Happy New Year!

A look back

I can't believe Wednesday is the last day of 2014.  The year has flown by!  I'm going to do something for the last day, that I've done for the last few years, which is to post a picture from the first day of each month with the first sentence from that post.

January

 I got this yummy recipe from my daughter Laura and made it for Christmas afternoon.

February

 This is a satellite image of Michigan on January 27.

March

 This is my Dad and stepmom with Alaina on Christmas. Dad's been having more heart trouble again.

April

 Spring has to be coming - the maple trees have been tapped!

May

I'm taking the back way into work, enjoying seeing everything in the early morning light.

June

 6:45 am, driving into work.

July

 Can you believe it's July already?

August

 Bob's been working on a carpentry project for his Mom.

September

 I've been going to this Labor Day picnic for as long as I remember and it's always at this charming park near my hometown.

October

 I tried a new recipe this week.

November

 This past weekend was my weekend to work, so I spent a lot of my Saturday there.

December

Dec 1 - I got up a little after 5am.

That's it - a glimpse of my life in 2014.

Christmas Eve

We had our family Christmas on Christmas Eve.  This was my year to work Christmas day, so it worked out well.  Aaron and Laura, Alaina and Ruby and  Andrew and Heather all came for the evening.
Disclaimer - my photos are terrible.  I was having trouble getting the camera to focus and didn't have time to fix it.  Sorry!

We started with supper - lots of appetizers and punch.  We had lots of leftovers!

After supper we skyped with Andy and Nikki in Kentucky.  We did our gift exchange with them via skype.  :)

Our kids had arranged a crazy gift exchange.  They exchanged names and had to buy something at a thrift store that had something to do with birds and it had to be something they could use.  As you can imagine, this gave a lot of laughs.

 Here's Laura with her crocheted turkey hat.

The gift Andrew got was probably the one that made us laugh the hardest, although it was also the most disturbing.  It's a turkey foot, attached to an antler to be used as a back scratcher.  Sice he came up with the rules for this exchange, he deserved this "gift".

 After that craziness, we opened our stockings.  Alaina loves Shaun the sheep.  These are claymation videos you can find on Youtube.  Bob carved a Shaun for her, and you can see by the smile on her face that she loved it.

 Ruby just snuggled and slept through it all.

 Here's another gift Alaina liked. I found this cute cat that purred and moved its head when you rubbed its back.  She was happy with it.

 I made a photo book for Aaron and Laura with pictures I've taken of Alaina over the past year.  It turned out really nice.

What kid doesn't like a box?  Alaina had fun riding in this box after the presents were opened.
It was a great evening with the people who are so dear to me!