P365 Sept 6-12

Sept 6 was Labor Day and my birthday. I got to work because it was a holiday, but when I came home, the family had bbq hamburgers for me and Sarah made me this cake-from scratch. She's 10. The chocolate cake was about the consistency of brownies, but it was still really good. With all the candles facing inward, it was quite the conflagration when it was lit.

This is a hay field just down the road from our house. I haven't quite figured out why they grow all the hay, because as far as I can see, all they ever do, is line the haybales up in rows, and just leave it there, where they rot & start to grow and just make little hills.

I went shopping at WalMart-a good stockup shop. These are my all time favorite crackers from them, and at only $1.85 a box, I just can't pass them up!

I have an Autumn Joy Sedum that has been in a pot all summer because I haven't gotten to putting it in the ground. It is starting to bloom, and this butterfly (nope. moth) decided it was a good place to rest.

It has been so wet this summer, that there is now a good crop of mushrooms growing. I found this fairy out there one day. :-)

Sept 11. Daniel and I went out shopping together.

Sunday afternoon I looked up and realized the sky had changed. It is now the perfect, clear blue that I like to call September Blue. It happens when the angle of the sun changes. I love Spring, but Fall is a close second.

p365 Aug 9-15

Aug 9, was Emily's Birthday. We had orignially scheduled her wisdom teeth surgery for that day, but with the Lyme's and waiting for funding, we kind of postponed her surgery. We also postponed her celebration until Tuesday due to other scheduling. However, I found a really cool spider web in the foggy morning.

We had Emily's birthday dinner and cake on the 10th. She is 16!! This is kind of an odd shot, but I like it for the look of the candles and the intruding siblings. I took her to see Eclipse that night. Finally. We were almost too late for it. I think there were only 2 theatres in the area that still had it playing.

Wednesday was SOOO hot. When I got home from work, we went to the beach. Its odd. It has rained so much this summer that the lake level was actually higher in August than it was in June.

Sarah had her friend come stay for a couple of days. She brought her mama cat & kittens over too. (I have a feeling they wanted us to keep them--NO) So, we had visiting cats for a couple of days. We had a kitty that looked just like this that was the mama to our other cats.

Friday night Richard & I took these 3 out to see Despicable Me. It is such a funny movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it. We drove there in a driving rainstorm (raining. again.) The show was so early, we got dinner after the movie. I took this picture just to show what we did, but I realized that it shows a turning point for my family. We didn't buy a kids' meal. Everyone got the regular sized meal. I really don't have babies anymore.

Saturday, we went to my friend's house where she had a Kids' Survivor-A day in the woods. They learned about what they would need to survive in the woods. How to get shelter, build fire, collect water, and trap food. Really a cool event. It was well attended. In this picture, they are talking about edible plants in the wild like plantain, lambs quarters, and dandelions.

This is the view from my porch. My camera didn't want to capture the blue of the sky, so I had to re-create it. :-)

August is halfway over. 16 days until school starts!

P 365 June 28-July 4 (half way through the year!!)

Well, this week marks the half way point of the year. I've really enjoyed this experiment!

I came home on Monday(June 28) and found the tree flying a kite. (Michael had something to do with it)

Happy Birthday to John! My oldest son is 20 years old. Yikes!!! Jenny came down for the week to celebrate.

June 30, John & Jenny took the kids to the park. Jenny knows more about fishing so she helped Daniel do some fishing. He actually caught a couple. Michael & Sarah caught some too. (they brought 2 of them home for the cats, but the cats had no clue what to do with a fish)

July 1, I took the kids to see 'The Last Airbender' because they'd watched the 'Avatar' series about two-three times. On our way out of the theatre, there was a roadside strawberry stand. Oh, they were so good! But we saved most of them and made some yummy jam.

Friday (July 2), Richard & I went to the temple. We hadn't been in a while and it was so nice to get back.

Yes, the quilt top is finished!! Just needs to get to the quilter.

Happy 4th of July! I thought it was real nice of Abraham Lincoln to show up in my root beer float today. (really!!)

The weather is a bit iffy, so I don't know if we get fireworks today or tomorrow.

Have a great week!

P 365 April 19-25

Alisha's 18th birthday was on the 15th, but her life is so busy, that we didn't get to having her cake until the 19th, and that wasn't until after the band concert that night, and then it was so late at night, that all we did was the candles and presents. We finally got around to eating it on the 23rd. (It was an ice cream cake, so it lived in the freezer until we ate it, we really didn't eat week old stale cake).

This is one of the fascinating daffodils in my garden.

14 inches of hair... that is what is about to come off.

For Earth Day, the school had a hair drive for Locks of Love. It took 4 pony tails to chop off my hair. Sarah and Daniel got to help cut them off. Then I made a quick trip to a local beauty parlor to get it trimmed up, and then I re-colored my roots myself.

I do like having a variety of spring flowers growing in my garden, and enough of them so that I can bring some in the house and still have a lot left in the garden.

Alisha and Emily went to prom with a group of 6 girls. They were very beautiful, and had a good time.

We had stake conference today, which meant driving to Oakdale, MN. On the way out of Amery, there is a llama/alpaca ranch. I've always wanted to take pictures of them. Apparently, they are near shaving time, because their coats are very full. They were far away when I stopped, but when I got out of the car, they ran up to the fence to come see me. I think they have very adorable faces.

