Photos from this week!

Jasmine insisted that I take a photo of this ice cube with a heart in it:) Stefani keeps telling us that she lost a toy under the stove, but we can't find it. Last week at the Frostival Celebration in downtown Fargo. Outside skating rink- Jasmine skated about 30 seconds:( Jasmine's friend from school- Samanta- from Bosnia, is spending the weekend with us. We went on a shopping spree at the Dollar Store, and everything is all over Jasmine's room. We ate at a Chinese restaurant- Samanta's choice, since she is the guest:). Tomorrow we're going to a Fargo Parks and Recreation Carribean swimming party:)

Wax Museum....

Today was 5th Grade Wax Museum. We have done this pretty much every year. Each child is assigned a famous person. They must research that person, make a poster board, dress as that person, and give a short talk when you push their button. They also had to design a biography website on smore.com- which is a site that teaches kids how to design websites. We tried to look as African American as possible- braids in the hair, jewelry, etc. It took me many tries to get a couple of photos with a semi- smile on her face. Ready to go to school. I'm ready to push the green button so she can start talking:)

Ready for school on a very cold day....

At least we can't see the scowl on her face:)))

F-M Christmas Choir Concert

Yesterday, the Fargo-Moorehead Children's Choir had their annual Christmas Concert and party at the Olivet Lutheran Church in Fargo- a VERY pretty church inside. Here is the entire choir. Jasmine is on the far left bottom row. This photo is hilarious. I asked Jasmine to turn around so I could take her picture while they were waiting to go onstage. She turned her head away, but this cute little boy who is always animated and smiling looked right at me. I wanted to ask the mom if I could take him home with me:) After the concert, we had a little Christmas party that consisted of sugar, sugar and more sugar. So, to top it off- we stopped on the way home and got an oversized pizza because we had a coupon:) Here is Stefani under the Christmas tree- right before she took some ornaments off of the tree!

Awesome Pawsome 4-H Club meeting....

Jasmine is in 4-H with her cat Stefani:) Today, we had the 4-H meeting at the Moorehead Library. Julie Stein is a sheriff with Clay County. She works with her dog Brady who was chosen from the pound for his unruliness and friendliness to sniff out Zebra Mussels- which are a huge problem in Minnesota. The mussels attach to boats and can destroy a lake ecosystem when introduced to the lake by being stuck on someone's boat. Literally everyone around here has a boat since there are so many lakes for boating and fishing. Brady went thru a process which only took a few months of training for him to recognize the mussel smell. When he finds the smell, he immediately sits down and gets a toy. Brady also can find a firearm buried up to one foot deep in an area of a football field. One time, he was on a mission to find some guns in a field that were related to a crime 30 years ago. There were no guns, but he did find an old firecracker buried in the field. The criteria for the dog is to be friendly and floppy eared (as opposed to straight ears for the "attack dogs") be toy motivated and also be somewhat unruly. They do not want a well- disciplined dog. They want one who will jump on tables, get into people's pockets and bags:) Apparently, Brady fits all of those criteria:) Jasmine did smile a little when Brady came over to meet her. Here is our Awesome Pawsome 4-H group.

Fargo P & R Gingerbread House making.....

This morning, I told Jasmine I had a "surprise" for her. We went to downtown Fargo to a very old building which used to be the first schoolhouse in Fargo. It is now used as one of the many Parks and Recreation buildings. Apparently, the school was built in 1894, had many additions, and now is used for offices and P&R classes. We did pretty well with the gingerbread house until we had to take it to the car, then it collapsed. Here is Jasmine with the loveliest smile she could come up with for the morning. Believe me, the others were much worse. She wouldn't let me work on the gingerbread house until it was apparent that we were very behind all of the other participants- since the kids were working hand in hand with their mom or dad. Here is the first schoolhouse built at the location where we made the gingerbread house. This photo was taken in 1878. Here is our house when we got it home:) I had fun, even though Jasmine pretended not to.

Christmas tree exhibit at Fargodome....

Today we visited Fargodome where there were hundreds of decorated Christmas trees by various businesses in the city. Several of them were covered with the NDSU green and yellow everything. Everyone around here wears green and yellow hats, coats, shirts, boots, stuff on their cars. It's endless green and yellow in every store:) Here is Jasmine with her usual nasty expression that she has on her face about 99% of the time for the past 5 years. Such a joy to be around! We did go to a kid's magic show put on by one of the local magicians. It was fun! (for me anyway)