Celebrations!

Isn't this Elmo face cute? I made Elmo, from the Children's TV show Sesame Street, out of berries, for my granddaughter's second birthday party this past weekend. He is one of her favorite characters from the show, and I knew she and my grandsons would enjoy eating the berries along with "J's" ice cream cake. I used a small orange for his nose, two large marshmallows with chocolate kisses in them as the eyes, blackberries as the mouth, and raspberries as the face.  I would imagine you could substitute other red and blue fruits such as cut strawberries and blueberries if you'd like.  It was easy to assemble!

Our little "J" had a very happy 2nd birthday party! She wanted another favorite character, Minnie Mouse, to be her party decorations, and wore a pink Minnie bow hairband instead of a party hat. Our son also celebrated his birthday this weekend, as he and "J" share the same birthday!  His two sons enjoyed the ice cream cake and berry Elmo with gusto!

Can you see my granddaughter playing with her party balloons? 

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It was such a beautiful day here in the Denver area--in the low 70's--that my daughter was able to keep her front door open!

Another fun grandchildren event that we watched recently was a "Bike-a-Thon" fundraiser that our younger grandson's preschool sponsored as a fundraiser.  The children rode with tricycles or bicycles around a local high school gym while music played in the background.  It was a fun way to have the children participate in raising funds, as family and friends donated to the school on their behalf, and purchase refreshments, that were also donated by the parents. Our older grandson joined in on a borrowed tricycle when he saw how much fun the event was!

I know our life in our community nestled along the foothills of the Front Range of Colorado is very different from our prior lives in New York City, but I am so happy to have all these opportunities to spend time with our children and grandchildren.

We are also enjoying the very nice winter we are having here so far!  It may snow and be below 30 for a few days, but then the temperatures slowly rise up to the high 50's '60s and even '70s, and all the snow quickly melts. It is nice to be able to spend time outdoors because of this mild winter climate.

I've been the lucky winner of a few blogs giveaways the past few months!. 

I won the charming book "A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts: Stories to Warm Your Heart from the blog Terra Garden.  Terra is one of the authors of this book full of wonderful Christmas memories, recipes, holiday organization tips, and scriptures.  I enjoyed reading it very much when I was ill with the flu this past Christmas and I know I will be sharing it with my family for many Christmases ahead!

The hand-sewn dream cloud shaped pillow was made by the blogger Miss Red Fox,  The pillow is backed with terrycloth It has a removal liner filled with spelled grain that can be heated in the microwave so that it can be placed back inside the pillow and used as a heating pad. My granddaughter likes to use the pillow at nap time in her crib.

The beautifully illustrated book Dream of Venice was a give away from Diane Hales from the blog La Bella Lingua--Becoming Italian Word by Word  Diane wrote a fabulous book with the same title of her blog.  I enjoyed  Dianne's book very much, and her book, blog, and e-mail newsletter helps me to learn more about the Italian language and Italian culture.
Venice is one of the favorites places I visited in Italy, and I was thrilled to win this beautiful book! The book Dream of Venice, edited by Joann Loctov of Bella Figura Publications, brings back memories of what I loved about this unique city. It has a forward written by Francis Mayes, is full of evocative photography by Charles Christopher, and has essays and anecdotes by contemporary writers on what the city of Venice means to them.  A portion of the sale of each book will be donated to Save Venice Inc, to support vital art and architecture restoration in Venice.

The Newlywed Cookbook by Roxanne Wyss and Kathy Moore, was a recent win from the blog Cookbooks 365, by bloggers Shelly Peppel and Fran Brennan. The profile recipes from many different genres of cookbooks, on their blog, and I'm always learning something new from them!  The recipe in a blog post for Winter Chicken Cassoulet, which is in the Newlywed Cookbook, caught my eye.  I wanted to see more recipes from this book and entered their give away.  Even though I've been married 40 plus years, I feel like a newlywed again,  as my husband and I are now retired and I am cooking for two and not a family any longer.  I am enjoying the over 70 smaller portion recipes and the recipes incorporating modern conveniences and equipment in this cookbook.

I want to thank again all the blogs that gave away such wonderful prizes.  I feel very lucky to have won and also to know you through your blogs. and I hope I've encouraged a few of my Dear Readers into visit these wonderful blogs and to learn more about the books and products I won

 

The Colorado Train Museum

When I visited Colorado for my grandson's second birthday in December 2010, we visited one of his favorite places: the Colorado Railroad Museum, located at 17155 West 44th Avenue, Golden, Colorado.

The Museum building is a replica of an 1880s-style depot. It houses thousands of rare old photographs, artifacts, and documents illustrating the colorful histories of the railroads which have served the state for over 125 years.

The Museum is located on 15 acres at a point where Clear Creek flows between North and South Table Mountains. The museum's emphasis is on the Rocky Mountain area railroads and explains and interprets the role of railroads in the history of this region from the 1860s to the present using exhibits, a library, and special events. The museum also has the Robert W. Richardson Railroad Library on the grounds which houses over 10,000 books specific to railroads.

