7 Grandkids

7 Grandkids under the age of 5 .....

Self Portraits

My dad & I

Holly & I

Ginger & I

Ninny & I

Meema & I

I am convinced that family photos are out and self portraits are in. With 7 grandkids keeping us all busy, it is all but impossible to get our 5 siblings together for a family photo .... (sorry Jed -- missed ya!)

Merry Christmas and Merry Christmas!

Well ... our 4 Christmas celebrations were wonderful. We got home from our final Christmas celebration with my mom yesterday afternoon and enjoyed a relaxing Christmas Day afternoon followed by a quiet yet delicious Christmas dinner. After dinner Martha fed all the animals and shortly after informed us that one of our pregnant goats was indeed in labor. I went to bed around 11 p.m. after helping Martha prep the goat pen for delivery (make it warmer!). "Little Fluffy Guy," (named by Sage) came around 1 a.m.

Merry Christmas!

Dead Camera

A while back the lcd screen on our Cannon-Elf camera cracked. No biggie -- still took decent pictures and I enjoyed it's small size and easy-to-store-in-my-purse quality, and have still been using it for quite sometime ...even without the benefit of knowing if you caught a good pic or not. Then yesterday I took it out of my purse to take a pic and noticed the "click" button was missing. Yeah -- that's kind of the most important part of the camera -- gotta be able to push "click." I tried pushing my fingernail down the hole to see if I still might get it to work...nope! Oh well. I think I have gotten the most out of this little camera. Now it's time to save for a new one ...

I had one of those moments today ...

while looking across the table at my two girls chowing down In-N-Out french fries and burgers, covered in katsup and washing it all down with a chocolate milk shake. It's one of those moments when you are overwhelmed with amazement and wonder at how quickly kids really do grow up. It's such a cliche -- "Enjoy it now -- they'll be grown up before you know it." That's usually coming from a seasoned grandmother and said to a sleep deprived mother, who thinks, "HUH?" how could THIS go by any slower than it already is? It's like my sister said a while back, while the years fly by, the days seem to pass ever so slowly. So, I had my moment today. And I'm sure I'll have many, many more.

I'm not an architect ...

I am a bookkeeper for an architect, but actually designing structures?? -- nope! We assembled a gingerbread house at my mom's tonight along with two graham cracker houses (shacks, really). After lots of laughs and some frustration over a crooked frame and a slipping roof, we finished it! The girls did all of the decorations with little help from me. I felt sick from eating so much icing ... can't even imagine what they feel like since they ate the icing by the spoonfuls in between samplings of the candies. All good fun.

Christmas Fun

Christmas cookie fun! We are having fun making Christmas crafts and baking and eating and then exercising most of it off : ) Yes -- that's a Christmas Tree made out of sugar cookies. My mom had the cookie cut-outs for it, so we made it for a party I attended last week. That was fun and funny to make. It only toppled over a couple of times before I removed a few layers so it would stay upright.
I am so enjoying the crisp, cool weather lately. We have been going on lots of walks -- well, really it's me sprinting after Sage who speeds on her bicycle down the bike path and me pushing Aspen in the jogger, dog in toe, trying to keep up! We live in a truly beautiful place here. We stop for a snack and break half way through our walk and the mountain view is breathtaking.
We have really scaled back our Christmas consumerism this year which has made the entire season wonderfully relaxing.