View from my window, Dec. 28

Snow on the oaks.

Mother love...

...grilling bratwurst outside in teen-degree weather just to satisfy your home-from-college son's craving.

My babies are home!!!

Friday Steve and I headed to the airport to pick up Joe and Liz from college. It was so foggy we worried that they wouldn't get in or that they'd be really, really late. The fog hid everything but the road immediately ahead. Amazingly, they were right on time and even beat us to the airport.





Joseph. See how he wore his new suit to impress his best gal? (Me...for the moment anyhow.) And he got a fresh haircut, too, but I think that was a preemptive move since he can't stand to let it get longer than a quarter inch and nobody here knows how to do a Marine cut quite "right".

Elizabeth. How I've missed that beautiful smile!

The price of a white Christmas...

...lots of snow to shovel. Ben and the other boys are pretty good about getting the job done when Steve isn't home. I have to shovel snow so rarely that I actually enjoy it when I do...sort of...unless there's a foot of it.

Making a Christmas present

I didn't take many pictures this past week, but at least I can catch up with the few I did take.

Here are Susannah and Matthew making a present for their baby cousin Seren.

Meeting at the end. Mission accomplished.

Ice-coated trees

Wish I could've better captured how the ice and sun turned these trees into sparkling crystal.

Ice World

No school today--there's a layer of ice on EVERYTHING.Tree in the front yard.


Barberry shrub in the back yard.

For the 84th time, "How about this one?"

"Nope, sorry, too scrawny." The search continues....

Why I love my sunroom....

Roses in December!!! And these even smell like roses are supposed to smell--heaven on earth!

Winter color

We're into winter with a vengeance here. The snow is pretty, but it brings with it one of my biggest problems with winter--the monochromatic color scheme. White ground, gray skies, in various shades, forever and ever amen till April. It gets depressing and sometimes I just want to take a big old paintbrush and splotch bright color all over the place. These bits of brightness help, especially since these plants can't compete in summertime with showier cousins:
Berries on snow. Looks almost like drops of blood, especially with those thorny branches.

More berries, on a junk shrub I should really tear out.


Raspberry cane rainbows in raspberry red.

The first of many

I've started my Christmas baking. Only a dozen or so more batches to go.

More Boar's Head

This is what young men do when they're backstage waiting for their turn in the Christmas pageant:

Aaron picks up chicks--older chicks at that, but at least they're angelic older chicks.


Ben then steals said chicks from his older brother--and looks mighty proud of himself for pulling it off.

Here the guys are with Susannah--somehow a sister doesn't inspire in Ben and Aaron the same sort of spontaneous animation that those older angelic chicks do.

Lego Robotics

Aaron and his friend Hunter get ready to send the Lego robot on a mission at the regional robotics competition.

Boar's Head Dress Rehearsal

My church's annual Boar's Head Festival was this weekend. In case you didn't know, Boar's Head is a medieval Christmas pageant including lords, ladies, jesters, wassailers, King Wenceslaus, pages, peasants, and a whole host of other medieval characters, plus the full-blown nativity story, orchestra, and two choirs. The production involves hundreds of volunteers; our family contributed a peasant, a shepherd, a banner-bearer and a cookie baker/backstage kid supervisor (me). My favorite moment of the pageant is when the whole company bows in homage to the Christ child.

This photo was taken during dress rehearsal Friday since cameras aren't allowed during the actual pageant since it's a worship service. Aaron is the tall shepherd on the far left.

Five o'clock clouds

Another frigid sunny day. Later in the day, these clouds moved in and took over the sky.

The undulating ridges are cool. As the sun went down, they started to break apart into wispy chunks:

At the Pond

Sunlight reflecting off of thin ice at water's edge. Unfortunately, most of our sunny days are also bitterly cold and windy. Warm, calm days in winter (if you can call any northern Illinois days between November and April "warm") are usually gray and dreary. I like the texture of this. It reminds me of a rubbing done on a sheet of metal.

This small nook of the pond wasn't quite frozen over, and I noticed this strange arrangement of leaves floating on the water's surface. At first I though the wind must have collected them there, but when I looked closer I saw this:


See the bubbles? This artwork was made by some critter huffing and puffing underwater!

Alice in Wonderland

I can't believe I forgot to post these! Aaron and Matthew were in a production of "Alice in Wonderland" the week before Thanksgiving.

Aaron was the narrator.

Matthew was the March Hare, shown here with Dormouse, the Mad Hatter, and Alice at a crazy tea party.

