Happy Halloween!

I have more holiday photos to share with you tonight. We carved our pumpkin on Saturday night. Joe and Hope worked on the design and got to carving. When they got to the mouth we decided it should only have three teeth since Hope is missing that many teeth right now. She thought that was funny.

The next morning, she got a pen out of the drawer and drew hair on the pumpkin and gave it a birthmark on the back so it looked more like her. Too funny! Love it!

Around here, we have beggars night so we had our trick or treating night on Sunday. This year Hope went out with some of the girls from the neighborhood that ride the bus together. They all had a great time and we were done in record time, 45 minutes. Not because it was cold, but they all kept running the entire time door to door. It was crazy! They all got a ton of candy too! Great for bribery this week anyway.

I forgot to share a group  photo of my co-workers.  We had our Halloween party/costume contest last Friday.  We had a lot of fun!

There were some really great costumes.  The whoopee cushion had a fart sound on her phone.  It cracked us up ALL DAY LONG!  :)  There was Lady Gaga, Hermione Granger, Raggedy Ann, some spooky witch and other characters.  Then my little office area (aka the party room) did Studio 54 and dressed from the 70's.  We had a disco/light ball, beads hanging around, and lots of groovy music!

I will leave you tonight with a photo i took of a cobweb in the corner of our garage.  I kept watching it and one night the light was just sparkling off it.  It just looked cool.

That web was there for over a month before I got this picture and just a few short days later the wind picked up and it got blown apart.  I guess I was just supposed to take that photo that night.  I thought it was pretty cool.  I guess I already said that didn't I.  :)

My lazy days are over.  I finally broke down and signed back up for FXB.  I had been gone for about 2 months since I hadn't been feeling good.  Well, I feel a little better, but not great.  I think if I got moving again, maybe it would help.  So back to getting up EARLY to go workout so I can get home in time to get Hope on the bus and get myself to work.  I'm tired just thinking about it already.

Well, I hope you all had a safe and fun Halloween.  Can you believe it is November?  Goodness, where did this year go?

Well, I made more Christmas cards a while back, so I will start sharing some of those with you over the next few weeks.  

Darla

Spooky stuff!

Well, we have been in full party mode this week with Halloween upon us.  The week started off with Hope dressing up for gymnastics class on Tuesday (she wore a Barbie dress up outfit, since it was like a leotard and would allow her to still do the gymnastics).  Then on Wednesday they had a Halloween party at the after care program, and she decided to wear a witch costume we had around the house.

Friday afternoon was the Fall party at her school.  I went to help and take pictures.  The kids played a game to see who could make the best mummy with toilet paper.  They had a lot of fun with this game.  :)  Here is one of the mummies.

They also got to do a craft.  They made a spider from a sucker.

This is the scarecrow they made earlier in the day.  This is Hope's hanging up in the window of her classroom.

Then on Friday night, we had the all school Monster Mash party.  It was a lot of fun, but I was tired by the time we got home!  :)

Hope was Smurfette!  We started putting blue make-up on her face for the party and then I noticed that it wasn't washing off my finger.  It was still VERY blue.  Then she had a tiny sore on her chin and it was burning, so she freaked out and wanted it all washed off.  You could still see the blue tint on her face until today.

At the Monster Mash they had all kinds of crafts, pumpkin decorating, etc.

We ate pizza and bought a few treats at the bakesale.

Then it was off to DANCE!  Her face looks funny in this picture, but it looks like she is striking an Elvis dance move.  She was definitely gettin her groove on to the music!  We saw lots of her little friends and they all danced and chatted together.  So fun!

Tonight we have trick-or-treat night (we do it one night early), so I think we are heading out with some of the girls from the neighborhood.

Amongst all of that, there hasn't been much time for crafting, but did you see this...

Check out page 36 and you might find this...

The distressed look was a total accident only because I embossed on paper with a white core.  I didn't sand it or anything.  Funny how those things happen.

Anyway, that is it for today!  Have a great one!

Darla

Lil Smarty!

I took Hope and the twins to the zoo for Night Eyes.  We had a lot of fun.  There were a lot of comments about Hope's costume.  She was Smurfette!

