A post long overdue, here is little Eli. First his new grown up little self all snuggly. Here is where Mommy Annette cut his 1 inch long hair. Here is me with newborn Eli back in March He is such a sweet baby! And of course the girls need the spotlight a bit too! What can I say? It HAS to be TA-DAAA! This little dancing skirt is amazing. It has a little music box attached underneath and she just pushes the button and has music to dance to! It's awesome. --

Happy 30th Eric!

This is actually Eric's SURPRISE 30th birthday party as you can see because Don is in the center....

I didn't get much in the way of pictures but Eric was VERY surprised and lots of good friends came to surprise him . We had a fun time. The friend on the far right here is Cam Johnson and his wife Natalia. He brought Eric a wild squirrel in a cage in his car trunk for a "gift". They had caught it in their backyard in a special cage and he decided Eric would really appreciate it since he used to have many evil squirrels in his backyard. Eric loved it but allowed Cam to take it somewhere else and release it. Such a good friend.

And here is the real Eric in the center with other friends at the party. what a nice bunch of people! Meredith got a fabulous chocolate cake from Cosco, some of you know the ONE, and we all loved it along with his favorite sandwiches from Jimmy Johns or something like that...

We were happy to be there to celebrate such a great person!

We love you Eric!!!

A Visit to The Rowley Home

The little new person we all gathered to see.

Cohen Thomas Rowley

The crew in attendance

Snuggly baby

Too much excitement!

Sisters

Hi everybody!

Smiley coloring boys

And how about some Rock Band with the Beatles???

Go Boys!!

Jackson rocks out

Eric with his trusty baby carrier

Who's in there?

The Easter Bunny came

Just a little Easter fun

Here is for all the kiddos to see so go get them and show them

ONE GIANT ICICLE!!!

This Zebra is my newer animal guy I drew for the

kids to paint so I have to share him too.

And isn't this Giraffe superb? I love him.

Thanks for admiring!

Jungle Fun

I just have to brag a little here... I am known as the Art Queen in my preschool.

(I work there... I'm not a student)

This is my most recent spectacular artiness. I drew these animals freehand from pics in books. I did them really big so the kids could paint them. The paper is about 5 -6 feet long

That's my fun for this week. I impressed myself because I have never drawn something so big before and I managed to get the proportions right. Yea! Too bad I can't put up pics of the kids painting them. They really enjoyed it!

Just a Little Snow in Flagstaff

This is the view from the other side of my cul-de-sac so you can see the snow pile in the middle. It is much bigger now than it was at Christmas time. And the snow is now about 4 - 5 feet high in places. It is supposed to get a couple more feet by tomorrow. It's crazy.

See that little guy up there on the roof? Yup, that's Don. holding his trusty snow shovel. He worked up there for about an hour and a half and came in soaking wet. Poor guy. Glad I'm not a man....

In town there have been some roof collapses. like Joann Fabrics (boo hoo!) And Bookmans. I hear that place is toast now. too bad really. It was a great store! Hey, maybe when they start up again they will take some of my books they wouldn't take before....

DON'T GO DADDY! DON'T GO!
I love these pics! Meredith let me steal them from her facebook. She told me how.
This what the boys do when Eric has to leave for work. Isn't it precious!

Click on it and you can see Logan is there too.

My Ode to the Holiday

-By Karen Rowley

The mansion is empty,
The trash is all dumped
The kitties they sleep on the couch in a lump.
The tree, it still standeth
I can't say goodbye.
It just looks so pretty
That maybe I'll cry.

It's too quiet here.
Not much cleaning's been done,
With more things around
I remember the fun.
I've found a green boot
And a little toy soldier,
A ship in a bag
And some socks left to molder.

The snow mountain misses
The children's loud squeals,
The van that careened around on two wheels.
The kitchen's not crowded
There's still food galore
And right now there's nothing spilled on the floor.
No kids at the counter all drinking hot chocolate.
No Dads in the family room ready to Risk it.

So maybe I'll spend one more day in a trance
Remembering the children who did a fine dance
And the wild country fiddlin' and hootin' and yellin'
The puzzling and gaming and sick belly aching.

Now the children are happy in their own snuggly beds
And visions of summertime dance in their heads,
When once again there will be noise all around
And kidlets so numerous the mothers will frown
And say "are they yours? I'm not going to claim them!
It's way too much work just to try to contain them!"

So we'll let them go running and screaming outside
They'll laugh and they'll play and they'll slip and they'll slide.
Us grown-ups will sit back relax and watch movies
And phone for some Pizza.
Oh, it will be Groovy!

We FINALLY took down the Christmas tree. Last night. But all the other decorations are still up. Maybe we will take them down for our date night tonight. We have to move the car out of the garage and climb up into the attic to get all the boxes to fill up so that's one reason it's taking so long. Plus, the holidays were just so fun that It's been easy to let it keep going with the decorations keeping the feelings alive.