The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden

My daughter and I found ourselves without anything to do a few weeks ago, so, we decided to explore Des Moines.  Faith had been to the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden this past summer with her summer camp group and had a lot of fun exploring.  I hadn't been there since my friend held her wedding there almost five years ago, so we went.

 

Faith loved showing me all the sculptures surrounding the building, this is the one people can see when driving by on the interstate.

There is a fun walkway that takes you all around the garden.  The waterfall was an unexpected surprise, Faith especially loved the fish swimming around it.

The botanical garden looks like a giant golf ball on the outside it's fairly noticable when you drive by.

They are starting big renovations on the garden, so I am glad we were able to see it before it changes. 

 

If you would like more information on the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden please click here!

Ken's Coin Cutting and Bead Making

 

I had previously mentioned my friend Ken who sells glass beads at local art shows.  Well, he also does coin cutting.  I had given him some of my coins I brought back from Egypt and he made one of them into a necklace for me.  I absolutely love it and people always stop and ask me about it when I wear it.

Here are some examples of the beads he makes.  So cute!  My mother bought a few pigs.  I think he should teach classes on how to do this, but only time will tell.

 

I had some people email me questions on how to get a hold of Ken.  You can reach him by email at coinoperatedks@gmail.com

 

He's incredibly talented!

Jolly Holiday Lights

I had planned on taking the kids to the Jolly Holiday Lights show in Des Moines. We had time after the New Years event, so I decided we would take them. It completed a wonderful day and I was so moved, because the car in front of us decided they would pay for the next four cars that followed them, which included us.  Pay it forward, we ended up giving them the $20 we were going to use anyway to pay for the four cars after them.

I love the message of Jolly Holiday Lights.  The money goes to the Make-a-Wish foundation, which grants the wishes of children living with terminal illnesses.  Businesses throughout Iowa donate money and sponsor a holiday lights display.  Before we went we bought hot chocolate and it was the perfect topping to our drive through the lights.  The kids were going crazy looking out of both windows at the same time.

Working at the hospital I get to know many kids who routinely come for some kind of procedure or are just ill and end up being admitted.  I remember this one little girl from when I worked in the surgery department.  She came in about once a month for surgery on her brain tumor.  She would come in with her mom and grandpa.  They were so close, he would tell me about their fishing trips, how she would be sitting out in the garage with him when he worked on the tractor, etc.  He would get so emotional, because he knew the procedures would only extend her life briefly.  The girl was only three years old and she was a doll.  The steroids they gave her made her head so swollen that she couldn't walk because it was so heavy.  She didn't talk very much, but I was always talking to her.  She tried to hide her smiles when we goofed on her grandpa.  I remember they would stay in the Ronald McDonald house for weeks at a time when she came to the hospital.  Every other day her mother and grandpa would come visit when she was in chemotherapy.  We would have lunch together and on Valentine's Day she brought us all Valentines.  It was like they bought everything at Walgreen's to bring to us.  She passed away when she was four.

Anyway, the point of this story is that the Make-a-Wish foundation granted her one wish, which was to go to Disney World with her family.  I remember when she brought pictures of her, sitting in her stroller, surrounded by all of the princesses.  They dressed her up like Cinderella, her favorite.  There were pictures of her swimming with dolphins and sipping tea with Alice in Wonderland.  I had never seen her look so happy, I cried looking through them.  The foundation does wonderful work, these kids look so happy, their dreams are coming true.

I highly recommend the light show, the kids had a blast.

 

 For more information on the Jolly Holiday Lights click here!

Happy New Year 2013

A new year means a new start.  Although, I still have another year and a half of school, so my life will pretty much be the same as 2012, I still have my resolutions.  This year I plan on learning Spanish!  I have been with my husband for 10 years and have yet to have an actual conversation with a few of his relatives.  Also, we plan on traveling to Ecuador in the future, and I would like to be able to talk to his family when we there. 

Faith has a picture with every princess now!

I wanted to take the kids somewhere fun for New Years Eve, and ImaginEVE was the place.  The kids had a blast going on the inflatable rides and seeing the fun characters.  Plus, they were on the news, and that's always pretty cool!  We went with my sister-in-law and her family.  I love anytime the kids can spend with their cousins.  Charlie is usually pretty shy, and he really let loose with his cousins, it was awesome.

L to R (Brandon, Logan, Faith and Charlie)  Snow cone kids!

Faith and Brandon with the Channel 13 meteorologist who interviewed them!