There is an opportunity to climb aboard many of the railroad cars. Here my husband, son, and grandson are posing for my camera on an 1890 Denver and Rio Grande Locomotive.

There were many interesting and historic railroad cars to visit.

Many had informational placards telling of their history. All photos can be clicked on once and then again when they open on a new page to make them larger to see details.

 

A streamliner-era locomotive - the "Rio Grande Zephyr."

One of the "Snow Fighters" Locomotives

A collage of some other trains is on display.

On "Steam-Up" Operating Days, a historic narrow gauge passenger train powered by a steam or diesel locomotive will run at approximately 20-minute intervals. In the video above my son and grandson are watching the train make a pass before we all went on it for a ride.

The day we visited the Colorado Railroad Museum Santa and Mrs. Claus were there to greet the children, but my grandson was happier to see the Railroad Engineer Dog and give him a "high five"!

The Denver Garden Railway Society has its G-scale, garden railway exhibit on the grounds of the Museum. My grandson was especially happy to see "Thomas the Train" make its rounds on the tracks.

It will come as no surprise to show what the special birthday cake my son and daughter-in-law made for L's second birthday -- a railroad train!  I bought a Nordic Ware train-shaped pan for the occasion. They did a great job decorating it!

I was very happy to eat his cake and proclaimed it: "Delicious!" It really was! It was the end of a perfect second birthday for our little train-loving grandson.

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Colorado's Capitol "Tree of Honor"

The Colorado State Capitol building, located at 200 East Colfax Avenue in Denver, Colorado, is the home of the Colorado General Assembly and the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Colorado. The building is intentionally reminiscent of the United States Capitol. Designed by Elijah E. Myers, it was constructed in the 1890s from Colorado white granite and opened for use in November 1894. The distinctive gold dome consists of a real gold plate, first added in 1908, commemorating the Colorado Gold Rush. The building is part of Denver's Civic Center area.

A view looking up at the interior of the dome.

More views of the magnificent interior of the Colorado State Capital building.  All photos can be clicked on once and then again when they open on a new page to enlarge for a better view of the details.

Located inside the capital building is this year’s Colorado's Christmas "Tree of  Honor" in memory of all the fallen members of the military from Colorado who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 13 foot Noble fir tree is decorated with cards bearing the names of 142 service men and women.

A close up of the three hundred red, white and blue LED lights and patriotic ornaments and flags, plus the individual plaques with the name of each fallen service member. It was a very beautiful and touching memorial to all the military from Colorado who have given their lives for our freedom in the current wars.

Can you see the "one mile above sea level" inscription on the capital building's steps? Click to enlarge.

The view from the top of the Colorado Capital's top steps, looking at the Denver City and County building is in the distance

The snow-capped Rocky Mountains can be seen in the distance.

I was in Colorado this past week to see my grandson help to decorate his family's tree, and also to celebrate his second birthday!

He's growing up so fast and has a lot to say now. It was so much fun to spend time with him and my son and daughter-in-law, and also my son's in-laws who graciously shared their home with us.

Please accept my apology if I've been slow to visit your blogs the past week or so -- I will be catching up very soon!

I'm linking this post to Mary's "Mosaic Monday" at The Little Red House. Please visit Mary to see her beautiful mosaic and links to the photo mosaics of all the participating blogs.

Pink Saturday Retrospective and Whoops!!

Welcome! I am excited to be a featured Pink Saturday blog today! I joined Beverly of the How Sweet the Sound blog's Pink Saturday with my first Pink post on September 27, 2008.  Even though I hardly have anything pink in my house, and pink is not one of my favorite colors to wear, I wanted to challenge myself to look for Pink in my world and join in on all the fun of Pink Saturday. 

Guess what? 

Even though I devote much of my blog to the wonderful sights, events and locations throughout New York City where I live, and sights from all of my many travels, My First Pink Saturday post is the most popular of all my blog posts according to my Blogger stats, with almost 4,000 page views for this one post! 

Now that's what I call "Pink Power"!

I made a photo mosaic of the photos from that post, as you can see above, and although the photos in that post of my cat, a pink door in Ireland, pink roses, a pink squid from Brooklyn's annual Mermaid Parade, and pink hats in store in San Diego were all pretty, my guess is that those pink bridesmaids dresses attracted a lot of attention in Google searches or Google images, which in turn lead to a lot of visits to my blog. My daughter is the tall and pretty bridesmaid in that photo. (all photos will enlarge if clicked on once, and then again when they open on a new page)

I went through all my Pink Saturday posts to make some more photo mosaics of all my past Pink Saturday Posts and it was fun to see all the pinks I found through the years! 

Among the photos above is a pink brownstone in Brooklyn, a pink house in Key West, Florida, a girl with pink hair on Manhattan's elevated Highline Park, NYC 2009 marathon runners who were wearing pink, the Brooklyn Botanic garden's pink roses and cherry blossoms, a pink opera costume at the Metropolitan Opera , a pink stretch limousine in Brooklyn, a pink bicycle on the streets of the East Village in Manhattan and a pink clown car in Colorado.

