Snowballs & Sledding!

Snowballs & Sledding!
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

This is not Orange County...

Snow & berries 3
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

and these are not lemons.

SNOW!

Guess where we're NOT...

We're not home in SoCal!

Some of My Favorite Pictures of My Middle Little Dude from this Year

For Unto Us a Child is Born

Merry Christmas!

Like Father, Like Son.

Like Father, Like Son.
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

Cute little birdies that all run together.

Lemons

Lemons
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

Today I pulled all these many lemons off my tiny lemon tree, to get them before the rain could knock them to the ground to rot. Funny "winter" we have here in SoCal.

Will he make it? Without getting wet?

Making Christmas Cookies

Making Christmas Cookies
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

We interrupt this "beach week" to show you today's mess, errr, project. Pictured are the clean-up crew, the cook's helper, and the resulting product. Yes, Papa, there will be some leftovers awaiting your SoCal arrival. ;-)

The Reason I Love Being Married to This Man...

He jumps for joy each time he sees me. Hehe.

Me and My Dudes ... Outtakes

Who is that lady with the short hair??? (after 40+ years living with long hair, I'm still doing a double-take when I see myself with short hair). While the Big Dude was taking our picture, a nice jogging man came along and offered to take a picture of all of us together. And following is the resulting photo...


I so totally wish I could have been taking a picture of him taking a picture of us. But since I couldn't, please allow me to paint y'all a word picture of this nice man who had been jogging who was now taking our picture. He was old. Quite old. But jogging. Shirtless. Wearing a Santa hat. With jingling bells tied on his running shoes and Santa hat. And his running shorts were very SHORT, fire-engine RED, and quite tight. This photograph is pretty merit-less. But the memory that it evokes of the friendly, quirky photographer will always make me smile. :-)

All Beach, All Week....

Strands Beach

Strands Beach
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

These seagulls were just chillin', minding their own business, enjoying the beautiful sunset .... when along came a boy. My boy. :-)

Peeking into the Canyon Cave

My absolute favorite picture from this year. And the Big Dude gets the photo credit :-)

Living near Laguna is a nice slice of our Life.

California Christmas Silliness

California Christmas Silliness
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

I soooo loved MizBooshay's Christmas ornament in the snow, that I had to throw an ornament of my own onto the grass, into the iceplant, and onto a fishtail palm. Here's my California interpretation of her Wisconsin beauty. :-)

Never Far from his K'Nex

For additional proof of his "boyness", see dirt under fingernails and scrapes on nose.

The Christmas Season in Southern California *does* look a tad bit untraditional.

Our First Ever House Christmas Lights

Our First House Christmas Lights
Originally uploaded by Skeller5

Lunch is Lemon Yogurt ... Everyday.

I Love Watching the Weather Happen

My Neighbor Grows Beautiful Roses

Spectacular, Gigantic, Glorious Waves

These photos don't even begin to do the scene justice. We didn't stay long at the beach, because I wasn't convinced that a big wave wasn't going to wash away my littlest Dude whilst my back was turned snapping photos.

The Way Our Family Bowls

The Annual Christmas Card Family Portrait

My ever-so-patient and long-suffering Dudes (big and small) allowed me exactly THREE tripod shots to get this year's portrait. I'm just relieved I liked one of the three.

Triops = the "new" Sea Monkeys

This sucker grew super-duper fast. The boys got Triops and Sea Monkeys for their birthdays. This week we plan to drop a couple Sea Monkeys into the Triop jug and watch what happens. Stay tuned...

The Big Dude was hanging Christmas Lights...

When all of a sudden ....

The Blue Angels flew right over our home (we think they must have been preparing for the USC/UCLA game).

The Littlest Dude supervised it all and found it satisfactory.

I'm not crafty, but...

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Dad wanted to surprise Mom with Christmas Lights and Decor this year. And he delegated to me...

And my oldest Dude (who has maddeningly run AWAY from my camera the last couple years, but has recently, curiously begun to jump INTO all my photographs, wanted or not...) lends a sense of scale to the size of this wreath.

So, these are the two wreaths I pulled together - one (with the ribbon) for the front balcony and one for the back balcony.