Valentines Day Ideas

With Valentines Day just a few days away

I thought I'd try and find a little

inspiration for those of you who

still have kids in school.

 

I tried to give myself a challenge

and find Valentines that didn't have candy.

Here are a few of my favorites.

 

Via

Via

Via

Via

Via

(I know this has a little candy in it,

but just leave it out and include the car)

Via

 

and my favorite

 

Via

I realize he has a sucker sticking out of his head,

but instead of using a sucker you

could use a pencil or something.

 

Feliz Fin de Semana

Via

 

It's going to be an awesome weekend.

Hope you have a great one,

and I'll see you back here next week.

Adios amigo!

 

 

ADD Perhaps?

I got up early a few Saturdays ago and decided

to go outside and do a little yardwork.

 

Everything started off well,

then I got distracted.

 

We have a little tree growing out of our

 planter and it looks just pitiful,

so I thought to myself,

"Self, you have to get a picture of this pitifulness."

So I did.

 

See that line in the middle of the picture,

that's the tree.

 

After I took pictures of the tree,

the blue/purple berries caught my eye

and so I thought to myself,

"Self, take a couple pretty pictures."

 

So I did.

 

Then below the berries was some moss growing

on some rocks on our little waterfall.

I got distracted from the berries and thought,

"Ohhhh pretty.  I need to take a picture.

So I did.

 

Then I got bored and went inside to see what

Todd was busy doing.

That's Todd's head (sleeping) and Bailey sleeping on my pillow

(actually just my temporary pillow until my neck stopped aching).

Below Todd and Bailey...

Loki was sleeping, and apparently not happy

that I woke her up to take a picture.

The nerve of me!

 

After looking at my pictures, I decided that

I might have a touch of ADD because

I kept getting distracted by the weirdest stuff.

 

Do you every have days like that,

or am I just crazy

(That's a rhetorical question, don't answer that).

Super Bowl Sunday

We got to celebrate the Super Bowl at 

Todd's dads house.

It was awesome.

Dennis' house.

So beautiful!

It has a 360 degree view when you go on the top floor.

The gang watching the first half of the game.

Anne was happy because the Ravens were killing the 49ers.

It looked like everyone else was bummed.

Austin and I decided to take a quick break,

which promptly turned in to a photo shoot,

and then a dance party.

Austin doing his Super Bowl dance.

We finally made it back inside the house,

and went directly to the food...

which was the original reason we took a break from 

the game in the first place.

My favorite part of the game?

Beyonce performing.

I told you I'm not much of a football girl.

So were you disappointed in the end result of the game,

or were you like me and don't really care?

Getting Cultured - Crocker Art Museum - part 2

As we worked our way down the floors of the museum,

you come across the original part of the Crocker Mansion.

I couldn't get a great picture because I had my big

camera with a zoom lens and couldn't get far enough back,

but this gives you an idea of how

 ornately it was decorated.

 

The staircase, and what you can't see is the

 beautifully painted ceilings.

A piece of the jewelry that Mrs. Crocker

donated to the museum.

If you look closely, that is a woman's face

in the blue stone (I think it's aquamarine, but who knows).

After we finished in the mansion portion of the museum

we headed to the Celestial Exhibit.

Who's that creeper?

Oh, it's only Lexx looking through the spy glass.

I actually got in trouble for taking a picture in there.

This was a no picture area, and I didn't realize it.

Ooopsy.

 

As we meandered through the exhibits, Todd found

a sculpture that he really liked and wanted me to photograph.

I think it looks like a spider like thing from the Matrix movie,

my mom thought it looked like a potato that sat around 

a little too long.

 

Towards the end of our visit, we ended up in the

African art exhibit.

Many of their displays/artwork were made

from natural materials like wood and reeds/grass.

This was a carved wooden canoe with little people inside.

It was pretty long (probably 7-8 feet long).

This was also in the African art display.

I believe that this is one of their ceremonial

outfits, but my feet were hurting so bad at this

point, I was pretty much just on a mission to

leave and go have lunch so that I 

could get off of my feet, so I didn't read its description.

 

Before we left we had to take one last picture at the museum.

Cutest little displays at the museum 

(don't you think!)

Here is a picture of the original mansion,

and the new building side-by-side. 

 

After we left the museum, we did a hop-skip-jump over

to Old Town Sacramento.

The skies cleared up and it was a beautiful day,

and we decided to eat at Joe's.

It was an awesome, interesting, educational, fun, exhausting day.

