February Already?

First things first. Here is my entry for this week's photo contest. The theme is "Hearts." Click on the I Heart Faces box to see all the other entries!

Mom came in last weekend and it was her birthday, so we celebrated by going to Kobe's to eat Friday night and The Bluebird on Saturday night. It was a great show, as always. AND we got Mom an ice cream cake, which Jackson was pretty excited about.

It has been quite a while since I have updated this thing, but we are just now getting over whatever illness decided to take up residence with all of us. Jackson only made it to one day of school last week, which was Thursday, and then come Friday morning, his temperature was high again, so I kept him home. Thankfully, it was a slow week for me with work. Well, not slow. I did have an expedite from Monday that I worked on most of the week, but at least I was able to be home with him.

Nothing new has been going on, so that makes for a short update. As soon as this weather gets warmer, we'll be out and about again and there will be things to take pictures of again! I am missing my camera time! I am still trying to be involved in Project 365, which is a picture a day for a year, but I'm barely hanging on anymore. With us being sick for so long, I kind of lost interest. But I might fudge on a couple of days and still be in the game. Who knows!

I did finally buy a desk this weekend. Tom, Jackson and I spent all day Saturday running around looking at furniture. I didn't find anything. Then when we got home, I got on Craigslist and saw a white Pottery Barn desk that I had let slip out of my grasp about a month ago, so I jumped on it and Tom and I drove to Franklin to pick it up.

After we got it home and put it together, we noticed that it stinks. It smells like the cigars that the man of the house (or woman, who knows these days) obviously smoked while they worked. We know that because there was an ashtray right there full of cigar butts, but I couldn't smell anything at the time.

Picture from PB, but I only have three pieces, two bases and the top

I also feel like I need to repaint it. It's wood composite, so I'm not sure how that will work. I guess I should talk to someone at Home Depot about it before I dive in. But besides all that, it's a perfect size for me AND it gets me off of the dining room table! Yay!

I've Lost A Week

Well, a week of our lives is gone forever without us hardly knowing it! Jackson got sick on Tuesday, I got sick on Thursday and pinched a nerve in my neck Friday morning, which put me in bed for two days, and then Tom got sick yesterday and had to leave today for out-of-town meetings next week. And just like that, the week is gone. I just started feeling normal yesterday. Jackson is back to normal except for a lingering little cough, which I have too. Ugh. Spring, you never looked so good.

These layouts are part of my Project 365, which I'm probably going to be missing a few days on these past few days. It's the first three weeks of January. Project 365 is just kind of a day in the life thing, but I'm quickly discovering that we are very boring and therefore, my Project 365 is going to be pretty boring to the outside world. It's even boring to me! But I'm going to try to keep it up as long as I can and if I get too far behind, then I'll turn it into Project 52. I seriously just had to Google how many weeks are in a year. This week has done a number on me!

Winter Wonderland photo competition

This picture is my entry in a fun photo contest through I Heart Faces. It's not the best quality due to me being not very experienced in taking pictures in the snow and not being able to figure out how to not overexpose every darn picture due to the bright snow. Anyway, that's where the reading of my histogram would come in handy and I'm working on it! I just love the look on Barney's (dog) face. It's like he's saying: help.....me.....

Beadboard frame!

So very sorry for the pictures. The first one is too bright. The other two, a little dark, but they're really more representative of the colors. This is a frame Tom and I made for my dad and stepmom for Christmas. I had seen it done at art festivals and such and figured how hard can that be, so we tried it. Tom built it, I painted, stained it.

I really love how it turned out. The colors are pretty bold and I want to do a more subdued one soon. I didn't really do a step-by-step how-to on this, but maybe I will with the next one. Heck, I'm lucky just to get a project done to post to The Shabby Chic Cottage!

We Have Snow!

First, here are some pictures from Christmas at Tom and Mary's. I had lost this camera card with all the pictures on it and Tom found it last night...in the washer! Thankfully it dried out and I was able to load the pics on. Of course there are more than I am posting, but I have lots of pics for this post, so I picked a few.

Great Grandma Bernie

Criss-cross Crash! Jackson loves this!

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Since we have been homebound due to the snow, I have been taking MORE pictures here lately. Hard to believe that it's possible, but it IS!

Now here are the snow pics. There are some from yesterday and some from today. Jackson has spent a lot of time outside playing in it and Tom has taken him sledding twice. It's really too cold for me! Jackson came in from sledding today and said that he had cried because his bottom had gotten so cold. I told Tom it was probably the first time his butt had ever been numb from the cold!

Addison and Sadie!

Jackson and Sadie!

Sadie!

Here's a picture after our first snow! I guess we probably had about two inches.

I have decided to get involved in doing a Project 365 for 2011. This means to take a photo a day for the year. I want to do a book of it all at the beginning of 2012. I hope I can keep up. I have to admit, I missed one day already, but I just back dated another picture. I'm not going to give up. Last year I think I only made it a month or so, but I'm really going to try harder this time! Below is a grouping of my photos 1 through 8.

Happy New Year!

This will be a Christmas 2010/Happy New Year 2011 combo post since I was so late posting anything about Christmas. I was waiting to find the camera card that I have lost, thinking I would find it and could post some pictures I took at Tom's grandmother's house of them. I don't have any pictures from Christmas at Tom and Mary's! I know it's got to be around here somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. It makes me sick because I had some really good ones of Tom, Jackson, Bernie and Tom Sr. :(

The above layout is my 2010 year in review. As I was going through pictures to make this layout, I just couldn't believe how fast the time has gone. I have decided to do a Project 365 this year, which is to take a picture a day. You wouldn't think that would be too hard for me, but some days I just forget. I have tried this two other years and it just fell to the wayside. Anyway, I'm going to try it again! And at the end of the year, I hope I will be motivated to put together a 2011 photo book through Shutterfly.

I made the family do some "studio" style pictures yesterday morning as the first picture of the new year and the first picture for my Project 365 book. It's not perfect, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

With a 'tude like this, we were unsure if Santa would stop at our house.

Jackson wrote this letter at preschool to Santa.

Barney Claus

But in the end, Santa DID stop and brought Jackson some great toys! ;)

He actually got this letter from Santa about a week before Christmas!

Jackson made this at church Sunday School.

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Here are some pictures from our Christmas in Jasper.

Jackson giving Grandma Kluemper her Christmas present.

Grandma Hart and Jackson!

Jackson, Tom and Leona

Awwww!