Sunny Winter Days

Today I have carted the kids off to my dad and mom's house.  I have purposefully tried to get everything accomplished that I can think of so that I can have a few hours to write on my book, but now Adam is home early from work so I guess I will have to put off book writing until I get his lunch made and see what he is up to for the rest of the day.  Plans never go quite as smoothly as you previously expected, do they?  Tonight, however, we are going to go on a date, which we try to do once a month, so I am very excited for that!

Yesterday was one of our stay-at-home days.  Its hard to navigate the stay-at-home-days, because without a car ride to break up the monotony the kids can definitely wear me out.  But here lately I've started a routine that works out great.  Here's a few pictures from yesterday of things we did and saw.

-Some potatoes leftover from the garden.  We keep them in buckets in our garage and they stay fresh all winter long for us to enjoy.

-I love our little boot collection

-Our garden shed

-An amazing bloom on a bush by the side of our house.  I have not seen this bush bloom in the whole two years we have been here, and then about a month ago it decided it was time to unveil its true potential.  I cannot believe I have a budding flower on anything in the middle of December

-My dad and mom put this bird feeder station together for my birthday this past year.  I believe it is a 4x4 treated wood post, and my dad dug a couple of feet into the ground and set the post in without concrete.  It is very sturdy, and my mom picked out a lovely solar light for the top that puts out a soft glow each night.

-My husband, Adam, makes fun of me for having these geese.  A cousin of his actually owned them, but I asked if I could have them for my own because it looked like they were not getting much use.  They brought them over for us, and I hope to paint them some fun colors.

-Our garden.  The tall dried stalks in the background are okra, and the broken down stalks in the foreground are leftover from sunflowers.  In the middle I dump ashes from our fireplace as well as food compost..

-If we have a fire going non-stop, this wood in our garage will last two weeks.

-A cast iron bell of a cocker spaniel, similar to our family dog Lilly.  I put this bell on one of our barns low enough for the kids to ring.

-I got out some watercolors for the kids to play with. It was a lot of fun to see the kids enjoy some time being creative.  I would have included my daughter in this photo but she was getting ready for a bath by the time I could grab a camera to take a photo.  Let's just say she got more paint on herself than on the paper.