanas as she calls them). Usually, she has to have one of us get them for her, but yesterday morning she got one (her 2nd one of the morning) all by herself! Here’s the evidence…

Then we spent some time outside in the beautiful weather…

They’re making progress (if you really want to call it that) on the hill near our house where they are building houses. The road is getting closed to being finished…

Someone who lives in the neighborhood to the east of us practices his golf swing and the balls land in our yard and our neighbor’s yard. Our neighbor, who has a special needs child, finally tracked him down and asked him to stop, but there are still a ton of golf balls in our yard. This one has seen better days, but LG was very excited to discover that there was another ball inside the golf ball…

And finally, some pictures of our sunshine girl…

Showing me what a bird does…

Little Girl turned 3 years and 1 month old yesterday, and as I mentioned, I’m not going to be doing monthly letters to LG anymore, but I do want to keep up with a monthly retrospective of photos, so here goes… (Read on …)

I got really lazy busy and didn’t upload any photos to flickr for a couple of weeks or so. So, I’m catching up today…hope you enjoy! (Read on …)

As promised, the making of the Mickey Mouse Cake… (Read on …)

Okay, so I didn’t manage to get this post written yesterday, but I still have four days left of NaBloPoMo, so I need blog fodder anyway!

We rarely ever do anything on Sunday other than the occasional family get together and of course church stuff. The main reason for this is that Mike has gigged Friday and Saturday night and he usually gets home at a ridiculous hour of the morning so he’s too tired to get up and go anywhere.

However, no gigs this weekend equalled a Mike with ENERGY! So, we went to Maricopa Live Steamers which is a railroad heritage preservation society. They have mini trains and several lines that they run (almost) every Sunday from noon to 4 pm. For free. Mike is a train buff and LG loves them, too. The trains are just wide enough for one person to ride fairly comfortably. (Read on …)

Scroll down for Surfer Sunday

Last night, with Mike not gigging again, we made our way out to Glendale Glitters, the local Christmas lights festival. The weather was perfect. There was just enough nip in the air to make it feel like Christmas, but it wasn’t cold enough to be uncomfortable. Two layers and we were all fine. Well, LG loves to wear her “mitten glubs” and her hat, so she was nice and toasty. (Read on …)

Sunday was such a beautiful day. We spent the morning outside - working in the garden planters and Mike envisioning where the RV that is coming to visit us for a few days will park.

I think I love Calendulas better than any other marigold variety. The petals remind me of feathers…

And is there anything sweeter than a little girl running at full tilt to her daddy with open arms?

Then it was time to go back inside and…paint the island! Everything but the countertop will (hopefully) be finished by LG’s birthday party and the countertop (if we’re really lucky) will be done by Christmas. Mike had a little help with the painting… (Read on …)

It’s not so much that I’ve been busy - I’ve just been occupied with other things. And also, now that I don’t have to post a picture every day on my photo blog, I seem to keep leaving pictures on the camera for days at a time before I download them. I’m okay with that, though. It’s nice to be able to procrastinate now and then.

Anway, here’s the latest crop of photos to illustrate what’s been going on in our little corner of the world… (Read on …)

So I’ve been a little quiet since Thursday. Why? Well, Friday was my birthday, and even though I’m not exactly thrilled about getting older, I am thrilled about making it through another year and hanging out with my family. Which is what I did all weekend. So there.

Rather than write a whole long boring post about the weekend, I’ll (mostly) leave it to the pictures to tell you what my weekend was like… (Read on …)

We decided to get out of the Valley and the heat (although it’s not as bad now that it’s under 100 degrees) for the day yesterday, and took a drive up to Flagstaff. (Read on …)

Today we made Apple Bread Pudding…

Mix, mix, mix…

Stir, stir, stir…

Add the apples…

Yum!