goodbye 2013…a blog year in review

It's hard to believe it is the last day of 2013 already. I believe it is true that as you age time seems to move faster! December flew by for me - I wasn't prepared for Christmas and was at the sewing machine crafting a gift for the girls until the day before we opened gifts (Christmas eve), then we had a wonderful 2 days of family time and then I got sick. Yuck! Six days (and a MD visit) later, I have an antibiotic and hopefully will feel more like my "old" self soon (yup, I had a birthday thrown in there too).

As per tradition I am showing a review of my 2013 blog headers. Wow, watch those cute granddaughters of mine grow before your eyes :)

My most popular post of January 2013 was RENEW in 2013 where I expanded on the word I chose as my "inspiration word" for 2013. An inspiration word replaces resolutions and 2014 will be my 4th year (Grateful, Joy and Renew). A personal highlight of January was our vacation to Mexico with J's 2 brothers and my wonderful sister-outlaws.

This "mosaic Monday…backyard birds" was the most visited post of February 2013. Looking back at it I sure miss my cardinal that spent last winter here in the garden. Not only have I not seen a cardinal since last spring but the beautiful pheasants have not been coming up to the yard either. A personal highlight was taking wildlife drives with my hubby, especially the two times we spotted 100s of deer in a field.

March brought Jeff & I back to Texas for a few weeks of cycling which is always a highlight for us. A post titled "Happy 1st Day of Spring" showing the azaleas in bloom at the Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden in Nocogdoches, Texas. Winter has barely started here in MN and oh how I wish it was spring already! It has been very cold here and temps will barely reach 0 today so those azaleas are looking pretty inviting to me about now.

April 2013 brought winter trying to beat out spring and the post, "Sprinter sunrise", was the most viewed. It was a highlight to see a new hawk in my yard which I was hoping would stay and take care of my garter snake population but alas it didn't happen ;(

May finally brought spring and I was anxious to get out and garden. I showed lots of posts with migrating birds and spring blossoms but the post titled "cousins tea party" gathered the most views. Oh how I love those two little girls and watching them grow together. How exciting it is for us that their new siblings will only be 3 months apart and also grow up together!

June brought camping trips, time with those granddaughters and more gardening for me. Every year I seem to find more and more stuff at thrift shops to add to the fairy garden and once set up I photograph it to show on a fairy garden blog. "Pine Hollow 2013", a post with a tour of the spring 2013 garden was not only the most visited post of June but also the most visited post of the entire year. I received some very cute additions for my birthday so look for expansion once again in 2014!

July was FUN! Not only did little Miss Bailey have her 1st birthday, but all 8 of my family went on a trip to Seattle, Washington and had the most amazing time. Grandma's saving up for another trip once the new babies are a little older. A 2 photo post saying "I'm back" was the most viewed of the month.

It wasn't hard to figure out which post was the most visited in August because I only posted once! "wordless Wednesday" had lots of photos crammed into mosaics so maybe that made up for it a little. I spent it enjoying life with lots of time spent with family and camping with extended family.

September brought a little blog melancholy as I couldn't decide whether I should hang up my blogging hat or not. It had been 7 years of blogging in June 2013 and I was feeling the 7-year itch. This all started as a garden blog and this summer I was too scared to go out in my own garden because of all the snakes! Gardening was no longer enjoyable and I had a lack of stuff to blog about. I put the question to you, my readers, "Should I stay or should I go?" and received a wonderful response asking me to keep blogging (also the most viewed post). Once again I thank you and I have lots of ideas for 2014.

October is my favorite time of year, I love the colors, smells, sights and sounds of fall. Brooklyn celebrated her 2nd birthday and we took 2 camping weekends. Fall camping is the best! "Seasonal Colors" a post showing a few of October's colors around my garden and yard was the most visited post.

November showed me to be a failure x two when I tried the daily photo challenge once again since I didn't seem to pull it off in October. Ha, guess it was more of the same for November! Two posts tied with the number for most viewed post and they were "Surprises" and "nuthatch portraits". Nuthatch portraits reminded me how much I like to photograph birds so look for me to resume that hobby on the blog soon.

As I said at the beginning of this post, December seem to fly by for me. Once again I had only posted twice before today and the "December garden tour" was the most visited. Other than being sick for the last week it was a fantastic month and I was so busy enjoying it I truly forgot to take photos. I also missed coming to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and for that I am sorry! I took the front of our Christmas card and changed it to Happy New Year just for you to make up for it. Thank you for coming to visit, I wish you a Happy New Year and I hope you'll be back to join me in 2014. I'll announce my inspiration word and some plans to blog "theme" days for 2014 tomorrow.

December garden tour...

My December garden tour - snow, ice and some beautiful lights. The majority of the fish are hibernating in the garage for the winter (a few stragglers refused to be netted) and I'm toasty warm in the house tonight. It is COLD here, our high temp was 5 degrees and the windchill well below zero winter has definitely made an early appearance here in MN.

Can you "DIG" it?

I don't know if all of my blog readers know that my husband and I own an excavating company so we have lots of "big toys" around our yard. This weekend I took a few shots of the next generation of employees during our family gathering times. These two most certainly love to "dig" together...

It's beginning to look a lot like the Christmas season around here. I put up the trees last week in preparation for a few "christmas card" worthy shots of the family and snow is forecasted to cover the ground by tomorrow. Hopefully, I am inspired to blog a little more often :) You may have noticed the following news on my sidebar counters but for those who read in a "reader" here is a little visual of how exciting our 2014 is going to be!

In the last post, Mollie asked about the name puzzle stools, I received Brooklyn's as a "grandma" gift from some very dear friends and I loved it so much I purchased Bailey's. They are from Damhorst Toys and both girls love to play with them as do most kids that come to visit.