Happy New Year 2009!

Happy New Year everyone! I've woefully neglected blogging during the holidays. Too much decorating and cooking and cleaning and all the other stuff including trips to Phoenix and cancelled trips to Sedona (due to weather) and Mexico (due to logistics). I wish everyone a blessed new year. I've accumulated some random photos to post here from our holidays.


Above is our big ol' tomcat Smokey after a nice meal on Christmas day. He lives for his food bowl in case you couldn't tell.


And this is Snowflake. He's sweet and quiet and loves "his" chair. We've piled it with comforters and pillows and he spends a good part of each day napping there.


Above is my daughter posing with her friend and our big pink sheep "Sheila" in front of the snowmen we put in our entryway each year. This was a few days before Christmas and they made a beautiful cake that day:

YUM...


Above are the kids on Christmas Eve, a little blurry but the light was low.


And oh yes, I had told friends I'd post the lemon ornament I wrote about in the 2008 Christmas issue of JCS and here she is in all her glory. My grandmother gave it to us years ago when I was a kid, no doubt bought at a Christmas church bazaar and I LOVE my lemon ornament. My siblings made fun of it every year we brought out the ornaments which made me love it even more, that plus the fact there are very few ornaments left from my childhood.


And the above photo was taken yesterday in Romero Canyon near our house. A nice 3 mile hike in some beautiful Arizona winter weather. That saguaro cactus is a couple hundred years old I'd guess.


And found in the back of my closet is my snowman vest that still had the tags on from FOURTEEN YEARS AGO! Daughter wanted to pose in a "Fugly Christmas Sweater" and this is what we dug up. Yep, quiet day, no school, something to do on a winter afternoon before Christmas...
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and the new year brings joy to everyone.