Wordless Wednesday

A salute to Valentine's day

Our family tradition is to celebrate Valentine's Day together with a supper themed around red, pink & white foods. We generally decide on a menu a few days in advance. This year the Valentine's menu was spaghetti in homemade tomato meat-sauce, artisan bread, strawberry banana smoothies and
pink Valentine sugar cookies for dessert.
Although there was one GIANT chocolate chip cookie for my sweetie, who has been my Valentine since 1987...

yup, that is 25 YEARS!!!

I love homemade cards and this one made by Kippy for her daddy was especially sweet.

The inside reads:

"There is ying,yang, chocolate, vanilla, you and me, Father and Daughter. There can't be one without the other. Love you lots, Angelique"

The girls each received a little goody bag of from us...

One can never go wrong with books and socks, right?

My Valentine cracks me up and wouldn't stop tickling me when trying to take a picture. Funny guy!
My family has my heart for sure.

The Frostbite Snow Sculpture Contest

The first weekend in February was the annual Fergus Falls Frostbite Festival. In looking over the events being hosted for the weekend, I happened to read in the newspaper there was going to be a Snow Sculpture Contest. I read this news out-loud to the family...

"People interested in entering need only to create a snow or ice sculpture in their yards and send a name, picture and address where the sculpture can be found to dailynews@fergusfallsjournal.com. The judges in the contest will pick the best entries throughout the week with prizes awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd ($100, $50 & $25 Fergus Bucks)."

Kippy was determined to enter. As luck would have it, Friday, Feb 4th was warm enough to make our excess snow sticky. Right after school, Kip started working on making a sculpture of an otter, but she didn't get time to complete it before "the cousins" (Noah & Nixin) arrived for the weekend. I figured she would forget all about her project, but to my surprise, Saturday morning, she headed outside to finish it up. She added rocks in front of the the sculpture spelling out "OTTER". Steve called the Fergus Falls Journal by noon on Saturday, February 6th, just in time for the deadline. The paper sent out a photographer to capture an image of her sculpture & she officially was entered into the contest.

Kippy told me, "I don't care if I win, but I hope they spell my name right." Apparently, proper recognition of her work is what was important.

After checking the newspaper every day for results, Kippy found out on Friday, Feb 11th that the paper not only spelled "Angelique Lindgren" correctly,
but she won 3rd place and was awarded $25 in Fergus Bucks. She was so darn excited!

In hindsight, I really wish I would have gone out and took a picture myself, because the image that ended up in the paper really doesn't show the details & work she put into it.

$25 = one very happy girl!

Sweet Valentines

Kippy & I worked together on these sweet Valentine cookies, while Abby was busy babysitting on Saturday.
Some of the cutouts didn't work as well as we hoped, but all tasted yummy anyway.

Have a Happy Valentines Day!

Mini-wall makeover

With the help of a little spray paint & some frames from one of my BFF's, plus a few odds & ends from my craft room...
I created a new addition for my office wall.

I used some distressed, large wooden letters, which I had on hand, but constantly fell off my shelf. I only had to take the hanging hardware off of the back of each letter.

I accessorized with some patterned scrapbook paper, ribbons & a metal "forever" charm to finish it off.
Next, I printed off a few favorite black & white photos and updated an existing picture frame.

The last step, was to take everything off the wall and reposition into a pleasing arrangement.

Taa-daaa... the mini-wall makeover in my office is complete!

One more thing... I just have to share this clever fabric canvas made by one of my fabulous besties. Isn't it great? I.HEART.IT.MUCH. It looks wonderful in my office as well. I need to remember to do mini-makeovers more often as it makes me hApPy!!

Souper fun!

Is there anything more fun than tiny little alphabet pasta in homemade ham/bean soup?

I think not!

At least the girls agreed with me, even if the chef (a.k.a. Steve) elected to NOT participate.

Dreaming of our new Dream House

in Stowe, Vermont! I have been compulsively entering every day this month and have until February 18th to get daily entries in.It is good to have dreams, right?
You are definitely invited to come stay with us 'cause we will have lots of room.
Keep sending the positive thoughts... and I'll keep entering!