Game on for Jesus!

This week was Vacation Bible School (VBS) at our church.  Over three sessions, they had over 5,500 kids attend.  How crazy is that?!!!!!!!  I am pretty sure they come up with their own theme, write their own songs (using music we already know) that fit the theme and go all out when giving the message each day.  This year it was Game On with Jesus, with a theme like Mario Brothers/Mario Cart video game, except they were "Moses Cart".  :)

Joe volunteered to run audio and a camera for both the morning and evening sessions this week while he was on vacation.  I think he had as much fun as Hope.  I was off yesterday and got the chance to go hang out at the church and take pictures.

After their last day of song time, the dancers up front thanked Joe for his help doing the audio work and this was Hope's reaction to hearing her daddy's name...

They also had art time, where they made a suitcase so you could take God's love with you where ever you go!

Then it was outside to play for a little bit and snack time.  They even had inflatables to play on.  Fun!  Definitely not anything like the small town VBS program I grew up with!  :)

Then all the kids ranging from age 3 up to Grade 6 gathered back in the worship center to close out the week of VBS.

Look at all that excitement in those faces.  It was an awesome feeling just to be there to experience it.

And how about the energy of all the volunteers in the production of the message.  Amazing!!!  Thank you for the amazing work you do during the two weeks of VBS.

At the end Hope gave Paster Mike a high five on our way out.

Now onto other funny stuff...

She wanted to use her new drink thermos for her school lunch bag and I hadn't gotten around to washing it.  So she decided to wash it herself and all the other dishes in the sink.  Awesome right?  Anyway, in the middle of cleaning out the sink (aka just messing around in the sink with the water) she declared she wanted to be a maid and dishwasher when she grew up.  This coming from the sloppiest kid I know.  Yeah, that "fun" aspect of washing dishes will fade soon enough, but I am more than willing to allow her to be my maid and dishwasher as long as I can get her to do it.  :)

Here she is chilling out on the deck enjoying her drink from her "clean" thermos.

This weekend we are busy dog sitting.  Our first visitor arrived yesterday.  Regis Philbin, yep, that is actually his last name.  Pretty funny huh!  Our dog Reilly is on the left and Regis is on the right.  We took them both for a walk last night.

We have two more dogs coming today, another sister's dogs.  Pictures to follow.  We want to try and get all of them together for a picture.  :)  That might be a funny blog on its own.

Well, since I have been busy getting some scrapbooking done I will share some more cards, using the left overs from the Echo Park paper kit from my last post.

The first card was the most simple of all.  I love looking at pattern paper and how I can cut it to be it's own self made card.  This was entirely how the pattern paper was printed.  The only added thing was the heart sticker using foam tape to give it some dimension.

This is the front of the card...Enjoy...

This is the inside of the card shown above...

And will end today with a birthday card.

Speaking of birthday's, I have a big one coming up in February and I declared I wanted to go somewhere "warm" aka beach.  We have it narrowed down to Cabo or somewhere near Cancun.  If anyone has any suggestions on where to stay or things to do at either location I would love to hear your input.  Just leave me a comment.  Thanks!

Well, after that marathon picture post I am off to enjoy the rest of my day.  Laters!

Darla

The Princess and the Pea...

More on the Title of this post later...

First I will share a few projects with you...

I purchased this Echo Park paper kit right after it came out a few years ago and wanted to use it with these pictures of our bike ride with the neighbor girls to the park.  I just got around to making this layout.  You know how that goes.  The bike is from Pink Paislee.

Since it is TOO HOT to actually go outside and ride our bikes or go to the park, I thought I would share a layout about it.  :)  I stayed in the nice cool AC while creating this layout.

I created several cards from the scraps of the paper pack too.  Here is two of them...

Now for the rest of the story...

Yesterday morning, this was my wake up call from Hope...

She took all the pillows from our bed and put them on top of me and laid down...you know like in The Princess and the Pea.  I guess that makes Hope the Princess and me the Pea.  :)

 Well, stay cool!

Darla

Where are we????

I guess I was a little sleepy yesterday morning, because as I pulled into my work parking lot I hear "Mom, where are we?"  My car had apparently steered itself to work instead of going just a little bit further down the road to Hope's summer program.  Even though she is old enough to get out of the van on her own, etc. I still check the car seat EVERYDAY to make sure she is not in it.  That was always my biggest fear when she was a baby.  Anyway, so we backed out of my primo parking spot and took her on to school.  :)  I think I finally woke up around 2 or 3pm.  :)

I love Thursday evenings, because this is the beginning of my weekend.  YIPEE!  So I am going to keep it short so I can get organized to get some scrapbooking done tomorrow.

