Pancho & Lefty

Happy Day after Christmas!  I hope everyone had a wonderful day.  We started our day with videos of our little great grand-baby on his motorcycle that we sent him for Christmas!  He will need to grow a little, but that's good as they have lots of snow, so outside isn't available right now!  Next we watched Jack (our dog) open his gifts.  He always loves to tear open his packages, but never touches ours!  Smart little guy!  He got two toys and a Santa hat later in the day from a friend.  Next year he can wear his suit and his hat at the same time!

Our Christmas presents were a little big to put under the tree, a new building extension, two alpacas, a new sewing machine, and lots of tools for manland added over the last few months.  We thought about putting bows on everything that we had received recently, but decided we really couldn't afford the ribbon,  (laughing) so we just enjoyed our day and thought about names for the alpacas.

And, we've made a decision!  Yes we are definitely getting two alpacas and we finally decided on names!  This was not an easy decision and we enlisted votes through Face Book, but it's done! I've sent an email to Laurence and Donna to say yes and give them the names, Pancho and Lefty for registration so now as I sit in my studio and look out the window, I can picture them out there.

I've wanted llamas or alpacas for close to 20 years!  Of course, living in Bellaire, didn't lend itself to animals of this size and so I waited!  We've been talking about them now since we bought this house and property and the time is finally right.

Last year we added three sheep, well, they're not actually real, they just look real and so I've had some people ask me if the alpacas will be real!  Yes! I promise these will move around on the property without my having to pick them up and move them.  Ha ha

We now have to get our gates done at the front and do some cross fencing, so they know where they belong!  Now if I can just remember that they belong in the back field and not in my front yard or immediate picket fenced yard for Jack!  Bill says it will be more difficult for me than them!  He's so right. We just added an area to the back of Bill's barn for them and have to finish it too.  The rails need to be added and the straw put down on the ground and then they can move on in!  For now they will stay with  Laurence and Donna at Bluebonnet Hills Alpaca Ranch and I will go and visit!

At least now I won't need to drive down the road to look at the neighboring animals and I'm excited about all of the company I'm going to be having in the near future.  I look forward to everyone coming out and meeting them in person.  Didn't know how much alpacas would increase visitation!  That's a very good thing.

So now I will close and get busy on some other projects - working on next years Christmas card and have a bunch of birthdays this month and next - so I will post again after I see them on Friday and hopefully with some very good pictures.

Until then, happy creating!

March Christmas Card Challenge

Well, the challenge is supposed to be that I will complete a minimum of ten cards a month and five friends joined me in this challenge.  We meet once a month and make our cards together as we laugh and talk and snack!  Well, the challenge this month for me was to find a card to make.  You see I've decided as have some of the others to make different cards each month - last month was a breeze.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do and had my paper cut ahead of time, ready to go and the cards all got done.

Now there's this month!  I picked out a card and was going to do one similar to it, but I couldn't find the snowflake stamp anywhere.  I handn't written down what sets I had used last year and this was what I was basing the card on and so I hunted and then I tried to find another design.  It's like finding another restaurant after the one you wanted to go to is closed or has an hour wait!  Nothing ever really makes you happy even though you eat, it still never satisfies you.  Well, thats what happened last night with my cards.  So here's this months card - however, there are only eight.  It's not my favorite, but my challenge is met well almost - I did say there are only eight!

On the good side - today I found the snowflake stamp and so one month I may make those cards I wanted to make so badly last night.  You see it won't be next month because I've already got next month all planned out.  Yes, I have the stamps ready to go, the layout with the stamps and when I finish with this I'm gathering the paper and placing everything in a box labeled for next month!   Hopefully, the only challenge will be to get the cards made!