Merry Christmas Sunny and Katy! And to everyone else too.
Love the photo! We tried to get our dogs to hold still for a Christmas picture last year and it didn't work. lol

~*~Merry Christmas Everyone~*~

~May Your Days Be Merry and Bright~

Here's my little elf:
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It melted my heart when he said 'mawie kismus gamaw'.
When he leaves he says 'too da loo'.
Such a little sweetie :)

I hope you're all having a peaceful holiday.

Awww He's a cutie Nancy. He sort of has a mischievous expression in that photo. It's fun to shop for kids that age. Bet you had a great Christmas.

He looks mischievous to me too, but Grandma knows he is an angel. Katy is a good dog. I hope she got a nice bone for Christmas. Santa brought us a special forecast if they don't change it, so go outside this coming week while you can. January is never good.

If he's anything like his daddy, there will be lots of ornery in the near future..haha
For the moment he is sweet as I've ever seen a child. He even puts himself in timeout and sits patiently for someone to tell him he can get out. He then goes and says 'sawee' for what he's done.

Katy looks like a sweet girl. How old is she? Our Lacy (a golden) is 12 and is a good girl. We had to fence the tomato garden because she was eating more of them than we were..haha Other than that, shes pretty good.

Helen, I hope your pups are having a good Christmas. I'm sure you gave them special treats. This week looks to be nice here also. I continue to be ill and havent even finished with simple fall chores like putting away hoses. I'm hoping DH will help get some things done this week.

Is it too late to put my garlic in?

Sounds like everyone had a great Christmas. Nancy, the little boy is just precious -- soon you'll be planting his own special plants for him. "Fruit doesn't fall very far from the tree," they say, and my 7 year old grand-daughter wanted Santa to bring her a fern with a blue bow for her room so she could "have nature inside." Thank you, Lowe's for having one.

Katy is 5. And a really good girl. I love her dearly. She's been to "school" a lot, but forgets everything she knows when she sees someone she can love on.

Nancy, sorry you are ill. Hope you're feeling better soon! Christie, do take a photo of your dogs under the Christmas tree next year. The trick is to bribe them with a bite of something good. (Helen knows this). I could get Katy to do anything with chicken. I have never heard of a tomato-eating dog, Nancy!
Sunny

Nancy I'm sorry you are sick. If we do get a warm day later this week just go out and piddle. The hose put up is something your husband can do. I thought Katy was a very polite dog. I touch dogs and feed them under the table undoing training. That is why my dogs are undisciplined. The deer hunter who was here for 10 minutes had Honey behaving; he doesn't mind me. He does go out when I say out and comes when I call; I think he may have learned that at his previous home.

I can't get the hang of training dogs either. It looks so easy when they do it on tv. Mine don't listen unless I'm holding bacon or a hotdog. Otherwise, they have no idea what the word sit means.
Glenda and Mosswitch I hope you both had a good Christmas and have just been too busy to join in.

Sunny, that is so sweet that your grand daughter wanted a fern for Christmas. I bet that made your day :)

Helen, I want to thank you for the encouragement to get outside and 'piddle'. That made me smile :) I went out monday and loved it! I spread manure and covered it with mulched leaves/grass in the new flower bed. DH moved landscape rocks (we brought them from the families farm Long ago) to the bed as well. Also picked up quite a collection of items the guttering folks left behind. I paid for it the next day but OH it felt SO good to be in the wonderful outdoors :)
I guess I should say that I've been so ill that this will make the 2nd time this month that I've been outside. I'm hoping to make it out again this week.

Christie, I think I saw where your girls were having fun with an interesting fingernail technique. I bet thats fun for them. How old are they?

Funny how I feel familiar with you ladies and yet I know little about you. Sunny, in the Christmas pic of Katy I saw what I think is the base of an antique lamp. I was so interested I wished I could see more...just a funny thought :)

~Happy New Year Everyone~

Nancy I hope you got out today. The walnut log people came today (Neosho Tree Service, a family business) to say they will be here next week. That means I need to move more stuff so they can get their tractor in. They will cut the fence and make a new road in. I have some raspberries and daffodils in the place where they will be making a road so I am moving the soil and plants that I put there by the fence. Honey was a big hit; they brought their grandchildren. He got lots of attention.

Sunny - I think you mentioned back in November that the Dr. was going to put you on antibiotics for awhile. Does it seem to be helping? It would be nice if you could be back to your old self by the time winter is over.
You asked my girls ages - I have one girl in jr high and two in college so it's nice when they can find something to do together (the fingernail technique). It made a big mess but I bought a cheap tablecloth at Dollar General to put down on the floor so they wouldn't do any permanent damage. You drip different colors of nail polish into a bowl of water, swirl it around and then dip your fingernails down into it to make swirly nails. My oldest daughter doesn't live at home anymore so she didn't get to play but we've invited her over for a swirly fingernail party someday.
Got to take Shasta, my oldest Sheltie back to the vet today. I found out yesterday she's in Kidney failure and has some other problems as well. She really wasn't acting very sick. I'm so glad I took her in. I almost waited until after the weekend. Poor thing. She's almost twelve so I know I should expect her to start having trouble but I hate it.

