Destruction in the Heartland: Part 8.....homage to the memorial built by volunteers

When my aunt sent me this article from the New York Times about Joplin, she suggested that I go find the house and take a few photos. I knew exactly which house the article was referring to and I really wanted to take photos.

I haven't photographed much of the destruction since June...it just hasn't felt right. But this is a really special place. And many of the destroyed places have been rebuilt or are in progress, so things are looking good in Joplin again. It looks like a scene from an art installation, and it feels a little erie wandering through the property. I felt like a trespasser, but amongst all the volunteer signatures, I felt like I was paying homage the memorial, dedicated to the people who spent hours cleaning up our city.

Please read the article above, it tells the story.

 You can see a new home going up beside this one.

With frozen fingers, I juggled my iPhone and my Nikon to snap a few additional photos.  I like some of these even more than the others....a different, edgier feel to the photos...a bit of redundancy, but still very moving.

Thanks for reading.

Merry Christmas

This is a particularly special Christmas for my family. We will be spending our day together in a new home.

After the tornado, my mom's living room was completely destroyed.

It wasn't flattened like many of the apartments in her complex, but she lost all of her furniture and we spent hours going through the debris, collecting things that were special to her.

In the photo above, you can see a  little antique Christmas tree buried with cotton candy insulation and ceiling planks.  It belonged to my great-grandparents. My mom keeps it up all year. When I first climbed into her front door into the war-zone of her living room, I figured the little tree was a gonner....but somehow...it made it. We even saved most of the little colored light bulbs, scattered in the soggy wet carpeting of the living room, mixed with the broken glass of the screen door and splinters of wood.

This Christmas, a friend at school donated a small tree, and another donated some ornaments and now both trees have a special place in mom's living room. Side by side, a few small presents underneath.

The gift I am most excited to give this year is a painting. It used to hang above my mom's couch. (The brand new couch she just got in April, that was soaked and ruined). I painted it high school and even though it probably wouldn't be worthy of a major gallery...it was a special part of my mom's home. After the storm, we found this painting in the back bedroom. It had traveled down the the hall and wrapped around a bedpost. It was dirty and badly warped.

I had the canvas cleaned, re-stretched and re-framed. The only evidence of its damage is a small gash, a battle scar in the middle.

I am really excited to give it to my mom....I hope it makes her new house feel more like her home.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas everyone!!

Photo Collage Friday {Saturday Christmas Eve Edition}

Some of my favorite photos from around the house. 

I love this time of year. 

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!!

Christmas Party Treats {Christmas Morning}

Once the guests start arriving, I am always too busy interacting to take pictures of stuff like treats...

In fact, at my own events, I forget about things I spent all day preparing (like special homemade candy or decor). I love photographing other people's events because I don't know everyone and I can focus on the pretty stuff and the relationships I notice.

I should've taken a picture of the pretty donut tower....and the drink station....and the biscuits and gravy....I should've taken a picture of the treat table.....but I didn't.

Here are a couple of things DID I take pictures of at the Christmas Morning party.

I found this 'bacon and egg' candy on Pinterest. All you need is white chocolate (either chips or candy melts), some yellow m&ms, and pretzel sticks. I melted the white chocolate on some mini toasts from Wal-Mart (found near the fancy cheeses).

I started planning this party a while ago...you can see most of my pins here.

My favorite local donut shop recently rebuilt and opened (after it was completely destroyed by the tornado). I knew we had to have some special treats from there. These donut holes were devoured by the end of the party...but I still have some other donuts to finish off (oh darn!).

Peanut butter-filled bugles....another Pinter-esting recipe!

And these little donut snowmen...SO CUTE!!

Thanks for reading!!
Hope you all are having fun with your favorite Christmas traditions.

Christmas Party Special Gifts and Stockings

My favorite part of Christmas morning has got to be opening my stocking. So providing a stocking for all of the friends and family at the party was essential to making it special. I bought a bunch of felt, cut out 30+ stockings and started embellishing them.

Each stocking is different!!

