Have you ever...

...considered canceling Christmas?  Well the way Hope is acting tonight, she may get a BIG surprise Christmas morning.  :)  Ok, I could never do it, but really she is being a pill tonight.  Ugh!!!!!

Here is that cute picture of Colin in his dapper little hat.

Isn't he the cutest!  :)

Anyway, I am keeping it short tonight because I want to go finish the book I am reading...The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks.  I love his books and so far I have enjoyed this one.  I think I need to make a trip to half price books again soon to stock up on some Sandra Brown books and see if I can find any of the books by Gregory Maguire, who wrote the book Wicked.  I guess there are a total of four books in the series.

Here are a few more Christmas cards to give you some holiday spirit!

Here's hoping we don't have to cancel Christmas!  Good grief Charlie Brown!

Darla

Thankful...cont.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great day visiting my mother-in-law and part of my husband's family.  Both his brother and sister had to work, so on our way into town we stopped to visit his brother Rick and his sister Kristine got off work just before we left town.  We also stopped quickly to visit Great-Grandma, but she wasn't feeling well today, so we didn't stay very long.  Overall, it was a nice visit and it was good to see everyone (sorry Julie we didn't make it to your store to visit) no matter how long the visit.

Here is a cute picture of Colin.  The battery on my camera died and I have an even cuter picture of him in his dapper hat.  I will try to share it tomorrow.  Aren't those the cutest eyes!  The puppy is what we got him for his birthday.  It plays music and he was dancing with it.  It was fun seeing him start to take some of his first steps.

Hope was busy making cards for everyone during our visit and she had a lot of fun playing with Colin.

And I was thankful that I still have the touch.  I rocked Colin to sleep.  He was so good today.

I have so many things to be thankful for this past year.

Tomorrow Hope and I are going to see the new Muppet Movie.  I can't wait.  I loved watching The Muppet Show when I was Hope's age.  I remember being sick one time and I slept through the show and when i woke up I was mad mom didn't wake me up.  Funny how I remember that!  We listened to the Muppet Channel on Sirius radio on the way home.  My favorite song was "Rainbow Connection".

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Darla

Thankful!

I am so very thankful for so many things in my life! My family, friends, job, church...I am so grateful each and every one of you are in my life and everything you do for me.

There are lots of little things I am thankful for in my life too...

Hope has been playing with my old legos again and we have spent lots of hours this week building.  I still love building with legos.  See that "vintage" castle.  :)  That was one of my favorite sets.  You can also see the train tracks too.  We keep forgetting to stop and get batteries so we can make the train run on the tracks.  It is pretty cool.

Hope also has the Toy Story lego train too.  Both trains are sitting on the table inside the tracks.  Fun stuff! I just wish they made more "girl" friendly legos, like a partner brand like Barbie sets like they do for Star Wars, etc.  :)  That would be fun too.

Anyway, tonight Hope and I made oatmeal cookies.  They turned out  PERFECT and oh so yummy!

While we baked cookies, we listened to some of her favorite songs on my iPhone, which includes:  Kung Fu Fighting, All I want to do (by Sugarland) and a few Taylor Swift songs.

I am thankful that Hope loves to sing.  On veteran's day, her class learned the song "Grand Old Flag" and she has been singing it over and over again!  Love it!  I keep trying to get her to let me record it, but no luck so far.  

Here is a quick card to share...

May you have visions on deals on Black Friday, but you won't see me out there!  Too crazy for me!  :)

Anyway, have a great Thanksgiving!

Darla

What's Up?

Not much to report here.  Just working, getting Hope to dance, scrapbooking, working out, getting Hope to gymnastics, Christmas shopping...you know the normal stuff.  Have you started Christmas shopping?  I have.  :)

Since there isn't much going on, keeping it short and sweet!  Here are two similar Christmas cards to get you in the mood.  :)  The papers were from Bo-Bunny (from a few years ago).

Well, have a merry evening.  :)

Darla

Football!

Oh my!  I am not a huge fan of watching lots of football, but this weekend I did my share of following a few games.  Friday night, the Cyclones upset the #2 team to shake up the BCS standings.  That was an exciting ending!  Then another exciting game with the Hawkeyes and my alma mater team at UNI also won and took a share of the conference title!  Way to go Panthers!

Anyway, between all those games, a long dance rehearsal for the Nutcracker (for Hope) and just trying to rest up I am exhausted!  So I am going to keep it short tonight (just like the work week)!  Oh yeah!

Here are a few more baby cards I made using the Simple Stories baby line.

Have a great night and will be back soon!

Darla

Happy Birthday Colin!

A year ago yesterday, my nephew Colin was born.  He was almost 8 weeks early and was delivered early because his mom had developed eclampsia (had moved beyond pre-eclampsia).  It was pretty serious for both of them.  Here is a picture of him a few days after he was born, in the NICU.

This was one of then first times Kristine got to hold him.

