Michael's class Christmas party....

It was Michael's last day of school until after the first of the year and the day for his class Christmas party...

They combined both 2nd grade classes and then split the girls from the boys...

They played bingo, decorated cookies, made pine cone bird feeders, opened gifts and ate pizza and other goodies!

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I was standing in between the rooms and laughing...The boys were definitely louder and more boisterous than the girls! They are so excited about Christmas and Santa Claus!

There's my sick little one, seems he has a cold poor thing! It's going around the school and most of the kids are sniffling, sneezing and coughing, ugh! But it didn't put a damper on the Christmas festivities!
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The little girl in the light purple outfit brought in this beautiful gingerbread house, it was gorgeous!
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He was pretty darn happy!

So happy he couldn't wait to get out of there, lol...

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It's officially Christmas break, woohoo!

Morning in December...

Our mornings lately have been starting really really early...Like at 2am, 4:30am, 5am! It's not fun. It seems a pack of coyotes has moved into the neighborhood and they know we have chickens. In fact my free range hens and rooster are indefinitely penned up. I'm missing 3 hens and I'm tired of being woke up by coyotes yipping and yowling. I have a plan to get the coyotes but I have to wait until Saturday morning when I don't have to worry about getting Michael to school. Hopefully it'll put an end to the coyote problem.

It all seems we have a feral hog hanging around too and I keep seeing it when I drive down the driveway in the morning. So this morning I grabbed the camera when we left the house...Here's a few photos from our morning drive to and from school, and no we did not see the feral hog this morning.

Fog moving in...

I used 3500 ISO with the 28-105 mm lens, as it was still pretty dark and also the reason for the grainy photo.
A bit of autumn...love this bright little Oak tree!

Coming home and Julie walking down the driveway as the sun is rising...

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I don't do sugar cookies...

but Michael does!

Someone (my mother ?) gave us a Betty Crocker kit for sugar cookies. I mixed the dough up yesterday, just to see if it was any good and left it in the fridge. Tonight while Michael took a bath I rolled them out and made them, we had stars, snowflakes and a horse cookie cutter...Michael did the decorating...

I am so glad I got these Wilton Sprinkles, too sweet!

He's going a little heavy with those sprinkles...Because my back starting spasming I went and sat down while Michael decorated...

Sprinkles and more sprinkles!

He informed me that if you try to eat them you'll need a napkin as he got a bit carried away with the frosting :o) I knew he would! He had fun and got to pretty much do what he wanted, fun, fun, fun!

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Grammy will be here Saturday and she can take over the cookie making...I love it!

Are you bored?

I'm going to try to bore you...I felt lazy today!

I didn't feel like taking the 50mm lens off the camera and wanted to see what I could do in the daylight with the ornaments and without the tripod...

Ornament engraved on Bass wood...

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I see me...
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An ornament Far-away Grammy got Michael, jingle, jingle.
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My cousin Melanie got me these snowmen...A long time ago I went on a snowman kick and I guess I'm still on it cause I did get a dancing Frosty the Snowman this year...Our tree used to be all horses and over the years it's turned into a free for all and I love it.
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I do love Bronners and their Christmas store...Michigan ornament was purchased by Fred and I on a trip to Michigan and Bronners :o)
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Sea turtle was purchased from Bronners (online) the year we took Michael to South Padre Island and visited Sea turtle Inc...I see the horse is eyeballing the sea turtle, hmm...

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Well did I bore you? Hopefully tomorrow I'll attempt a different photo subject!

It's dawned on me when Michael leaves home and takes all his ornaments for his own tree we may have an empty tree, ekk....

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If you'd like to go check out Bronners Christmas store click here.

50mm and ornaments on the tree...

I couldn't wait for Michael to go to bed so I could get out the tripod, camera and 50mm lens to play....here's a few of the photos.

One of my favorites, just love the focus on the boot...

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I'm not real familiar with the 50mm lens. I don't use it much. I knew I'd need the tripod because of the low light and I also found out it's better if I use the self-timer and keep my hands off the camera while the shutter is being released :o)

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Green, Green and sparkly, love it...
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Two different photos with a different focus in each one...

A group shot, lol...

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I think I could take thousands of photos with the tree and ornaments but maybe I'll just try a different lens each night to see what each lens can do and only a few photos here and there!