Oklahoma Christmas

Hello Bloggers and Friends!

I know its a day late, but Merry Christmas!

For the 7th year in a row, we headed up to Tulsa to spend Christmas with the Mr.'s family.

We had a great time celebrating with family, here are just a few snaps from our holiday.

This is one of the three trees my MIL put up

PJ's were a gift from my MIL, I loved all my gifts!

Especially these...

That evening we headed to Nan's house to celebrate with extended family

Opening gifts :)

Sadly, we missed the white Christmas in Dallas, but are happy we got to spend time with family.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

~Mrs. S

Christmas Time!

Hi Everyone!

Last night I hosted my annual Christmas Party with my family.

It was a lovely time with food, presents, and Christmas lights. 

Hope you enjoy the photos!

Violin Playing Santa, a gift from my student

My Spode China table

Veronica and I

Julian

Niece Jaylee, and nephew Sebastian, he's obsessed with Batman!

Santa made a visit!

All the kids really enjoyed it!

Had to get a picture with Santa

We went looking at Christmas light around the neighborhood and saw this hunter snowman!

So excited to spend time with family during the holidays!

How is your Holiday Season going?!

~Mrs. S

Life

Hello Everyone,

I am sure you have all been in a daze about the events of Friday night as much as I have.

As a teacher, I cannot begin to imagine how I would react in such an event.

Today, I am thankful to my Lord Jesus Christ that I am alive, and ready to conquer any obstacle that life in this world may throw at me. This is all we can do, have faith in the future, and not blame this thing or the other.

Thank goodness life has been normal around here, concert Thursday night with my kiddos turned out great. Friday night, I caught up on laundry and cleaned up.

Saturday I had a rehearsal for a church gig, and did some Christmas shopping for my in laws. They are going to love their gifts! I got myself this beautiful J Crew blouse for a great deal, y'all know my love for JC.

Saturday night, I headed over to my friend Lisa's X-mas party, and had a great time! I made a delicious guacamole dip with these ingredients, and it was a huge hit!

Lisa was such a great host! I feel kind of bad because I won 2 of the 3 games we played...

One of her games was to guess how many ornaments were on her Christmas tree in 30 seconds, you better believe my detail oriented butt was counting accurately cause I guessed 81 and there was 85!  The prize was a $50.00 gift card to Ricks Chop house downtown McKinney, so excited!!

This is Lisa and I )

This morning I played a gig at The Heights Church in Richardson, it was a beautiful service. These are some of the trees they have on the stage.

I had to teach a lesson after my gig, so the Mr. met me at Firehouse Subs for a sandwich. I chose this hot sauce just because it was called TEXAS Pete :)

I leave you all with a video of my last lesson today with my student Leah, hope you enjoy!

If this is your first time reading my blog, thanks for stopping by and I hope you will become a follower.

I am also on twitter and instagram 

@catsimmonds

Hope you all have a blessed weekend.

~Mrs. S

Christmas Cards

Hello Readers!

Growing up, my family never really made Christmas Cards so it was a tradition I was familiar with until a few years ago, Zac and I began receiving them from different friends and family so I decided to start the tradition myself. I am sure you already saw my CC from an earlier post, but I actually received them and sent them out today!

I always print out the addresses on my computer, and printed the return address on the back. I would rather print them out than make a mistake and ruin envelopes!

I would have liked to have used Christmas-y stamps, but I wanted to get these out ASAP and I only had Flags :)

We have already received several cards from a couple of friends and Texas Senator John Cornyn!

The Mr. used to work for his office in Dallas, so we get a card from him every year

I don't know about y'all but we feel pretty special!

Have you sent your Christmas Cards out yet?!

~Mrs. S

Batman Birthday

My nephew Julian turned 3 yesterday.

My sister threw him a batman themed birthday party, and it was really fun!

Of course he had to dress up like batman, on the left. My other nephew Sebastian on the right is also really into Batman! Wouldn't be a party without a Batman Pinata!

My sister went all out on the batman decorations!

And the cupcakes...

Happy Birthday Julian!

~Mrs. S

Alexander Mansion Gig

Saturday afternoon my students and I played at the Alexander Mansion.

The house is over 100 years old and every year, they open it up for tours and local shops set up tables and sell items to help raise money for the Dallas Women's Forum.

My high school viola teacher who is a member of DWF is the lady on the right, my student in the middle :)

This was the cafe set up upstairs where visitors could have lunch while the shopped

We set up our quartet in the music room,  how cute was the table set up for some tea?!

The music room

My students played beautifully and I was so glad to see my teacher!

~Mrs. S

Ashard Richley/Clishade Trunk Show

Hello Bloggers!

Saturday Morning I had the opportunity to assist my friend Amy of Clishade Cosmetics for a trunk show hosted by Ashard Richley, a Dallas handbag designer. It was so much fun helping make nail polish, and spreading the word about Clishade.

Teresa Frosini of CBS 11 news ordered the first trio of nail polishes so I took a picture of her with Amy  

This was the Clishade table

Ashley of Ashard Richley had some amazing deals on her bags, I snagged 3 for a whopping $30.00!

I'll share pictures of them later, cause one of them is a gift for someone and I don't want them to see it :)

So glad to help a friend out!

~Mrs. S

Stephanie Anne Event

Hello Lovely readers! I am so happy to post about the wonderful blogger event I hosted at Stephanie Anne last week! It was a beautiful night with lovely shopping, delicious food catered by my very own sis Nancy, and amazing photography by Mark Nelson Photography!

Check out the event details :)

Invitation

The beautiful Stephanie Anne boutique at Highland Park Village

SA necklace, earings, and bracelet

My sisters beautiful creation

The shoppers...

I did a short demo on the apparel, my sis was modeling for me!

Lenna of My Possibilities came out to speak about the organization

My sis and mom came out to support :)

The beautiful Amy who asked me to host the event

The Mr. showed up towards the end, he had football practice...

THANK YOU to Mark for all the wonderful photos!

I had such an amazing time, and hope that you will join me at my next event!

~Mrs. S

Christmas Card :)

Big Bow Christmas

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View the entire collection of cards.

Symphony Life

I had the privilege of attending several musical events this weekend and I am so excited to share some pictures with y'all!

Thursday night, my student and her parents invited me to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra On The Go concert at Allen Performing Arts Center. The Hall is actually at Allen High School, and only about 10 minutes away so I couldn't turn down an opportunity to go see the symphony so close by! I was very glad I did, it was an incredible concert full of classics (Dvorak's Carnival Overture, The Nutcracker Suite), the "Dallas" theme as a tribute to Larry Hagman, and a fiddle medley performed by a violist in the symphony! It was so entertaining and regret not taking the Mr. I think he would have actually enjoyed it! (He has a hard time appreciating my art, boo!)

This is the violist who fiddled around on stage

Friday night, I took 27 students to SMU for a Meadows Symphony Orchestra concert with Emanuel Borok as a guest soloist (he retired from being concertmaster of the DSO this year!). It was also an incredible performance, and my kiddos were so excited! After the concert, we were waiting for the bus to take us back, and the kids were star stuck asking the musicians for their autograph... I'm sure the SMU students got a kick out of it, I would have :)

Today, I headed to Dallas for the Symphony of Toys concert with my two sisters and their sons. My previous student's mom invited me, and it was so much fun! Admission to the concert was a new toy, this is the boys donating their toy :) 

Sebastian and Julian

The first piece of the concert was Mozart's Toy Symphony, the people on the top right were play kazoo's and rattles, it was really cute!

I remember playing in this concert 15 years ago :)))

I love going to the symphony, please contact me if you want to find out more about attending concerts in your area!

~Mrs. S