Thinking pink….

 

No, this is not a baby girl announcement!

I’m just thinking about the upcoming Valentine’s Day, and some fun pink ideas.

(It’s almost February, right?)

Raspberry Pineapple \Sherbet is one of my favorite ice cream/slushes ever.

The best part is that it is also easy.

All you do is buy one carton of Pineapple Sherbet ice cream, add one package of frozen raspberries (juice and all).  Thaw it just enough to mix together.  You can use it then, or refreeze it for later.  If you are using it as an ice cream you can add a few banana slices if you like.  If you want to use it as a slush, add a little 7-up or Sprite.

It is refreshing and pretty!

How about a tea party with your grandmother’s pink antique china dishes?

This was one of my favorite Valentine’s from a student at school!

Give someone a “Heart Attack” without ruining their health.

Cover their door or front lawn with fun little heart messages (or their chair at school).

Serve pink food on a pink table cloth.

We love this sugar cookie recipe.

The cookies are soft and delicious.

Linda’s Sugar Cookies:

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 1/2 cups flour

Mix cream, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla a few minutes then add dry ingredients.  Mix together.  Chill until cold.  Shape cookies and bake at 359 degrees for 6-8 minutes.

Read one of my favorite children’s books, by Eileen Spinelli.

And…

Who doesn’t like pink flowers?

Happy end of January-soon to be February!

JoAnn

 

Clay People

 

 

The past few weeks have been crazy testing weeks at school.

(Ask any teacher, and they will tell you there is too much testing nowadays!)

And to make matters worse-in one more week we have our big state writing test.

(It also doesn’t help that I gave my students the wrong computer test and now we have one more to do!)

Anyway, it was a busy, frustrating, too-much-to-do-no-time-to-do-it-week.

By Friday night I was feeling drained, depleted, and discouraged.

As I dragged myself home from school, I certainly questioned whatever made me choose education as my choice of career.

Do you ever doubt yourself,too?

Maybe I’m not cut out for the pressure filled responsibility of getting all my students on grade level, when many come to me way below grade level, or are struggling to just learn English.  Problems at home can make learning even harder for many.

Discipline problems, frequent moving, and absenteeism can get in the way, too.

Well, I’m not ready or willing to abandon my career quite yet.  Despite the frustrations, for the most part, I do enjoy what I do.  Working with children isn’t always easy, but the rewards are often priceless.

Some of my best compliments have come from eight and nine year olds.  Hearing a student say he didn’t used to like school, but learned to like it when he was in my class is a pay day I’ll always treasure.

Seeing a student finally “get it” after struggling and struggling with a concept is also very rewarding.

So what do the clay people have to do with all

this?

 

I love the creativity of children!

These interesting people, who sit on a shelf in one of our bedrooms, were created by our daughter, Liz, when she was still a child.  She created her clay people because she loved doing it. 

She taught herself.

All we had to do was provide the clay.

I hope that the future of education will still provide children with some time to be creative, original, and inventive. 

Yes, they need training, guidance, skills, and practice, but

maybe we need to step back a bit and let them be kids, too. 

What do you think?

JoAnn

P.S.  Time hasn’t been completely kind to this couple.  The man slipped from his original position in the frame, and the woman’s nose has suffered some major flattening from the glass (sounds like the aging process), but I still find them endearing.

 

Little things…January’s blessings

Sometimes the month of January is an unmemorable blur at our house-a month that quickly passes without much fanfare.  It is recovery time from the busy preparations and celebrations of Christmas, and a hibernation period from cold and stormy weather. It is when I prefer to be inside where it is warm and toasty and not so much outside where it is freezing and cold.

It’s also a time for promised changes and resolutions, yet none that are really happening for me yet.  (I really should get started!)

I always think I’ll do some cleaning and organizing projects during January, but don’t usually get too much accomplished before the month is over.

This year we all got hit with an after holiday flu bug, too.

Blah…..blah…..blah….

Despite the usual January doldrums, we have a few great blessings to add to our memory banks.

♥Sweet baby Naomi arrived safe and sound to her parents Heidi

and Ovidiu and big brother Paul.  We just LOVE her!  Isn’t she sweet?

 

(Heidi, Paul, and Naomi)

Ovidiu, Paul, Heidi, and Naomi

♥She shares a birthday with her uncle Andrew!  Happy Birthday,

Andrew!  We had a nice birthday dinner to celebrate.  Too bad that Naomi and her family were in Oregon and not here with us!

We can’t wait for our two new babies to meet each other.

Andrew and Evan

♥We completed two more of our City Connect Passes.  We hung

out with dinosaurs at the museum at Thanksgiving Pointe in Lehi, and we had fun exploring science at the Leonardo Museum down town.  Those Connect passes were worth every penny we paid for them because of the many outings we had together.

Dinosaur Museum:

Robbie, Aubrey, Brittany, and Karl

Robbie, Brooklyn, Ken, Zachary, Karl, Aubrey, Irene, Olivia

Maddie, Joshua, and Brooklyn

Zachary and Liz

Robbie, Katie, Maddie, and Zachary

Michelle, Olivia, and Joshua

Zachary and Aubrey

Zachary, Maddison, and T-Rex?

The Leonardo:

Ken especially liked the Tardis.

Olivia and me

Maddie, Joshua, Brooklyn, Olivia

 

Ken, Zachary, Joshua, Andrew, Robbie, Brittany

Irene, Joshua, and Brooklyn

♥We’ve entertained some overnight guests in the “after” version

of this room.  I like the improvements much better! 

Before:

After: 

♥The new floors have made the basement a great place for the

grandkids to play. 

♥School report cards are FINISHED and tomorrow is a holiday.