She kept getting upset when kids and adults would say "Hi Smurfette"!  She would huff and say my name is Hope.  :)  Silly kid.

Anyway, to get back to the title of the post...On the way home Hope says-Mom, I am not feeling very smart right now.  Me-why don't you feel smart right now?  Hope-I think I need to eat some Smarties.  She was trying everything she could think of to get one more piece of candy.  I laughed and then said - NO!  She had eaten half her candy before we got to the van.

The pictures are jumbled, but I am too tired to arrange them in the order we did them.  You get what you get...

Anyway, here is Annie and Ally posing with a ghost.

Here are the three of them working their way through the maze.

On one of the paths we found a rainbow and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  Hope got really excited when we came around the corner and saw the rainbow.

On scarecrow lane the girls shook the hands of each one and said nice to meet you to each one.

As we were leaving they had some guys spinning plates.  They would get them started and let the kids hold them.  I love Hope's face in this picture.  Priceless!

Here is all three of them with plates.

They had an area with inflatables and a playset.  They all had fun jumping and playing, etc.

We also took a ride on the Haunted train around the zoo.  It wasn't that spooky in the day time.  :)

Since it was such a beautiful day, I will share a nice and bright card.  This is one of Hope's favorite cards right now.  She loves everything rainbow.  

I made this card by putting strips of sticky tape on a scratch piece of paper.  I took one tape at a time and covered it with micro beads until they were all covered.  Then I just added the sentiment to a banner and drew an edge around the outside of the card.

Well, I am pretty tired, so calling it a night. 

Hope you had a great weekend!

Darla 

Everybody was...

Kung Fu Fighting!  Hope has been obsessed with this song lately.  Her teacher was singing it the other day at recess and for some reason I was singing it at home too and she thought it was funny and wanted me to sing the whole song.  Well, I didn't really know all the words, so I remembered I had it on my iPhone song list (don't laugh).  :)  So she played the song over and over and over and over...you get the picture.

The other day when she came home from school she was walking down the hall stripping her clothes off to change for dance class and she started shakin' her behind at me and singing "shake your booty, shake your booty yeah yeah"!  I started laughing and said the words were actually shake our groove thing...although they do sound similar.  The funny part was how she was shakin it and gettin' her groove on!  She has some crazy dance moves.

Well we made it to the end of the week.  I have a LOT of things I need to do tomorrow.  I need to clean, plant spring bulbs (before it gets any colder/frost), pull up all the summer flowers, etc.  Then we have dance rehearsal and Hope is off to spend the night with my sister.  I have some friends from HS coming into town and we are going to go to a piano bar.  Should be a lot of fun catching up with everyone.  I haven't seen them in a long time.  On Sunday I am going to take Hope and the twins to the Halloween event at the zoo.  I think the weather is going to be nice so should be a good time.

Speaking of animals...here is a layout I created with pictures of the animals we see when we visit Grandma Karen.  She loves putting out food for the squirrels and birds and we always seem to get some great photos of them.

Well, that is it for tonight!  Have a good weekend!

Darla

Cheery card...

...on a cold and blustery day.  It was COLD this morning walking Hope to the bus.  Oh my, I am SO not ready for winter, but I think it is going to come if I am ready or not.  It is supposed to warm up again this weekend, so I might have one last chance to get my bulbs planted.  Nothing like waiting til the last minute.

Hope has been on a silly streak lately and she will say things that just make me crack up.  Usually I remember it and put it in my blog.  Well, all the meds I am on right now for my hives must be fogging my brain because I can't remember any of them.  BUMMER!  Oh well.

We did get an email from her teacher the other day telling us about her "difficult" day.  Just several minor things, but overall it wasn't a great day.  We talked about it and the next day she had a much better day.  I guess those kind of days are to be expected.  I know I even have them every so often.

Well, I have a lot of misc. cards from various projects I have shared over the past few weeks and months that I need to share.  So here are a two of them made from the Easter layout using MME scraps.

I thought these were bring and cheery for the long dreary day we had today (although the sun did come out later this afternoon).

Have a good night!

Darla

Friends...

