December Wrap Up

December like the rest of this year has gone by so fast that I almost missed it. I did however capture a few special moments during the month. 

First was Sissy and Bubba's Winter music concerts. Sissy plays both in orchestra and in band as well as singing in the chorus. In their school band and orchestra are only open to 3-5 grade so Bubba who is in second grade was only had a chorus performance.

Sissy and her best friend both play violin and are in the center of the above photo. Everyone calls them twins and they do look a lot alike. Here is a cropped version of the above photo. It is not the best but easier to see why they are referred to as twins by their classmates.

In band Sissy is a percussionist and for this concert she got to play the snare drum which she was very happy about.

I tried to get a nice shot of her in the chorus performance but I definitely wasn't prepared for the fact that both her and her 'twin' moved the entire time. They held hands and even when everyone else was standing still the two girls swayed to the music swinging their joined hands. It was really cute but made for fuzzy photos.

Bubba was much easier to get a nice shot of. He is the little boy in the second row from the bottom wearing the deep blue shirt, just behind and to the right of the boy who is smacking his own forehead. Yes that is what he is doing, the poor boy goofed and sang out before it was time to start singing. I felt so bad for him as he didn't sing the rest of the performance. 

The concerts all went well and were very cute.

Next came Christmas

We had a quiet but nice Christmas. 

The kids were happy with their presents.

 Miss. M was happy with the fuzzy Cheshire Cat sock's the kids got her.

 Mrs. G was happy with the 'old lady' scarf the kids got her.

Mr. G was happy amused with the 'connect the dot' activity book the kids got him. His job requires mapping (connecting dots) so we tease him that he is just a glorified dot connector.

With a little over a day left until the new year I am excitedly anticipating a number of changes in my life and hopefully they will all lead to a rewarding year. 

How about you, are you looking forward to 2015?

Flying Fragments the Christmas Edition

I am not sure where this year went but it sure flew out the window! Here we are with the new year coming at us quicker than I care to think. Boy how time has flown, it is a good thing Mrs. 4444's has a nice tidy home for all our fragments because I have more than a few.

Someone needs to teach this driver how to operate his side dump trailer. Even more confusing is the fact that it would appear he was driving it on the wrong side of the road.

I may not be a big football fan but I sure love hockey! Tuesday I had the chance to go see the Rush play. The team is all new young players this year and so far they are not doing good. It didn't take long to recognize they haven't learned to be patient and set up their shots. They lost 2-0 but it was still fun to watch. 

When I went to retrieve the first two photos from my cell phone I came across a few more I took over the last few weeks that I wanted to share.

On December 5th I was lucky enough to get this shot of the Full Long Night Moon. It sure appeared larger and brighter than most full moons. This was taken at about 4:20 in the afternoon.

This month my cat has been a real pest. He is usually very good about not jumping on desks, table tops or counters. But he has taken to jumping on my desk when I am trying to work.

I figured I might as well put him to work and asked him to proof read an article I was working on. Then I discovered his spelling is worse than mine.

Now for some flying Christmas fragments

Two of my all time favorite fun Christmas songs.

and of course

This next one though has a very special place in my heart. It was my late husbands favorite video to watch with Sissy. Every time she came over she would crawl up in his lap and they would watch this video.

This next week is going to be wilder than wild so I would like to make a holiday wish for all; May your life be filled with peace, love and laughter.

Frozen Wonderland

Have you ever felt like the whole month passed by in the blink of an eye? That is exactly how I feel right now. I can't believe it is already November 30th! Not only the end of the month but the last Sunday, so I better hurry and get this Sunday in my City post written.

Today I am going back one week to share my visit to the city I call home, Sioux Falls South Dakota. During the winter the city turns Falls Park into a winter wonderland with beautiful twinkling lights and fun ice sculptures. 

I was just as excited as this frozen sculpture when my friend offered to take me down to Falls Park a little after 9pm.

Mrs. G had dropped me off and I realized I had left my tripod in her car. That didn't stop me though.

I managed to get some half way decent shots even without the tripod. Although it was a bit difficult to keep from shaking in the cold night air.

 How about a some sun flare lamp flare?

 I just love all the twinkling lights!

Although the frozen falls are amazing too, especially if you come earlier in the evening when they have colored spotlights lighting up the falls.

 Of course one should not forget the inviting little restaurant.

 Or the Buffalo statue

 Or the gift shop with the observation tower!

Or the wonderful view of the Falls and the ruins of the Queen B Mill from the walking bridge.

My visit to Falls Park Winter Wonderland made my visit home extra special. Thanks to my dear friend our gift shop now features some of these photos on Christmas Ornaments and Greeting Cards.

I hope you enjoyed your virtual visit, and are able to join in the virtual travel at Unknown Mami's Sunday In My City.

Goodbye 2013 Hello 2014

With the new year just days away it is once again time to say goodbye to the old and welcome in the new. One thing I know I will not be saying goodbye to is Unknown Mami's Sunday in my City. If you enjoy traveling or like to meet new people and see new places be sure to click on the button and join in with the virtual travel.

Here is a peak at winter in my city.

It's not too bad when I look at the weather for Sioux Falls, South Dakota which is where the rest of my kids live.

photo taken with my new phone... not too bad.

I am happy to say though that I have said goodbye to the old snow we got at the beginning of the month and although I would rather not I will welcome in the new snow we are expecting to bring in the New Year.

Artistix Network's Plans for the new year: We will continue to offer our customers high quality memory photos and photography as well as inspirational and fun graphic design products.

Our artists personal plans:

Val aka Mrs. G plans to brave the cold and isolation of Rapid City, South Dakota until Mr. G is transferred to as she calls it a REAL city! What can I say, she is a big city girl at heart.  

