Caitlin's 2nd Birthday!

I totally forgot to post these photos(thank you Aunt Bonnie for reminding me!!). We celebrated Caitlin's birthday the evening of the 12th. It was just the five of us at home. Caitlin loved opening her gifts...we gave her a cute wooden train set and extra trains. She just loves it! We thought she would like her own set...she's always playing with her brother's!

A photo of me....

I am always the one behind the camera, it seems, so I thought I'd have a little fun and try to take photos of myself. I must say, it's not easy when you can't see the screen. But I think I did a pretty good job! So...this is me...fair skin...bright blue eyes. My husband liked the photos I took very much! ;)
I will be 30 on May 19th...I sure don't feel my age...well my joints do, but mentally I still feel like I'm in my late teens, early 20s...hmmm. I think that's a good thing...very young at heart.

My Process of Creating Spinning Batts

Here's what I begin with...the batch I'm working on today consists of(from left-right), turquoise and blue Polypay wool, light green Alpaca and bluish-green Targhee wool. I washed, dyed and carded all of these myself from raw fleeces. I take the time to pick out as much vm as I can. And all the fibers that I wash from the raw state are run through my carder a minimum of two times to get to this state. I'm a fairly picky spinner, so I want the fiber I sell to reflect my personal preferences!

I started carding and the first run-through looked like this. I split the batt in half lengthwise, kept one half separate and carded the other half. You can see that the colors blended a lot(top of photo)...I didn't quite like the look of this...so I tried it again...this time with thicker layers. (below)

I did the same thing....split the batt and carded half. This time it was better...not blended quite so much...but I just wasn't satisfied. I then decided to not use the white and card one thick layer of each color. I took the batt off, peeled off each color in it's entirety, pulled it into a roving form and ran each back through in stripes.
My carder is a Louet Jr. The larger wheel is about 4 inches wide, which I love...so the four colors fit perfectly with a little overlapping. I think these came out beautifully...and I was quite satisfied!

Cat Nap

Angel...napping in a batch of dry Targhee wool. She slept here for over two hours, so it must be warm!

A beautiful Central NY winter sunset, looking out the front of our house. Sunsets like this always make me thank God for his beautiful creation! Simply stunning!

Lights on the Lake

Syracuse, NY offers a wonderful holiday recreation idea for families...."Lights on the Lake". It runs from sometime in December until about the first week of January. Onondaga Lake Park is lined with wonderful wire and light displays of all shapes and sizes. Many have some sort of motion...like the dolphin that looks like it's jumping over you!
Below are some of the best photos I took the night we went. Enjoy!

A cute gingerbread house....

and an even cuter gingerbread baby!

A very nice nativity scene!

This one was really neat...it was kids doing all sorts of sports. And we got to drive under it all...where the girl in the middle is hiking.

There were two of these knights with their jousts...one on each side.

A Farm Trip!

This past Sunday we were invited to visit Infinity Acres, a small farm in Baldwinsville, NY. Laura, the owner, along with her husband, have two gorgeous black Percheron mares, Suri Llamas and Huacaya Alpacas, Guinea hens and now 2 Mini Nubian buck kids.

This little beauty above is a 4-month old llama cria. She's being bottle-fed as she's an orphan. The photo below is of Cara and Brendan and miniature pony.

And here's Brendan and Cara holding one of the kids....one of them really liked Brendan...he was giggling when the goat gave him kisses!
Their eyes were so blue! I LOVE baby goats...no matter how much noise they make!

Another photo in the bucket loader....what fun to be in something so big!

Cara posing in her jammies.

Cara's turn on the four-wheeler!

Cara being silly...

Caitlin napping on the way down to Aunt Linda's.

Caitlin posing in her new dress I bought at Kmart.

Here she is wearing her new pajamas my mom gave her for Christmas.

Having fun playing peek-a-boo on the computer chair.

Just a cute grin!

Just some photos of the last week or so. This photo is of my sister, Samantha(left), my Mom, Bunny, and myself.

The large snowman was a gift from my mother-in-law for Christmas....I saw him at Wegman's and mentioned it to her. So I was very surprised that she got it for me! The other snowman was just a random gift from her snowman collection.

Here's Brendan in a very large bucket loader that my uncle is working on in his garage.

And here he is again riding a three wheeler with my cousin, Shawn.

And just a quick shot of Cara and Brendan before bedtime a couple nights ago.

New Year's Eve 2006

Yesterday was a long day for us! But it was a good day...we went to church in the morning, then to my Aunt's in Homer, NY. We celebrated Christmas and just had a good time together. The two trees above are Aunt Linda's...they're adorable and I had to have a photo! Her family room downstairs is decorated like a lodge...moose and bears...just plain cozy and cute.

My husband drove on the way down, so I was playing around with my camera, trying out the landscape and action modes. The photo above is a huge farm...it's called Dairy Development International. There are 4 or 5 barns that are insanely long...and tons and tons of the caterpillar bags of feed on the left. The cows do not go outside...the barns are huge and clean too!

This photo is just of a farm and a couple homes along Rt 81 that I snapped a photo of. They are surrounded by empty fields.

This photo is of Song Mountain ski resort in Tully, NY. There's very little snow on them. The ski resorts around here are really suffering...Central NY has had very little snow this winter.

And this is just a pretty view around Nedrow and Lafayette, NY heading south on Rt 81.