55 paper lanterns.

Well - 6 "string lights" paper lantern sets purchased for my mom and sister.  They are in a pile right next to me, so when thinking of a title for today's post my eyes fell on them and I had a uncontrollable urge to count them all.  10 lanterns in the little boxes and 5 in the big one for Mariel.  They were 75% off...or did you guess that already?   Perhaps I should have gotten myself some?  Ah well, I don't have the mental space to come up with somewhere to put those.

Oh - before I forget.  Consider this your "Save the Date."   We are finally having a house-warming party!  It will be Saturday Feb.  7th.  Most likely late afternoon. Everyone is invited.  I will send out a few invites to people who are far away and don't check email or facebook or answer their phones, but I am going mostly word of mouth here (so don't be offended if you don't get one - you are still invited!).  Come see my new house!  I will have good things to eat.....and perhaps for those that stay late we will have a few Wii tournaments.  Any out of towners are welcome to stay here.  We have a spare room, and lots of floor space.  And if we run out of that we could always put a tent in  the backyard....though there is always a chance of rain here that time of year...just to warn you.  It could be an adventure!

Alright - I promised some pictures (Though you are not allowed to skip out on our party because you have already seen pictures) So to start things out here is some outside photo's!  This also gives me a chance to show off all our work this last weekend.  We have started the garden process!  So exciting...we have our garden boxes...oh, here, I'll show you:

Isn't it so wonderful?  Now we just need to buy all the dirt we need to fill them.  Should be a couple hundred dollars so we have to save up.  And here is our compost pile:

It is small now, but getting there! The pink in there is the streamers we used the other day when we were playing "race" in the backyard.  We tied the streamers between two trees and ran and ran and ran breaking it and tying it back together over and over as we raced.  LOTS of fun, cheap and we were all good and tired when we came in.  I even won a couple times!  Love games like that.  Can't play it again in the same spot though...we transplanted one of the trees:  And the other tree next to the boxes will be going  in the front yard.

Oh, and you want to see my Christmas roses?

There are three plants there - sorry they are hard to see.  But aren't they beautiful?!  They will be pink and red roses.  And we are talking about growing climbing white roses all along our back fence.  I want lots and lots of roses!  And lastly - here is a picture of the front of our house:

You like our gloomy weather?  It was sunny-ish for a couple days and now they say expect rain for the next 2 weeks.  I miss the sun!

 Remind me later, I need to go to the bank soon and buy a roll of dimes.  They are for Taylor and her chore chart.  She gets 10 cents a day if she does all her chores.  And then at the end of the week she has to put one of the dimes in savings and one in tithe.  So 50cents a week to spend however she wants.  If she wants to gain faster she can do extra chores.  But for now we decided this was enough for a 3 year old.  And she is thrilled!

I feel as if this post has been rather boring today.  Hmmm, not sure how to fix that.  Oh, say a prayer that the truck will pass smog today.  We have been working on fixing it at every spare moment and we are smogging it today.   It would really be wonderful if it could pass.  It is hard living with only one car between us.  In order to have the car to do anything during the day right now I have to wake up kids (well, Taylor.  Ayla is already up) at 6:45 to take Ryan to work.  And if I don't do that then we are stuck at home all day.  I would really love to be able to go to the gym every morning again.  It is therapy to me and we are all happier when that can happen. 

Perhaps if I can make it to the gym everyday then I will find my creativity again?  I have most certainly lost it today.  So I apologize everyone for my most boring post to date (at least in my own humble opinion).  I promise to do better next time!

May your day be sunny and your rain wet.  May your knees be muddy and your fingernails dirty.  May your eyes be full of joy and your shoes full of feet. And may you always land with your head up on the top.