Brrr!

Wow, what a difference a few days can make.  The weather temperature had been up and down a lot lately.  Today is a chilly rainy day.  We are home from church and just got comfy in my sweat pants and going to try and have a relaxing day the rest of the day.    I think I am going to read a book snuggled under a nice warm blanket.

Speaking of reading, Hope loves to read too, so I had to capture her love of reading in a layout.  I love how it turned out.  I need to add some handwritten details of her age, but didn't get that done before I photographed it.

Well, I am off to find a good book and snuggle up and get warm.  Have a great Sunday!

Darla

The Hunger Games

Well, I just finished the third book.  I think overall I liked the series.  The second book was my favorite for some reason.  And the ending was ok for me, in general how each character was left.  I know, not exactly a glowing review, but I can't give away too much without giving away how it all turned out.  Overall, it definitely had lots of "What?" moments as I read something and had to let it sink in of what I actually read.  At the end I even missed one of the names and got several pages into the chapter before I realized it was someone else they were talking about.  :)

Anyway, keeping it short and sweet.  Hope had school pictures taken a few days ago, so thought I would share a layout of her Fall school picture.  This was a VERY simple page layout using the Little Yellow Bicycle papers and a few other goodies.

This fall, Hope lost three of her front teeth just days before school started.  She was so cute with her toothless grin and I told her the morning of pictures that I wanted her to smile big so I could see her toothless grin in the pictures.  When she got home she told me they said to close her lips.  What?  Ok, this picture is still cute, but I REALLY wanted the toothless grin captured.  Oh well, we got several of them at home.

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

Darla

A little bit of everything...

Conversations with Hope tonight covered a lot of topics that I can hardly even remember all of them.

She was telling me about the clouds and how they are all connected.  So I pointed out a cloud that was all by itself and she explained that they are all connected by invisible string.  :)  I asked her where she learned that information and she said I just learned it.  Me:  ok.

Then she started explaining that she actually learned it from a friend at school who learned it from another friend and so on and so on through about 10 different friends...

Then she started saying someone's great grandma wrote about it in a book and it was written in cursive, not jewish.  I giggled and asked what jewish handwriting looked like and she said you know jewish.  Ok.

Then we had a conversation about generations, like why some grandmas are grandmas and others are great grandmas, etc.  Not sure she got it, but she will eventually.  :)

She had a good day, so we went to Maggie Moos for ice cream after I picked her up from school.  She won a free scoop for getting a 100% on the spelling challenge.

Then home for supper and a quick play date with the neighborhood girls and off to bed.

Here is another share...since I mentioned ice cream here is a Sweet card.

The white starburst had glitter glue added for a bit of sparkle.

and this is the inside of the card.

Well, time for the bedtime routine!  Goodnight!

Darla

May the odds...

...forever be in your favor!

Yes, I have been reading the Hunger Games trilogy books.  I am about half way through the third book and am planning on making a dent in it tonight after the chickie goes to bed.

Speaking of odds...Hope came home today and started gibbering about winning a 3DS and I had no idea what she was talking about.  Apparently she won a prize during the all school assembly celebrating the spelling challenge they had last week.  "Mom!  They called my name!!! I won it"  She was pretty excited about it.

She also brought home some of her prized art pieces from school.  They are pretty cool, so now I need to get pictures of them so I can scrapbook them.  They are pretty cool looking.

I purged my scrapbooking area this past weekend.  Hope decided last week she wanted to sell some of her toys at a garage sale to earn more money to buy that American Girl doll bed, so we started cleaning out her toys and have a pretty good collection of things to sell that she has outgrown.  It is kind of sad to see her let go of some of these things, but I know they will find a good home with another little girl that will love to play with them.  So luckily in two weeks our neighborhood will have a HUGE garage sale and we hope to make some money to buy different toys.  :)  So I am also hoping to sell some scrapbooking items so I can also get different toys too.  :)  I am also purging the kitchen and other areas of the house too.

Well, I will end with another share...

This is a two page and single page layout kit now available at The Scrappy Gourmet!  You can get yours here!  The kit is only $10 for everything you need to make both of these layouts!  And they are very easy to put together.

I am off to do a little reading!  Have a great night!

Darla

So amazing!

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a young women's conference.  I was invited by Hope's birth mom, Jessica.  She was going to be one of the guest speakers to talk about her open adoption experience.  Also on the panel of speakers was a young mother that chose to parent (at the age of 14) and an adoptive mother.  It was such an emotional moment listening to Jessica describe how she made the decision to make an adoption plan and how our open adoption experience has been a positive experience for her.  She had a great message to share and she is so amazing.  She had a picture of the three of us the day we met her for the first time.  We all looked SO young.  :)  As I sat there looking at that photo and as I drove around town to get to the college, I had all kinds of memory flashbacks.  The hospital where Hope was born, the hotel we stayed at the night we brought her home from the hospital, the flower shop we stopped at to take flowers to the hospital...so many things came to mind.  I am so glad I was able to make the trip down to listen to her speak.  I thank God everyday for bringing Jessica into our lives and for her for giving us the best gift we could ever receive...Hope.

Are they not the cutest?!!!!!


Got my first massage in almost a year...and it was AWESOME!  I am going to be sore, but she really got the knots out of my back.  Ahhhhhhh!  Thanks Cindy!


Ok, here is another layout I made last weekend.

I love this simple layout about Hope and two of her "Tried & True" friends, who conveniently live just across the street.  :)  I loved when the zipper ribbon came out and I finally found the perfect place to use it for the first time.  Now hopefully I won't be so afraid to use it in some of the other colors I have collected over the past year.  


Well, I am off to see who will be sent home on American Idol tonight.


Darla

Banner Weekend!

I am finally getting around to posting about my retreat weekend (from last weekend).  I had a GREAT time as usual.  They did give me a hard time about creating so many pages with banners on them, hence the title of the post.  Anyway, the beauty of  not scrapbooking chronologically is that my banner phase will be spread out over several years.  :)

As usually Tara made lots of great "healthy" food and the CHEESE was top notch!  :)

Here is a page I made from the weekend and I will share more soon.  It is one of my favorites using the new MME papers.

I took Hope to see the Easter Bunny this week.

Well, have to keep it short today, but Hope to be back soon!  Happy Easter to you all!

Darla