Pink is certainly everywhere!

This is a mosaic of photo collages of some of the pink flowers that I've profiled on past Pink Saturday posts.

Another mosaic of photo collages from past posts with an assortment of pink things I found in Manhattan, Beverly Hills and San Francisco.

My most famous pink photo was the one of a beautiful pink chandelier.

This 1,900-piece, Louis XV chandelier once hung in the main banking hall of J. P. Morgan at 23 Wall Street. The two commercial properties have been converted into luxury condominium apartments and the chandelier was saved and put on permanent display as a design element in the lobby of the condominium.

It became famous because it was one of the photos chosen by the 2010 Summer edition of Artful Blogging magazine to publish in its special story about Beverly and Pink Saturday!  It was such a thrill to see my photograph published along with all the other wonderful photos chosen by the magazine in that edition.


So as you see the color pink has brought a lot of excitement to my life in the past few years since I've been contributing, whenever I am able, to Pink Saturday. I've enjoyed searching for pink, reading as many Pink Saturday posts as I can each week, and enjoying so many wonderful friendships with other Pink Saturday bloggers. 

Thank you Beverly for bringing Pink into my world each week!  I am so happy we found each other so many years ago when our blogs were brand new and I'm looking forward to many more pink discoveries!

Now  for the "Whoops" part of my post ......  I have to amend a Pink Saturday post from a few weeks ago entitled "Tickled Pink"

As it turns out my daughter-in-law's second sonogram showed she is not having a girl after all, but having another boy!  A surprise for all of us, but a happy one, non-the-less!

We will be thrilled to have another grandson to carry our name forward and we look forward to seeing two little boys become the best brothers and friends to each other as they grow!

Thank you for all your congratulations and best wishes. New life is always a miracle and we look forward to seeing our new grandson sometime in late Winter. As far as babies are concerned blue is as happy a color as pink!

Pink Saturday Slide

My daughter-in-law sent these photos to me this week of my son and grandson and their constant companion, their Pomeranian Maurizio, having fun in a local park where they live in Colorado.  When I saw the pink slide I thought of Beverly's Pink Saturday event and decided to share them with everyone today. 

As you can see in the photos, my little guy is walking now!  How fast grandchildren grow! It is hard to believe that my son has a birthday approaching ... I remember so vividly how he loved the the playground when he was this age. Sons grow up fast too!

Beverly asks that we profile a new blog that we discovered through the previous week's Pink Saturday. I enjoyed Bernideen's Tea Time Blog...it is always tea time at Bernideen's pretty blog.

 Bernideen is from Colorado Springs and says "My blog is about all things tea and tea parties, hospitality and food the love of decorating, florals, faith and summer gardening."  Please pay her a visit today.

To see a list of participating blogs in today's Pink Saturday blog posts please visit Beverly at How Sweet The Sound, and enjoy all the pink!

Friday Finding Beauty - "The Reading Mother"

"The Reading Mother"

You may have tangible wealth untold;


Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.


Richer than I you can never be --


I had a mother who read to me.


-- Strickland Gillilan (1869-1954)

Today is the first "Friday Finding Beauty" event on Claudia's blog Dipity Road.  Today all the participating blogs can post whatever they like on their blog that touched them in some way and made them feel, see, or appreciate a moment of beauty in their lives.
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I took the photo above last month of my daughter-in-law reading to my grandson before his nap.  It is a ritual they have participated in since he was two months old.  He obviously loves his books and already "reads along" in his sweet one year old baby talk voice.  When I saw this scene it immediately brought to mind Gillilan's poem that I've always loved, called "The Reading Mother," of which I quoted the last verse above. The entire poem can be read on this link.

This was a moment of beauty I'll always treasure, as I can think of no greater gift that my daughter-in-law can give to my grandson than the love of reading!

Please visit Dipity Road today and see the links to other blogs "Friday Finding Beauty" moments.  Thanks Claudia!

 

Look Who Turned One!

I have been away for a week to cold and snowy Colorado to attend a very special birthday party! My grandson turned one year old! His Mommy made a very special Hummingbird flavor cake just for him, which was made with his favorite fruits of pineapple and banana.

His first taste of icing....

A little taste of the cake ....

...and finally a full two fisted indulgence of half of the cake! "Yummy, Mommy, this is so good!"

I think "L" loved his birthday cake and having many friends and family there to celebrate his happy day with him!

Happy First Birthday sweet little "L" ... your Nonna and Nonno love you so much!

We flew back to New York yesterday evening -- the week went by so quickly!

Now I'll be busy, as we still have to buy our Christmas tree and I have to start doing some decorating and baking, along with catching up on everyone's blogs. It's good to be busy, so I won't miss my little guy all at once, but I know it will take some time for the part of my heart I left in Colorado to follow me home again, so please be patient with me a little longer until then.

I'm looking forward to seeing all the wonderful Christmas spirit on your blog ...it is such a wonderful time of the year!