We are nearly three weeks into Rose's 30 day confinement. She finally got her stitches out yesterday. The weather kept us from getting her to the vet last Friday as scheduled, in fact the icy conditions made us give up on taking her back to the surgeon and we just had the local vet come take them out while Rose stood in her stall. Vet was amazed at how calmly Rose stood for her. The incisions look amazing, no swelling, no redness - she's doing great now. Rose is handleing her lack of outside time very well - thank goodness - most horses would be going nuts by now. Horses are meant to wander about. The two biggest threats to her health right now are colic (can be fatal in horses, but we are doing everything we can to prevent it) and neuroma, which is a painful growth of scar tissue on the ends of the nerves that were cut. Again we are taking steps to avoid that problem.

Here are a few shots of miss Rose in her stall - one includes me cleaning house.




The front yard still looks nice. This morning we had freezing fog so all the trees and plants looked as though they had been sprayed with glitter and, being a whoping 21 degrees, all the snow was hard frozen and glittery as well. It was lovely.


Meanwhile, back in the house...


D1 has been baking, with a little help from the boy. This is an almond pound cake they baked and decorated with marzipan. Yummy! Now they are baking and decorating sugar cookies.


When she's not baking, D1 is working on her family gifts. She's making pot holders, totes, and little pouches that she will fill with chocolate and party poppers for the neices and nephews.


D2 is beading gifts like crazy - these are necklaces, earings, and key rings for cousins, aunts, and rumor is perhaps there is something for sisters and mother somewhere.


D3 has done nothing yet, as far as I am aware - though there has been talk of gingersnaps decorated with white icing.

We keep a box full of little wooden "ready to paint" ornaments from the craft store sitting on the table, the ones on top here are in process. When anyone has a little down time, they sit - color - paint - glitter - and otherwise embellish...


Until we end up with things like this -


and this -

I always stock up on these after Christmas, when they are marked waaaay down, so that nothing we use costs more than a dollar, most are fifty cents or less.

Another standard is buying several boxes of plain glass balls after Christmas every year. Whatever is left by the time they are being marked down 75% (I'm a tight wad)


Then we glitter them up and give them as gifts.

D1 did these...


and I did these...


Of course all the while there are corgis underfoot



So we torture them by making them hold cookies on their heads while we take photos :)



All this Christmas fun and frolic is coming to a close far too quickly. But we'll continue to wallow in it as long as we can :)