Ohio Thanksgiving

My stupid camera with the broken flash is definitely hampering my 365 efforts. We had a fantastic Thanksgiving with family in Dayton, Ohio, and I'm so mad that I couldn't get any decent pictures to commemorate it. These few are the best I could do.

Susannah and Jordan. They were supposed to be going to bed, but I think they were mostly chattering and giggling.

Matt helping his cousin figure out Zoo Tycoon on Nintendo DS. It was sweet to watch them.

Going east, going west.

We drove through Chicago twice over Thanksgiving, once going to Ohio and once coming back.On the trip east on Wednesday afternoon, we were plagued with bad weather and s-s-l-l--o-o--w-w traffic. It took us three hours to get to the other side of Chicago. (And it didn't get much better till we finally got through Indianapolis hours later.) But at least we missed the snow that came along that night.

Going west Saturday, the skies were clear and the traffic clipped along at a brisk pace--no delays at all.

Party Girls

There were only a dozen girls here for Susannah's tenth birthday party, but somehow it seemed like more. :-) Here are a few of them.

Sights along the Rock River

Girl duck... "Do you think this outfit makes me look fat?"

...boy ducks. "So how 'bout them Huskers?"

Secluded spot for a picnic. Maybe a bit damp.


Rock Guardians of the Rock River. Rock on, dudes.

Susannah

Doing homework.

Cast off!

Aaron finally got rid of that clumsy lump of fiberglass. He was ecstatic.

Glacial Park

Steve and I explored new hiking territory--Glacial Park, which contains evidence of the last glacier to cover this area. The mound in the distance is one of several kames created when melting streams of water on the glacier surface carried along rocks and soil and deposited them at its base. After the glacier melted, these huge piles were its last footprints.

Here you can see two kames beyond the trees and restored prairie Steve is walking through. In addition to the prairie, a kettle bog and kettle marsh have also been restored. Kettles are depressions where a large chunk of glacial ice was buried within a pile of debris, later melting and leaving a low area where water would collect. Both the bog and marsh had been drained long ago to make the land arable, but ever since the land was set aside for conservation, the goal has been to restore the property to its original, pre-settlement state, including areas of oak and hickory savannah.

The trail to the top. The kames are 100 feet high, which added a nice bit of exertion to a super morning of hiking. We climbed this kame twice, once from each direction, just for the fun of it.

Autumn in the Midwest

Harvest is still in full swing. This scene makes me think of my brother-in-law Allen and the time he let his nieces and nephews go out to the field with him and take turns riding in the big combine. I think that might have been one of Allen's last years fulltime in the fields before his brain tumor. Now his son Adam is the main combine driver, but in my mind combines and Allen will always go together.

Nostalgia on Halloween

It's annoying that my flash doesn't work, but here's a picture of Ben and Aaron playing with an old favorite. Looking for the box of costumes, Ben came across one full of baby toys and books that I had put away for when I get some grandbabies. The boys had a grand old time playing and reminiscing. It was a real blast from the past. My babies have grown up too quickly!

Too big

These jeans have been languishing in my dresser drawer for months just in case I grew back into them. Do you think it's safe now to get rid of them once and for all? I hope so, 'cuz they're outta here. So long, Mrs. Fat Pants.

Mum rehabilitation project

When the flowers fade and the mums get old and ugly, the nursery sells them for a buck each. I snapped up five big healthy ones and snipped off all the dead blossoms. I'll fertilize the heck out of 'em and put 'em in a sunny window. Maybe I can coax out some more blooms and bring a bit of cheery color to my sunroom this winter.

I'm not patient about much, but plants are the exception. I don't mind waiting around for distant payoff.

Full moon.

The moon was so big and bright that night. There was a cool red aura surrounding it, too, but I couldn't figure out how to make it show up.

Shopping with preteens...

...always an adventure.

My camera seems to be going to pot...

...and not doing what I set it to do, but here are some photos from today's hike.

The Monty-Python horse trot.

Steve, me, and Susannah.

Aaron, Ben, Susannah. Why is it so hard to resist climbing onto a fallen log?

What makes this park so cool is that it has many different types of terrain--flat fields of prairie grass, woodlands of towering oaks and hickories, even paths through pine-covered hills. We found the park's name very fitting: Pleasant Valley.

P.S. Susannah particularly wanted Aunt Martha to know that there was NO WHINING on this romp. She said, "It's a lot easier to whine when it's a hot day."