So I have been again trying to upload photos to the blog from a little before Christmas to now. It keeps acting up and kicking my photos out.....so I am working out the kinks! Anyway in the meantime I have started a new wordpress blog for my photography. You can click on the link on the sidebar of this blog to head on over there to see them. I only have a few pictures on at this time but will continue to add more as time goes on. We hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and have a happy start to the New Year!!!

Christmas decorations

I absolutely love christmas lights and would love to do a whole bunch of stuff outside, but cost is a big factor, and I already use so much electricity during this month (which Chad is quick to remind me about :)), so I really do try to limit what I do.  So here is our house with the christmas decorations all up!

I had to add these last few pictures just because we have had the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets making the sky full of pink! I was even privilaged enough to see the Lunar Eclips last weekend and the northern lights the next evening!  I have always loved being outside to see all of God's creation and every season brings a new beauty to capture.....sometimes only with my eyes, and I shoot myself when I forget my camera, but still awesome all the same!

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!                                              

Christmas Tree Hunting

Every year as I was growing up it has been a tradition in my family to hunt for our christmas trees on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I have tried to keep that tradition going in my own family.  Some years, though, I have bought our christmas tree from Home Depot so that I can get a beautiful full one (because I like that in a tree) but this year I decided to let the kids have some in their bedrooms and I wanted a few tiny ones for downstairs as well.  So off we went to go and hunt for our trees!  It really did not take us very long, the trees are so cute and compact and perfect for what we needed them for, and there is always an abundance of them, but each of the girls picked one out and I picked a few and we cut them and brought them back for Mason, Mocha, and Chad to inspect (for they had stayed at the car waiting on us girls)!!  We had a wonderful time and now they are all set up and decorated and I will post pictures of that soon! But for now you can see the ones of our adventure for the day!

Birthday #3

November 21st was Mason's birthday and we had lots of fun!  Emma and Madison helped me pick out the cake design and then did a few of the frosting things as well, I think it turned out really cute!  Mason loves balls of every kind so this was pretty fitting.  He also loves trucks....and that is an understatment!  He got a really cute bowling ball set from my parents and lots of trucks, and a couple of books about trucks, which is he pretending to read in the picture below!  I love my little man and I can not believe how big he has grown.  3 years already!!!  He can talk so very well and is very particular in how he wants things done, which I am sure he got from his father......:) He has also become very independent and wants to do everything by himself, so if you try to help him it is the end of the world and he lets you know it! (much to the dismay of his mother!)  He loves his sister Heidi and they are almost inseperable, except when he is trying to punch her....then she doesn't love him so much....but otherwise they get along very well and do lots of things together!  He is a very sweet little boy and we are so blessed to have him in our lives!

November 19th Homer Swim Meet

Saturday November 19th Emma and Madison swam in their first meet of the season.  For Madison it was her first swim meet ever and she was just a bit nervous about doing her events.  Emma has done this a few times, but she was doing a new event (the 100 IM which is swimming 25yrds of each stroke, butterfly, back, breast, free in the correct order) and she was nervous about that.  We had to get up at 5:30 that morning so we could be down in Homer at 8:30 to start warm ups.  Luckily it was a small meet and we got through each event quickly!  Madison did great and is excited to improve on her times in the next meet, and Emma is wanting to do better in her next IM since she did it a little wrong the first time and got disqualified or DQed!  Not so fun, especially if you win your heat because then you get a mini rubber ducky, and at this age they are cherished if you get them!  Both Emma and Madison came fractions of a seconds close to winning their heats to get that ducky, so they are practicing hard now so that when the next meet comes around (Dec. 10th) they will be ready!  December 10th is the next meet and they call it Sprints Championships so it is an extremely big one, with 5 or more teams competing against each other it should be exciting!

Emma starting her 100 IM

Madison starting her 25yrd  freestyle

I know two posts ago I promised to get pictures up of all the work that the work teams did this summer, but now my hard drive is jammed and wont open, and the 3000 pictures that I have to sort through are on discs that were sent to us by one of the guys who was with the work teams.  Alas someday I will get them on my computer and loaded here for all to see!!!  I can'te tell you truely how amazing it is to see all of those people give their time to help us get things built and how great it really is.  In the two weeks that these teams were here, they built a heated well house for the barn, stairs up to the loft for the barn, a pavillion down at Wagon Train for playing under during rainy days, a pavillion at Lakeside for the same purpose, a vehicle shed at the shop, helped finish a temporary refrigerator/freezer unit until we can get a new one built, and tore down the old refrigerator/freezer and room above because it was caving in on itself.  So I have lots of pictures to show you, hopefully in the near future!