Nancy, that's not an antique lamp -- just a decorative thing. I'm the official antique in this house! Photo follows.

Fingernail swirl painting -- that sounds fun. Why didn't my friends and I think of that? lol We were very much into rolling our hair different ways, though.

Christie, so sorry about your sheltie. It's always hard to have a beloved dog not feel well. They get to be such a member of the family.

A new road through- - that's going to be nice, Helen. Glad you have beautiful weather to do your plant moving, etc. Sounds like a great amount of work, though.

Tomorrow is the last day of 2011 -- does it seem like a full year to you? So much has happened, but somehow we all just kept on. Surely 2012 holds some wonderful for the Ozarks Region.
Sunny

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I've been sick with sinus and bronchitis for the past two weeks, but I seem to be getting over it now. It's been a pretty good holiday except for that, too much food, lots of good company and I'm nearly partied out. Going to go outside and get some much-needed exercise cleaning up the woods paths. The leaves are piled up on the moss and will smother it out if we don't get it off. It feels like March instead of December, daffodils are coming up and a lot of other spring things are sprouting, but a bit of cold weather will slow them down. We need a foot of snow to protect things from the January cold.

So sorry about your dog, Christie. My daughter lost her very old cat yesterday, so we're all sad about that.

Sunny, I have a base like that, and a basket similar to it. I'd never thought about putting them together and painting them gold but yours is very pretty!

Blessings to everyone for a wonderful year!

Sandy

Christie it will be hard on you treating your dog for kidney failure. Annie is so fat she can hardly get up. This is because she's blind so I give her chicken her only joy in life. She also gets much less exercise. I once had a dog with kidney failure; she hated the special food. You should ask the vet what food she can have as a treat. It will take will power to take good care of her.

Mosswitch, good to have you back! Hope you are feeling better soon. At least you got "partied out" -- that sounds fun getting there.

You can keep the foot of snow to keep things dormant at your place, okay? Some of my daffs are peeking up, but I'd rather they get nipped than deal with any snow here-- guess I'm just a wuss. I piled some leaves on them yesterday.

Yesterday I found a lantana I had dumped out in the compost bin and it had a lot of new green growth, so potted it up. That's the second one I have rescued from the compost. It just seems so hard-hearted to let them freeze when they are trying so hard to live.
Sunny

Christie, I hope Shasta is comfortable. Its hard to see them hurting.
They have had me on nearly 8 weeks of antibiotics (3 different ones) with no relief. Different meds with no relief. Somethings gotta change.
Thats so nice that your girls do 'friend' things together :) My sister was always my closest friend.

Sunny, thanks for sharing the pic of your 'decorative thing'...haha. It looks lovely, especially for Christmas.
Your comment about being soft-hearted with plants that are trying so hard to survive...sounds like me. I think I try harder for them than for a plant thats thriving.

mosswitch-I'm sorry about your daughters cat. Mine is 17 years old and I dread the day he's no longer with me.
I'm glad you finally got over your illness...theres hope! haha

Hope everyone is enjoying the lovely weather :)

Well now I'm worried about you Nancy. You must be terribly frustrated that you've been sick for so long. Life is tough enough when we're healthy but so hard to cope when we're not. A sincere "Get Well Soon" to you.
Shasta doesn't seem to be suffering yet. If fact, I wouldn't know she was sick except that her appetite is so poor. It's difficult to find something that she will eat. I tried to do the sub-Q fluids myself at home today and it's not as easy as it looks. I wouldn't have made a good nurse. It's less stressful for her to do it at home instead of dropping her off at the vet, cheaper too of course. She won't eat the special food. I gave up on that already and have been making her meatballs with hamburger, rice and egg whites. Not exactly what she's supposed to have but better for her than dogfood and it's just about all I can get her to eat.

Mosswitch - Sorry to hear about your daughter's cat. We get so attached don't we. We have a cat that's around 17 too. She just lays around and sleeps mostly, doesn't jump up on things anymore. She's even kind of slow getting in and out of her litter box the last couple months so I think she might be starting to suffer a bit. I'm pretty slow when I get up too though. lol

Sunny I'm jealous that you have a lantana still alive. The ones I brought in to my basement are crispy. I think they're dead but will set them outside in the spring just in case.

All our decorations have been taken down and I did some seed sorting today. I need to make a big winter sowing mess.