So here are some of the pics I've been meaning to get posted up!
I'll start with our new addition, Brie!
Cute huh? I think so anyways.. ;)
And here's some pictures I took of Taylor and her friends art:
"Crazy House" ~ by Taylor
"Seasons" ~ By Heather
This is the picture I took of Taylors art before I cropped it. There's something about it I really like..maybe it's my feet in the picture..I dunno. I love it though..yeah I'm weird ;)
Oh MY GOD...
Yesterday I took pictures of all the snow we've been getting..cause it's quite a bit in my definition. We got at least a foot and a half yesterday.
So here are the pics of that:
But all that was NOTHING!!! Cause look what we woke up too!! Trying to take some of these pictures, as I was standing in it, it was past my waist! And I am not a short person..at 5'6 I'm pretty average. You can barly even see across the street, and even as I snapped the pics, it's was still snowing away....the weather man said 5-6 inches an hour for MOST OF THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!
Now this is what I call SNOW!!! I am speechless!! 
**UPDATE** It's about 4 pm and it's still snowing. I think we're up to about 3 1/2 FT now, with a possibility of 5 FT by morning..It's a good thing Andrew's not flying in anytime soon, cause I wouldn't be able to go get him! I heard last night a flight came in around 11pm and after the ceremony and everything it was almost 1am and a lot of the people couldn't get off post. That would suck big time. Anyway, check out my PHOTO ALBUM for some more pics of the snow!
My paintings and bathrooms seem to go hand in hand lately. The trend started when I did 2 small pieces for my neighbors bathroom, and then my brother bought his wife, Chaney, "Java" and she liked it so much she wants me to make something for one of her bathrooms in her new house. I have yet to get to that, cause we are still working on colors, but now I've gone and painted something for my bathroom. At least they have a place, right? When else can you sit and truly look at a painting without distraction? hehe
Anyway here's some pics of my latest and also a glimpse of my bathroom. Don't deny it..I know you've always wondered what it looks like. I mean it's my bathroom..how much more interesting can you get? We actually have 2 bathrooms, one is off the main hallway, and the other one (the one I'm about to show you) is off my bedroom. Speaking of the other bathroom, I did a painting for it too. I almost forgot about it. It's basically a kids bathroom, with frogs and fish and stuff, so I painted a picture of a turtle in the water and a frog sitting on top of the turtle fishing, with a dragon fly in the air. It's cute.
So on to the fun stuff:
This is my bathroom from the door (obviously)
This is the painting in full sunlight, so the colors are more accurate, then if I had taken it with a flash:
And this is the wall it's on in my bathroom, taken with a flash, so it sort of yellows it, but you get the point! Notice my most favorite towels ever :)
There ya go. My bathroom. Like I said yesterday I kept it "light" on purpose so that it doesn't seem so closed in. Usually I don't do the whole flowers in the bathroom thing, but I was at the dollar store and saw a neutral shower curtain for $10 and couldn't resist. It's not exactly my style, cause that would cost way more money (think WEST ELM), but for now it works and serves its purpose!
"Santa" was very good to the girls this year, so this morning was a lot of fun. We got woke with a call from Andrew, which was awesome. He only gets 10 minute "moral calls" so we didn't get to chat long, but he was on the phone long enough to hear Taylor's reaction from her presents from Santa, and also hear them both open up the presents he sent home for them.
"Santa" got Taylor a Nintendo DS that she never thought she would get, plus a few games for it. It was all tied together with ribbon and set near the tree. She literally started shaking when she saw it..I swear she was about to cry! Andrew got to hear her reaction too..which was really nice.
Taylor got a lot of other really nice things, but all day she's just been repeating how she can't believe she got a Nintendo DS. I asked her "what about all your other cool presents?" and she said.."I'm in shock mama! I knew I was good this year..but I didn't think I was THAT good!" - She's too funny. Right now she is playing Sims 2 on the computer because she also got an expansion pack for it, and she loves dressing up her sims and making them look all fancy and taking them out shopping. She is such a girly girl! I have no idea where she gets it..cause she didn't get it from me!!
While she's been doing that I've been toying around with her DS - and man..that thing kicks ass! She has Super Mario 64, and it's almost identical to the Super Mario game that was on the Nintendo 64, and I used to love playing that game. Needless to say, if I get bored while she's in school I'll be picking it up! Haha, well probably not too much. Audrey doesn't let me get bored to often.
Speaking of Audrey, she is in heaven too. She wants to put half of what she got in the water table..it's funny. Oh, and she wanted to get in it, and was pretty dissapointed that wasn't going to happen. I took some good pictures of her playing with it and a few other toys, so I'll have to post them a little later.
So all in all it's been a good day. It hasn't felt quite as good as I was hoping for, because I was hoping to be so distracted with things I wouldn't miss Andrew not being around as much. Unfortunately the more cute moments I see, and as I begin to cook dinner for tonight, it just really makes me sad that he's not here to see it and enjoy this day. To say that we "miss him" is a gross understatement. ..but let me get off that subject before I get too emotional!
