I finally got my act together and got my 2017 calendar ordered. Here are the photos I chose for the year:

Merry Christmas!   Twas the morning of Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring...except for Allison and me..... Alli was up bright an early, but no one else was up early this morning.  

This Christmas was a 'coffee Christmas' for me - I got a Ninja coffee maker and a coffee bean grinder for Christmas....a good thing, since Thursday morning, the day after our anniversary (where we went out to dinner, and when we got in, I stayed up late talking with our babysitter, and then AJ came in from Chico, and then a couple of his friends came in to spend the night....I was up way too late...) when I turned the coffee pot on, the light came on,...and then faded slowly out.  Not a good sign.  No coffee for me!  I told Ralph I was going shopping at lunch for a new coffee pot, and he told me not to - he had an early Christmas present for me. That night, I got to unwrap one of my presents - the Ninja Coffee Pot (hot or iced coffee - nice!)

Christmas Eve, Ralph had pointed out a present that I needed to open first thing in the morning, so I had an early unwrapping....that was the coffee grinder, so we had fresh ground coffee this morning with our waffles, eggs, sausages, hash browns and Orange Juice. While I was waiting for everyone to get up, I took a walk outside. The frost was so pretty on my plants.

AJ had the dog's attention when he opened presents, and it wasn't even for them!  (They got plenty of their own presents, trust me!))

The annual Christmas party for the bank was last night, and both Ralph and I got all dressed up!!!  I took Ralph shopping earlier in the week and got him new dress slacks, 2 new shirts, black socks, and a new Christmas tie!  Doesn't he look fancy!

We tried to get Alli in the photo with us, but she didn't want to play....

The view from the venue yesterday morning (I was on set-up crew, so was at the country club in the morning, putting up tables and table decorations....and I managed to win one of the table decorations!)  They have one of the best views in Redding.

I managed to get grocery bags finished for the ladies in my department.  They are easy to make, and fold up to fit in your purse.

 

But are a nice size when opened up for groceries.  Now that shopping bags aren't free at the grocery stores, I find myself using my bags a lot more.  I've always thought of myself as using them pretty regularly, but now......I always try to have one with me!

I also made tree ornaments for the department - not the best, but not bad either......

I've been playing with filters on photos....getting cool photos! Here's the original (okay - slightly enhanced already) of some leaves at the Sundial Bridge, and then a couple of different filers.  I love the bottom one - it looks like a painting now!

Monday night, I got a text from a coworker - a photo of one of the 'messy-bun hats' that's making their way through the interwebs....her granddaughter found this - can I make one?  In light grey?  A couple of google searches later, I had a pattern, and plenty of yarn choices in my stash.  Here's a link to the pattern I used.  It just took an evening to make, but I forgot to take a picture! I dropped it off at work yesterday, and it turns out that the co-worker's granddaughter had actually sent me the text requesting the hat (grandmother wasn't sure how to send me a picture....).  If it isn't what she wants, I told them to just send me another picture!

I also finished up two sweater/hat set for a co-worker....

Well, we ALMOST had snow last night.....

I had snowflakes mixed with rain on my windshield on the way home last night, and when I took something out to the garbage, there was more snow than rain falling.  As expected though - it turned to rain pretty quick.  The mountains definitely got snow all around us.

And one more sleeping cat picture - Indy curled up with Jasper.....