This layout used some current and older My Minds Eye papers and the wood letters are from Pink Paislee.  I wanted a super simple layout so it wouldn't detract from the real meaning of the layout.

The journaling is just the lyrics to a Trace Adkins song call Just fishin', which about a daddy and his little girl going fishing, but he knows this is a precious moment he wants to remember.

Everyone have a great night!

Darla

What does a...

...squirrel, a cop, a whale, an old lady with cheater glasses and a sugar plum princess have in common?

The answer would be characters in the play Hope will be in for the talent show tomorrow at her summer day camp.  I was cracking up on the way home as she was telling me about all the different characters.  Too funny!  Oh to be a fly on the wall...

The other funny thing was she said one of the characters was an old grandma that wears those half glasses down on her nose, you know the REALLY OLD people wear.  So I asked her, you mean like the one's Aunt Dee Dee wears?  Her answer:  Yep, those glasses!  Hahahahaha!  I just cracked up!

I got to go grocery shopping by myself tonight!  What a treat and I am pretty sure I saved a TON of money not buying all the garbage Hope always wants to get.

I ran into one of my co-workers and his kids and he had one of the little "customer in training" carts.  Yes, I know they are really cute, but grocery shopping with kids is stressful enough without worrying about your toe getting run over or, heaven forbid, they run over someone else.  OR run into a display and knock it over, etc...

Anyway, I took this picture of Hope with her shopping cart one day to remind me of those "stressful" shopping trips that I am sure I will miss someday.

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

Darla

CHA excitement...

I am a little bummed I am not going to CHA this summer, but other things came up.  That doesn't mean I am missing out on any of the fun sneak peeks.  I have a link to the right where you can check them out too if you haven't already.  Anything you like????  Well, if you are a scrapbooker or paper crafter, then that was totally a rhetorical question.  Hahahahaha!

Here is a layout I made of our family trip to Chicago last summer, when I also attended CHA.

I think I got a picture on here of almost everything we did in Chicago.  I put a clear number sticker on each photo and then on the journal card indicated where each picture was taken.  I think I squeezed 10 pictures on this two page layout!  YES!

I love the year perfectly hidden inside the "O".  :)

Well, lots has been going on since I last blogged.

Hope and I created two small fairy gardens.  Aren't they cute?  I had never heard of such a thing, then when we went to the farmer's market a few weeks back there was a booth there with all kinds of fun things to put in your gardens.  I have also recently found out there is a little shop in the East Village that carries these fun items too.  I might have to take a trip down there and check things out.  :)

Joe and I celebrated 17 years of wedded bliss!  Love you honey!  

Here is the card I made for him.

The button was from a jar of buttons we got from his aunt's house when her daughters were cleaning it up to sell.  I was the lucky recipient of these old buttons.  :)  I wanted to use it on something special and who better to give it to than my hubby!

Hope and I went swimming and I got sun burnt (even after putting on sunscreen several times-I guess I didn't get every spot each time).  Oh well.

Hope had a great time in KC with the twins, grandma, Aunt DeeDee, Kirk and Lauren.  Thanks for the few days of  peace and quiet.  It is always greatly appreciated and I know the girls love spending time down there.  

As I mentioned in my last post, I created the featured July kit at The Scrappy Gourmet.  Go get yourself one!  I know you want to!

And I am very much looking forward to a visit from my BFF-Kristi.  She is coming tonight and we are going to Adventureland on Sunday.  We are going to have lots of fun catching up.  I feel like it has been FOREVER since I have seen her even though it was just February.  :)  She has a new boyfriend occupying her time, so we don't chat as much as we used to.  Luckily I like him.  Hi Mike!  :)  Now get off of FB and get back to work so you can get on the road to my place with Kristi.  Hehehehehe!

Well, that is it for now.  Hopefully it won't be so long before I post again.  You know the summer schedule just gets in the way sometimes.  Laters baby!  (Wink)

Darla

Happy 4th of July

This is quite possibly the quietest Independence Day I have ever celebrated.  The reason...Hope is visiting Aunt DeeDee in KC, so it is just Joe and I.  I am SO glad she wasn't here, because going to the parade and fireworks tonight would have been sweltering.  It is SO hot and I think I heard it got up to 100 degrees again today.  WOW!

So I have been home most of the day just scrapbooking away in my nice cool AC.  Perfect!  :)

Anyway, keeping it short...so here is a card in honor of the holiday.

I have had this flag ribbon for quite a while now, and decided it worked really good with the embossed card front.  Add a star stick pin and call it done! 

Thank you to all the service men and women and their families for their service and sacrifice for our freedoms.  Have a safe evening and don't melt watching those fireworks.  Oooh!  Ahhhhh!

Darla