I need to check on the turkey and I don't want to dry it out so I better go! (yes, I said TURKEY! It's a free-range..and not a Butterball..so I caved!) It should be a scrumptious dinner..yummm.
Once again..Merry Christmas!!
These are some of the pics I dug out..
This is me and some social worker. Don't ask me what that doll was there for, I have no idea..and I don't want to know..hehe.
God knows why I was asked to pose in front of McDonalds..or lord forbid I ASKED too. Eeek. Any which way..if this isn't a classic orphan photo I dunno what is. I got the dress. The un-even socks. The antique brown shoes. The red hair. What more do you want?? ;)
This is me and my brother after we were adopted. About 4 years later my adoptive parents gave up custody of my brother back to the state of KS ( he had mental issues my parents weren't willing to deal with.) Enough said..it wasn't cool. The dog is "Buddy" - he had a twin called "Missy" ..they were both grumpy ass dogs. Buddy died out of no where one night from a burst blood vessel in his brain. Missy lasted until she was 16 or something..my mom loved the hell out of her. So much so, that she got a golden urn..that was 100 times better than the urn my dad got after he died. Go figure. 
This is as close as I ever got to a prom-type photo. I believe I was a sophmore and Andrew and I were on our way to the Military Ball. God I look dated.
This is me my Junior year of HS. I look like I'm up to something. Umm. I probably was. All I remember about this photo was that I rushed to get my hair out of a bun and slip on another shirt besides my uniform one. (I went to a military school where we had to wear a uniform 4 out of 5 days a week..it sucked.)
STAYED TUNED - Pics from Paris circa 2000 coming next!!!
I made this little video as a virtual Christmas card for Andrew. At first it was kind of sad, but once we got into taking some pictures and adding in some old ones, it got to be kind of fun. I showed it to my neighbor though, and she cried..which isn't quite what I was going for, but ah well! The girls and I had fun making it.
I know Andrew checks my blog every once in a while, so this will be his first time seeing it too, because it's too big of a file to send through email. So I hope he can see it and his internet is fast enough to stream it!! We love you, and can't wait until you come home!!
I took this pic just a few minutes ago of my neighbors truck. They left for a while and when they came back, somehow their truck had grown 2 antlers and a red nose! Amazing!
It cracked me up, so of course I had to take a picture of it.
Yes..it's still snowing..I'm not sure it's stops too often here. I'm loving it though, believe it or not! I'd much rather look at everything all white and pretty then all brown and dead :) Plus, we have snow blowers! And it makes clearing out the driveway fun!
I've been digging through a lot of old pics today. Feeling nostalgic if you will. I'm thinking of scanning a few and posting them..so look forward to that! In a few I look like the classic "orphan annie" because they were taken while I was at the Children's Home, and then I found some others from Paris that had me in them! But don't get too excited..even then I wasn't so hot about taking pictures..so they turned out pretty funny. Anyway, I'll try and get them posted by tomorrow.
I took these pictures this morning before Taylor headed off for school. Audrey couldn't wait to go play out in the snow this morning, and Taylor would have joined her in the making of snow angels, but she didn't want to get her clothes all dirty and wet. I'm going to get a picture of them doing it side by side though, cause that would be so cute, don't you think?
* The bottom one was taken Sunday, but it was too cute not to share..I'm not proud or anything ;)
Anyway..enjoy!
The snow is coming down hard over here! If it doesn't stop before too long, we are going to get buried!
I took some quick pics of the grass, and by the time I got in and uploaded them and looked back out..the grass was completly covered. I also tried to take some pics of the same branches as I did last week..to show the contrast of only a weeks time. They came out ok but not as good as they could have because it's snowing so heavy out there.
Anyway, check out these pics, and as always if you want to see more, go to my photo album!
Pictured above are wind turbines that I took a picture of near Adams Center, NY. Unfortunately the weather was pretty cloudy and rainy that day, so the lighting isn't as bright as I would have liked. I had to take a picture of it though because there's just something about a wind turbine that looks very surreal, and unfitting..almost like it's from another planet and somehow as you were driving along you crossed over into another dimension. They are HUGE. And they have an odd number of blades, maybe if it had 4 blades it wouldn't look so weird??
Just a thought.
It is truly a "catch 22" situation because wind turbines are a great alternative source for energy, but at the same time they really are an eye sore, especially when you have fields of 50 or more and they aren't very far apart. So it's one of those things where you have to decide which is more important to you - preserving the natural beauty of our land, or sacrificing the aesthetics to preserve our land in a much more important way; through the environment.
So anyway, the girls and I went out driving this weekend looking for some pictures to take with my new camera. The weather just wasn't working with us though, so I don't have a whole lot. The ones I have aren't too shabby though!!
I'll show you one more of them, and then for the rest you'll have to go to My Photo Album and check them out there. They are better over there anyway because you can see them much larger and even download them to your PC and use as a desktop background..they look great that way, right now I have the picture below as my background, and I love it.
* The link to my photo album is on your left, near the top of my sidebar.
See? You tell me which one you like the best! haha. If you click on the pics, you can see them even larger.
