January 2011

January in a nutshell.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!



You start sitting in 4 chairs.

Then you lean back and the chairs are taken out.





(Can't tell by the expressions if it's painful, relaxing or just plain fun.)

All the chairs are out.

(Now it's whoever decides to "fall" first.)

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New Years Jam Session.

This Ping Pong Tournament turned into Round Robin,

which was hilariously fun.

(Especially with 20 people.)

The girls trying their hand on the Hammered Dulcimer.

(Such a beautiful sounding instrument.)

Christiana and Brenda (Queen of the Hammered Dulcimer :)

(Thanks Brenda for lending us your instrument for a few days.)

Precious moments with daddy and his littlest girl.

The annual fire that always brings the fire department out

to join us for the celebration.

The fire's weakened. I think it's ready for marshmallows :)

(On the end of a six foot pole!!)

Super fireworks show as usual.

Wonderful time with family and friends.

Life is so good.

Ringing in the New Year with lots of

NOISE!!

"Did you say, NOISE?" Sisters and Cousins

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Liv has discovered green dye and she likes it!!

(You never know what you might find hanging around the kitchen.)

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Planting oats in dry ground.

One Dusty Farm boy.

(Right after the oats were planted, it rained and

it's been raining ever since. )

Thank you, Lord, for your many blessings.

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Christiana helping James with his practicing.

(What a blessing it is to have a grandmother that delights

in teaching her grandchildren piano all these years.

Just a walk down the lane.)

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Pick a color, any color, for another quilt.

The girls are at it again.

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A boy and his dog.

-Hershey and Tom-

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Why take load after load when you can take it in one.

Leaves aren't the only things they've been hauling away, Thank the Lord!!

(The girls are tired of the yard looking like the neighborhood junk yard,

so they're gonna do something about it. Glad somebody got tired of it :)

(Now if only we can keep the junk collectors from bringing more junk and

dropping it off in the FRONT yard.)

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Florida Gold.

(Nothing better.)

(There's not many of these left with all the freezes we've had.)

Christiana's new purchase.

$40
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Happy Birthday Ariana and Thomas

(Their choice of desserts and being it's strawberry season, it's a great choice.)

Time to blow out the candles.

(As Tom's eyes are closed, taking a deep breath to blow out his ONE candle,

Ariana's wheels are spinning as she thinks back on all those times when

she had unwanted help blowing out her Birthday candles before she could

get to it.....

And unbeknown to Tom, all that labor, getting that big breath ready, was for nothing.

Ariana is now quite proud of herself.

"That was pay-backs Tom."

New beginnings for a new year.

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May this year bring new dreams fulfilled,

new people to meet, new places to explore,

and most of all new truths from the Lord,

revealed in His Word, for that is what brings

real meaning to life.