Once in a blue moon!

Happy New Year 2010! Tonight we have a blue moon which I consider to be very lucky. It already sounds like it will be a good year! XOXO

Christmas morning

What could be more beautiful than this view from our house on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Santa Express

Christmas Eve Snow...

6 inches of snow and much more coming... we canceled our trip to the twin cities and stayed in Buffalo to shovel all that snow!

A tree on the lake

The image of the Christmas tree on the lake in the middle of the ice rink is my favorite of the season. I can't wait to get my skates out and take a spin!

Scavenger Hunt

Will's girlfriend Nicole and friend Abby put together an amazing scavenger hunt for Will. They came over and hid the clues while he was at swim practice. He thought he would get in the spirit by wearing our new Santa Suit to look for the clues!

Holiday Music

It's just not the holiday season without the Vince Guaraldi Trio, is it? I have lots of other favorites and we have a rule around here that you cannot start listening to Christmas music until the day AFTER Thanksgiving!

Night Lights

line 'em up

I have discovered that I like to line things up, especially around the house during the Christmas Holiday!

S.A.N.T.A.

When our kids were young, Santa always came to Grandy and Grandpa's on Christmas Eve...in a borrowed Santa Suit from our neighbors "The Horsts"...well now that we have so many new little kids in the family, we decided it was time for the Francis Family to have their own Santa Suit! I sewed the suit up in a very nice cotton velvet and Richard made the belt and the jingle bells!

First Home Meet

The Elliott boys are on a swim relay team together this year! It should be fun to watch them work together!

12-12-09

The "holiday nuts" are out in Buffalo. The ice on the lake has barely frozen over and already we have the fishing nuts out on the lake in their little portable houses...it is such a funny site to see.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose!

The temps are falling fast here and we have some gorgeous artwork from Mother Nature on our windows! I love these ice crystals

'tis the season...swim season!

December 10th is the date of the first swim meet of the year. The boys get gussied up in shirts and ties and head off to school with Buffalo pride! We have new coaches and new attitudes! Should be a good season!

We used to need a ladder!

On December 8th, we finally got around to putting decorations on the tree. I love the way the white lights look and could go all of December like that, but it is "tradish" around here to put all the old school decorations from when the boys were little. Will put the star on this year and he didn't even need a ladder! Yikes!

A bit of Comic Relief!

Will and Jack have always been good about helping me with my holiday card idea! This year I wanted to use a cartoon tutorial that I bought from Designer Digitals by Cassie Jones. It showed me how to take our photos and turn them into a bit of comic relief! Very Cool. I had some of them printed up in black and white and then hand colored the word bubbles. Others were sent electronically this year to save some resources!  

December 5th

This year I made a wreath using lots of old found objects. Some of the little tags and bobbles came from our neighbor in Redondo Beach and others came from Aunt Helen and Walter house down in New Prague. The little pipe cleaner people remind me of my childhood!