January 2019 Randoms

I was excited about the new season of Victoria on PBS. It's one of my favorite shows; I think they do a great job with it (one questionable storyline from the past notwithstanding).

John about to take his turn at his ninja warrior competition.

Sam likes this spot on the couch. 

Boo Boo likes this spot on the stairs. He can see what's going on outside pretty well from here.

 

We thought this was so funny. Violet was napping right under the hippo's butt. 😂

The light fixture that's over the dining room table is pretty.

And so is the tray ceiling above it.

 

Rub a dub dub, Sammy's in the tub. My jacuzzi tub, to be exact.

We turned on the jets and the bubbles ascended! 

This was written in Sam's school planner: "Dear Day tomorrow. Snuggle up with a book." 

Dear = Drop Everything And Read, a.k.a. my favorite thing to do. I keep this picture in my phone for inspiration and a reminder of what I really want to do with my life. 😄📚

Speaking of reading..."read ambitiously." The Wall Street Journal is still my preferred source of news. I find it to have the most unbiased coverage and opinions of just about anything out there.  

John did wrestling for the first time last year in 8th grade. He liked it and he was good at it because he's so strong and flexible from years of gymnastics and now ninja warrior. He'll be starting up his high school wrestling career after Thanksgiving.

That's him in the match wearing green on the right, duking it out with the other kid. I think he won.

I got a haircut and liked how my hair looked that day. I really wish I had a hairstylist to come style my hair each morning. It wouldn't take more than five minutes since it's so thin!

Fun with selfies/me being a goofball

Here's another pic of those pretty white roses I wrote about last week. 

 A couple of things from catalogs that I liked:

Snow Bust

Our first winter back in New England was disappointing as far as snowstorms went. Meanwhile, back in Iowa, they got a ton of snow! It was a maddening reversal of our largely snowless winters out there while back in MA they got pounded by nor'easter after nor'easter year after year, of which I was envious, because there are few things I like better in the winter than a good, fierce nor'easter. But it was not meant to be in Massachusetts last winter. We got some snow in January but not much.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Or at least, a beautiful winter sunset.

 

Tales/Tails of Boo Boo (get it?)

For most of the winter there was only a thin layer of snow on the ground...

...or none at all! This was only a week or so after the above pictures. The snow had almost all melted!

 

The sunset was still pretty, though.  

My hopeful refrain for this winter will continue to be: "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" (Until I get in a car accident because of the snow ::knock on wood::, or we lose power for a day, or some other inconvenient emergency occurs, and then I'll be over it!)

Peter's 40th Birthday

I wanted to have a party for Peter's 40th birthday last January but he didn't want one and he didn't want to go out to do anything special (what a grump!) so we just celebrated at home as a family. 

This is why I hire other people to make our family's birthday cakes! Next time I make a cake (if ever) I'm doing a nice flat sheet cake. As is abundantly clear, I'm not good at layer cakes!

But looks aren't everything. At least it tasted good!

 

My 40th birthday is next summer, and it's going to be way better than this--especially the cake! 😁

Sam and the Lego Roller Coaster!

Sam got a very generous Christmas gift from his Grandpa Hogan last year. It was a huge Lego roller coaster set, the biggest Lego set Sam had ever received. He's a big fan of both Legos and roller coasters, so it was a great gift and one that he'd been wanting ever since we'd seen it all set up at the Lego store at the Mall of America in Minneapolis in May of last year. It was a big project to put together--over 4,000 pieces, and for ages 16 and up--but at nine years old, he did it on his own in less than a week!

Starting out!

Making progress!

Almost done! In this picture he's putting the track on. It was tricky and I was glad he didn't need my help! 

ALL DONE! 

It worked!

He asked me to "post it on Facebook, Mom." So I did with this picture and included a video of him showing how the coaster worked. It got a lot of likes. 😃

I'm pretty sure he has a very good chance of becoming an engineer who designs and builds roller coasters some day. It's something he's interested in doing. That and owning a ninja gym with John and being the manager of Cedar Point, his favorite amusement park in the U.S. Ambition!!

P.S. I ended up buying a display table just for the coaster. It currently has a place of honor in the basement rec room and is admired by all who see it and play (carefully!) with it. 😀🎢

Roses in January

Look at this! I'm starting my blog posts about 2019 and it's still 2019! My catch-up plan is working! 😁

I'll begin the year of 2019 with one of my favorite things: roses! 

I'll always love pale pink and lavender roses together because those were my wedding colors.

This is currently the background picture on our desktop computer. 😍

In fuller bloom a few days later. They bloomed beautifully.

Past peak and still lovely, illuminated by the rays of the sun.

And then there was one.

I bought a bouquet of white roses in the second half of the month. White roses are perfect for wintry January. These started out as tight rosebuds and ended up blooming beautifully. 

Winter blooms help you to forget that it's cold outside!