Happy Birthday Claire! Balloon Trauma?

Happy First Birthday!

Claire is one year old today.















Here's a photo of her standing on her own. This only lasts a couple of seconds until she realizes she isn't holding on to anything solid, so I'm lucky I got this picture.
















Birthday cake and other festivities will come later today. She had a traumatic incident with a balloon yesterday. I thought it would be fun to blow up a balloon and then let it go flying around the room. (The kids in Tucson thought this was hilarious when we did this with them on their birthdays.) However, when I let her balloon go, it spun around and headed straight for Claire, making some very strange sounds. This just resulted in scaring her and causing her to scream and cry. Oh no . . . it seemed like a fun idea at the time. Now she is very wary of the balloons and will barely touch them. I hope I did not cause a lifetime balloon phobia for her.

PS - Happy Birthday to my sister, Carolyn, who also shares this special birthday!

Some photos as promised in the last post.
From Coke World.















From the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama - Civil War museum. For more pictures, see Suzy's blog.

Georgia on my mind

I'm in Georgia for a visit with Suzy&Casey and Claire. Claire's birthday is in a few days. Can't believe she is one year old already. She is growing up so fast. She can stand by herself, if she forgets she's not holding on to anything. She can walk if you hold her hand, but is not quite ready to try it all by herself yet. I'll post pictures soon when I figure out how to download them here.

Today we went to the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama and the World of Coke in Atlanta. We could have spent more time at the Olympic Park, but it was a bit rainy and cold.

Just as my sister Carolyn recommended, the World of Coke is really fun. Especially the part where you get to taste Coke products from around the world. The grapefruit drink was the worst, the one with the coconut flavor was my favorite.

Update to the last post: The rental house in Tucson is now rented to a nice Air Force family. Yay!

Purple? What's wrong with Purple?

Since the last renters moved out 2 weeks ago and the house is not yet rented again, I decided to spend the last 2 days painting two of the bedrooms at our Tucson rental house - not to be confused with the new Tucson house, where we actually live sometimes.

This bedroom was previously purple, which for some reason people didn't seem to like.















This bedroom was previously blue, with a lot of scratches and scuff marks, which is almost as undesirable as purple.















Now they are what was supposed to be a nice neutral tan/brown color. Somehow it has a pinkish tinge to it. Why is it that I seem to have so much trouble picking paint colors?

At least these rooms now look a lot cleaner and fresher.

Maybe someone will want to rent this house soon.

For other pictures of this place, go to: http://ritaranchrental.blogspot.com/

After Christmas

After Christmas photos.

The pavers, planter and sandbox in the new backyard are finished.

















































The boys tryout the new sandbox.













A trip to the Pima Air Museum in Tucson with Jeff & Allison and boys.
Thanks for coming down for a visit!

















5 year old also came with us to see all the airplanes and helicopters.
(Yes, it just happened to be one of those unusual cold and windy days in Tucson and most of the airplanes were outside, so jackets had to be worn.)






























"I'm flying the airplane!"
















New Years Day at our house with the traditional New Years spaghetti.
















One yr old ate 2 plates of spaghetti.
Three yr old would not touch it.
















We had a nice family pizza and movie night for my birthday at Ryan's house on Saturday, complete with birthday cake and ice cream. And then a dinner and game night on my birthday at Kevin's house on Monday. Thanks for all the fun birthday activities!

Christmas Day

Scenes from Christmas 2009.

Santa came! So many fun toys.











































Later in the day, all Tucson family came to our house for dinner, presents and games, including Ashley's parents who were visiting for the week.

Before Christmas

Here are some pictures of things happening in Tucson before Christmas.

Christmassy things:

You can make some really fun Christmas decorations in kindergarten.


















Going to Winterhaven to see Christmas lights.















Non-Christmassy things:

Going to the park.















Working on Kevin's bathroom tile project.
















Pavers for the backyard of the new house.
Before















Mid-job





























almost done . . . to be finished after Christmas















Clean up time.
Kids in bathtub.














Christmas and after Christmas pictures coming in next blog.

'Twas the Fright before Christmas . . .

You have to admit, for children under the age of 5 who don't like strangers to begin with, a guy in a red suit with a funny beard and hat can be rather . . . terrifying.

But, for some reason we think it's cute to sit them on Santa's lap and take a picture anyway.

Here's what happened at the church Christmas party Saturday night.

One year old was screaming.


















Even giving her a candy cane did not improve the situation.














Three year old wanted an even quicker getaway.













Five year old was fine with Santa and even smiled and talked to him. Unfortunately, my camera malfunctioned at that moment (grrrr) and I have no picture. However, this post-Santa-visit photo of his reaction to the candy cane is somewhat humorous. I guess he thought he would get something more substantial from Santa.




He didn't say this, but his expression says:

"I sat on Santa's lap and all I got was this little candy cane?"