Birthday and More Birds

Here are a pair of cute puppets that Brie made for us from a "Craft Projects" Christmas gift we gave her...what a good job!

Happy 8th birthday to you, Brielle...showing off a pink flower necklace.

A Zhu-Zhu pet.

The hamster named Pinkie.

Baron assembling part of the salon ramp, Brie dressing Pinkie, and Colby checking out the catalog.

Spotted Towhee. We've seen them scratching around under the red twigs, but they've finally found the feeder. They'll cart off the whole peanuts...competition for the scrub jays.

Fat and sassy quails slowly working their way down to their feeder launch pad.

Where's the beef? The peanuts have been scarfed up by the towhees.

Silhouetted jay on the suet feeder.

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee

The Hop!

Thanks to Autumn for reminding us. We went to the Hood-to-Coast movie event...it only played at 6:00pm on Tuesday, 1-11-11 at a few selected theaters. We had fun watching this documentary that followed 4 teams through the race. Quite motivational and beautiful scenery. It was both encouraging and discouraging!! Legs #1 and #20 are definitely out. The audience people seemed to like it.

Berries, Puzzle & Hungry Visitors

Ah, the Berry Crisp in its own berry dish! Dad and I gobbled down half of this treat with scoops of vanilla ice cream shortly after it came out of the oven. Delish. Thanks, Autumn, for the great gift.

Dad, caught in the act of helping with the Christmas Puzzle, called "Paris 1950." He puzzled till his puzzler was sore. It shows the Champs Elysees, with the Arc de Triomphe and lots of cool classic cars. We started it on Friday night and had it done by Saturday afternoon. It was lots of fun.

Voila!

A mourning dove at the feeder. First time we've seen one in the winter.

Dove and a mommy & daddy quail.

We don't see red-tailed hawks too often, at least not this close. Dad photoed this one just as it was taking off from a tree on the berm.

Happy New Year--It's 2011

As always, holidays are all about the food. An Arnell tradition, that we continue, is to "eat the old year out and the new year in." So, we ate throughout the evening! Thanks, Airie for the cherry tarts which we enjoyed with vanilla ice cream and thanks, Autumn for the spicy bean dip with nacho cheese Doritos. We also had lots of nuts and chips with onion dip and olives and candy and chex mix, etc.

Colby...quite the Wii bowler.

The party people have donned their party hats.

Testing out the horns.

And the ball touches down at the stroke of midnight. Welcome 2011!

Excited to greet another new year!

Making noise.

Serpentine and champagne party poppers.

The highlight of the evening was playing Rock Band Beatles. We all took turns on the guitars and the vocals.

Mom and Dad had a great time with some of their favorite music. Dad was awesome on the guitar.

Airie and Baron moved on to Metallica.

Good Morning World! It's January 1st! We watched some of the Tournament of Roses Parade.

We spent the day playing games including BeRhymed, Apples to Apples, Nain Jaune, Screwy Louis and pinochle (the boys won, but it was a pretty even game.)

Colby playing with the Barker marble collection.

Settled in for Papa Murphy Pizza and several football games including The Rose Bowl.

We were happy (well, maybe not right this second)to see TCU beat Wisconsin.

Sunny, cold day, perfect for vegging out in front of the tube. (Can you still call it a tube?)


The rockers got more vigorous after this number.