Family Pictures

On Christmas Eve, we decided to take out the camera and take some family photos. It had been way too long. In fact, we also decided that we must get to a professional photographer sometime in 2011. The last time we had a professional picture taken of the three of us, was in 2003 and James was only 2 1/2 years old. We are way beyond due for that!!

In the mean time, these will have to do!! These are the best ones we took the other day. The hardest part of the whole thing was figuring out how the timer on the camera worked!

So, from our house (and hearts) to yours.....we wish you lots of the best things for 2011!! With much love heading your way........

A Holiday Mix

I was looking at a friend's blog this morning, and fell in love with a way to present pictures that she had used! Helen, you're so good at knowing about this kind of thing and I hope you don't mind that I, too, jumped on the wagon, so to speak! I think that this is a great way to post more pictures for all to see and enjoy!

Here are the best of the pictures I've taken in the last 10 days! As Hanukkah ended for this year, we headed out on one of our favorite annual outings....to the Christmas tree farm to find our tree!! James decorated his room with lights and we've been busy decorating the house, inside and out!! Within the next week, I'll be taking photos of the finished products - the tree and village inside and the outside of our house - and will be posting those pictures soon!

We hope that you're enjoying your holiday season!

Thanksgiving with Family

We had a nice Thanksgiving, with Dusty's family here in Montrose. Dusty's son, Joe, and his wife, Jen, came down from Grand Junction with their three kids and we all gathered at Dusty's sister's (Vonnie) house. There were 15 of us and it was a nice, low-key holiday. Lots of good food and conversation!!

I had the idea of taking some family pictures. I didn't know if everyone would agree to it, but they did and I'm so glad! We got some good pictures! Here are the best of the bunch!

My little family....Dusty, James and me!

Joe and Jen with their three....Jack, Juliana and JT

John and Vonnie with their three.....Ryan, Katie and Devon

Vonnie and Dusty with their mom, Stella.

All of the boys from the Ryan and McChesney families.

All of the girls from the Ryan and McChesney families.

And here are all of us together. I was quite pleased with this picture, in particular! It's so hard to get a good picture of so many people, but somehow we did it!!


With Thanksgiving behind us, we head into a busy time of year. Hanukkah starts this week. As is always the case, we will be melding the two religions of our (Dusty's and mine) upbringing. As we light the Hanukkah candles, we'll also be decorating the outside of our house for Christmas! Unfortunately, this year the eight days of Hanukkah will be over long before we really get into preparing for Christmas. I always love to take pictures of the lit Hanukkah menorah in front of our decorated Christmas tree, as it always speaks of what the Ryan family is all about. But, alas, that won't be happening this year. Perhaps next!

We have several traditions that we enjoy at this time of year.....sharing Hanukkah with families who are unfamiliar with the holiday, going to the Christmas tree farm, decorating the house (inside and out!), baking, going for a ride in the evening (complete with quilts and hot cider or hot chocolate!) to enjoy the beautiful Christmas lights in our area and other holiday-type activities!

I hope you'll enjoy your holiday season as much as we do! Find the time to spend with your families and give them an extra dose of love. It's the BEST gift that can be given!!

How Can You Not Believe??

.....that it's going to be a good week ahead, when your Sunday evening sunset looks like this??????

After last night's beautiful sunset, we woke up this morning to snow! We're not supposed to get very much, nor is it cold enough yet to really mess up the roads. Just pretty, hearlding in the winter!

We had a pretty lazy weekend. Not much going on really. We spent some time entertaining Lacey, outside. She will play frisbee or ball 24/7, if we would play with her! How she LOVES to play!! Here she is catching her frisbee on the yard....


She's just as happy to curl up on her bed. I came out of the bedroom to see this in the livingroom the other night!

Dusty said she told him that she was cold! So he helped her out, covering her with his fleece jacket. Maybe we need to get her her own blanket. She DOES have her own sleeping bag when we go camping! I'm not sure who is sillier, our dog or my husband!!

Have a wonderful week!!!

Oops! I Missed Posting About Halloween!!!

I'm not sure why it just occurred to me, a week later, that I hadn't posted anything about our Halloween weekend! Must be old age setting in! Maybe it's because I also post pictures on Facebook and so sometimes I forget to do a posting here right away!

Anyway, before we move on to Thanksgiving, I guess I'd better post something about our Halloween! I was proud of myself, having James' pirate costume completely finished a week BEFORE Halloween. I don't think that's ever happened before!! He was so pleased with it and, a week later, is still talking about how great it is! Guess I hit the mark on this one! Through all of the trials of trying to get it done (I am so NOT a seamstress!!!), it's my son's appreciation that makes me want to continue to make his costumes. James just loves the process so much, as much as he seems to love being able to say that his Mom makes these things just for him! It's his appreciation and gratitude that keeps me going! It's hard to believe that this was the eighth costume I'd made for him. Where did that time go?