Terrance has big plans for 2014. Not only does he enter Grad school next fall but he is also getting married in the fall.

As for me, well you can read my New Year's Resolution on my new Personal Blog "With All My Sense". Yes, I know I already have three blogs how will I ever keep up with a fourth. With blogging in mind I purchased a new phone that will allow me to post directly from my phone anytime anywhere. This will be a big plus for all my blogs as often I see something I wish to post about and either lose my train of thought before I get back to my computer or don't have my camera with me to capture the shot.  I don't always have my camera but I do always have my phone. Not only that but the new blog is completely different than the rest, so please hop over and check it out. 

And now to wrap up the year I would like to share a bit about our Christmas. We had a very nice Christmas, even though the whole family could not be together.

Mr. & Mrs. G got Sissy her very own digital camera. Needless to say she is very excited to start taking more photos.

Bubba made out like a bandit with a plane that is almost bigger than he is.

The kids gave their parents some rather special gifts they had made just for them.

The Minecraft paper folding sets I got for the kids was a major hit with the kids of course. 

We adults weren't as excited when it took us four hours to help Sissy construct all the pieces. Poor Bubba doesn't have the coordination to create all the wild folds that were necessary, so he watched. This is only a small portion of all the pieces.

I was pleasantly surprised by the gift of a new office chair. I am not sad at all to be able to say goodbye to my old chair.

Wishing all a Very Happy New Year!

Holiday Fun

There is no doubt in my mind, KIDS are what make holiday's fun!

Here are a few snapshots of all the fun we have been having with two of my grand children. 

Rewind to Thanksgiving . . .

Although the majority of the meal was prepared by yours truly the rest of the family did help out. We even decided to all work together and help the kids make parfaits. This parfait is by far the kids favorite. All we do is mix up a batch of instant banana pudding and a batch of instant chocolate pudding, layer the puddings in the glass with slices of banana and top with whip cream and a cherry.

Sissy was quick to choose which one she wanted. Their smiles weren't quite so big when they were told they had to wait to eat the yummy treat.

Then of course there are the holiday concerts at the kids' school. Sissy plays the violin and little Bubba sang in the chorus in the morning performance. Unfortunately he then got so nervous that he lost his lunch and was sent home. Thankfully the school did record both performances so we were able to get DVD's of both performances.

The kids wanted to make presents for all their classmates. So Mrs. G found an easy no bake recipe for scented Christmas ornaments and the family once again got to work. Mrs. G helped sissy mix the batter, Mr. G rolled the dough and they both helped the kids stamp the designs into the dough. As you can guess, it quickly turned into Mr. & Mrs. G cutting out most of the ornaments. Sissy wrote each of her classmates initials on her ornaments, while Mr. & Mrs. G put the initials on Bubba's ornaments. Once they were all dry and ready to wrap name tags needed to be filled out and the ornaments wrapped.  This was the first time Mr. & Mrs. G had taken on such a large project and they soon discovered just how much work they would be doing. After an hour of helping the kids sort the ornaments and write name tags it was time for the kids to head to bed while I stepped in to help Mr. & Mrs. G finish. An hour latter we had tagged and wrapped 55 ornaments as well as made a replacement ornament for one that had gotten messed up. All so the children could give their classmates a gift the next morning.

The recipe we followed was for no bake ornaments and called for 1/4 cup cinnamon and 2 tbs of applesauce of course that only made 3 small ornaments so we had to increase the recipe and wound up making three or four batches of dough. I did a bit of looking around and found another recipe that is for 15 ornaments and easy to follow. You can see it HERE. We air dried all but the replacement ornament and it took five days for them to be completely dry. When doing the replacement ornament the night before we decided to make two and bake one and put the other in the dehydrator to see which would turn out better. The air dried ornaments were better than the baked one which darkened during baking and seemed a bit crusty. The dehydrated ornament looked just like those that were air dried, so that is the one we wrapped. Next time I will put them all in the dehydrator, 8 hours in there is better than 5 days on the counter....lol

Wishing all a very Merry Christmas filled with love, laughter and joyful memories!

Week In Photos

I hope everyone has is been enjoying the Holidays so far. 

Here is a quick look at the goings on around our home this week.

Christmas Eve Sissy and Bubba opened their gift from me. Here they are showing off the PJ's I made, it is hard to tell in this photo but Bubba's pj top has colorful stars instead of the hearts.

Sissy and Bubba's parents decided to try and prank them by giving them a letter from 'Santa' saying that because they were on the naughty list all they got for Christmas was snowman poop. The prank was an epic fail, Sissy read the letter and with a very serious face but when she opened the box she smirked and said yum Tic Tac's. As you can see Bubba was thrilled with the snowman poop and excitedly shouted out 'Thank You Santa!'.

We all decided the prank would have worked better if we hadn't put any other packages under the tree. Over all though we had a very nice Christmas and the kids were very happy with their presents.

Then on Friday one of my other granddaughters (Ba, which means little fish in Laotian) came for a visit and to spend the night. There was lots of giggling and tons of creative endeavors like this one where the girls were making beads for jewelry.

Of course I gave Ba her pair of PJ's which she put on right away and didn't take off till it was time for her to leave Saturday afternoon.

 Saturday morning the kids played Dance Central.

Then I pulled out the sewing machine and helped the girls make bean bags with some of the left over Charlie Brown flannel. Ba made a heart shaped bean bag and Sissy made one shaped like a gingerbread man. Bubba was happy to watch but didn't want to make one. Although the sadness of facing this first Christmas without my dear husband crept up on us all from time to time we did have a good Christmas and created many fun new memories as well as relived many wonderful past memories.

I hope you will hop over and visit others who have linked up at Unknown Mami's for