JoJo's 1st

This week was JoJo's 1st b-day.  We all agreed it was hard to believe she's already reached this milestone.  She's a little ahead of her sister at that age by nearly walking.  AK and Nana T joined us for a little party with special cupcakes and a few presents.

       

       

          

        

Get-Together #3

Last Sun. night the neighborhood families got together for a third time.  Bobbins had the girls try out their new home-made Independence Day outfits.

Carousel

Last Friday we hit the Carousel at PV Mall

Dryer Girls

           

Popsicles

The best way to combat this heat is with home-made popsicles.

        

Depressing

Quite a bit of news today, most of it depressing.  The well-financed Left subverted the will of the people of New York and forced through gay marriage.  Every place the issue is put on the ballot it fails, so the answer of course is to buy off some opponents in the legislature, ram it through to passage, and call it a "democratic" blow to discrimination which the media all too happily proclaims.  George Weigel has a pretty good article on the ramifications of re-defining an ancient, pre-political institution on the whim of a small minority.

Then there's the latest affront to common sense and decency perpetrated against an American citizen trying to board a plane.  The TSA's "inspection" of a 95-year-old elderly woman in a diaper is so insane it's absurd.  It's simply amazing to me this and pat-downs of toddlers and frisking of nuns happens.  How silly can these people get.  We all know it's not about security but political correctness.  We can't allow this to continue.

If there was any good news, it was that Rod Blagojevich was convicted of most counts of trying to sell Obama's old Senate seat.  But how long will it be before Obama issues a pardon?  It's nice to see justice served in a place like Illinois, but somehow I know he'll be taken care of.  It's how things work there.  Or don't.

Her Reading Taste

JoJo is already demonstrating a good taste in books and history

      

Happy Fathers Day

Hope the other dads in our circle of kith and kin are having a good day.  Bobbins is pretty sick, so I've been earning my father cred throughout the day, mostly at church.  I was a little wary of taking them both by myself, but either they felt bad for me or realized it was my day:  they did great.  We made it on time and MM was able to get her pee done while I held JoJo.  We sat in the back but made it through the whole Mass, all the way to the end to a once-a-year part I thoroughly look forward to, the Fathers Blessing.

We had our usual DBBs for brunch at home, then got solid naps in.  I was able to read the Sunday newspaper -- a subscription my Fathers Day gift -- all the way through.  Hopefully Bobbins can make it up for the BBQ we're having with her folks tonight.

Here's my proud dad photo

The Sweetest Flowers

I have been saving this recipe for a long time now, see date on the bottom of the clipping.

I bought the skewers and a cute little bucket almost 6 months ago. Thinking one day I will use this, I WILL make this!

Well tonight I did!
I was befriended by a wonderful neighbor mom of 3 children. We hit it off right away and tomorrow being her birthday I thought this would be the perfect time to make the sweetest bouquet of flowers for her.

Skate Date

For our anniversary, we dropped the girls off with the neighbor friends and drove out to Skateland in Mesa to roller skate.  Bobbins had one of her ubiquitous groupons and talked me into it as a special present.  She had gone many times in her youth but never with a boyfriend.  The DJ played a little too much Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber for our taste, but he did give a shout-out to us and our little celebration, which was hugely cheesy and appropriate and hilarious.  Bobbins was graceful as ever, and by the end I had picked up some speed.

         

Mighty Mud Mania

Yesterday morning we drove over to Scottsdale for Mighty Mud Mania, basically a bunch of mud pits and wet sand for kids and adults to play in.  More of a thing for boys, which our neighbor friends' son proved, but MM had a little fun.