January 31, 2016

I was wondering why my daughter didn't carry her shoes to school in her backpack on the days she wears boot.  This is why- all this stuff is in her backpack- every single day. Two folders, bookmarks, four books (3 from school (so she won't forget them on library day), one from home), bookmark with a timer, recorder (only needed one or two days a week), hat, gloves, Minecraft pig keychain, quarter, hair bands, six loose pencils, two loose pens, two metal pencil boxes full of stuff (I'm sure there's room for these in her desk at school, and we have all those supplies here at home, so I'm clueless why she hauls them back and forth), a pom-pom (probably from the hat), three little notebooks, a notepad, whole pack of notecards, many more bookmarks, bottle of water (full, because for unknown reasons she can't/won't fill it at school), prescription sunglasses, and prescription glasses (hopefully, there's been more than one day I got a call to bring her glasses in to school).  I keep trying to get her to leave unnecessary stuff at home, but she keeps insisting on bringing everything.

January 30, 2016

My niece is crawling.  She has a little more hair every time I see her.  She can be a happy baby (at times!).

January 29, 2016

My daughter got an award at school today for straight A's so far this year.  My son got 'Student of the Month' for January.

January 28, 2016

Two of my son's cacti died, so he picked out replacements, including this weird one in the center.

January 27, 2016

I'm starting to wonder if ivy grows all winter.  I don't think it was this far up the house last fall.

January 26, 2016

I cut the boys' hair.  It grows back so fast, it seems like I cut it quite often.

January 25, 2016

My daughter managed to get all these stuffed animals to fit on her dresser, (almost) inside the bookcase.

January 24, 2016

My husband, milling down some aluminum.

January 23, 2016

I'm finally getting around to painting these bookshelves for my daughter's room.  The green edges are a pain to paint, but sure make it look nicer.

January 22, 2016

We got some fish today.  Neon tetra and some kind of barb.  They're all rather small right now, but it's neat to see a little school of little fish in the big tank.

January 21, 2016

Our vehicles are both in the garage.  They also have a lot of salt on them from the roads.

January 20, 2016

January 19, 2016

January 18, 2016

The aquarium now has a hood and lights.

January 17, 2016

I was back in the woods for a little bit.

January 16, 2016

The side of the tank still had a lot of little bubbles on the inside of the glass.

January 15, 2016

We filled up our new fish tank tonight.

January 14, 2016

I'm still working on the teapot quilt.  My mother-in-law might get her Christmas present by Easter.

January 13, 2016

My dad made a few of these.  It's milled from a single piece of wood.

January 12, 2016

The wind picked back up when my son got off the bus. 

January 11, 2016

It's fun sometimes to check out the kids' footprints to see the path they took to the house.

January 10, 2016

A cold front rolled through this afternoon, dropping the temperature so it could switch from rain to snow. 

January 9, 2016

The aquarium stand is in place.  Later, though, we turned it around as this is supposed to be the back side.

January 8, 2016

I didn't get around to making these at Christmas, so I made them today.  It's just one of those cookies that needs to be made every year.

January 7, 2016

I had the boys put the blow-ups in the garage to dry off before going back in their boxes.  The kids  thought it'd be hilarious to face them out toward the big garage door to greet my husband when he opened the door to drive in.  I don't know what my husband's reaction was, but my younger son was cracking up.

January 6, 2016

My dad made this reindeer from horseshoes.

January 5, 2016

January 4, 2016

Where was the white stuff during Christmas?  The decorations always seem prettier in the snow.  We didn't get much more on the ground than this, a far cry from the 3-6" the weather reports were predicting. 

January 3, 2016

We got one last game in before Christmas break ends.

January 2, 2016

Today was my extended family Christmas party.  It's always nice to spend time talking with everyone.

January 1, 2016

My husband has been working on a hickory stand for my son's large fish tank.  My dad had a hickory log sawed into boards.  When he made something with it, he didn't like it because it was hard to saw.  He gave some boards to my husband... who now has the same complaints about hickory.  We thought about making more furniture with it, but this aquarium stand might be as much hickory as we use.