James' Halloween weekend started on Friday afternoon, when his class had a Halloween party. One of the other mothers lead the party and I assisted. All of the kids had a lot of fun, wearing their costumes, playing games and eating yummy Halloween treats! The energy level was HIGH, to say the least!!

All weekend long, we continued to decorate that outside of our house. Oh, we had a mini cemetary, cobwebs everywhere, a huge bat hanging from the tree, and a broom-riding witch/cowboy! We helped James decorate (reaching the areas that he couldn't), but he was in control and had a blast!! It did look pretty awesome when he was done!

On Saturday night, was his school's Halloween Carnival. I volunteered to work in the ticket booth, so Dusty escorted James to the Carnival. They had a very good turn out and everybody seemed to be having fun! Many ghosts and goblins showed up, including a few Cleopatra's, at least one pirate :), and many others that I can't remember. I think my favorites were "Thing 1 and Thing 2" from Dr. Suess fame!! They were GREAT, winning one of the levels of costume contests!! Too funny!! There were many games, and munchies. It's always fun to see all of the kids dressed up and really enjoying themselves!!

Then on Sunday night, came the trick-or-treating! With the jack-o-lantern lit, the kids started to arrive. James, completely decked out as a pirate, had as much fun greeting the kids (and, yes, scaring them if they were old enough and it was "appropriate"!) as he had when it was his turn to go out door-to-door! We had one of the boys from his class come over and I took James out with his buddy(and his family) while Dad stayed home to greet the little ones. It worked out well and now James can see what fun it is to actually stay at home and "work" the other side of things. He just had such a great time decorating and passing out candy, that this transition will be great for him! He can still dress up and have fun without going out trick-or-treating! We'll see what he decides to do next year, but now we're more ready to move on to the next level!

Here are some of the pictures I took over the weekend........

Class fun on Friday afternoon


James with his "book buddy" (His class of 4th graders gets together to read with a class of 1st graders!)


The making of a grubby pirate. James did all of his own makeup this year!


Our broom-riding witch/cowboy!


Taken from the street, here is our yard, complete with cobwebs, bat, witch and cemetary in the back.


Our gate archway covered in cobwebs.



James also carved our jack-o-lantern all by himself this year!


Pirate James visiting our haunted cemetary, keeping the skeleton's under control!


Oh, please don't stab ME with that sword, Mr. Scary Pirate!! :)


So now we are heading deeper into Autumn, cleaning up the garden for the year and taking care of the last of the "garden goodies"! Dusty brought in the last of the tomatos on Halloween day! He said, "If anyone tried to tell me that I'd be brining in the best of my tomato harvest on October 31st, I'd have told them that they were crazy!!" None the less, here it is!!!!

This weekend were making tomato sauce and juice, and dicing up some to freeze for cooking!

Before long, we'll be decorating the house, inside and out, for Christmas! Where has the year gone?

R-E-A-L-L-Y??!! Already???!!!!

I'm having a hard time believing that today is our son's 10th birday!! That was a FAST 10 years!! It seems like just yesterday that I was lying in that hospital bed, looking out the window, and thinking that my son is always going to have a beautiful birthday. This week is always the best week for color in our valley, as the Autumn colors have crept down the mountainsides and into the "flatlands" where we live. The color is amazing.....everything is so vibrant, despite the often gloomy skies that we have at this time of year. The seasons are definitely changing!

I took these pictures, on my way into town yesterday, to pick up James' birthday cake.

This has always been Dusty's favorite tree in our area. It's just so perfect!


Crossing over the creek, I stopped to take this picture. Funny how things you see often, never get photographed!


James decided that he really didn't want a party this year.....that after this Mom was ready to have a group of kids at the park for a BBQ and lots of football play! He decided he'd rather just have his best buddy from school, Aden, spend the weekend with us. Boy, that was easy!! The two of them had a great time just hanging out together! They decorated the outside of our house for Halloween, rode their bikes at the local BMX track up at the park, spent a lot of time throwing the football, made tortillas and really enjoyed an evening campfire in our backyard! Then on Sunday we took them to play a game of miniature golf!

Decorating the house for Halloween.....


Making tortillas with Dad!


Mastering the tortilla maker....


Enjoying spooky stories around the campfire....


