January Part One

 Happy New Year!  A month late.  But we are getting closer.  Here are my buddies on January 1st.  It's been a cold winter.

I took this photo on a frosty morning from my office window.  The cardinals were sitting in the tree, all fluffed up eating red berries.

Our tree stayed up longer than I like, but I was enjoying the little twinkling lights in the house.  January days are short and dark in Minnesota!

This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations.  It was given to us by Eric's mom for Christmas when were were first married.  That would probably mean that it is an antique now!  I wish I was kidding.  :-S

My hay buddy on a quick trip to the farm.

Billy is keeping busy with basketball this winter.  Somehow he looks really tall to me when he's just sitting.  I think it's those long legs.

The  life of a house cat...sleeping, eating, bugging your humans, napping, eating and then sleeping again.

 Hoops again.  I think that the boy in black is at the top of his vertical jump...and crashing into my little boy.  Basketball gets rough.  Honestly, it's on of my least favorite sports to watch.  But I do.  And then snicker at the parents that go crazy with their yelling.  Really??  It's just in-house basketball.  Yikes.

I was waiting for a warm day to remove the decorations from on the front step. This day the sun was hitting the glitter and things were really sparkling.  I couldn't quite capture it, but I tried.  Some days it's all about trying.

Wheel barrow sculptures / planters in my back yard.  They were here when we bought the house, but I like them a lot!  Waiting for spring and some flowers.

It finally warmed up for a few days here...and rained and rained.  We needed the moisture, but would have rather had snow.  Rain + freezing = ice every where.

The boys had to walk slowly in their pasture, I should have gotten them some Yaktrax!  Too bad they are only for humans.

The middle of January meant bringing Brian back to college.  I caught this hazy sunset as we were driving down the road.  A 70 mph sunset.  I like it!  I don't like bringing Brian back to school...just when I was getting used to him being home again!

Sometimes the day slips away and the best thing to take a photo of is the moon....big or small the moon is pretty cool.

Last but not least, here's a small sample of Brian's Root Beer bottle collection.  The boy sure likes his root beer!  The bottles are fun.  Who knew there were so many kinds of root beer!

And with that, we are halfway through January.  I'm thinking that by tomorrow we'll be all caught up...just in time to be behind in February.  This everyday stuff is tough!  Hope it is warm where you are, we had a low of -13 with a windchill of -33 degrees this morning.  Makes a person want to stay in the nice warm bed!  No wonder I'm behind in everything.  Thanks for stopping by.  See you tomorrow!

December 2012

Are you ready to zip through December?  The last 26 days of December anyway?  I know that I am.  Here goes.  Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus...isn't that what it's all about?  I love my Willow Tree nativity set.

And I love cardinals in the snow.  This one is sitting on the net surrounding the trampoline....which has since been taken down.

I took some Christmas card pictures for my niece and her family....little Avery wasn't feeling it that day.  This one was where we were turning the frown upside down.  She wasn't really frowning...just wouldn't smile.  Kids are so funny.

We had a nice big snowstorm, Eric and I took the dog for a fun walk.  The snow was so deep that she got pretty tired...but it was such a beautiful and peaceful day!

My outside decorations were buried in snow.

One of my horse ornaments...looking out the window like he's wishing he could go out and play.

We had a fun get together for Eric's birthday.  My mom sent down some bars for him....he was keeping a pretty tight hold on them!

The best part of December was having Brian home for a few weeks.  This is a picture of the old building that he lives in while in Winona.

Part of my snow village...this piece always makes me smile for some reason.  It really looks like ice.

My project for the football team was finally done.  D-ring binder books and printed books.  260 pages each...just before I boxed them up and delivered them.  So happy to have it behind me.

I volunteered to take some portrait photos of a friends dog.  I didn't realize at the time that she was a dark chocolate lab...dark brown in the snow.  Did I mention hyper too?  Yep, hyper.  We got a couple of cute shots though.

