More Snow Pictures

I am always amazed at the beauty that God gave us. I like to think of it as a small gift from God, showing us that he loves us and wants us to be strong during our trials in life. This is a photo I took from my back window, early in the morning right before I started exercising. One of the things I love in this picture is the moon in the sky and the sun starting to come up. It's so beautiful to me.

SM and I were having fun one night taking pictures in the dark. We didn't do them with a tripod and so we had to hold very still or prop the camera on something. Plus, we took the pictures indoors through windows and so we had to be careful of the flash and reflection. I love the way the light in these photos is so bright. And just to be clear, these were all taken well after the sun went down. It was very dark outside when we took them.

And did you know we got a bit of snow during the first few weeks of February? In the above picture, SM is clearing the snow for the first time....and then we did it again, and again and again. Notice in the above picture the mailbox is not buried in snow. And now look below, this is what it looked like the last time I cleared the driveway.

DC for the weekend

This last weekend we took a road trip to the DC area. It was so much fun to see all their snow. They had snow everywhere! And we also went to see our friends. We dropped by these friends and found out that the husband was putting together his daughters' crib. Jeremy was very willing to jump in and help out with the fix-it program and I was very willing to hold such a smiley baby. This little bundle of joy is three months old and is such a cutie. She just loved smiling and smiling.

We had a great time visiting, eating and playing games with so many friends. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. I will have to do better next time we do a road trip.

Crocheted fan-edge to small blanket

As all of you know, I love to crochet edges onto cute flannel. This is a blanket since it has "stuffing" between the two pieces of flannel and so it is not a receiving blanket but definitely just a blanket. I absolutely fell in love with this design when I found it. Wouldn't a small girl just love this blanket? Actually I'm the big girl that absolutely loves this blanket.

I have previously bought all my flannel at Walmart because they have great prices and can surprise you with the different patterns they have available. One disappointment I encountered when moving to Ohio is that the Walmart near our home does not carry material. There are other places to buy material but I will have to hunt for the bargains.

Enjoy a little bit of my creation!

Books referred to me by friends

So, I've spent the last half an hour trying to download a picture from the web and decided I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to break any copy rights on private materials and since the one way that seemed to be working...didn't...I give up for now.

I wanted to put a photo of either the book Percy Jackson and the Olympians The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, or a picture from the upcoming movie. But as I said previously, it didn't work. I do want to thank a couple of my friends who referred this series to me. I like reading young adult books because most of the time I don't have to worry about inappropriate information and can read without always having my guard up. Two friends both referred me to this series and after searching around, decided that I'd go online and just order the books without having read them first.

So, for Christmas I got all five books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. And then we moved across the country. I took all five of these books in my car with me and read when I could (not while I was driving). Once we arrive to Ohio, I introduced the first book to my husband. He was searching for something to read while waiting for all the boxes to arrive and then be unpacked. He read all five Percy Jackson books in record time.

We are both excited for the movie to come out but I also don't want to get my expectations too high. From a couple of the previews I've seen, there are added parts of the movie that aren't in the books...bummer. One of the things that SM and I both enjoyed from the books is that ability to brush up on our Olympian god and demons. I should say that SM brushed up on it while I learned stuff for the first time...that I can actually remember. But it will be excited to view the film, I just will have to put my previous knowledge of the books, back into a far part of my mind and enjoy the film.

For any of you that haven't heard anything about the Percy Jackson series, I would highly recommend the read. Starting with the first and going in order is the preferred way to read the books. I'm afraid I might have missed a lot of details since I read through them so quickly, but luckily I own the books so I can always go back and reread them. So take a snowy afternoon and relax, sit and read a very good book, or five books.

Before and After in Our New House

I thought I'd post some pictures of our new home. I have these pine trees in the backyard and had to take a picture of them with the snow. They had all this snow when we first arrived...it has since all melted and I can now see the grass. But that will only be for another day or so since we have snow predicted in the weather forecast.

This is the front of the house. SM and I love renting a house and not being in an apartment. We feel so blessed to be here in Ohio. SM is enjoying his job and his co-workers, the ward has been so welcoming and we have this great house to stay in. Life is good.

