Happy New Year Fun!

Kelli is hosting a Blog Review for 2008. What you do is post the first sentence of your first blog post of each month. You can also add a favorite picture from each month.

Here are mine:

January

I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day...






February

God bless weathermen, er, I mean meteorologist (excuse me).

March

Birdie came into our lives in December, 2001 after we tried for over a year and a half(unsuccessfully) to have a baby.



April

This is my first "Tuesdays with Michael" post and I hope to keep this up each week as kind of a diary of my "special" day with our wonderful, yet challenging, young son.



May

Good morning everyone and Happy Friday - Woohoo!



June

Have you ever thought that you lost something for good, something that was very sentimental to you?



July

God Bless America

August

I'm a day late and a dollar short on my post this week. I was having computer problems yesterday but all is fine now.



September

A few weeks ago, a friend and I decided to go visit some old friends - of the Equine variety.



October

Go Green! Go White!



November

Good morning! As we start our day here in Illinois with the first snow of the season, I wanted to share with you some photos from our honeymoon to the beautiful island of Maui.



December

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, how lovely are your branches~






Happy 2009 everyone!

Winter Wonderland - December 19, 2008

Here are a couple of photos from yesterday's storm. We had close to a foot of snow! Michael, Holly and I went out on an "adventure" in the back. Holly was like a little bunny, hopping around because the snow was past her shoulders.

Lookin' Out My Frontdoor...





Lookin' Out The Back...

Christmas Memories - 1963

This is a photo of my older brother and I around 1963, a dear friend gave me the frame the photo is in, isn't it adorable? I was such a girlie-girl back then. I ALWAYS got baby dolls and spent hours playing Mommy to them.

Doesn't my brother look thrilled in this photo?



A few years ago I confirmed with my father that they used to put up the tree and put the presents out all on Christmas Eve! Can you imagine that? I don't know how my parents did it back then. They probably just fell asleep when the little munchkins woke up to see what Santa brought them!

Christmas Treasures - Muffy Vanderbear

Good morning and Happy Friday! We are in the middle of a Winter Storm and boy is it ever nasty out there. Michael's school is closed, Ron is home on vacation and I'm NOT going to go in to work today! To quote Yukon Cornelius from Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, "Isn't a fit night out for man nor beast".

For today's Show and Tell Friday, I'd like to share with you a couple of my Muffy Vanderbears (do you remember them?). I have other Muffy's as well but here are my two special holiday Muffy's...

First is Muffy Snowbear.



Don't you just love her little carrot nose?

Next is Muffy The Red Nosed Reinbear! I love the detail on the boxes and I try to keep them in their boxes so they don't get grubby, but the boxes also make a nice display too.



I wish you all a wonderful weekend! I will post some photos of the snow later today.
Visit Kelli's Place Kelli's Place for more wonderful posts!

Photo Fun

I have been having fun with Picasa, the free photo editor program owned by Google.

This is a Christmas Collage that I created and I'm going to use for my Christmas Cards.

Have a wonderful weekend!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

how lovely are your branches~

We piled in the car to get our tree last Saturday and ventured out to Woodstock. When we arrived, I realized that I forgot my camera at home. I was a little upset but we trudged on and after a nice horse-drawn wagon ride out to the hinderlands, we found this lovely tree!



Michael couldn't wait to put the star on the top.






Here is the final result - all decked out. We even brought out the Polar Express Train to run around the tree.



A few years ago I found two feather trees from Martha Stewart collection at KMart. I enjoy decorating the white feather tree in Red & White ornaments. Michael is decorating the green one and I'll post his finished tree later.









I have missed participating in Kelli's Show and Tell Friday! Wishing you all a very wonderful and blessed holiday season. Visit Kelli's Place Kelli's Place for more wonderful posts!

I Am Thankful For...

