Parties, Painting, and Pets at The Willows of Arbor Lakes

Parties, Painting, and Pets at The Willows of Arbor Lakes

February 18th, 2022

Residents at The Willows of Arbor Lakes welcomed 2022 in style. We had a New Year’s party with delicious snacks, beverages, decorations, party favors, and lots of laughs. Everyone raised a glass as we celebrated the new year.

Residents at The Willows of Arbor Lakes recently took the chill out of winter with some colorful arts and crafts.

We used watercolors to paint penguin pictures. Many participants used warm colors to brush away the winter blues and give these penguin paintings a cheerful, spring-like feel.

Spending time with animals makes people happy and is good for the soul. Pet therapy has been linked to increased levels of energy and self-esteem as well as improvements in mood, movement, and motor skills.

Residents at The Willows of Arbor Lakes recently got a dose of pet therapy when they got to hold, pet, snuggle, and spend time with a little dog friend. This pup provided joy, love, and a feeling of calm during this visit, and our residents soaked it in. 🐶♥🐾

Staying Safe and Having Fun

May 29th, 2020

Although group activities may not be currently happening, we’ve been staying safe and having fun in other ways here at The Willows of Arbor Lakes! 

Residents continue to keep busy in their apartments with coloring, word puzzles, video calls with family, jigsaw puzzles, crafts, and more!

Our staff has also been providing room-to-room service with treat carts. Our recent mimosa and cookie cart was a hit! ??

Enjoying the beautiful weather and sunshine by spending as much time outside as possible!

Appreciating the Love and Support of Our Community

April 30th, 2020

The Willows of Arbor Lakes is still feeling the love and support of our community during this pandemic. We are thankful for Charlotte’s family, Vi’s family, and a volunteer from Cedar Island Elementary for providing us with handmade masks. Students from Cedar Island have also been drawing and sending pictures to residents here at The Willows, and we couldn’t be more appreciative of these incredibly sweet gifts! We also want to thank whoever was kind enough to put “Thank You Staff” signs in our parking lot. During these trying times, we’ve decided to participate in the “A World of Hearts Project.”  Our residents had fun cutting out hearts and taping them to our windows. We love our residents and our community! ❤️???

Valentine’s Day and Birthday Celebrations

February 27th, 2020

February was a busy but incredibly fun month here at The Willows! We even combined our Valentine’s Day and birthday celebrations for one mega-party. Check it out!

Earlier this month we had an extremely fun (and tasty) time frosting heart-shaped cookies to get ready for Valentine’s week! ❤️❤️

We had fun doing various crafts for Valentine’s Day including yarn-wrapped hearts, LOVE paintings, and heart magnets.

We combined Valentine’s Day and our February birthday party for one BIG and very fun celebration. Monroe Wright did a fantastic job entertaining – our residents loved singing, clapping, and even dancing along to his music. Happy birthday to Delores, Tom, Susan, Lori, Clayton, and Gail! ❤️??

2019 Holiday Celebrations

January 10th, 2020

December was FULL of holiday celebrations! Who doesn’t love this time of year? We sure do around here at The Willows – just look at the fun we’ve been having!

From decorating the trees to making ornaments, December provided our residents with MANY opportunities to share their creative side!

Last month, third graders from Cedar Island Elementary School made dozens of gingerbread houses for us to enjoy on around our dining room this holiday season!

Thank you to everyone who attended the holiday party at The Willows of Arbor Lakes! It was incredibly special to see so many family members and to celebrate the holiday season with everyone!

Santa came to visit on Christmas Eve and spread holiday cheer throughout The Willows! ?

The Crimson Harmony singers from Maple Grove High School have performed for us every December since our community opened, and their music is always a highlight of our holiday season!

On December 20, we sang along to favorite Christmas songs during a performance by Amy & Adams while enjoying eggnog, gingerbread, holiday petit fours, and more!

Our residents loved hearing the Osseo Oriole Chamber Singers perform so much that they couldn’t help but sing along!

For the 2nd year in a row, we enjoyed a December performance from a lovely and talented string trio. One of the players is the great-niece of a resident here at The Willows of Arbor Lakes, which makes the music even more special!

