Annuals.....and good advice for a New Year!!

When I was a little girl I always received a new Annual for Christmas.  When I was very little it was either a 'Twinkle' Annual:

 or a 'Pippin' Annual:

and as I got older it changed to the Beano Annual:

and then the Jackie Annual:

and there were others such as the Just 17 Yearbook too.....and now, for the last few years, I've always had the Oprah Magazine 'annual' book.  This years is called 'Dream Big'.

It's full of the best articles from the last year of 'O' Magazine.   And one of these articles, especially, made me cry out YES!!!

Every month Oprah writes an article on what she 'Knows for sure....' and in this book, she writes an article that includes 20 of her favourite things she knows for sure!!  Here are a few of those things that I thought were wonderful....great advice for a new year!!  They aren't in the order Oprah had them...

You define your own life.  Don't let others write your script.

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.

Trust your instincts.  Intuition doesn't lie.

Love doesn't hurt.  It feels really good.

Every day brings a chance to start over.

And this too shall pass.

When you don't know what to do, get still.  The answer will come.

I'd like to share another of my gifts with you.....

This year Abigail (7 years old) made all her gifts.  For instance, she made Laurence a doll out of bits and pieces - it looks a bit like a voodoo doll to be honest.....hhmmm...

For Chris she made the 'Best Brother of the Year award'.  Even Chris looked a little puzzled by THAT one ;)  For Daddy she made a porcupine out of paper and toothpicks/ cocktail sticks.  She also made him a mini album so that he can stick all his Christmas and family pictures in it (She made me one of these for Mothers Day this year).

So, when it came time to open my gift, she passed me a big gift to open, and I opened THIS:

It's a stable for farm animals and comes complete with an upstairs removable pig sty and three farm animals!!!!!  WOW!!!!!  Isn't it wonderful?????  Abigail is sooooo creative!!!  She worked away creatively in her bedroom for a day or two thinking up all kinds of things she could make for us all and then she wrapped them all up for us :)

Oh the things you can do with an old mandarin box ;)

Elk Island snapshots.......

Amber girl.....

Snow much fun!!!

Winters walk...

Snapshots.....

Amber....

Snowy scenes from Elk Island....

Elk Island Mid Winter....

Such a beautiful day and the park was as stunning as it always is with it's Winter coat on!!!  We didn't even see one animal this time, but we did have a wonderful walk and fun in the snow!

Behind Lloyd and Susannah you can see Astotin Lake - frozen of course!!  And in the middle is Astotin Island.  Several people could be seen walking across the ice to the island.  Lloyd and I keep meaning to kayak out there for a picnic one Summer.

Sunday ramblings....

We're heading out to Elk Island Park for a few hours today...continuing to enjoy the warmer weather and avoid the chaos at the stores.

I'm thinking I might drag out the old snow shoes today and head out for a trek in those later!!!

I'm planning on joining in with "52-10" an online course on Dollys Dreamings blog!!  It starts a few days before my current class finishes!!

I'm tired today and my arms ache and feel heavy - I'm wondering if thats from Christmas Eve when I had to stand up and be a human X as part of the silly Quelf board game we were playing!  I think a long walk at Elk will be good!

I'm so happy Lloyd has another week off of work.  It's a lovely relaxed feeling to know he is home for so long!

I'm thinking towards New Year...new plans...new ideas...new projects...new books to read....new homeschooling ideas....new routines....

I loved looking out at the ice fog this morning - what a beautiful start to the day.  I'm glad it didn't last long though and we now have another beautiful sunny Alberta day.

I'm enjoying these quiet after-Christmas days of lazing about and relaxing and not having to do anything much at all :)  Able to enjoy our Christmas gifts, our home and each other.