Creative Pop-Offs: Catching Up

It's been a very busy time since my last post! This is another of those catch-up posts that's incredibly long, so bear with me (or not!).

A few weeks ago I started volunteering at the local library, checking in and putting out hold items. I've been having a blast doing it! I'm currently the fill-in person, and I've been called in at least twice a week the last few weeks, and this week I worked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Next week I'm scheduled for Monday and Wednesday. I go and do that while Ryan's in school so it works out perfectly.

--------------------------------------------

A while back we had an amazing sunset:

It seems like we don't get too many amazing sunsets, so this one deserved a photograph.

--------------------------------------------

The only shopping I did on Black Friday was to go to JoAnn and get a Cricut. Here it is (photograph by Ryan):

The kids have had a great time with it, and I have too! I'm going to get some software that will allow me to use the computer to cut whatever I want. I'm excited about it!

--------------------------------------------

I dragged the family out to one of the local Christmas attractions, the light display at Rhema. Last year in the ice storm a lot of the lights were damaged, and I think they replaced most of them with LEDs. They're much brighter than two years ago! (We didn't make it last year before the ice storm, and afterwards it was closed.)

I twisted everyone's arms to pose for a picture, and here's what we got:

Not too bad!

Those reflective parts of their coats sure do reflect well.

Here are the kids at a clever light display--they took a planter and made it into a wishing well using lights.

I have no idea why Ryan is tilting his head, but all I can figure out is because I was tilting the camera. Silly kid!

The lights are pretty amazing! This is taken looking toward the bridge, with the lights in the trees behind the bridge reflecting in the stream.

--------------------------------------------

It's looking pretty festive around the house, too. Here's the tree on the day we got it, with no ornaments yet:

A few weeks later I finally got my act together and we got the ornaments on. The kids also added some "garlands" from various materials.

Here it is in the dark, with the village along the ledge:

And with the lights on:

--------------------------------------------

Last Saturday Gillian was in the Broken Arrow parade with the Brownie troop. The rest of the girls were candy canes and Gillian was an elf. (I know, she's only 7 and she's already QUITE an individual.) Each girl had an adult with them, and here you can see Greg with Gillian (behind the kid in the cammo jacket):

And here are Greg and Gillian posing quickly:

There were a LOT of car clubs in the parade. Here are a few highlights:

Lots of really neat old cars:

What holiday parade would be complete without Santa?

And of course there were horses:

The amazing thing about this parade was that the horses were last (instead of in front of the marching bands!), and followed by street cleaners to clean up the horse poop!