It's the last day of January, so it's time to retire my snowmen until next year. Too bad this doesn't mean that winter is over!

I just bought a new door mat. The colors are kind of boring, but I liked the bugs on it. Think spring!

One of the not fun parts of a Minnesota winter. There's a blue car under all that salt. If I don't clean the headlights every night, I can't see a thing when I leave for work at 6 AM.

The Spirea bush in front of our house has lots of little dried flowers on it. I took this picture with the Macro setting on my camera.

It snowed again today. I'm waiting for the day it snows enough that you can't see the leaves still in the yard. At least from this angle you can't see any. Tree shadows. The funny shaped one is the basketball goal.

Here we have Josh's hat rack. Sometimes we use it as a bannister. Note the top hat. Josh's favorite team is the Arizona Diamondbacks. The other hat is the New York Yankees. We live in Minnesota but Josh is not a Twins fan. He does go to games, but only when they're playing a 'good' team. Oh, well. He's interesting.

Another collection. And this is only part of it. I have another wall full. I've always loved game boards. I actually haven't bought one in a while, mainly because I haven't found any I can't live without. And because the walls are full.

Did I mention I love trees? Trees with snow. I hope we get more snow.

Today was Josh's 14th birthday. I don't love the hair, but he's a sweetie. This was taken at his birthday dinner at Fuddrucker's (his choice).

I love this tree. I don't know what kind it is, I think some kind of birch. I love the way the bark peels on it.

It snowed again. This tree is in the backyard. I think it's some kind of crabapple. It get little pink flowers in the spring and it's just beautifu.

Today we had a birthday party for Josh, who turns 14 on Tuesday. When do they get too old for balloons? Josh and Amanda had a great time blowing up balloons and then popping them. It was making the dog crazy.

I love icicles. There were some cool icicles in the forsythia bush this morning. Lots of leaves, too. This bush seems to catch all the leaves that blow around the yard.

Amanda didn't want piano lessons, but she did want a keyboard. It's lots of fun to play with, but neither of us uses it very much. It's more of a toy for her friends to play with when they come over. So that's part three of the keyboard collection.

Did I mention we have more than one keyboard at our house? Here's part two. This organ is fun to play with, you can get a real 'Phantom of the Opera' sound out of it. We didn't buy this, we sort of inherited from my brother. My neice is playing the piano now, so they may be wanting it back eventually.
Part three of the keyboard collection tomorrow.

We had a little ray of sunshine across the snow in our back yard. Of course, our winter wonderland still has a few leaves that didn't get racked last fall.

I love trees. And I love trees with snow on them. It finally snowed here in Minnesota. I don't like to drive in it, but I sure love the way it looks.

This week is all about texture. The stones on the outside of my house are pretty cool, it's one of those things you don't notice very often. They're all different sizes, and they make my house unique.

Amanda couldn't find anybody to play Sorry with, so she was stuck with poor Snoopy. He did a pretty good job of holding the cards, though.

We have a bike set up in the basement so my husband can ride a bike all winter long. He's already signed up for Ragbrai next July, so he's in training. I like to ride my bike outside, but riding stationary is sooo boring.

Amanda thinks the best thing about college is taking her lap top to class. The long breaks between semesters is pretty cool, too. She doesn't start spring semester until the 16th. I took this picture close up because she was still in her pj's. At 6 PM. At least she empties the dishwasher. (My least favorite job.)

My son Josh will turn 14 on the 23rd, and he gets taller

everytime I look at him. This is about as much of a smile

as I can get out of him these days. He'll always be my

sweet little boy!

This is my tin man. My parents go down to Texas every winter, and in their 'retirement village' there's a guy who makes tin men out of cans. I'm a big fan of the Wizard of Oz, and I just love him. He's way cooler than the real tin man, though, 'cause he has an earring!

This is my piano. I've had it since I was ten, so it's not so young any more, like me. It's lived all over the country, also like me. I thought I would teach my kids to play on this piano, but although both my kids are musical, they weren't interested in learning the piano. So it's just me and my piano.

This is our new atomic clock. My inlaws gave it to us for Christmas and it's so cool. Besides the correct time, it shows the date, inside and outside temperature, and phase of the moon. You have to point the outside sensor toward Colorado to get the correct time. Must be something about living in Minnesota that make me want to always know the outside temperature.
It was hard to get a good picture of it without using flash (to avoid a reflection) but this one turned out OK.
I've been experimenting with the settings on my camera (Nikon Coolpix 4500), and I took this one in Manual mode. Takes some getting used to.

Today we started working at putting away all the Christmas decorations. This is part of my Santa collection. This is what my husband and kids buy me if they can't think of anything else. Don't get me wrong, I love Santas, but I'm running out of room. I think I'm easy to buy for, but that's not what my husband says. Oh, well, back to taking the ornaments off the tree.

This is our dog Snoopy sleeping on the couch. At least he was sleeping, until I came along and started taking pictures. He doesn't like to get his picture taken. It's so funny how he tucks his back feet under his front feet. He's just a big baby.

This is the 'ivy covered wall' at Anoka Ramsey. We were in today to buy books for next semester. The college is right on the river and the scenery is beautiful.

This my 18 year old daughter's hair. Tonight she got it cut and donated it to Locks of Love. It's now just above her shoulders and it's very cute!

This is my favorite Christmas present, my Cricut. I've been having to much fun trying it out, now it's time to get down to business and scrapbook with it! A big thank you to my fabulous husband!

Happy New Year from Minnesota!

The first day of a new year is always a good time to start something new, so here I am, with my first blog. I got out and took some pictures of our belated winter this afternoon, hope to get them uploaded tonight.