A few nights before the party, I had a dream that the stockings were filled with wrapped presents....so I knew I would need to make some boxes and buy some stuff to make them more full.

The stockings contained packages of hot chocolate, a full-sized candy bar, a mint tin, a fancy lollipop, a baggy with some Christmas erasers, a Ghiardelli chocolate square, a small toy like a spinning-top or a yo-yo, 3 small slim jims, and other toys from Oriental trading like gliders, paddle balls, back scratchers, Chinese finger traps, woopie-cushins...and an envelop containing a coupon for a night of fun with someone at the party....in each special envelop, people were 'linked' with someone in the room for some fun activity they could do together, like have a dance party, or go thrifting or have a game night. It was a cool way to pair up people (at random) who might not have known each other before the party.

I bought some pill boxes and small paper boxes and I also made 30+ origami boxes from craft paper and decorated them.

Here are a few of my favorite boxes. I used doilies, yarn, fabric yo-yos, magazine papers, old paint-by number copies, ledger paper, book pages, and anything else that might look pretty like tape or pearls.

The felt stockings were fun to make. I wish I would've made fewer and embellished them more. My favorite ones had stripes....IKEA fabric, felt and ribbon bunting, one has a doily sewn to the front and I even used some old ties to spruce up a couple of them.

It was such a fun gift...and an amazing party favor for each of the guests to take home....I have several extras....I guess I will have to find someone to give them to...I'm thinking I will make a little 'care stocking' for the janitors at my school. ;-)

Santa is in the building!

There is something so magical about the jingle of Santa's bells and his hearty 'HO HO HO!' when he visits the school. It is just incredible to hear him interacting with the kids...and their squeals of delight!

Frustratingly....as one of my educator friends pointed out on her Facebook status....it seems like Santa is not enough to keep kids in line this time of year....when I was little, my parents just had to threaten us with "Santa is watching!" and we were quickly reminded that if we were rotten, we would get nothing for Christmas....But now, it seems like that is not enough.

I'm only saying this because last week was wild!! The week before Christmas usually is...I needed an extra dose of patience.

I've heard so much about the the elf on a shelf is so adorable and it is such a cute idea...It just seems like those little elves that jump from spot to spot each night after reporting to the north pole, are necessary to making kids believe that someone is really watching.....

'Santa' by himself isn't magical enough...to influence today's youth the way he used to.....

At any rate (elf on a shelf or not)....I am on the NICE list this year....Santa check it twice...and confirmed!

Christmas Party Photo Booth

Last weekend, it was time for the annual Christmas party....The theme this year was 'Pajama Party'. It was so fun...and comfortable.....and I really loved seeing all of my friends relax and enjoy Christmas. It is my favorite thing of the year.

I love planning it and I look forward to it all year long...and now I am sad that it is over.




I will be posting a couple of more 'christmas party' posts...but I really wanted to share the photo booth with you.

The backdrop is an IKEA fabric with white icicle lights on top. I included little finger puppets and all sorts of props for people to use including wigs, hand-painted signs, santa hats, antlers, and other Christmas gear.

 I don't have any pictures suitable to share using the finger puppets.....as you can imagine what finger most people put their puppets on.....*sigh*

 While the wigs weren't worn in many of the photos, they look kind of cool on my dresser.

 I ended up setting up one umbrella light on a table because the lighting in the bedroom was too yellow...and it was too dark with the lights turned off. Here are a couple of my hand painted signs.

 My sister flew in from Hawaii just in time for the party! YIPPEEEE!!!!! She looks so cute draped in Christmas lights!!

 

I took a lot of photos at the party....these are just a few of my favorites!

Bokeh who?

One of my favorite gifts was this amazing Bokeh kit for my digital camera. I got it last year....but it wasn't around the holidays so I haven't had a chance to play around with it until now. I am in love with the heart filter. I hope I have a chance to go see Christmas lights this week so I can experiment more. It would be great to take to Silver Dollar City with all the lights.

These were just taken around my living room....I'm excited to play with it some more!!