Remembering Grandma...

This morning we lost Joe's grandma.  She had been suffering from congestive heart failure for the past few months.  We are all sad and will miss her spunky attitude.  This was a picture of her at her 93rd birthday party in September.  She was doing great!

She was an avid Chicago Bulls fan!  Joe was lucky to find this blanket and trash can to give her.  She loved it!

She was quite the character.  I have a lot of great memories...

1.  Like when you play cards you always sit with the bathtub.  I know what you are thinking...huh?  This is something she always swore by when we played cards.  Whoever was sitting in the same direction as the bathtub in the house was who would win.  When someone was on a hot streak, she would laugh and say, oh you must be sitting with the bathtub.

2.  We both loved reading...especially Janet Evonavich books.  She thought they were funny and the grandma in those books (in some ways) reminded me of her.  :)

3.  She loved to crochet blankets and loved to give them away.  We have a lot of wonderful afghans in our home that will keep us warm for many years to come that will remind me of her every time I use one.

4.  She always had a huge garden and each year she said she wasn't going to plant one next year and she just couldn't help it and would plant one anyway.  She always competed with her grandkids' gardens to see who had the first ripe tomato.

There are so many more great memories that I will hold in my heart.  She was a great lady and will be missed.  Thanks grandma for all the great memories.

Darla

Snuggies!

Ok, have you heard of these things.  :)

Today, we were so cold that we started joking about getting snuggles with our company logo on it.  Hehehehe!  Ok, I guess you had to be there, but trust me it was pretty funny!  Love the leopard print!.  Jeff, if you are reading this, I want one like this!  :)

Ok, while I am writing this blog post, I am also watching the new show Touch, with Keifer Southerland.  WOW!  I think I like it.  I hope it lasts.  I actually haven't started watching a new show in years because every time I find something I LOVE, they cancel it.  This has potential...to be good.  Check it out!

Have also been watching American Idol.  What was up with Magic Cyclops tonight?  How weird and of course he was from IOWA.  Good grief!

Alright, here are a few more cards to share...

These are both simple cards made from scraps.  The one below is only pattern paper, the flowers and the sentiment button in the middle.  It was just a matter of how I cut the pattern paper.  EASY!

Alright, I have had enough for tonight! 

Have a good one!

Darla

Faker!

Got a call from the school nurse today.  Hope wasn't feeling very good and she actually believed her because she has never tried to go home except when she really was sick.  I guess she fooled the school nurse pretty good because she was totally faking it!  She may have had a stomach ache, but I don't think it was because she was sick.

When we were walking out of the school she told me she hadn't had lunch yet.  So, when we got home I asked what she thought she wanted to eat and she asked for (clue #1) ravioli.  Good grief!  So I insisted on chicken noodle soup.

Then after the soup finally cooled down for her to eat, she decided she needed to do (clue #2) jumping jacks between each bite.  :)  Are you suspicious yet?  I know I am.

And now she is (clue #3) upstairs playing in her playroom.  I know I should probably be making her suffer and just lay on the couch, but it is Friday so we are just going with the flow.

The jury is still out, but I am pretty sure she just had gas and not the flu.  :)  Oh well.  I got to come home and snuggle up under a blanket and get nice a snuggly warm for the night.

Now that I have warmed up, I am going to do some scrapbooking.

Today is my niece Jody's 30th Birthday!  So in honor of that occasion, here are two birthday cards to share with you!

Well, here is to some happy scrapbooking!

Darla

BRRRRRRR!

Ok, winter has finally arrived and it is cold.  So, we decided to go sledding!  I know, but my neighbor called to see if Hope wanted to go, so we drove down to the neighborhood sledding hill.  There was just enough snow to make it slick going to down the hill and fairly easy to get back up.

Here is some of the gang...

Here is Hope making her way up the hill...

As we arrived at the hill, one of the neighbor kids (Bruce-he is the one in the black/yellow hat below) sat down on a sled and I asked him if he was ready to go down, then I game him a small push and down he went.  When he got to the bottom he was crying because he was scared.  Oh man, I felt really bad. 

Then somehow Hope convinced him to get on the sled with her and off they went.  This time he LOVED it.  Way to go Hope! 

And here is Anna and Hope on one of the last runs!

Of course, the VERY last run I put the camera away and jumped on the sled with Hope.  We flew down the hill.  Boy, it was quite the workout getting back up the hill.

There is more snow in the forecast tonight, so maybe we will go back to the sledding hill this weekend.  Maybe it will be warmer.  

So here are two more cards I made recently...

I had a mixture of rub ons to use for these cards, so my idea with this one is when one of your friends needs a lift, bring her ice cream!  :)

...so the inside says "always share their ice cream!!!"

This is a simple card that used the pattern paper as the card design with simple additions to finish it off.

Well, that is it for tonight!  Hopefully Hope comes home soon from the neighbors.  She ended up having supper with them after they had hot cocoa.

Good night!

Darla

Adoption-isms

Last night, Hope and I were on our way to dance class and she told me I was a lucky mom.  I told her thanks and agreed that I was a lucky mom, since I was her mom.  Then she starts mumbling about other things and says, but you aren't my birth mom.  Anyway, she kept mumbling and thinking out loud and finally asked, "Mom, which side of the family is Jessica (Hope's birth mom) from, your side or dad's?" I kind of chuckled and explained that she was kind of a third side of the family.  Then Hope decided that she was from her own side of the family.  I love how she thinks these things out loud with me.  I know she is understanding more about what it means to be adopted and I love that none of it has to be a mystery to her.

