Welcome 2012!

A quiet seeing in of the New Year for us, and I have relished some quieter days over the holiday when I could unwind and feel less pressured.  And 2012 got off to a good start with my perfect kind of day, a gathering of family for dinner.  We also opened more presents and one was a game called Creationary, which proved much fun.  Played like Pictionary, the idea is that you build something using lego and other players have to guess what it is.  It pushes creativity to areas unknown, I mean, how do you build a water lily out of lego? And, how did my son in law guess from my poor effort and no clues?  I'll never know, but he got a grand applause amid much laughter.  And the game was a great success....  I think it will become a favourite.

When it was time for everyone to go home my older granddaughters decided they would like to sleep over.  And they remembered the promise of homemade popcorn and a film before bedtime next time they stayed....
 

 
















I love having them around and I realised how much of our fun together involves making food.  Because they also decorated biscuits to eat during the film, and this morning they started the day with homemade pancakes.  This has become a tradition when they sleep over, which started when S was quite young and she helped me make batter and cook them. She requests them every time now.....

 

And while eating breakfast S suddenly asked if that was an owl sitting on the top of our tree?  A good guess, since it's head was turned at the time, but no.  It was a beautiful kestrel which sat there for some time, preening and posing so that I could get some nice shots. 

And what else of 2012?
Have you chosen a word ?
I think I have but I want to sit with it for a day or two before I commit.

And I have decided to continue with Project 365.  This will be my third consecutive year and I did wonder whether it was too much of an ask, especially as my efforts sometimes felt half hearted last year.  And because I  have more photos than I want to think about downloaded onto my computer and waiting to be organised.  In the past I have been quite methodical about doing this, but this was another of my struggles through 2011 and there is a huge amount of work to be done in order to catch up.  But I  get a sense of achievement when I look back at my 365 collection and this year I want to pay more attention to my photography and to pick up some of my ideas that have got dropped or overlooked because other things were more pressing.  And another thing I am looking forward to is going out with my granddaughters, because for Christmas I bought 10x zoom digital cameras for S & I.  Meanwhile I shall choose the photo of the kestrel as my 365 photo of the day and put it straight into a new album.  Start as I mean to go on!

I hope your own New Year celebrations were equally enjoyable, and a big thank you to everyone who visited my blog, left comments, and inspired and supported me through 2011.  It was truly appreciated.  I hope this year brings you wonderful things.