"Happy To You" Cake

The grandson has attended a few birthday celebrations in the last couple of weeks and he is especially excited by the birthday cakes. He likes the cake and the candles, but his favorite part is the singing. He loves to sing Happy Birthday.

On Friday night we went to his 2nd cousin Hezekiah's party.


and on Saturday we celebrated with his 2nd cousin, Anastasia.


Today, while he and I were visiting the Desert Botanical Garden, we decided to sit down and rest next to this planter full of some type of tiny aloe vera plants. He kept telling me "happy to you" as he pointed to the plant, but it took me a little while to figure out what he was saying. In his mind this looks like a birthday cake with very tall candles poking up. After he pointed it out, I could see the resemblance.



In honor of his ingenuity, we sang "Happy Birthday" several times, like maybe 12, while he practiced blowing the candles out.

Second Grade Field Trip

Today I got to go on a field trip to the Desert Botanical Garden with my oldest daughter and her Second Grade Class. I thought it was a fun and interesting trip.


This is our group - 10 of her students.


The second grade program that the garden presents is about life cycles so we learned about the life cycle of a Saguaro Cactus.

A seven year old saguaro is only as big as a second grader's thumb. A saguaro gets it's first arm usually when it is about 50 years old. Saguaros can live about 200 years. A saguaro can hold up to 60 bathtubs of water inside during a wet period. Saguaro's are ribbed so they can expand and contract as they gain and lose water.

We also learned about the Yucca plant. Here the students are depicting the Yucca life cycle.

I really like this next picture because it looks like everyone is really involved in learning something.

The Desert Botanical Garden has a Christmas event each year where they light the trails with southwestern luminaries. They have thousands of luminaries and I'm sure it is very beautiful.

I have always wanted to go to it, but I am too cheap to pay the $25.00 that it costs each person to attend. As I walked the trails today I just pretended that the candles were all lit and glowing.

They also have some really unique blown glass decoration "growing" in with the plant life that are quite beautiful even in the daylight.


After our time at the garden we went to Papago Park to eat lunch. The gardens are located in Papago Park so it was a very short bus ride. This is a park with plants and dirt and rocks and picnic tables but no playground. The kids were all very upset. This was a crummy park in their opinion. All there was to do was eat.

This is the daughter's entire Second Grade Class except for one little girl. She is pretty lucky to only have 15 students in her classroom. It may look like there are only 13 kids in the picture - one of the girls is hiding, but you can kind of see her if you look really hard.


Today I am thankful

that I still get to enjoy a bus full of kids every once in a while.
for the opportunity to learn something I didn't know before.
for dinner in the crock pot at the end of a busy day.