Wedding Cake

Wedding 

Daniel and Bethany 

 Destiny
Sweet cake.
Sweethearts on the beach,
 Ocean waves wash up warm at their feet. 

 Seashells strewn along the shore. 
Stars twinkle.

Swinging Girl

Oklahoma girl
 on Grandma's rope swing

Gliding among the branches
And her dreams. 
Such joy!Such Joy!

On a sunshiny December day.

Fruit Bowl

Antique mixing bowl

A great find, 
 Beautiful pottery bowl for my collection. 

I love bowls. 

This one makes a fine fruit bowl.

Baby Lilly

Miss Lillian Avery Hollis. 

The seventeenth grandchild. 

She lives in San Diego with her Daddy Coleman,
 Her mother Melina, And her brother Abel. 

Isn't she precious?

Clothespin

At the end of my clothesline I planted a yellow flowering shrub. In the spring Forsythia is bright and sunny as lemon pie and as fragile looking as lace. The stems sprout new growth that is red in the winter and puts out leaves earlier than any other plants. A clothespin somehow found a new home in the branches.

Jumping Jordyn

 What can I say about the joy and fun of jumping and bouncing on a trampoline?

Brown Bowl

Brown Bowl

A pottery bowl, a Christmas gift from Rachel. 

I love the glow of the glaze. 

This is a McCoy bowl or USA Pottery, a mixing bowl. 

It will look fine with soup or potatoes inside 

serving supper on a cold day.

Straw Hat

This is my daughter Rachel. 

Her brother Alton found her a fine new straw hat

and a pair of long gloves to add to her collection. 

What a fun sister she is, and pretty too!

The Tree of Light

 A towering tree in the Muskogee park became a giant of  green and blue lights. The wind blew and the tall tree swayed and danced.

Christmas Goodies

Tonight Ron took me to Muskogee to see the Christmas lights. A rain forest of lights was so much fun to watch. Blue streaks of light were the raindrops that fell among the trees. Colored "fruits" hung in the branches. A deer grazed under the trees.

Star of Wonder

Love to see the ornaments on my Christmas tree! This star fashioned from vine was one I found when I sorted Margaret's house things. I decided to add it to our decorations. Margaret would have liked that. She loved Christmas Eve at our house. She loved the cranberry punch and the goodies we shared. She loved playing the piano for us and singing carols. She loved the presents and we were always certain that she would get plenty-- one from every one of our children and several from Ron and I. Anyone else who came usually brought her one also. She loved opening them! She was like a child on Christmas morning! I wonder how many holidays she spent all alone and  without a gift at all before she joined our family? 

Christmas Cookies

Orange Icebox Cookies are made with orange zest in the shortbread dough. They are chilled and the edges rolled in orange-colored sugar. They bake fast and are iced with frosting flavored with orange juice while still warm from the oven. These I made for a Christmas tea party and the ladies loved them. My teen-aged son also liked them and took a bag of them to work in his lunch today.

Christmas Poem

Oh, Christmas Tree

By Elece Hollis

Tree that lights cold dark December,

Blessing our noses with scent of pine,

 Bidding us to stop and ponder, remember -

Christmases of years gone by,

Loaded with ribbons, glass, and whimsy,

Rosy apples, silver church bells,

 Candy canes, a house with a chimney

Camels, angels, and tiny sea shells.

Tree that holds wishes and secret surprises,

Tucked in its branches to bring us delight,

Straightway a song from in us arises

Praising the Savior born Christmas night.

Tree that stands while soundlessly singing,

Of life still green through winter's harsh cold,

Hearts of friends and family home-winging,

Gathering as sheep in a shepherd's fold.

Christmas tree where angel wings rest, 

Where lords do leap and drummers play, 

Where tiny white silken doves find nest,

And  Baby Jesus sleeps in hay.

JOY

Decorating the Christmas tree 

is a bitter-sweet experience 

for me. Three of my daughters,

 now married with children of their own, 

once relished the joy of the holiday preparations. They loved helping bake cookies and they loved choosing and cutting a tree with their daddy and putting on lights and the ornaments. 

Several different years when they were little we worked together to make sets of ornaments. 

One year we painted stained glass pieces. 

One year we cut  the nativity characters 

and animals along with seasonal words, 

like: rejoice, peace, gift, and Emmanuel 

from Christmas cards 

and we decoupaged them 

unto thin pieces of wood we had painted.

This little lamb has always been 

my favorite of them all.

 I felt sad about Christmas because 

I don't have any little starry-eyed children at home and yet happy for the sweetness of the memories.

Taking the ornaments from the boxes, 

I held again the sweet lamb 

and I remembered 

JOY.

Tying the Tree

In Oklahoma

 we never know if we will have snow 

when we go to choose our tree. This year we had 
sunshine and 60 degrees. It is later than we usually wait
 to get a tree and still it was a pretty day. 
We got our tree in Bixby at Carmichael's, where 
we also get a jar of honey and orange slice candies, 

pumpkins and watermelons in their seasons, 

plus pecans, apples, and oranges.

We chose a seven foot Noble Fir. 

It's tall and beautiful and smells wonderful. 

Ron, Alton and Quinton 

tied it onto the top of our van. 

On our trip back home we listened to 

Aaron Neville sing his Christmas songs, 

(O Holy Night, Louisiana Christmas Day, etc.) 

drank coffee and munched on candy canes 

and juicy fresh navel oranges.

Now she's standing in the living room

 and lights and a few ornaments are hung on the branches.

 We are eating butterscotch cookies and looking forward to a nice evening decorating the tree.

Baby Boy

                                         
This little blue-eyed baby boy was slightly unhappy about posing for me to get my first practice at photographing an infant. He kept both fists tightly balled up like he was considering punching me. I thought he had beautiful skin and cute lips.


I could tell his parents took good care of him and loved him. You could feel the security and stability in their home. I told his mama before I left their house that I thought she was a good mother and a good housekeeper. Her house was clean and comfortable and pretty and her children all seemed well-adjusted.


In a few short years some photographer will be taking this boy's senior portraits. I'm pretty sure he will turn out to be a fine young man.

Pink Violet

This African Violet is blooming its heart out even though the days are mostly cloudy and rainy and cold. The violets bloom even in the winter when the yard and garden flowers are gone.

I love this color of pink. The petals are ruffly and remind me of little girls' dancing skirts.

The leaves of violets are heart-shaped, patterned, and fuzzy like a peach skin. I have three plants blooming now. This one, one with purple-edged white petals, and another with dark purple blossoms.