It was a lot of work getting a few of my students ready!

AND…

There is still enough time left in the month for me to add a few more memories.

Maybe January isn’t so bad after all!

Do you LOVE or HATE January?

JoAnn

 

First Annual Christmas Pageant…the unconventional version

This year we attempted our very first Christmas pageant with our grandchildren.  (We used to have our Christmas puppets when our children were younger.)

It was a bit rough and unconventional, but we wanted to rekindle the tradition with the next generation.

Our animals included a cow and a zebra.  That’s all.  Yes, there probably weren’t any zebras in Bethlehem, but we had the costume and not a lot of time to create new ones.

We only had one shepherd-and he kept climbing in the manger on top of the baby.

Joseph was frustrated that the animals wouldn’t cooperate and he realized midway through that we didn’t have any wise men.

Our angel was so eager to appear that she peeked out throughout the entire production.  When she did appear, I kept expecting her to yell out “Shazam!”

Mary tried really hard to defend and protect baby Jesus (who did an excellent part lying in the manger).

The paparazzi (whom we love for the pictures they get that capture memories) popped in and out throughout the show, too.

Our stage hand, Irene, had to keep plugging the chords back in for the video which we had playing in the background.

The Christmas Story "Birth of Jesus Christ" Silent Night Music by LDS David Archuleta

Click here if you want to see our unconventional version of the Christmas story.

Merry Christmas!

JoAnn

 

It’s a Wonderful Life…..and a long post

Nothing helps me get things accomplished more quickly than hosting a party at my house does!

Jobs that can take weeks have to be finished on a deadline.  I need that motivation.  Maybe I’m a procrastinator or something, but a little pressure seems to start my “engines” better than anything else.

This Christmas season we have had some good memory making experiences already, and that makes me conclude that all the work and pressure is worth the effort.

(A week and a half ago I might not have been so positive!)

We had a fun party with some friends whose friendships go way back to when our children were babies.

When we were younger, we had the tradition of progressive dinner parties, where we could see each neighbor’s house with all the creative Christmas decorating touches, and then eat something wonderful before moving on to the next house.  All our children were included and it was always a fun evening.

Now that we are older and our children are grown and out of our homes we just go to one place for the evening.

(Maybe it’s all the stairs!)

The concept is the same, we all help with the food, but it is less physical and more relaxing.

This year it was our turn to host.

I wish I’d taken more pictures, but I was pretty busy.

We each brought a sweet treat to exchange-lots of delicious and fun gifts to have for the holidays.

Isn’t it wonderful to have friends?

We have had several family activities, too.  Yesterday we celebrated Liz’s birthday.  Happy Birthday, Liz!

We also took some photos for a very late Christmas card.   
Since I usually take all the pictures, Ken and I were not in very many together and it is pretty difficult finding one that flatters both of us at the same time (ha ha).

I thought about pulling out one from years past, but even that was difficult.

Someone captured these three making some Christmas music!

And my favorite part of the holidays- playing with my grandchildren.

Wish we could have had Paul here from Portland, too.

It really is a wonderful life.

Merry Christmas!

JoAnn

Favorite Christmas Links….part 2

Last Christmas I did a post on some of my favorite Christmas links.  You can check it out

here. 

Here are a few more wonderful Christmas links to watch from this year.

The first one is a short movie about the reason for the season.  It is a beautiful reminder of why we celebrate Christmas.

#1.  He is The Gift

The second one is a wonderful version of  “Angels From the Realms of Glory”performed by The Piano Guys, David Archuleta, Peter Hollens, and 1,039 people dressed as wise men, shepherds, and angels.  It was filmed by Devin Graham.

(It broke the world record for number of people in a nativity scene.)

#2.  Go here to watch.

 

The third link is about the sacrifices of Jesus Christ and what we gain from his life of love, service, and sacrifice.

#3.  Because of Him

I will probably update this post and add more links as I have time and as I run across things I want to share.

Please pass on any good Christmas links you run across, too.

I love my sister Linda’s statue of Christ.

We took these pictures a few years ago when we were at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake.  The reflecting pond adds to the beauty of the scene.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Well, have a great week!

JoAnn

P.S.  We made it!  The floors are in.  The dust is gone.  The house is almost back to normal…..

A peek at Linda’s festive Christmas decorations….

My husband and I are crazy!

Certified crazy.

What-were-we-thinking-crazy?

With our first holiday party less than a week away, we decided to do a home improvement project-one that involves moving furniture and a lot of dust.

We had this extra laminate flooring that had been temporarily living in boxes behind the sofa and decided it would be much better served by replacing some old, berber carpet in our basement family room.

(We bought it before we decided to use bamboo in our kitchen and dining room.   We were going to try selling it, but now I’m glad we didn’t.)

My husband is almost finished and the transformation is amazing. (At least I think it will be when everything is put back in place.)

The seams on our berber carpet were never very well hidden and after many years of big family living, it needed to be changed.

Since my house isn’t quite picture worthy right now, and since everyone  seems to be posting fun Christmas decorating posts, I’m putting pictures of my sister Linda’s house on here.

She and her husband David hosted our Thanksgiving this year and their home is so lovely.  She mixed up a little Thanksgiving with Christmas, but it all worked.

We had a wonderful time with all my sisters and their husbands getting together.  Some of our children were with their in-laws, so we had a smaller, mixed group this time.

Don’t you agree that their home is lovely?

I’ll bet our Thanksgiving entertainment was more unusual than most.

We made and launched paper rockets!

It was a blast!

(Sorry about the pun.)

Thanks, Linda and David for letting me share your home and for a memorable, fun holiday.

JoAnn