Have a great last week of April & start of May!!

p365 March 22-28

I didn't set out to take a picture of a buffalo. He just sort of happened. I was riding with a friend to a meeting in the cities. We were just driving along and chatting away, when she noticed the flashing lights in her rear view mirror. "I'm getting pulled over!," she says. So, while she is finding her insurance, license, etc. I look out the window, and there is a herd of buffalo right there. Cool! So I snap a few pictures, and the VERY nice policeman lets my friend off with a warning, and we have a story to tell at our meeting. This is a picture of me posting to this blog early in the morning because while I like to try to have things posted by Sunday, sometimes it doesn't happen until Tuesday.

On Wednesday I got to chaperone the 2nd Grade to the Science Museum. 2nd grade is such the perfect age for this trip. They study dinosaurs, and then we go see them at the museum. We also saw an OmniTheatre movie. This one was on the golden ages of Arabia, which was very interesting for me, but I think it went right over the kids' heads as they kept asking "is the movie almost over? How much longer?" etc. But they had a good time. This is Daniel & friends while we were waiting for the busses.

Every year, the Art Educators in the area put on an art show for Youth Art Month. Our Art teacher picks out pieces that are done throughout the year and they get to go to the show. Alisha & Michael have both had pieces go there before. This year, Sarah's version of Matisse's 'Lady with a Green Stripe' was selected to go.

Michael's birthday was on Friday. He has a tendency to use my camera-a lot- so I got him his own camera. This is him taking a picture of his birthday cake (which is green cake with mint frosting and chocolate ganache on it.) We went to the movies as a family. Dad and Sarah & Daniel saw 'How to Train your Dragon', and the rest of us saw 'Alice in Wonderland'.

Saturday was the pinewood derby. (we got the wheels on the car at 11:00 Friday night--no matter how early they give us the car, we are not going to finish it until the night before the race.) We had a pancake breakfast before the derby, so I helped with that, and Richard helped with the weigh in. (He owns the 5 oz. calibrated weight). Daniel's car came in first for the Wolves. (o.k., there were only 3 Wolves, but he still did great. ;-) )

It had been pretty chilly all week, but my newly uncovered flowers don't seem to mind. I came home from church to find little spots of color all over the flower bed. These are the snowdrops.

have a great week!

P365 Jan 31-Feb 6

It was the 31st and Michael thought he needed to be in my set of January pictures

Monday, Feb 1, it was time to clean out the Freezer. I took out all varieties of meat, beans & tomato sauces and made 'clean-the-freezer' Chili. Feb 2-IT's Groundhog Day!! I took the chance to watch my once a year favorite movie. Thanks to Netflix for putting it on the 'watch-it-now' list so I didn't have to go search my DVD collection. :-)
The Girls had New Beginnings for Young Women's on Wednesday night. They had a 'game show' called 'Choose the Right.' I was able to catch a picture of the hardest subject in the world: Emily smiling.
Feb 4 was the 100th day of school. I found myself getting misty as it was our last 100 day celebration. We never celebrated it when I was in school, but sometime between me being in elelmentary school, and John entering 14 years ago, it became a regular occurance to celebrate for grades preschool-2nd grade. The kids make collections of 100 objects, or bring in 100 pennies to donate, and they do all sorts of activities to show the number 100. Daniel is in 2nd grade, so this was my last 100 day.
Daniel & Elizabeth have been friends since they were babies.-aren't they cute? Elizabeth turned 8 this week & Daniel was one of the couple of guests at the party.
Saturday Sarah got her ears pierced. We do it at age 10 in our family. Sarah & I went out for lunch and some shopping as well. This is her right after the first ear, and before the 2nd.
That about does it for the week. have a great week!!

P365 Jan 24-Jan30

Color Blankey turns 10! Well, actually, Sarah turned 10 on this day, but Color Blankey arrived not long after she was born. It was made by a group of friends that I e-mailed on a daily basis. (still do with some of them as a matter of fact!) Each of them made a patch and 'Aunt Sally' put them all together. It has gotten a lot of love and abuse over the last 10 years, patches have disappeared altogether, or we have rescued some of them in time and resewed them on. But Sarah loves Color Blankey still.

Richard and the boys went to go buy wood pellets the Friday of Sarah's birthday, but Saturday he was gone most of the day, and it was cold and icy, so they didn't get brought into the house until Monday.

This picture is simply-Fat cat in a too small box.

Wednesday I went to the church with the kids. These are the girls doing a scripture chase.

Thursday I had my almost monthly lunch with my dear friend Phyllis. We meet at Lucky's in Clear Lake after I'm done working in the art room. I usually get the soup and a salad or sandwich. The 2 soups of the day were Chili and chunky vegetable. I didn't really want chili, so I ordered the chunky vegetable thinking I might get a nice broth-based vegetable soup. Not. When the waitress set it in front of me she said, "this isn't chili." Really? Sure looked like chili to me. With chunks of vegetables in it. Grrr. Sure tasted like chili too. I even like chili. I just didn't want it that day. Oh well. Phyllis & I had a nice visit anyway.

Friday I was coming home from picking Richard up from work (we may be acquiring a new car this week so that we don't have to tag team drive anymore!) and I passed this sunset. The moon was rising big and full in the opposite direction, but I thought the sunset looked better. ;-)

Saturday the 30th, I took the girls down to Menomonie for a Seminary Activity. My friend Shelby drove her daughter down and we went downtown for some shopping and sightseeing. We toured the historic Mabel Tainter Theatre. It was a lovely old stone building and had recently been restored. This is a picture of some of the really cool stenciling that was in there. I'd like to go to a play there and sit in the balcony. (no, really, I'd like to be IN a play there, but I can't imagine driving over an hour each way for rehearsals)

Well, January is almost over and so is the first month of P365. What do you think? I'm having fun. See you in February!