Happy Birthday Friend!

Happy GOLDEN Birthday old buddy!!!!

Here's to all the old times,

and the new times

and all the great times yet to come!!!

(I wouldn't dress like this for anyone else)

Hope you have a great day. I wish I was there eating ice cream cake with you.

Your present is in the mail. ;)

Love you, man!

Go leave Melissa some birthday love on her blog!

Learning to Spell

"Mommy mommy! I can spell my name. 

A, L, L, I love my mom and dad!"

Guess what we did on Saturday?

Planted our garden!!!

Dus and the boys hard at work.

We've got three furrows of tomatoes and one of onions and peppers.

It warms my little heart to see little green sprouts in front of the house. I can't wait til June and July!!

I can taste the soup, salsa and sauce right now.

Less than 130 days!

In honor of the countdown to Eclipse I give you this...

P.S. Watch for the meeting of the band (vampires) and the werewolves.. does it looks familiar?

..its St. George!

I didn't know Jacob cruised main.

Liter-allie Speaking

Allie is a very good listener...

but sometimes she takes things too literally.

The other day I asked her to "pick up" the living room.

I came back into the room and found this...

She looked at me proudly and said, "I picked everything up, Mommy!"
Yup.. everything was "up" off the floor.

A few days later I asked Allie to put her princess stickers on her dresser.

When I went into her room a little while later I found her princess stickers "on" her dresser.

How about a close up?

Allie definitely keeps me on my toes! I'm learning to really watch what I say!!

You might be a redneck...

you've ever had to figure out how to get a single wide trailer out of your backyard.

This has been the view from my back door for the past three years. YIKES!

After putting it in the local paper for FREE! Yes, he gave it away. We got a taker on it!

So now, the question is... how do you move this thing?

Well, you call your cousin who owns a dozer and you pull it out, of course!

I thought it was going to tip over at this point. But it didn't.

Good bye and good riddance!!

Off to its new home.

Ah... much better view. Right?

Yeah... not so much. We worked in the yard all day yesterday -- trees and grass will be planted! I will have a backyard!!

 

Before and After pictures coming soon!!!

A year ago today...

This happened.

I have to admit, I was a little hesitant to drive anywhere today, but I made it out and back home in one piece.

The Narrows

Are you getting sick of hearing about the rain in the desert yet?

Good.

Cuz, here's another rain post!

We drove out to the narrows to check out the water holes.

Allie liked to throw rocks in and see the big splash!

There was water running everywhere

Oh, yeah.. Mark feel asleep so I got to hold him on this make shift bed. Its more comfortable then it looks. I actually feel asleep too. :)

Dustin's self portrait

Allie playing rolling in the mud!

Waterfall down to the water hole

Mark woke up so we took a family picture

Allie and Daddy

Mark wasn't happy I woke him up.. but my back was starting to hurt...

Water!!!

Water!!!

Everywhere!!!

The Narrows

Did I mention there was water everywhere?

Cuz, there was.
We can't wait til spring! There is going to be so many beautiful wild flowers!

The End

The Next Generation

Melissa posted this picture of our dads on her blog and I had to do a post about it too!!

Aren't they studs??!

My dad is on the left and Melis' dad is on the right.

Uncle Jim (middle) is pretty cool too :)

In honor of our dads and their bell bottoms and 70's style mustaches, I thought I'd post some of me and Melis in our glory days.

Here's to the next generation!

I hope our kids are best buds too!!

Mark

Mark is growing up so fast!

Yesterday, I watched as he rode off with my dad in the Rhino and I looked over at my mom and said, 

"He's too little to be so big."

And its true, he's so big! But he's is only one.. almost two.. but I'll keep him at one as long as possible!!

Here are some 

Mark Milestones:

Sleeps in a big boy bed

Got his first black eye

Drives the fourwheeler (ok - stretch that one, drives with Daddy's help)

Helps on the farm

Drinks from a regular cup (still won't use his fork though)

Words:

hold you

come on

chep-ka (ketchup)

wub ew (love you)

coo coo (thank you)

hee hee (horse)

cow

sheepie (sheep)

boots

truck

car

broken

book
mine
no
tractor

Love you my little {big} boy!!

Bunk Beds

Last month Mark decided that he was part monkey and could climb in and out of his crib at will.
So I enlisted my resident handy man to build bunk beds!

I feel bad that I didn't get more pictures of the building process -- but here is the one picture I did take.

And here is the finished product!

Estefan says peace.

Allie says we are number one.

And Mark is just stoked he gets to be up high.

Dus did a great job and the kids love them!

P.S. I know what you're thinking -- yes, that fan is coming down!

Desert Rain

There is nothing like the desert after rain. And we were blessed with lots more rain this weekend!!

So we had to get out and enjoy it!

We decided to trek out to Magnasite and play in the mud.

Yeah... that didn't happen! The road was all washed out.

So we kept truckin' on to the Valley of Fire.

(these are the original pictures, none have been photoshopped)

Isn't the desert amazing??!

Elephant Rock

Mark found lots puddles to jump in!

Estefan showing Mark how its done!

Allie found lots of rocks to collect

and there were lots of pretty red rocks. Her pockets were clear full!

Bud and Miss Allie. Estefan said they were on top of the world!

Me and Dus

The big kids climbing to the top of the world... while Mark splashes in puddles down below.

Our flamly

Doesn't it look like the mountains are floating? Its seams so Heavenly to me.

This.... not so Heavenly. But we made it safely across :)

And that was the end of our rainy afternoon!