While I have your attention.....

You know how I love pictures. And no, I still can't just leave them alone... you know, put them up exactly how they come out of the camera. I have to crop and fix and highlight and frame. I guess I feel that in many ways I'm telling you the story of my life and that should be presented in a nice way. Some pictures in my files not only have a name but a number and sometimes a letter too so that I can choose which version I want. Do I like the misty, blurry version or the black and white one? So many choices!!

My grandson and my son. Aren't they handsome!?

I hate to see a little kid cry, but when it's my grandson and he's upset because he doesn't want to leave Mimi and Pop Pop's house that's just tooooo cute. LOL He gets over it very quickly though.

See, he's back home enjoying tub time. And the smile is back. :)

And OH how he ADORES his Daddy!!!

And what a good big brother Alex is to his little sister Sierra!

Ah, if you are new here, you would think we never do anything else lately but dote all over our adorable children and grandchildren so of course I have to tell you about the fun day trips that hubby and I love to take.

Because we live in a small town there isn't alot to do sometimes. It's very congested in parts. There are alot of airplanes going overhead so the noise is a little annoying at times. The roads aren't in great condition. And it's a very old town always in need of upkeep so it seems there's construction going on alot. But there is this one small park that's nice. I think it's important to try and find balance. Sure, there are negative things in every town, but I'll bet if you look you can see really good things too! We were heading out one day and I saw this view. I've driven past this park a bunch of times, grew up only a couple blocks away, but that day it just looked extra cool.

Another pretty fall view in a neighboring town.

And even more trees. These are in Batsto, a place we love to visit as often as we can. The Wharton State Forest is full of lovely pine and other trees.

This old abandoned building is right outside of Batsto. It used to be general store. I love windows like that. In it's day, it must have been really nice. We have a sun porch on the front of our house with 12 old windows. It's a terrific room. I hope it doesn't get to looking like this one. But if someday it does, maybe a curious person will come along and take a picture and wonder about it's history.

In our travels that day we came across a couple horses having their lunch and I asked the owners of these two beauties if I could take their picture.

Yeah, we still have a thing for graveyards. LOL

Right by the Village at Batsto. Lots of great old history to learn about there.

OH but eventually our day trips take us back to Philadelphia. Always something interesting to see there. This is the building that hubby has been working in for almost 2 years. When he first started his job (painting) there were only 19 floors. Now, there are 48. It's the tallest residential tower in the City. The Residences at the Ritz-Carlton offer luxury living. Starting at $550,000 and going upwards of $12 million, there are over 250 condos and 3 penthouses.

Not too far from City Hall in Philadelphia is Christmas Village. Set up in Dilworth Plaza, it's a temporary holiday craft market open every day until Christmas Eve. We visted the Kathe Wohlfahrt tent and I bought a pickle ornament and a glass angel ornament for our tree. Most of their items were pricey. Nutcrackers and incense smokers were going for hundreds of dollars.

While I consider myself to be very ecclectic (I realize that some would use the word 'weird' instead) and enjoy a pretty wide variety of things, I do love a find that comes with a very reasonable price. These hand-painted in the Ukraine ornaments were being sold by this nice lady. I bought one for 10 dollars!

It was cold in the City that day and hubby wanted to watch the Eagles game on t.v. so we headed back across the bridge. On the way home I saw these clouds and thought the rays coming down were pretty. And the trees, empty of their leaves, against the sky always look neat to me.

Yup, back home again. Okay, okay, our dining room isn't quite so clean right now. Gifts, gift bags, shopping lists, pens and tape and other assorted things are covering the table and I can't seem to keep up with the dust but it must have looked like this atleast once recently for the picture. ;)

Ooh, and I do have a project I want to try and tackle in the New Year. There's an old table in our basement that matches the sideboard. It's top is not in great condition so I got to thinking that I would collage it with copies of photographs. I mean, HELLO, I do adore pictures so what a better way to display more of them than with a project like that. Hubby said after they are all decoupaged on the top of it, he'll coat it with a clear glaze and then we can even get a glass topper for it.

But for now, we're just enjoying the end of THIS year! Can you believe that 2009 is almost over?

Now and then over many years my hubby or son have asked me to do the tree up in colored lights. I usually ignore the request and do my own thing. I know, such a bitch! LOL They always give me free reign to decorate how I like anyway and don't protest too much. So I usually have hubby put ALL white lights on and then I stick to a theme, like all purple, gold, and white, or all red and gold, etc. This year I finally decided to go with all the colors and an assortment of ornaments and am soooo glad I did. They love it and so do I. Maybe I'll put up some pictures of some of the ornaments on there another time.....

I hope each of you are finding joy in the season and are looking forward to a brand new happy new year!

PEACE!!!