Colors of Community

About a month ago I shared a post about Artprize, which is a huge, city wide art show in Grand Rapids.  It's very popular and has encouraged some smaller art shows in surrounding towns.  A church in our little town has started it's own little art competition, called Colors of Community.  It's  been happening annually for 4 years now.  The artists are all from near our town.  They have divided the art into groups - professional, photographs, 3D - dimensional art, paintings and drawings and then there are children's divisions; 4-8, 9-14, 15-20.  Visitors get a ballot and choose a favorite in each category.  There are also judges choices.
The premise of this art show is this:

"Creativity is a God-given ability to take something ordinary and make it into something special. It is an openess to doing old things, new ways... the creative spirit is part of our heritage as children of the One who created all things.  And nurturing our creativity is part of our responsibility as stewards of God's good gifts."  

Emilie Barnes.

We went to look at all the art this weekend.  It's amazing how creative some people are!  Here's some of the entries.

 This is a pencil sketch.  It's so good - looks like a black and white photo!

This is a painting of a blueberry field near our town.

 This photo was taken 2 years ago - a crazy snowstorm on Halloween.

I like the lighting in this painting.

 This is one of the professional paintings, and it was also entered into Artprize.

This one was done by a 7 year old.  It was inspired by Van Gogh's Starry Night painting.

This is a quilted wall hanging!

A carving - so lifelike!

I really like this one - it's a set of 12 pictures.  The collection is titled 'The 12 Days of Christmas', and each day has a whimsical idea for the day.   These pictures were each drawn during a period when she doing a drawing a day challenge.

Here's one of the pictures from the 12 days.  This one is 4 calling birds!

 This is another one that I really liked.  This is a set of 3 pictures, and each picture is filled with words - in this case John 3:16, 17 and 18.

 Here's all 3.  The first one is  For God, the second  is So Loved, the third - The World.

Here's a closeup of an eye in the second shot!

Here's my favorite!  Bob entered this carving - a Spartan warrior demonstrating the spiritual armour we wear, taken from Ephesians 6: 11-17.
The art is being shown until November 14.  If you live in the area, make sure you stop and check it out.  There is so much more art to be seen than what I shared here.

Happy, Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Alaina and Ruby's birthdays tonight.  It was Alaina's 5th birthday this past week, and Ruby will be 2 on Saturday.

 Here's the Dining Room, waiting for the guests of honor to arrive.

 And here's our girlies!  Since we were seeing them tonight, and they have a busy day tomorrow, they came in their trick or treat costumes (and birthday shirts!)  This is Super Alaina and Super Ruby!

These are their Super Capes...

 Reading cards

 Checking out a gift

 Opening presents is so much fun!

So is playing with them.

 Ruby is enjoying her cake and ice cream.

 Alaina has a blue tongue from the frosting.

They both enjoyed playing with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Heather.

We are so thankful for the blessing of another year with these two blessings!

Pumpkin Walk

Every Fall, a church in our town hosts a "Pumpkin Walk".   They have wooded property behind their church and they set up hundreds of carved pumpkins along it.  They have other fun things set up as well, and give out cider, coffee and cookies at the end.  It goes for three nights and on the second night when we were there, they had already had 5500 people go through!
It's most fun to go when it's dark out so you can see them all lit up, but we were taking Alaina and Ruby so were there at Twilight and enjoyed it, even though it wasn't dark.

They had several spots set up to take pictures.

A friend from work was behind us and said we needed to have our picture taken too.

The girls were quite excited to see a fire truck there,

and even more excited when they got to sit in it!

 They really got into the picture taking and laid on the ground near the welcome pumpkins for this one!

Here we are at the start of the actual walk.

Bert and Ernie!

Olaf, Mickey, Minnie and Scrooge McDuck

A fancy carved snake out in the woods

A whole bunch of fun pumpkins!

I thought this was really cute - a little train!

 I agree with this one!

 Continuing down the path.

 Ruby likes this one!

 A pirate...

 They even had pumpkins hanging in the trees!

We had to do one last fun photo at the end.  What a fun night!

Cooking Thursday

We had a chili cook-off at work a few weeks ago.  I didn't enter because I was working the night before, but I wouldn't have won anyway - we had one overwhelming winner!  The winner shared her recipe with me and I made it this past weekend.  It's a rich, meaty chili with a bit of a kick!  It filled my 6  quart crockpot, so I have some saved in the freezer for another day.

Prize Winning Chili

3 pounds hamburger, browned and drained
1 onion, chopped and browned
3 envelopes McCormick Tex-Mex chili seasoning
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 cans kidney beans, drained
3 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
3 cans Rotel original tomatoes with green chilies
Stir hamburger, onion, seasoning and brown sugar together in large crock pot.  Add the beans and tomatoes.  Cook on low for 6 hours.  Serve with cheese, sour cream, chopped onion or other toppings of your choice.

Wordless Wednesday

Bosses Day!

Last week was bosses day.  I have a really great boss, our director of nursing, Maggie.  I saw a cute idea for bosses day on Pinterest and thought I would share it with you.

It says:
Maggie, we really Skor ed with a boss like you!
You stay calm when it's Crunch time.
You put in Extra hours when needed,
can handle Mounds of paperwork,
are a real Lifesaver in an emergency,
budget wisely to ensure a Payday,
and are willing to go to the Milky Way and back for your employees!
We thought about a shopping Spree,
a New York trip,
or a trip into Orbit, but they didn't seem right.
We hope you just Take 5 and enjoy the poster.
Hopefully it will make you Snicker
and not ROLO ver and get sick.
From your Goofball 's at the desk.

*The words that are bold are the names of the candy on the sheet.  The Goofball candy is actually a special edition Snickers.  Other suggestions were Goobers, Nerds or Airheads.

This was a fun project and she enjoyed the finished project.  I think her kids will benefit from the candy!

Gues what day it is?

Monday the 24th is a pretty special day for us!  It's our sweet Alaina's 5th birthday!  I can hardly believe she's 5 already, but when I look at her, I can see she is growing fast.  She is one of God's greatest blessings to us, and brings joy to us each time we see her.
Both girls spent the night here on Friday.  Here's a peek at our time together.

 When we picked them up they had new shirts on:

 Alaina's said - "I'll just ask Grandma!"

And Ruby's says "I love my Grandpa!"


After a busy evening, they changed into their pj's.

Alaina was pretty tired and was snuggling with Grandpa.

Ruby was going strong and was climbing on Grandma and laughing!


They both slept well that night.

 Oliver had spent the week at our house, because our daughter Heather and her husband Andrew were moving.  Oliver is a wiz at hiding when the girls are there, so they were very happy when Aunt Heather came to pick him up and they got to pet him.

 When Ruby took a nap after lunch, Alaina and I had a project to make.  First, we cut strips of cardstock in varying shades of orange.

 We took four strips and arranged them as you see above.  We pulled the top two pieces together to form a circle and stapled them, then did the same with the last two pieces.  We taped a brown stem to the top and added a skinny piece of green cardstock that we had made curly, to be a vine.

We ended up with some cute little pumpkins!  Alaina called them a "pumpkin patch" and she was excited to bring them home.
It was another fun weekend!  I know I have to enjoy these moments because they pass so quickly.  The next 5 years will most likely go even faster.
Happy Birthday my sweet girl!  Grandpa and Grandma love you lots!