Hope and our neighbor are BFF's pretty much from the day they met when they moved in just over a year ago.  I was so happy when they moved in too because I gained a friend too.  I love their family.

Anyway, here is a layout of the girls from last fall during one of their many play dates.

It cracks me up that Hope is actually several months older than Anna, yet Anna is almost a head taller than her.  They don't care!  :)

I love hearing them play together laughing, roll playing with dolls, etc and yes they even have disagreements.  Through it all they always end up BFF's!

Well, that is it for tonight!

Goodnight!

Darla

A horse of course!

On the way home tonight from gymnastics Hop saw a horse out in the pasture. She said mom grandma Deloris should get a horse. I just laughed and told her she should ask her the next time she sees her. :). I am sure that will go over well. Hehehe!

Today started off crazy, had one tiny bout of good luck and took a huge plunge down hill from there. I am glad it is nearly over. I will try and be back tomorrow to share another project. My new meds for my hives are kicking in so off to go to sleep.

Goodnight!

Darla

Project 12-September layout

I have had this layout done for quite some time, but just haven't taken the time to share it.  So I guess today is the day!

Here is the sketch it was based on...

...and here is my layout.

These pictures were from our first ice skating experience.  We had a lot of fun.  I loved the colors of these papers from My Minds Eye and thought they were great to use with these photos.

Here are some detail shots of the layout...

I painted the snowflakes white and then sprinkled on glitter for some extra shimmer to the layout.

I found these ice skate stickers to use on this page, so I put them in the middle of all the snowflakes.

Yeah, another layout done that has been in the waiting for quite some time.  I finally finished up all layouts I wanted to create for 2008 and 2009.  I only have a few left for 2010.  I have done a few layouts already for 2011.  I like to jump all over and do what I am inspired to do.  Sometimes it is a sketch that will work with a set of photos or maybe a new line of papers that works perfect for a set of photos that have been waiting for their turn to be scrapbooked (like these pictures).  How about you?

Anyway, I need to get going to pick up Hope at dance class.  Have a good night!

Darla

Hawkeye Fans!

Well, I have been waiting until the right time to share this layout.  Joe has "brainwashed" our daughter into being a Hawkeye fan.  I have no problem rooting for the Hawks when they are not playing one of the other in state rival teams, but we are on opposing teams when the Hawks play my alma mater UNI or even the ISU Cyclones.

Well, the Hawks played a pretty good game last night, so I thought I would share this layout about Hope and Joe being Hawkeye fans.

I actually used a lot of the MME-Sunshine papers, the houndstooth, stripe and glittered circle punch.  The chevron stripe is actually the back side of a Coordinations paper (the front was actually brown).

Yesterday we went to a local orchard/pumpkin patch.  It was pretty chilly when we first arrived, but it warmed up as the day went on.

Our first activity was the jumping pillow.  That definitely warmed me up.  It is the coolest thing, it is like a trampoline and you jump on it.

Here is Hope in the kiddie hay maze.

I went down the big slide with the kids.  I think I may have had the most fun!  :)

Then we did the apple slingshot.  See Hope's apple flying!

Here is Annie and Ally shooting their apples too.

Then we took a tractor ride out to the corn maze.  This was our first year of trying it.

We were given a sheet to find certain items within the maze.  

We found all of the items except the pig and we went through the maze twice.  We have no clue where we missed the pig!

Then we grabbed a bite to eat and the kids took a swim i the corn pool.

They had a lot of fun jumping in over and over and burying each other in corn.

Then we checked out the animals...

...rang the bell at the school house...

...and Hope rode a tractor.

We had a great day.  We finished off the day by picking out some pumpkins, honey crisp apples and an apple pie.  YUM!  It was good!

Well, that is it for tonight!  Have a good week!

Darla

All bets are in...

For those of you that placed a bet that more gems would be discovered in Hope's ear would have lost your bet (myself included). :). There were no more foreign bodies in her ear, but it was irritated by it being in there. So we got some drops for swimmers ear that should clear it up and got her flu shot taken care while we were there too.

Well, not much else going on, so I will share my last Halloween card.  It was the easiest card of all to make.

Hopefully it didn't scare you too bad!  :)

Well, I am off to bed.

Goodnight!

Darla