2015, Award, News + Lots of Photos!

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 | Allison

Happy New Year! Okay, get ready for a long post, because today I will be reviewing my 2015 bloggy year, doing an award, and telling you one of my New Year’s resolutions. Ready? First up, my blog year – it was a great year, and a HUGE year, at least compared to last year. Taking into account the fact that I only blogged 7 months last year instead of 12 this year, still, the stats increased A LOT. And thanks to all of you, I now have almost 60 followers! SQUEEEE! 😀 😀 Here are the yearly stats for this year and last year:

Last year (in orange)

This year (in orange)

And here is the little WordPress year in review thingy they sent me:

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 58 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Now for the award. I don’t usually do awards, but I decided to do this one because it wasn’t just random questions, and I thought it was interesting to see when other people did this. So… I was nominated by Genna and Mercer Creative. Thank you so much!

1. Thank the person that nominated you
2. Start a blog post and answer the questions below
3. Add 1-3 of your Favorite\Best blog photos
4. Nominate up to ten people

1. How long have you had a blog?
I started this blog in May of 2014, so I’ve had it for about a year and a half.

2. Why did you start blogging?
I kind of forget, but I think it was probably because my sister started with her school program, and it made me want to start a blog too.

3. Do you like photography?
I love photography! 😀

4. Did you start your blog on your own?
Yep. Well, my sister and mom helped me.

5. Why do you like these photos so much?
It was kind of hard to choose just 3 of my favorites, so since it’s a review of 2015 anyway, I’m just going to do some of my favorite photo pictures and posts from 2015. XD

I think one of my all time favorite posts was this dandelion post. Here’s a picture from it:

I just love how crystal clear and beautiful the pictures turned out. I also love this Lily (The Flower) post – I love dewdrops!

A few of my favorite bunny posts are this funny bunny post, these two Lily (the rabbit) posts here and here,

and this Christmas post from the bunnies. Because they are just so CUTE!

My favorite other pet post might be this Joy the kitten post. I like the angle of this photo, and Joy was just adorable!

Here are some other pictures I really like that I took in 2015, and a few from 2014, which are captioned “2014.”

Whew! That was a lot of pictures! I nominate Hayley from Flourishing By Restful Falls for the award.

OK. Now for one of my New Years’ Resolution (the news part of the title). I want to start an Etsy shop! I’m going to be selling things I make online there, including polymer clay animals and other polymer clay things, and maybe stuffed animals like this one. But I need more ideas! I would greatly appreciate any suggestions with what you would like me to make that you would buy. If you need some ideas from what I’ve already made, click on the category “My Creations” on my category cloud on my blog sidebar. Thank you!

So, that’s it! Thanks so much for a great bloggy year, readers!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

***Allison***

P. S. See you next year!

Creation Series: Day 7

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 | Allison

After all that he had done, God rested. Not that he needed the rest – he NEVER needs rest – but to set an example for us, to show us how we should set aside a day of rest, a day to worship him.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. ²And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Here’s a nice little (uh… big) collage of most of the pictures. In fact, I think I got all the pictures that I used on there except for two. If you’re up for a challenge, which two pictures from the series didn’t I include in this collage?

I had a lot of fun making this series and I hope you had a lot of fun reading it. Thanks for following along!

***Allison***

Creation Series: Day 2

October 19, 2015October 18, 2015 | Allison

(See the first post here.)

⁶And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. ⁸And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

I love the sky and pretty much any kind of water: oceans, waterfalls, rivers… But God separated the ocean, etc. on day 3. See you tomorrow!

***Allison***

The Great Hot Air Balloon Chase

August 3, 2015February 14, 2016 | Allison

My family and I were outside on a beautiful summer evening, watching my little sister learn to ride her bike. After a bit of riding, Carmen spotted a hot air balloon floating along above us.

Hot air balloons are a pretty rare sight for us. We see the occasional airplane and sometimes a paraplane (now those are exciting!), but we hardly ever see a hot air balloon.

The balloon was coming down closer to us, so I ran inside to get my camera (obviously!) and with it I could see the balloon fairly clearly, even if it was still high.

We thought maybe it would land in one of our fields. But alas, it sailed over the nearest one (which had tall corn in it anyway) and continued gently falling. Some of us kids ran to get a better view of it, and we saw it slipping below the treeline.

From the field we hear Dad calling us and telling us to come get in the truck, because we were going to go see it land! The great chase had begun.

Actually, it wasn’t much of a chase. We drove to another field that wasn’t on our farm but was close to our house. The balloon was in sight again, but it looked much bigger now.

In fact, it looked like it had already landed! We were too late. When we drove into the lane next to where the balloon had landed, we could see it in all its huge glory. It was very colorful, and did I mention it was HUGE? The operators let us come close and look at it before the let out the air.

Our aunt and uncle and our cousins were there, and other people. It was amazing to think that a big piece of fabric and some hot air had flown several people miles away, and high into the sky.

Even if there are big fast jets that can take you where you want to go in the blink of an eye, I think there will always be something appealing about a hot air balloon.

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***Allison***

Tidbits

December 19, 2014April 20, 2016 | Allison

I have lots of little things to post about, so I thought I’d just post them all together. Here goes!

************************************************************* Sunset

Several days ago we saw this GORGEOUS sunset. I seriously think this was the prettiest sunset I have ever seen. The colors were so bright, and the clouds were all swirly.

Isn’t it gorgeous?!

Scents

If you haven’t tried this, you should! Put orange or clementine peels in a small pot. Put some water in the pot, and add some cinnamon and whole cloves. This makes your house smell amazing! Surprise!

This is a gross but true story: We got our Christmas tree a couple of days ago, and the kids insisted that we move the furniture so we could put the Christmas tree in its customary spot by the window. Since we moved the couch, we had to sweep all the dust up. My brother was trying to vacuum up a dust bunny, but it wasn’t going too well. You’ll never guess why. Do you give up? Ok: it didn’t sweep up well because it wasn’t dust at all – it was a dead frog!! Yep, a really-truly dead frog. Actually, it was more like a petrified frog chip, it was so dry and hard. Why this is so funny is because that frog was the one that had hopped out of its cage months before, and we never knew what happened to it. We thought maybe the cat got it, but nope! My mom said that maybe the dead frog was what we had been smelling a while ago. Gross!!

Oh, and one other little thing: Complete-the-Set game

This is just a little game I made up that’s fun to play while traveling or waiting for something.

1. Choose one person to be “it” for the first round.

2. The “it” person thinks of a set (primary colors, initials, etc.)

3. “It” tells the other players all but one of the items in that set. (For example, if the set was “primary colors”, the “it” person could say “blue, red, and…”, or “red, yellow, and…”, but they couldn’t say “blue, red, yellow,” because there wouldn’t be any part of the set left to complete!)

4. The other players take turns trying to complete the set.

5. Whoever guesses correctly first gets to be the new “it”.

Have fun!

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Happy Holidays!

***Allison***

Clouds with a Silver Lining

July 30, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

I took this picture a few days ago. Don’t the sun rays make the cloud look like it has a silver lining? Sun rays through clouds are so beautiful, aren’t they?