Ladder Girl

Another notch in our Parents of the Year nomination.  Well Father of the Year, because this one was all mine.

Thursday I got home a little early, so Bobbins ran some errands.  Just me and the girls.  We went for a nice walk with Olden.  The HVAC guy came over to look at the heating--a/c unit, in preparation for summer.  I wanted to get on the roof to look at it with him, to learn a few things about the system.  I figured the girls would be fine in the backyard, Josie in her exe-saucer and MM running around with Olden.  So I left them out, put up my extension ladder, and went up.

About 5 minutes later Bobbins came home.  I thought she'd get the girls and get ready for dinner while the HVAC guy and I finished up on the roof.  Another couple minutes passed and Bobbins came into the back.  I heard her say "Oh my goodness!" and I looked back toward the ladder, and there was MM on the top rung, trying to figure out how to get onto the roof.  She had climbed up about 10' all by herself.  She must've watched me do it and decided to give it a go.  She wasn't scared in the least bit.  I grabbed her and we laughed about it, after our heartbeats returned to normal.

Later we took some photos and video to memorialize the occasion.

               

Pump It Up

Last Friday night we went to a Pump It Up birthday party for some of the girls' friends.  The place is a warehouse full of huge inflatable slides and courses that kids and adults can do.  At the end, the kids pile into a room for pizza and soda.  We were a little late and missed the first room but enjoyed the slides.  Well, Bobbins, me, and Josie did; MM not so much.

Could one of these things hold all three of us?

         






Group shot of all the kids, zoom in on Josie zooming right back

          

Her Own Cute Post

You can't beat that smile, even if it is from Torquemada.

        

        

MM and Mom at the Childrens Museum

Last Thursday Bobbins met up with a few of the other moms and -- armed with treasured culture passes from the library -- hit the Childrens Museum of Phoenix.

           






"Shopping" at the Play Grocery Store.  MM excelled.

                 

"I know there's something in there."

Party Weekend 1

Two weekends ago was quite a party weekend for us.  Saturday morning MM and I went to the baptism of my colleague's daughter at our church, then to lunch at the couple's home afterward.  They also have two girls and just put in a little swingset and playhouse.  MM was jealous and asked me for the same.

While it wasn't a party, Bobbins and Josie went to a Memorial Mass for our dear departed friend Marie.  She is certainly in a better place now, which is some cause for celebration.

Sat. night was the going-away party for Kevin, Jessica, and their kids.  They are moving to the northwest and the mom's group wanted to do a proper send-off, which entailed a Sound of Music-themed party.  The moms even wrote a Jessica-themed line of lyrics to one of the movie's main songs and sang it for her.  And of course they put together a scrapbook.  Bobbins did up some real nice decorations which you can see hanging below the stairs.

Special packages by Bobbins

             

Par-tay









The gals prepping to sing; the waterworks begin . . .

        



Reviewing the scrapbook.  That's Kevin's best running shirt.

            

This about says it all

Bobbins, Jess, Jenny

Obama Presents a Joke

The big news story of the day is the President presenting his 2012 budget, which is more of a joke than a real plan for fiscal sanity.  This was the best illustration I saw:

$3.73 trillion — total spending this year (25 percent of GDP, highest levels since World War Two).


$46 trillion — total spending over the next decade.

$8.7 trillion — total new spending over the same period.

$26.3 trillion — Total new debt, including entitlement obligations, predicted by 2021.

$7.2 trillion — Total deficit predicted by the end of the decade.

$1.1 trillion — How much the White House estimates the proposal will reduce the deficit over the next ten years.

$4 trillion — How much the president’s deficit commission recommended reducing the deficit over the next ten years to avoid financial catastrophe.

$1.6 trillion — The projected annual deficit for 2011 (11 percent of GDP), up from $1.3 trillion in 2010.

$2 trillion — Amount the budget will raise taxes on business and upper-income families over the next ten years, which includes letting the Bush-era tax rates expire in 2012 (for incomes $250,000 and up).

$50 billion — Amount the administration plans to spend this year on infrastructure and transportation “investments.”

That last amount is slated for Obama's, and liberals', beloved high-speed rail.  That they honestly believe such a system is a good idea belies their lack of seriousness.  Like it or not, this nation turned away from rail as a means of human transport 80 years ago.  The Great Depression pretty much killed it.  The Government tried to bring it back in the 1970s with Amtrak, which is a near total failure.  Yet they want to try it again?  How can you seriously propose this?  I know one of the ideas is that it's supposedly a cleaner, "greener" mode of transportation (which is doubtful, in my mind), but the cost is beyond unaffordable.  This article spells it out pretty nicely.

Girls Update

MM is pretty much potty trained and she's not even 2 yet.  We'll spare you the gory details from photos.  She's had a real problem going #2, but thanks to the advice of Aunt Mel, who recommended a daily dose of Activia yogurt, she's gotten better.  I'll never forget the other day standing in the kitchen eating and hearing the sound of water hitting plastic.  I looked down and there she was just going pee like it was no big deal.  Bobbins has done a terrific job training her.

Josie, like her sister at that age, has a sweet disposition, but unlike her sis, is a terror at night.  We've taken to calling her Torquemada.  It's not that bad, but at 4am it seems that way.  We got a couple tips recently we're going to try.  The hard thing is that you can't let her cry it out because she'll go a whole hour + crying or making noises.  I'm sure she'll come around soon.

                

             

Learning how to spend money -- I mean, shopping with mom at Target.















As today's Valentines Day, I got MM a little card.  I started to sign and had to stop.  Thankfully the first letter's the same and the second is close.  I realized I had to sign it "Dad" instead of "Doug."