Christmas at last! Hope everyone was Jolly for awhile at least :)! Missed granny's gumbo, sad, miss my family, very sad. Will be coming home most definitely in March. March 14th i believe is Jada's spring break. So christmas morning Jada opened a present she long suspected to be a pillow and voila it was Monkey Jammies...she hates monkeys but loves the jammies, finally we can rid ourselves of the jammies Jada refuses to let me sneak away that she has owned since she was 3. the pants are nearly to her knees now! So our toyless Christmas went over well, even santa complied with the exception of a Barbie doll and a Toy from the grandparents. Jada is the proud new owner of the nintendo DS which she loves, from mimi and other paw paw. Plenty of clothes thanks to granny and lots of books including an encyclopedia of Presidents (her newest interest to which i find i am grossly uninformed and can use the book to help me teach her) and a Shel Silverstein poem book (which i have already had to read half of cos she loves the silly stories as i did when i was little). So our christmas day as you all know led to Christmas sledding and followed by a night of family games and hot cocoa till everyone about fell asleep. it was fun and here are some pictures of the sledding, i included one of my favorites of mike's brother whose hat made him look like that bully on "A Christmas Story" Will somebody pleas send me back pics of Christmas at home??????

God bless Jada, she always lets me play photo shoot with her, here are some nicely natural lit close ups i was practicing on her when i thought the light looked perfect, i think i was right. no touch ups on thses pics at all just the way i shot them with border added. The top pic is her showing off some newpolar bear christmas socks and sweater.

Just looking through pictures last year when i was back home...thought these were funny.

Christmas Ballet recital

Jada's Christmas Recital was a couple days ago. What a fiasco too! The whole night almost a big disaster for mike and I. Anyway we made it through and here are the pictures and video. the video is blurry because the camera couldn't focus (because they start the dance in the dark.) Sorry. Jada is all the way on the left, i tried to keep her in the middle. The first video is at practice the next is the show. There is another video of Jada laughing alot, she was so tired and giggly after her ballet show.

Pretty soon we will be heading up to the mountains to play in the snow. It will be interesting with the dog, cross our fingers we don't cross the paths of any bunnies and have her run off. Jada has big plans for the snow including a snowman, snow fort and a big snowball fight. She says she wants me and her and cici on one side and daddy on the other.

Poor Jada says she wants another cat for Christmas too. I keep telling her if we got a cat the dog would eat it. She also says she still cant decide what to ask for from Santa so I assured her I already wrote a letter requesting her stocking be filled with green beans and broccoli.

Halloween, come and gone

So halloween was interesting this year, i almost had to go alone because mike worked late. Luckily he got out just in the nick of time for us to go door to door.

Jada had a blast this year running door to door. Although i think her and her cousin weren't ringing doorbells or knocking right because quite a few houses that i saw giving out candy didnt even open the door when the girls got there but thats ok, she got a cauldron full anyway.

She was a witch this year, she decided last year as we were walking the clearance aisles thank goodness so her costume was under 5 dollars. She says she wants to be a musketeer for next year so if I cant find anything on the clearance aisles this year i may commission granny to make something. Of course Barbie may have a new movie out by then and they'll want to be something else.

Jada got best costume at her grandparents house and a cute little skeleton trophy. We carved the pumpkins, of course jada wanted a cat again, baked pumpkin seeds which i polished off, and plan on making pumpkin bread with the rest of the pumpkin pieces we carved off and pureed.

Its funny everyone thought when Jada was dressed like a witch she looked just like me, I wasn't quite sure how to take that but they said it was seeing her in the dark hair wig....hmmm....Oh and it was spirit week at Jada's school one of the days was crazy hair day there is a picture below. Here are some of our halloween pictures:

practicing technique

just playing around with new techniques on my camera/computer and here is the result, it still needs fine tuning of course but here is my raw version:

it was this:

So as everyone knows we finally got a Dalmatian. Her name is Cici and she came from a rescue shelter in Colorado. So far she is pretty relaxed dog around people but the process with the cat is gonna be a long one. She has a strong prey instinct and small fuzzy things pop her into a mind frame of hunter. i took her to the mountains the other day and the second she hear a rabbit scurry by she about pulled me down. It would have looked alot like the time mocha dragged me face first in the snow to chase a rabbit. I have figured out since then she is much different on a harness leash. After almost getting drug over rocks and mesquite i wrapped the leash around her chest and bunnies, road runners, quail no matter what she hardly pulled just looked really interested. Much different frame of mind. Other than that i think our four walks a day tuckered her out cos she laid on us all day sunday even slept through our screaming during the saints game. Speaking of....I knew it! I hope we go all year undefeated *knock on wood* or at least make it to superbowl this year. Last year cardinals, if they could do it surely we are next, right?

just a couple video's and picture from jada playing in the rain. Currently jada is learning her cursive and reading dick and jane books from school...some things she sounds out but they first teach word recognition. She put together her first sentence using magnets on the fridge too today.

I will put that video up later...

So since i am a few months behind and havent taken any pictures since the return from san diego, here are a few gems from our trip. Jada takes school pictures on tuesday of this week and i will be ordering some for everyone...ie. granny and mom. I will be taking pictures of her school and playhouse sending those as well. jada is real excited to "decorate" her new playhouse but first i have to dig up the ground and level it and then add the rubber chips on top...none of which i really wanna do till the weather cools down some. Without further delay...

Jada's first haircut after looks much healthier...




Jada being goofy:

Just recent pictures of mine:

1. roosevelt lake bridge

2. Sunsets over the past 2 days monsoon season brings alot of nice sunsets and a ton of rainbows...nearly every day a rainbow shows up.

So we said we would wait 5 years till we cut Jadas hair and well its close enough to her birthday...As expected she was against the idea at first and nervous when we walked in but they were booked so we made an appt for 2 hours later and by then jada was ok with the idea and has been so excited to show off her haircut (although you can barely tell she got one) to everyone.

A little something for you granny...we were exploring one day and drove past the plant that makes those wonderful tomatoes from sams club that you get...the place was blocked off like a prison you couldnt even slow down outside the plant without having people look at you like your doing something wrong. This place was miles and miles of greenhouses pretty neat.

So here are a few pictures of everyone, its kinda fun to look back and see how everyone has changed over the years: Click on the pics for a larger view.

and Josephine, we were going to call you before bedtime but realized you are 2 hours ahead and so you were probably in bed already, sorry!