I think we will have to make it a point to try and do

something like this at least once a year.

So what did you do this weekend?

See 4,000 year old artwork like me?

Getting Cultured - Crocker Art Museum

So we decided to take advantage of free admission

and headed to the Crocker Art Museum on Saturday.

The started out overcast and kind of dreary,

so it seemed like a perfect day to spend indoors

exploring all sorts of cool stuff.

We arrived in Sacramento about 9:45 AM,

and lo-and-behold, NO traffic!

Amazing.

When we arrived at the museum, there was quite 

a line waiting to get in, but by the time we

paid for parking and actually made it to the

museum, the doors had opened, and the

crowd had headed inside.

Lexx was really excited.

We started off on the 3rd floor, and went to see the

Norman Rockwell exhibit.

This was probably not the best idea because

it looked like the mob outside had all ended up 

in this portion of the museum.

The line wrapped around the room and was about

2-3 people deep, but thank goodness 

Todd and I are taller than a majority of  people.

We were able to stand behind most of the people 

and look over their heads to see the artwork.

The artwork was pretty amazing, and his attention 

to detail was incredible.  Many of the pictures,

when you are up close, look like photographs.

Because this portion of the museum was so busy,

we rushed through it and headed off 

to other less busy areas.

In case you were wondering why I didn't get any

photos in the Rockwell exhibit, it's because 

you are only allowed to take pictures in certain

areas of the museum.  One of the docents told

us it was because the exhibits that are there for

only a short time, they don't have trademark/copyright

(I can't remember which one they said)  to.

The artwork that actually belongs to the museum,

we were free to take pictures of. 

This picture was one of my favorites in the museum.

I don't remember who the artist was,

but it was done on wood with stains and 

had a glitter like substance on it.

With me, you can't go wrong with shiny/glittery anything.

This piece of artwork made me laugh.

It creeped Todd and Lexx out, 

but I found it to be comical.

That's a ceramic woman with her fingers pointing

to her cheeks and smiling, and on her hips

are little angel/cherub guys.

Also, if you look at her necklace, it looks like

the candy necklaces you got as a child

that you could eat while you were wearing.

Too funny!

This was pretty cool.

It was very large.

If you look at the people next to it, you

can kind of get an idea of the scale of the statue.

what made it really cool was that the eyes of the

horse that the cowboy was riding, and the eyes of 

the bull lit up bright red.

Here is another piece that made me laugh and I liked.

This is a robot woman made out of 

a teapot head, a coffee dispenser body, and

I'm not quite sure what the boobs are 

(funnels maybe - but probably not).

Pretty clever don't you think?

This was Lexxa's favorite painting.

I don't get it, but she thought it was really cool.

To me, it looks like the spin art you used to do as

a kid, but on a really big canvas.

But hey, that's why art is so cool -

it's all subjective.

This was Todd's favorite painting.

Again, I don't get it, but he really liked it.

Doesn't it look like a puff of smoke coming out of the fire?

I guess I'm just not an abstract art kinda girl.

When we made it to the 2nd floor, about 2 hours later,

They had really awesome displays from other cultures.

I didn't take many pictures, but they had displays of 

everything you can think of dating back 2000 BCE.

Whaaa -

do you realize how old that is?

Like I told Todd, you may not like the artwork,

or pottery, but just to be able to see things that 

were made that long ago is amazing.

Can you guess what this is?

You guessed it -

a Samurai suit of armor and helmet. 

The details are amazing.

I really dig the moustache on the helmet.

Can you imagine seeing this coming after you?

I would think it was something from another world.

I got some of the statistics on the display,

and you are reading that right

1392-1573.

Pretty incredible, right!

 

So you will have to come back tomorrow to

read about the rest of the day.

I had too many photos and didn't want

to make it too photo heavy.

 

Super Bowl Eats - Healthy Recipes

For those of you who want some fun

Super Bowl snacks, but don't want

to gain 50 pounds and have an upset

stomach, I decided to also include

some "healthier" options

Realize I only did this because it was

on the website, Closet Cooking,

 I looked at for the unhealthy snacks -

I am not a health food nut- obviously!

 

All recipes from Closet Cooking.

Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower

Greek Seven Layer Dip

Parmesan Crusted Baked Zucchini Sticks with Marinara

Spinach and Feta Quesadillas

Spinach and Artichoke Hummus

 

I think I would try the hummus and the Greek dip,

I'm not sure on the other ones.

 

Would you give any of these a try?