HAPPY NEW YEAR! And some exciting news!

Happy New Year to all of you, my dear friends  

I hope that the holidays were special in every way for all of you and your families. 

We had a special season celebrating the Lord's birth with our children.  

A picture of Dan and I at our Christmas Eve service. I put together the program, "An Old Testament Christmas" for our church. It tells of the beautiful story of the birth of our Lord as seen through the Old Testament and then fulfilled in the New Testament. It really is an amazing thing that so many different prophets foretold exactly of the Lord's birth, and yet, it still came in such an unexpected way. 

Our family gathered together for Christmas dinner.

A special gift for my children this year - I made them a Moseley Family Cookbook with all of my favorite recipes, along with others in the family, for them to always have our cherished family recipes. 

Little Ash inspecting the cookbook {smiles} 

It was fun putting this cookbook together, although a lot of work! I had to go through a lot of cookbooks. I plan to do a separate post sharing a bit more information about this project :) 

A Christmas gift for me... oh my! A learning curve here, lots to learn with this machine! Do any of you have a Cameo Silhouette cutting machine? I'm currently watching videos on how to use it. 

Sharing some beautiful scenes that we have enjoyed in the month of December here... the skies have been incredible! Often grey is the main color theme of our winters here, but this December, we have had a lot of sunshine mixed in, and it has been wonderful! 

A little "pot-o-gold' on the hillsides!

The kitties enjoying the snow from inside looking out. 
They are not as thrilled about the snow as the dogs are! 

Walking in subzero temperatures... I was bundled up and warm and cozy inside, but the ice had built up on the fur around the hood, and I looked a bit frozen, even though I wasn't! 

After Christmas, we had a week of polar arctic air visit us where temperatures hovered close to zero for a week. We had to really bundle up on our daily walks! 

New Year's Eve was such a beautiful day here, although cold! We went up to Schweitzer Mountain to cross-country ski. Dan had only skied downhill before this. It was a gorgeous day to ski the mountain! 

We had the trails mostly to ourselves, away from the crowds. It was spectacular! 

What a gorgeous day it was! 

We skied several miles across the ridge of Schweitzer, and the views were glorious! 

We skied up to the warming hut and peeked in. Not much to see, but it was nice to know it was there. 

Back home... the dogs were enjoying all the snow we have gotten this year. 

A neighbor's home in the closing moments of daylight one evening as I walked. 

Our home wrapped in its snowy blanket! 

Evening skies vibrant with the sun's waning rays. 

Night comes softly with great beauty in these December skies. 

Rosy sunrise skies welcome the new day. 

Rock cuts are covered in ice. 

More amazing December skies! 

Our community fireworks show was canceled in July due to extreme fire danger. They decided to have the show on New Year's Eve instead.  With the temps hovering around 0, you can see the steam coming out as the fireworks are deployed! 

Most everyone stayed in their cars to watch the show! 

I did get out to take these pictures but was glad to
climb back into the warm car after the show ended! 

So that wraps up our Christmas and New Year celebrations... but we also have some exciting news to share that happened right around Christmas, and New Year's. 

Zak and Danielle became first-time homeowners! It was a very long process in this difficult real estate market, but we are thrilled for them! It is a fixer-upper home, but they have great plans for it, and Zak is in the carpentry business. We are so excited that they will be able to have their own place now, and soon, I'm told, we'll have grand-doggies... not to be confused with grandchildren... but we are getting closer {smiles} 

And congratulations to our son and his fiancee Alanna... she said yes! He proposed to her over the New Year's holiday and now we are quite excited to be adding a daughter to our family :) 

Alanna is such a sweet girl, and we are so happy for them! 

Well, I think I've just about written a book, and it's time to close for now! I hope to be back soon, and share some more about the Family Cookbook I created. It is such a special treasure, I think every family needs one :) 

Wishing all of you God's very best for each of you in this coming year!