Loren Wolfe swung by The Willows last month to help us celebrate our December birthdays. Happy (belated) birthday to Charlotte, Pat, Verna, and Joan!

End of fall fun at The Willows

December 2nd, 2019

Get caught up on the end of fall fun we’ve been having here at The Willows of Arbor Lakes!

It’s a bit late, but we wanted to share all the fun we had for Halloween this year! In the morning, we were “treated” to some reverse trick-or-treating from families of Living Word Church. Later that afternoon, we played Halloween bingo while enjoying spider truffles, candy corn, and other goodies. And to complete the day, we played pumpkin toss with ghost bean bags!

To celebrate World Kindness Day on November 13, residents here at The Willows made Kindness Cards for each of our staff members to thank them for their hard work!

To celebrate World Kindness Day on November 13, residents here at The Willows made Kindness Cards for each of our staff members to thank them for their hard work!

The residents worked hard cutting out “grateful hearts” and painting them to decorate the dining room for this month’s theme: “Give thanks with a grateful heart.”

We recently took a crack at Peanut Butter Pie. We love trying new recipes here at The Willows, and this one was a hit!

You can check out the recipe for yourself here: https://bit.ly/2XzGRIA

Our residents always enjoy having a treat together for social hour!

Embracing the Fall Spirit

October 29th, 2019

Embracing the fall spirit at The Willows with crafts, a field trip, and yummy treats. Check it out!

The weather was beautiful for our annual fall drive earlier this month. The colors had really “popped” over the weekend, and we enjoyed looking at trees, farms, fields, and animals along the way. ??

The residents were busy cutting out and painting leaves to bring a little fall color indoors! ??

After working hard to make pumpkin cheesecake mousse on Friday, tenants were able to relax and eat the yummy treat while sharing fall memories with each other.

Residents painted pumpkins last week to help fill The Willows with color and fall spirit.

Football, Family, and Fundraising

September 24th, 2019

September has been a fun and busy month full of football, family, and fundraising efforts for the Alzheimer’s Association. Check out some photos below, and don’t forget about the 2019 Walk to End Alzheimer’s this Saturday, September 28!

Even though the Vikings didn’t beat the Packers, the residents had fun watching the game and cheering them on! ?

It’s always a party when Randy Rolloff is around! We celebrated September birthdays on the 13th with Randy’s fantastic entertainment. Happy birthday to Josie, Leroy, Muriel, and Vi! ???

Throughout the month of August, Willows of Arbor Lakes residents were hard at work making homemade bingo prizes our Alzheimer’s fundraiser. They made fall refrigerator magnets and yellow “you are my sunshine” canvases. They all turned out amazing!

The Willows of Arbor Lakes hosted a “Family Bingo Night” fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association on September 11. We received over 50 generous bingo and raffle prizes donated from businesses, which enabled us to have an evening of great fun for a great cause!

End of Summer Celebrations

August 30th, 2019

August means end of summer celebrations, and we were sure to embrace the upcoming season change in style!

Last week Josie taught us to make her favorite recipe of Southern banana pudding. It was so delicious that it even had some of us licking the bowls!

It started out as a rainy day, but the sun came out, and we enjoyed a great “end of the summer” family BBQ last week!

This week we enjoyed music by Bobby and Christine. They really know how to get us singing along and clapping in our seats!

Two Saint Bernards visited while we set up for our August birthday party and were such a fun surprise! Nigel Egg stopped by to play some music and help us celebrate our August guests of honor: Esther, Louise, Pauline, Dorothy, and Mary.

The birds around the Willows were well cared for this month! We created homemade bird feeders out of toilet paper tubes, peanut butter, and bird seed.

Karaoke Fun and Patriotic Parfaits at Willows of Arbor Lakes

July 16th, 2019

To say we had fun at karaoke last week would be an understatement. One of our resident’s daughters has a Karaoke business (Karaoke Paradise), and she brought karaoke to the Willows! We had a blast singing and dancing to many favorite songs. We originally planned the event for an hour, but everyone was having such a great time we kept going for a few hours! There’s a lot of talent here in the Willows community!

With the help from volunteers Katelyn and Shawna, we made patriotic parfaits with fresh strawberries and blueberries. They were delicious!