I always organize some family photos over the holidays and this year I finally got our wedding video onto my computer. You will be happy to know I shortened it to under three minutes so if you are totally bored feel free to watch… Hope you had a GREAT holiday with family, or friends, or both!

Look out… I’m getting the hang of blogging from my phone. I’m not sure that is a good thing… we shall see! It is just kinda fun for me. I’m getting braver about the whole web deal, I MIGHT even take comments one of these days, call me crazy!

Dude and I had a very nice lunch earlyier today, the sun was shining, I’ve taken lots of leaf pics which I need to add to my photoblog. Click the pic if you need it bigger…

We went on a little hike today to Sweet Creek Falls. It was gorgeous! The falls were beautiful and the the trail was super easy to walk, always a bonus in my book! Of course did the rest of my family stay on the trail? No… It was fine however since I was totally sucked in by the beauty of all the ferns and flowers. I was fascinated by all the different types of ferns and how they all swirled open differently. I just love swirls and it was very cool to see so much natural swirly goodness. I took way took a ridiculous number of photos and I can’t wait to go make some fern beads!

This drawing certainly caught my eye. It is right out of a tabloid… a princess asking “Do I have to go to jail?” I had to get the whole story from my daughter, the artist… Apparently this girl set fire to some houses when she made homemade fireworks on her 16th birthday and that is why she is asking if she should go to jail. Her crown reads 16 then a heart… because she loves being 16. I asked if the worm is telling her to go to jail and my 6 year old said “no” she didn’t really know who was saying yes… My youngest is getting the chance to draw with a permanent sharpie marker (I know… will I regret this?) and it has her drawing non-stop these days. It is amazing how a once forbidden tool can spark new interest.

Grandma is busy “helping” the girls with a puzzle while she enjoys her new yellow crocs. Apparently they only make yellow crocs for the U of O so she came to the right place to find ‘em!

So my family is having some health issues and as a result I needed to pop down to see them this weekend. It was great to go home so near to Christmas which is something I have not done it quite awhile. I was very happy that I got to spend time with them and check out their holiday digs… Christmas is most definately about family and I am quite lucky that my family rules!

It was a success! Captain Ironclaw stole away Deckrat from her pirate training preschool to help man the ship… or something like that. The Dude can think up some crazy pirate talk when he wants to! The best part was that our youngest was totally surprised and loved it! After stealing her away we took her out for lunch and celebrated just how grown up she is… Where does the time go? My kids have been going to this childcare since about the time that they were born. I truly love the teachers and I did my best not to cry on my way out the door… but it was very hard…

So we had another little family adventure. The kids were feeling better so we went up to OMSI, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They have this crazy exibit right now with real human body specimans to show just how insane our bodies are. Wow! Who knew we had so much going on inside. The drive up was a little rocky as one of the girls got a little queezy, but we regrouped and had a fine time. We saw the body exhibit, checked out a few experiments and of course we took the submarine tour which was pretty interesting. (Dude was totally diggin’ it!) It was a fun day and I’m glad we went.

Okay, so my mom and I managed to have super red hair at the same time while at the bead festival. Of course I think that we were pretty cute with our matching locks. Tomorrow my mom heads home at the ridiculous hour of 4:40 a.m. so I’ll be up bright and early to add new sets to the Mart. Check back tomorrow at the usual time and place (www.dudamart.com at 11:30 a.m. my time) to see what I’ve got!