This is actually my favorite room...the sun room. When we unloaded the semi, this room was the room for all the book boxes. The room has three walls of windows and I can't wait for the spring time sunshine.

This is the sun room today. I get to exercise in this room, read books in that cool chair and have my plants in there also. As I said before, I love this room.

Before...

After!

This is the kitchen full of boxes. This room was a major job and I'm glad I tackled it first.

And here the kitchen stuff is all put away. LOVELY!

Here's the living room before...

and AFTER! Doesn't that look comfy?!

The red bathroom before....

The red bathroom after...didn't change very much but that's okay.

The dining room before...

And AFTER...this is such a wonderful house. Again, we have been blessed.

Our bedroom before...note, we were sleeping on the air-mattress with our sleeping bags.

And this is our new bed. For the first five years of our marriage we slept on a full size bed. SM's feet always hung over the edge and we were very careful when we moved in bed so as to not knock out our spouse. This bed feels like we are on our own island and I have to make an effort to find SM in the bed.

Cookie Making at Grandma's

Cookie making at Grandma's is also a Christmas tradition. I can't wait until my children can enjoy all these fun traditions in their lives. Anyway, this year the tradition also included lots of adults "helping." I think adults enjoy being creative just like the kids...and if you have colored cookie dough, the creativity just oozes out.

My mother-in-law works at a public school and one of the fundraisers they have is selling cookie dough. This year she decided to buy "play-dough cookie dough" and look at all the cool ideas!

Even SM got involved. He made a snow man that you will see in a later picture.

I wish I could have recorded the laughter and noise. There were so many kids talking at once. It was a great event.

A little help from Grandma never hurts...especially when using a cookie cutter.

And while the cookies were baking, the nieces and nephews played chess. Yes, chess, a game I have yet to really learn. They all love it and play it often. Hopefully when they are adults they will be into playing all the games that "we" adults play when we get together. I think at one time, all of these kids play or played on their school chess team. I think it starts in second grade.

See that middle snowman cookie? That's the one that SM made. It's just lovely and cooked up beautifully.

We had a great time and are grateful to Grandma for all her traditions!!

Christmas Lights at Thanksgiving Point

The Monday after Christmas SM's side of the family decided to change their tradition of seeing lights at Temple Square, to seeing lights at Thanksgiving Point. The main reason for the location change wasn't about the lights but the way they are viewed. They wanted to see lights from the comfort of their vehicles. No more kids whining about how much further they have to walk or how cold they were.

And it worked! No more whining kids and a great way to see lights. We were in four separate vehicles...and I believe we were all in vans...and we paid our eight dollars and drove threw the lights. There was music playing outside and the lights were delightful.

We led the pack and stopped often to take pictures of the lights. Some pictures turned out great and others were full of streaks of color. Both represent the beauty of Christmas lights.

And after the lights had ended, there was beautiful murals representing Jesus's birth which led the way up to the main building at Thanksgiving Point.

We all got out of our vehicles at the main building. We were told they had live reindeer which we all wanted to see. What we didn't realize is really how cold it was outside. SO COLD!

When I told SM and his Mom to smile, they both tried and failed. It was simply too cold for smiles.

But the little ones were bundled and smiling. They loved visiting the reindeer. A few of them even had a chance to feed the reindeer a few reindeer pellets. I was amazed at how the older nieces and nephews were afraid of getting bitten while a few of the youngest kiddos had no fear.

This reindeer was so gentle and sweet. Along the bars of the enclosure for the reindeer were plaques telling facts about reindeer. They are really resilient animals and can live in all sorts of difficult climates and land. I guess that's why they are in the tundra, they can live there without any problems.

We gathered around a small flame trying to warm ourselves but found that we were still very cold. Eventually everyone gathered into one of the shops at Thanksgiving Point, where we were able to warm up and get ready to leave into the night.

We gathered for hot chocolate and donuts at Grandma and Grandpa's house after the light viewing. As you can see from the smiles above, we had a wonderful time! I love family traditions, even the new ones.