 Luckily I can report that both are healthy one year later.  So I wanted to celebrate Colin's first birthday, which was actually yesterday!

Look at this big BOY!

Isn't he CUTE!!!!!  I can't wait to see him next week and see all his new "tricks".

Speaking of babies...I have another gift album for a co-worker that had a beautiful baby girl on Wednesday.  Welcome to the world Grace Mae.  Isn't that name beautiful.

Sorry for the badly lit pictures, but I wanted to share this tonight and forgot to get pictures when it was still daylight out.  Oh well, you get the idea.

I used the Simple Stories baby line.

This is the inside cover, where they can put a picture of the baby.  The rest of the album is the Fancy Pants Brag book with pocket pages, photo sleeves and journal pages.

 I used almost every little scrap I had to make this project.  I made those papers go a LONG way for projects, layouts, cards, etc.  Check back over the next few days to see more baby projects I made using these papers.

Well, that is it for now.  Everyone enjoy your weekend.

Darla

Project 12-October Layout

Today I am going to share my layout using the October 2011 Project 12 sketch.

It is titled Dancing Queen.  These were pictures of Hope dancing with Just for Kix a few years ago.  They had several performances throughout the year, which included during the half time show of the D-League pro-basketball team here in town and a dance at a local mall.  Then at the end of the year they did one dance at a small recital.  She had a lot of fun.

Here are some detail shots of the layout...

...and heer is the Project 12 sketch the layout was based on.

I didn't have much journaling, so I used that area for a larger title.  The space looked kind of bare, so I ended up adding another photo under the title too.  And to include the small details, I used small letter stickers right on the photos to describe where each performance was happening.

Everything on the layout was from My Minds Eye, with the exception of the letter stickers, which were from Pink Paislee.

Speaking of dance, we are getting into performance week with the Nutcracker.  This coming weekend she has a long rehearsal.  I am helping out at this rehearsal, so I am sure by the time Saturday is done I am going to be tired!  :)  It will all be worth it because I know she is having fun.

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

Darla

Wicked!

This word holds many meanings for me this week!

The best of all, was I got to see the musical Wicked!  It was SO AWESOME!  I loved the story line and how everything connected with the movie the Wizard of Oz (which was one of my favorites growing up).  I caught a lot of the clues throughout the show because I have seen it so many times.  Loved it!  If you have not seen it and have the chance to do so, I highly recommend it.  We had great seats and the show was fantastic.  Thanks Debbie for getting the tickets and maybe next time you will feel up to coming with us.  :)

You and tequila make me crazy....this is a whole other story, but those of you that know it can smile and giggle along with me.  :)

Sunday night was a big party hosted by our church.  This was a silly picture I captured of Hope while we were waiting to get in.

This is an expression I have seen her make a lot lately and it always makes me laugh.

Then on Monday I stopped taking a few of my meds I have been on for  hives and luckily the hives have not come back, but going off the meds is making me a little crazy (aka WICKED).  I think I am finally coming through the fog.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that once I am done with the steroids too that I will have no more hives.

I forgot to mention that I got several pages done at the church scrapbook event.  I had a lot of fun and look forward to the next one.  I will get photos taken one of these days and share them here.  The layouts were for the P12 project for October and November.

Then this week has just been the normal busy activities of dance, gymnastics, work, etc.  You know, normal life stuff.  So I am finally getting back to blogging.

We had Hope's school conferences last night with her teacher.  I am happy to report that she is progressing just fine in school.  She is actually a part of the gifted program for reading and math and we got more information on what she has been doing.  I knew she was reading really good, and she is actually reading at a third grade level (she is in first grade).  Now we need to work on her comprehension skills to go along with the reading.  I am glad that she enjoys reading so much since I love reading too.

Well, I guess that is about it for now.  I will share another Christmas card.

Have a good night!

Darla

I get to Scrapbook!

I am pretty excited about this weekend, which has officially started since I am off tomorrow.  I am helping  organize a scrapbooking event/crop at my church and it will be all day tomorrow and part of Saturday.  I am looking forward to getting a little time with fellow scrapbookers to get some stuff done.  I always have bigger hopes of getting more done than I actually get done, but it is still making progress.

Today's Hopism...when she got off the bus I noticed she had a completely different outfit on than what she went to school in.  Normally this means she probably had an accident at school, but today she announced that she jumped off a mound of snow and ended up falling in a puddle.  Then all the way down the sidewalk from the bus stop, she jumped on every last pile of snow left in the yards (which isn't much).

Well, now she is wanting to play some games on Barbie.com website, so my share of computer time is up.

So I will end with another card.

Have a good night!

Darla

Loves to read!

Last Saturday, Hope was waiting for me to finish eating breakfast so we could play a game of UNO Attack.  She patiently occupied herself by picking up a book!  She loves to read and is devouring books like crazy.