Oh Christmas tree.  It seemed like it had a lot more lights than show here.

I had paper whites blooming right before Christmas.  So fragrant...and so pretty.  White on white.

Paper whites again.

I love Christmas lights...and shallow depth of field.

The boys on our way to take Christmas card photos.  This isn't the one that I used, but for some reason I really like it....so it's my photo of the day.

One of my favorite Christmas Village pieces.  It's very similar to the conservatory at our local zoo.

A cell phone picture of our little home town church the night before Christmas Eve.  It's the annual candle light service...it wouldn't feel like Christmas without it.

Czar on Christmas Eve morning...enjoying the sunshine.

We came back home on Christmas night...the boys tore into their gifts.  The dog was so tired from spending a few days in the country...holidays are exhausting!

Another horse ornament....my tree was full of them.

Paper whites were still blooming a week later.  So pretty.

Female cardinal...we call them "mama cardinals".  I think that they are as pretty as the males.

 Movie night at home with the dog in front of the fire...doesn't get much better than that!

The days are short in December, the ornaments are there...so it makes for an easy photo of the day.

The cat is an easy target too....when she's awake that is.  House cats have it pretty easy.

And with that we are at the end of 2012.  Ring out the old and bring in the new.  See you in January.

November into December

Still in catch up mode.  A picture of the flag on a windy day when I took Brian back to college.

Part of my Thanksgiving decorations.  I like to keep them out while the flowers are still nice, not quite ready to get into gear for Christmas quite yet.

The other end of my table....gotta love the Pilgrims!

Transitioning into Christmas.  I had the greens on my front step decorated with bronze ornaments...sort of Christmas decorations in Thanksgiving colors.

Next came the Christmas lights on our fence in the back yard.  Gotta take advantage of the warm weather!

The next decoration that went up were the lights on a bush in the front yard....shown with the Bronze ornament as the focus.

A quick trip to the farm.  Hello sweet boy.  He always comes running to see me...or to eat.  I'm pretending it's me that he loves and not the food.

Our house with lights.  Welcome home.

Christmas Amaryllis.

Getting the decorations up a little at a time.  The garland in the kitchen.  And now they're all boxed up and under the stairs again.  I miss the twinkling lights!

The holidays come and go so quickly....and then there is long, dark and cold January.  Sounds like a good time to catch up with blogging.  Tomorrow I'll catch up with the rest of December....which will put me in the current year anyway!  See you then. :-)

A little Behind...with posting!

The intermittent blogger.  Argh.  Things got busy.  Then I got tired.  Tired of photos and trying to keep up.  But I did keep taking them...so now I'll share them.  Two months later.  Let's catch up.  We're in the middle of November here...bright berries on the neighbors tree.

My favorite slippers.  Resting, no music, no TV, no computer, just quiet.  It doesn't happen often enough.

Way back during football season.  The boys were checking the replay on the jumbotron during the semi-finals game.  Cool moment.

 On the road coming home from running errands...Eric was driving.  Thankful for the cell phone camera on those days that getting the big camera out seems like too much work!

When in doubt take a picture of the messy dog.  We had leaves in our house all fall.  Wonder why.

I liked the way the sun was hitting the bare branches.

Billy and sweet Avery on Thanksgiving day.

Football State Championship game at the kickoff...vs. Lakeville North.  EP won!  What a season!

A night out for dinner for Brian's birthday and my birthday.

Billy with his football coach at the end of the season banquet.  They are laughing at me because I forgot to take off the lens cap.  Coach said, "and you were our photographer?"  One of my finer moments.  At least they laughed.

 It was a busy weekend in November with Thanksgiving, football practice that morning, a houseful for Thanksgiving dinner, out of town over night guests, Championship football game, my birthday, Brian's birthday and the end of season football banquet in 4 short days.  No wonder I got tired.  But hopefully I'll get caught up in the next few days here!  Thanks for coming back.  I think I'm back now too.