If it weren't for "Cheesy Noo Noo's" I don't know what my five year old would eat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are having most of my husband's family up from Indiana and our next door neighbors over for dinner. I hope to take pics of the preparation (and mayhem) and will post them later!

I am truly thankful for all that we have and for the good health of our family and friends. I am thankful that America elected Barack Obama for President, he WILL turn things around for all Americans.

From our my family to yours, may you all have a wonderful day with your families and friends. God Bless.

Doohickey

Pronunciation: doo-hik-ee; –noun, plural -eys. Informal. a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
a way to describe an object when your mind is in such a clutter you can't remember its' name because you are pressed for time. similar in meaning to thing-a-ma-jig.

I was working here in the family room while Michael watched "Word Girl" on PBS Kids when one of the words that Captain Huggy Pants said popped out and made me chuckle, "doohickey". I'm so glad that our young children are hearing words like this so they will live on for generations to come. Seriously. My Gramma B was a darling little Irish Lass and she had a seriously quirky vocabulary and a great sense of humor. She also made the best peanut butter cookies (with the fork tine crosses in the middle). I miss you Gramma.

Check this out

If you want to start or end your day with a smile and a few tears, please look at this video. It has been out there for a few months but I just saw it for the first time this morning. It just made me smile and pray that hopefully, we can all get along with each other. You might want to scroll to the bottom and turn off the Christmas Tunes. Enjoy!


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo it's amazing!

Aloha Kakahiaka

Good morning! As we start our day here in Illinois with the first snow of the season, I wanted to share with you some photos from our honeymoon to the beautiful island of Maui.

We signed up to Bicycle down Haleakala - the bad part was getting up at 2:00 a.m. - the nice part was the incredible views and watching the sunrise at 10,000 feet!


Here we are ready to bike down -wish us luck! It was actually a little frightening for me and I was happier on the second leg of the ride. When I was little, I had a major wipe-out on my bike on an oiled dirt road - I had dirt, rocks and oil embedded in my shins, elbows and palms.



I'm on top of the world!



We made it! Here we are 28 miles later at sea level, Baldwin Beach in Paia.


We had a wonderful honeymoon. We took our car on "the road to Hana" - what a blast we had! We went with another couple that we met at our hotel and stopped off at waterfalls and beaches along the way.







It was a nice day, watching the sunrise from 10,000 feet and watching the sunset on the beach in Lahaina!



Have a great day, Mahalo!

Shades of Autumn

Last weekend we went to Stades Pumpkin Farm in Spring Grove and had a wonderful time! Stades has it down pat - there is a corn maze, wagon rides, pony rides, hay mountain, pedal cars and lots of stuff to keep the little kids busy. You have to get tickets for most of the rides, but they don't gouge you on the price. For us "older kids", they also have a Pumpkin Cannon - it is a riot to see the Pumpkins get launched into outer space!



If you didn't want to trudge through the pumpkin patch to get your pumpkins, there were plenty to choose from near the entrance.



Our little corn angel!



You could also ride on a combine -


They had a fine collection of antique and modern farm equipment.






All in all, it was a lovely day and we'll be back again next year.

The Franklin Cider Mill

On our way back to Illinois from our weekend in Michigan, we stopped at The Franklin Cider Mill for the world's best Apple Cider and Cider Donuts - yummmmmm! The place was really busy and has changed some but the cider and donuts are still as delicious as ever.





Long lines of folks hungry for the wonderful apple delicacies that await them inside.



A sign that is posted and explains the history of the mill.



The water wheel that powers the mill. This is a new one, painted Candy Apple Red.



This the original governor that controlled the speed of the water wheel when the Franklin River would rise.



A shot of the Franklin River, an off-shoot of the River Rouge that runs behind and thus, powers the water wheel. The bouncy things are new - I guess they needed something to entertain the kids. When I was little, we used to just run up the sandy hill behind or play on the banks of the river.



Delicious, fresh apple cider made from Honey Crisp apples - the nectar of the gods! *Cheers*