She is anxiously awaiting her most recent Scholastics book order.  She is getting some of the rainbow fairy books, two books about horses and a stationary set.  She could only get the stationary set if she promised to write letters to Great Grandma Weber and some of our other family members that live further away.  And she will be using them to write thank you notes this year for her Christmas and birthday gifts.  That is a habit I want to try and teach her early.

Anyway, the weather has been dreary around here for the past few days with constant rain.  I think it is supposed to turn to SNOW by morning.  I would only be happy about this if I didn't have to get up and go to work tomorrow.  YUCK! 

Anyway, speaking of snow, here is another Christmas card...

...again, this was a very simple card to make because I used the pre made stickers and matching cardstock papers from BoBunny.

Well, I am off to organize my projects for a crop this weekend!

Have a good one!

Darla

Where is Tom Turkey?

Hope was excited to show me her homework project yesterday.  She brought home a blank picture of a turkey with instructions for us to make a disguise for him so he wouldn't end up on the Thanksgiving Day dinner table.  Hope came up with her own suggestion of using fabric to make him a princess.

So before she got home from school, I looked through my scrapbook supplies and found a few things.  She was ok with one of them, which was actually an old hair tie that had broken.  She wanted purple fabric.  Well, before I was a scrapbooker I was a quilter, so we went up and raided my old fabric stash.

Here she is cutting up pieces to add to her turkey disguise.

And here is the finished project (or it was at one time).  I think she added more to it after I took this picture.  

Now I know my fabric stash is going to get some use.  Since she likes to use the sewing machine, I might let her just start sewing pieces together.  This will probably be a good project to do over Christmas break.

Speaking of Christmas...here is another card to share.

Well, I am off to get another project off my list...ordering pictures from Shutterfly.  It has been months, so it will be a pretty BIG order.  

Darla

Christmas List!

Well, we have started getting all the major store fliers with the big toy sections, etc. so Hope has started making her Christmas list.  And since she has had a good week so far, tonight we made a stop into Toys R Us to look around.  We also needed to get a birthday gift for a party this Friday, so we got something for that too.

Anyway, she didn't go as crazy as she did last year pointing to EVERYTHING, especially if it was pink.  There are a few things that I am sure I will pick up and others that will probably slip my mind.  :)

She seemed to like the Squinkees????  What are these things?  Are they just little playsets, or are they just the dispensers?  I guess I don't get them????

I was totally bummed that she didn't want any legos, although she did seem interested in the general pink box of legos.  She said we would get legos because I want all the Harry Potter legos.  I know, I am still a kid at heart and would have a BLAST putting all those sets together.   Santa, if you are listening...

She is really into art right now, so I will probably be getting some various supplies for that kind of activity. She has her own art area and loves being in it all the time, so we go through a lot of paint, paper, etc.  

Speaking of art and crafting...she has become interested in sewing lately and is always asking for a sewing lesson.  So this weekend we got it out again and I let her sew on paper.  After a while, she had the hang of using it all on her own, so I went to work on some other projects on the computer.

She cut up lots of different papers and got to work on a special project.

Once she had the letters on each page, she sewed them all together to spell her name.  :)

Then she ended up making a LOT more words and put those all together to say..."I love you mom, love Hope".  It was very long, so I took it to work and hung it up in my office area.

Well, it has rained all day here.  YUCK!

So I am going to share a bright and cheery card to end things tonight!

This was another SUPER easy card I made with scraps.

Well, that is all for tonight!  Stay warm and dry!

Darla

You ate what????

Hope got home today and was all excited because she had a good day.  As we went through our normal routine she told me she only ate the "booger" (this is what it sounded like).  I was like, What?  Then she further explained that at lunch she only ate the burger between the bun, but not the bun.  I had to laugh because my mind went to how I spelled it.  :)  Although it wouldn't be the first time she did that either.

Anyway, she told me what she ate at lunch.  Sang me some songs while she ate her snack, told me about her eye test and just jabbered away.

We decided to go see if we could find any Halloween costume bargains.  Hope was wanting to find a Tangled/Repunzell costume or maybe Strawberry Shortcake.  We didn't find either of those, but we did come home with a Jasmine costume.

Before we left the house, she picked up a Junie B. Jones book and started reading.  While we were driving around, she was reading.  She is just devouring books and I LOVE it.  She earned her Book It Pizza Hut pizza for October.  She is off to a good start for November.  She had her 20 minutes in before we got home from gymnastics.

On my own front, I survived my first day back at FXB.  And so far, I am not as sore as I thought I would be, but I can tell the difference.  Tomorrow is kickboxing, so I am ready to get it on!  I am trying to get back into the nutrition too.  Wish me luck on that!

Alright, now it is time to share a little holiday inspiration.  I hear we are possibly supposed to get snow tomorrow.  Yuck, but we do live in Iowa so better embrace it!  It is going to come no matter what.

This card was made from BoBunny scraps from a line several years ago.  I made a single page layout earlier this year and then immediately used all the scraps to make me some easy mailing Christmas cards.

Well, that is all for tonight!

Have a good one!

Darla