Well, the weather here has been cold and snowy today.  It is supposed to warm up again tomorrow and then snowy and cold again.  YUCK!  So to warm things up I made some cards from a summer paper line I have had in my scrap stash for quite some time (a couple of years).  :)

I have had this transparent title for a few years and finally decided this was the perfect card to use it on.

This is actually a birthday card (below)...the inside reads "we all scream HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Well, I am going to relax in my warm cozy bed and read a book.  I am just not in the mood to scrapbook tonight!  Bummer!

Goodnight!  Tomorrow will be a better day!

Darla

Life is Good Today...

We had a pretty good weekend around here.  I got to do some scrapbooking, I finished the book I was reading, went shopping and got to sleep in.  It doesn't get much better than that!  I really needed a weekend like that.  Thanks Hope and Joe for helping it happen!

I haven't taken pictures of all the cards I made this weekend, but will share them soon.

Here is the last layout that will be included in a kit available at The Scrappy Gourmet (soon)!

Most of the product on this layout is from  Pink Paislee.  The chipboard letters were left as is (they are from the Mistables line) and I wanted them to just pop off the page.

I ended up using a letter "P" for the "d" in today, but if you purchase the kit you will have enough upper case "D"'s to use it if you want.  I had a different title planned for one of the other pages and had inked the letters, but just couldn't make it work like I wanted to (so I changed it).  Now I have inked letters that might work on a different page some day.  :)

My title came from the Zac Brown Band song by the same name.  The pictures pretty much depicted the chorus of the song (with my own G rated version).  :)

That was such an awesome day and I know with true winter weather expected in my neck of the woods I am going to be wishing I was there this week! 

Well, not much else, so will catch you later this week!

Darla

Hey, it's THAT guy!

If you don't live around my neck of the woods, this will mean very little to you...

We went out to eat last night to celebrate Annie and Ally's birthday last night.  They wanted to go to O'hana's Steak House.  The commercials on tv show the owner doing his cooking "moves" at the hibachi grill and everyone and then he is shown all around town with everyone saying, hey it's THAT guy!

Well, we actually had Cy (you know THAT guy) for our chef last night.  He was awesome and the food was even better!  YUM!  And the leftovers tonight were even better.

The girls ordered Smurf drinks.  Hope really enjoyed her drink and ended up with Annie's too!  Good grief, that is a LOT of sugar to deal with.  :)

A good time was had by all!

Now that we have finished up with the birthday parties for a while (well we still are trying to get together for all the Winter birthday's), now I can finally get back to scrapbooking.  That is exactly what I did tonight and it felt great!  I pulled out an old bag of scraps and just started making cards.  The ideas just started flowing and then it is time to go to bed.  So I thought I would jump on the old blog quick before I hit the sack.   Anyway, I ended up making five cards and have a lot more coordinating scraps from this batch to use up.  Hopefully I will get back to them this weekend!  Keep your fingers crossed.

Here is another layout coming soon to The Scrappy Gourmet.

Oh I so wish I was at that beach RIGHT NOW!  It was a near perfect day.  I have always wanted to just go to the beach, get a chair and just lay there and read, relax, eat and drink.  And that is exactly what I got to do that day.  PERFECT!  Well, until it started raining.  Even after it started raining, I met a group of people having out under the tent and we had a few more drinks.  Fun times!

Well, I better head up to bed.  One more sleep til the weekend!  

Goodnight!

Darla

 

Golden Birthday!

Hope had a great golden birthday this weekend!  Joe went to wake her up on Saturday morning and she was sound asleep.  He whispered in her ear Happy Birthday and she jumped up immediately and screamed "It's my golden birthday".  It was pretty funny.

For those of you that don't know what a golden birthday is, it is when you turn the same age as the date of your birthday.  So Hope turned 7 on the 7th.

She had a pretty good day.  We started the day by opening her presents from Grandma Karen.  We were chatting with her on FaceTime at the same time so she could watch her.  Technology is AWESOME!

Joe made us pancakes and then we let hope unwrap her gifts.  She got a chalkboard for her American Girl doll, school toys.

Here is the birthday girl with her balloons.  She could hardly wait for her guests to arrive.

Here she is blowing out her candles on her birthday brownie.  That is what she wanted!  :)

Then we went out to eat at Red Lobster where she dined on macaroni and cheese, biscuits and mashed potatoes.  The rest of us had something more fitting from Red Lobster.  :)  It was good.

Today's funny came tonight when we were entering church.  Joe and I were signed up for the new membership class to join the church.  Hope was to go to the daycare area.  The last time she went there was when I went to an adoption group meeting.  She asked why she we hadn't gotten her baby sister yet?  Huh?  I laughed and had no idea what to tell her.  I hope she doesn't get her hopes up too much.  I guess we will just see what God has in store for us in that area of our lives.

Did you see the new Scrappy Gourmet blog?  Check it out.  

I also have a new kit available there for all your great Disney Memories.  You can buy it here.  Here is what it looks like.  You can see detailed shots in my Gallery at The Scrappy Gourmet.

That is it for tonight!

Darla