Kids and some cool characters.  I should have gotten a picture with Batman, darn it!

Remembering Emily

    When you spend enough time with certain people, like the group of people you grow up with and eventually graduate with, you somehow form a bond.  Even though you aren't close with every single person, you are still bonded with your graduating class for the rest of your life.

    On Thursday, December 27 around 7:30 am, one of the members of my graduating class was murdered.  Emily Weikert's amazing life was cut short at the hands of a man who could not have been mentally stable.  You can read it in the article what he did, but I don't want to remember him in this post. 



    I have been thinking about her and, although we graduated seven years ago I can still remember her in the hallways, sitting in class, being a good person to others.  She is the kind of girl parents pray their children grow up to be.  She would be the one talking to the new kid in school, offering to show them around, introducing them to the other students.  She was on her way to being whatever she wanted, and that's not an exageration.  She was incredibly gorgeous and smart.

    I hate that it took something this awful to make me realize just how important it is to tell those people you care about, what it is that makes them special.  I would do anything to go back and tell her, that her smiling at me everytime I saw her meant so much to me.  She never seemed to have a bad day, she was always smiling and willing to help out anyone in need.  It was amazing seeing all of our classmates posting a special message to Emily on Facebook.  Everyone she ever touched left her a special message, I hope she saw mine.  We live in a big world, but our little bonded group took a heavy blow on Thursday morning, one we wont recover from.

    It is an awful feeling seeing the image and name of someone you know above the title, woman killed in parking garage.  It's eerie, like I am waiting for her to post something new on Facebook about how weird that they mixed her up with another person.

   I know she's in a better place, and I pray that in her final moments she was at peace, and I pray she knows how much she meant to so many people.  She was one of those faces that made high school for me, we had a few interesting conversations in random high school classes, and she always gave things a positive outlook.  I pray she knows how much those conversations meant to me.  She was beautiful, inside and out.


Here is a link to the news story from Thursday.

I used the same picture that has been used on the news, the same from her LinkedIn profile, because she kept her Facebook private and I wanted to make sure her privacy remaind intact.

Church Halloween Party

The kids and I had a blast yesterday at the Windsor Heights Lutheran Church Steak Fry, which is the annual Halloween party.  The costumes were fantastic and the kids had so much fun playing with their friends.  The party was held at Colby Park in their new building, which was gorgeous.

The kids on the pumpkin scavenger hunt!

Show me your pumpkins!

Getting ready to collect prizes!

Serving up some pizza and mac & cheese!

Prayer before eating!

Steaks at the steak fry and yummy breadsticks donated by Olive Garden.  Friends brought food for the potluck also, soooo good!

Faith's friend Bennett!

Decorating pumpkin cookies with frosting, sprinkles and candy!

Handing out prizes in the costume contest.

Friends at the church.  Pastor Chris makes me laugh in this one.  Guess which one he is!

Being silly during the sing along!

With Pastor Chris and his wife, Beth.

Trying to get me to give him my cupcake...yes he got it.

Hard focus on decorating that cookie.

Faith and Bennett all dressed up!  I asked Bennett why he didn't smile.

Showing off those awesome masks!

Faith playing with her glow necklace!  

The boys wand fighting.

   

For more information on Windsor Heights Lutheran Church in Windsor Heights, IA please click here.

Paper Doll Costume

This year I wanted to make my costume and I was looking at princess costumes, sailor costumes and all kinds of cute costumes until I remembered.....I don't know how to sew.  So I decided I would still be something nautical, it just wouldn't be a complex creation.  Thus, the paper doll dress was created!

             

I Used:

• 3 Poster boards
• paint
• Elastic band
• Velcro

I first drew my outfit in pencil onto the poster board.  The tabs that stick out are seperate from the outfit, I taped them on at the end.  After cutting everything out I painted.  Wait to outline everything in black until the end.  The next thing is to wrap the elastic around your waist and your chest, just under your armpits, to measure.  Once you have the length of elastic you can either hot glue the front of the elastic to the back of the skirt and top, or you can staple it.  I think it just depends on the color of your outfit, you don't want the staples showing.  The last thing you need to do is cut the part of the elastic that will be on your backside right in the middle.  Glue or sew the velcro onto the elastic, this will make the costume really easy to put on and take off.  I didn't take it off at the church Halloween party we wore our costumes to, and it was awkward sitting down to dinner.

To make the bow I simple taped the bow to a thin, hard plastic head band.

She wanted to try it on!