James and Aden have known each other for a long time, meeting in daycare before starting school. After 5 years of school, this is the first year they haven't been in the same class together. They are making the best of it, sharing time together in the school's Quest program and playing on the same football team with the rec department. They love tossing that football!! Dad and I are hopeful that James and Aden will always be friends!!


Then yesterday, I took cake and drinks to James' classroom so that they could all be a part of his birthday too!!

James is a big football and Broncos fan! Picking out a cake for him this year was easy!


The birthday boy with his cake!!


Here is his teacher, Mrs. Morris, singing (with the class!) "Happy Birthday" to James!


Mrs. Morris and her 4th graders!! I'm so glad James is in this class this year.....a great group of kids and a wonderful teacher!!


And so we now go barreling into James' 11th year! We are so proud of him and the person that he is becoming! What will the future hold for our guy? It's exciting to know that the sky is the limit for this young man! I can't wait to see what the next 10 years have in store for him!

It's Football Season!

Anyone who really knows me, knows that I am not a football fan!! Not at all!! It's at the top of my list of "most unfavorite" sports to watch! I enjoy watching baseball, basketball and I've grown to enjoy (if not only be accustomed to having it on all the time!) the NASCAR racing! But football remains to be elusive to me.....I don't really understand the games and it has always seemed unnecessarily rough to me. All of this being said, it would make sense that my son wholeheartedly wants to be a football player!!!

Part of his enthusiasm comes from the fact that James idolizes his big brother, Joe!! Joe now is a grown man, with a family of his own. James loves his brother and Joe treats James very well. We are all blessed by the relationships that James has with his big brother and sister!!

Joe started playing football in 2nd grade (according to his Dad....I wasn't in the picture back then!) and played straight through high school, some in college and then played a couple of years of semi-pro, until about 6-7 years ago! James has always thought that is way-cool!!

This is the first year that James is (finally!) old enough to play football through our local activities department. I think he was one of the first ones to sign up for the season. They start them in 4th grade here, and it's "flag football", something I can be alittle bit more comfortable about....at least for the time being. Next year, he'll move on to tackle football and I'll brace myself for that! I've never thought of myself as an overprotective Mom, but football just hits a chord with me.....one that I don't like. Maybe, as time goes by, I'll get over that, get more used to it all!

What I DO like is the huge smile that's on James' face as he comes running off the field, that fact that he has to work as part of the team, the physical activity of it all and how much he LOVES playing!! I can see both sides of it and so this Mom is trying very hard to be enthusiastic for HIM. He knows that I'm not a fan and thanks me for taking him to practices and for rooting his team on at games. We've both come to terms with each others thoughts on the subject.

And so, for now, I try my best to push aside my own discomfort and be there for James. We have a few more weeks to go and the season will be over for the year. Here are some of the pictures I took the other day at one of his games.......

Before the game, smiling with the mouth guard. Silly kid!


I love this picture! None of the boys can seem to figure out exactly what to do with their mouth guards!!


James, playing "center".


"Run, James, Run!!"


"Watch out....don't mess with me!!"

A Day in the Autumn Spendor

Yesterday we went for a drive to enjoy the Autumn colors. Each time we go up to Woods Lake, we talk about how beautiful it must be in the Fall, but we'd never done that! Every year we try to go in a different direction, see a different area at this time of year. So to Woods Lake we headed and we weren't disappointed! We were a little bit early....next weekend, perhaps, would have been better, but we already have obligations then so this was our weekend in the mountains!

I look so forward to this day, every year! It's one of my favorite things that we do. The inner peace and serenity I feel, as we drive along through the gorgeous colors, is unsurpassed in any other situation. Maybe it's because of the symbolism, for me, behind the Autumn.....the world seems to be getting ready to go to sleep for the winter.

When we got to the lake, the boys took Lacey and went fishing. I headed in the other direction, taking the path over the dam, across the bridge and on to the end of the lake. There were people in row boats, fishing on the lake. The fish were jumping. And all of this was surrounded with the brightest, most beautiful color! I was all alone on the trail, taking it all in.....the sights, smells and sounds. The sounds seemed muted along side the colors.....the sky was so blue (not a cloud to be seen!), and the evergreens so dark green against the vividness of the golden and red Aspen leaves. It couldn't have been a more perfect day!!!

Here are some of the pictures I took........


This picture was taken from the campground (right near our favorite campsite!) above the lake.







James takes his fishing very seriously! Must get that from his Dad!!

He is always examining the world around him! Here he has just discovered some small lake snails.....



We stopped to take some pictures of us as well! We even got Lacey to pose and cooperate for this one!

Dad and James


James and me.