Happy Easter!

He is Risen!  He is Risen, indeed!  We enjoyed a beautiful Easter service this morning.  Very moving.

Before church, Hope hunted for eggs around the house.  We must have had a VERY tall bunny this year.  LOL!

She did get a few things in her basket too, more paint and canvases to create more masterpieces.

And she did some climbing to get to some of the eggs too.

Yesterday after the funeral, we had our family Easter dinner at Debbie's house.  So we had a quick egg hunt outside before it got dark.

Grandma Deloris with Hope, Annie, Kenton, Kendal and Ally.

After we got back inside, I caught Kenton taking eggs out of Hope's basket and into his own bag.  BUSTED!  :)

This one was just cute!  He had put stickers all over his face.  Wish he would have felt better, he had been spiking a fever off and on trying to cut some of his molar teeth.  Not fun!

Earlier in the week, we were watching Dawn's dogs Regis and Max (pictured with Hope).  Hope put one of her dance skirts on max so he was ready for dance too.  :)

We also went to the open house at Hope's school this week.  Hope and her teacher showed me how to do an equivalent fraction with these magnets.  So cool!

Then we went to the computer lab for some fast math games.

There was also a tangram activity in the art room and we ate supper there too.  Fun night!

After we finished at school, we decided to try and visit the Easter Bunny.  Hope decided she didn't want to see the bunny (oh well), but still wanted to ride the train.

We did a little shopping and headed home.

Well, that was our week (mostly) in a nutshell.  Here are a few more Easter related layouts to share.

This was Hope's visit last year to the Bunny.

This is Easter morning, 2012.

 Alright, I have some napping to do this afternoon, so I better get to it!  :)

Darla

In memorial...

Well, I am not going to bore you with a lot of details today.  It has been a busy week, but nothing new there, right?

I do want to honor the memory of my uncle Dean.  He passed away this week.  This is the uncle we went as guardians to the WWII memorial in DC as part of an honor flight in 2009.  It was such a great day.  Here are a few pictures from our trip (with my husband Joe, myself and my niece Jody).

Dean, thank you for your service to our country.  I have many fond memories of time spent with uncle Dean and aunt Ruth.  Say hello to dad for me.  God speed!

Darla

Busted bracket!

Bummer, when the Cyclones lost today my bracket is busted.  I was hoping for sweet revenge against Kansas in the final game with ISU being victorious in a national spot light!  Oh well!

And now onto Easter activities.  Because the game was on during our normal church service, we decided to go to one of the Saturday night services, you know for palm Sunday (eve).  :)  Last year's services for Good Friday and Easter Sunday were so powerful.  I can't wait to experience this year too.

So today we decided we better color eggs.  Hope invited the twins over, which my sister was very glad because coloring eggs is one of her most despised activities!  LOL!  You are very welcome Dawn.  You owe me!  :)

Hope had picked out the glitter egg kit.  I made her pay me the extra $2 it cost over the basic color kit.  Next year we know just to use our own glitter and sprinkle it into the dye instead of paying extra.

The twins brought over the marble dye kit.  We only used the oil in a few of the colors.  It was kind of cool, but again, would just buy the regular kit and add oil to a few of the colors.

We started out without aprons on, which we soon discovered were needed!!!!  These are messy kids!  We went through a LOT of paper towels.  :)

So hopefully Hope and I will get to the bunny sometime this week too.

And of course, it has been snowing all day.  Luckily, it isn't sticking to the roads and isn't very deep in the grassy areas either.  I think I heard it was supposed to be in the 50's by Friday.  I hope they are right and that we don't look back!  Seriously, it is Spring, now act like it!

This was a picture of Fred the squirrel Hope and Joe took while visiting Karen last week.  We love to watch him eat the corn she puts out on her deck for him to eat.  

I forgot I haven't shared this with you yet.  A few weeks ago, I took a class at my local scrapbook store on using mixed media.  We created an altered book.  They had a guest instructor, Cheryl Mezzetti come in to teach the class.  I had heard and seen all these fun products, but didn't really know what to do with them.  This was a great way to try out all kinds of fun products.  I think they might even be fun to use on greeting cards too.  We will see...

So this is the front cover of my book.  The book I brought had a picture of this lady on it, so I wanted to use that as part of my design.  I covered the left side with music note pattern paper and then used gesso and paint to alter it.

The modeling clay was a lot of fun to work with and may even find a way onto my scrapbook pages too.

The back is where I started to experiment with mixing colors together to get a bronze like color with the green tint (which was actually a turquoise, yellow and rose color mixed together.

I wanted to use a bolder color on the inside, so i used the turquoise inside and tried out a different stencil for the modeling clay.

We also learned how to glue the pages together using matte medium and applying gesso.  So I have several pages ready to go, when I am ready to play around with the book again.  

And here are a few Easter layouts to share too...

These pictures were from last year coloring eggs.  I dug DEEP into my stash for these papers.  I think the papers were dated from collections in 2007????  I remember looking, but I don't remember for sure. Even the circle gems have been in my stash for a while.  At least the letters were fairly new.  :)  It felt good to use something from deep within my stash.

I used different colors of cats eye inks to color the letters.

I have a few more Easter layouts to share this week, so will be back again as time allows.  

Darla

 

Happy Birthday Joe!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband Joe!  Here is to many more happy birthdays for us together!!!!!  Hope you get to feeling better soon (he woke up with a little case of the sniffles or more of a stuffy head).  :(  So we stayed in tonight and watching the BB games.  I hear there are a few of them on tv.  LOL!

Seriously, go ISU Cyclones!

Joe and Hope played some Wii bowling, since we didn't go to Bass Pro Shop to bowl and for supper.

Then we  finally let Joe unwrap his present.  A while back we visited West End Salvage here in town, which just recently got it's own tv show on HGTV.  The guys on the show were super happy to have their picture taken with Joe.  This is Don, the owner of the shop...

And this is Hal.

So I had the idea to go down and get him a hat from the store and I had all the guys on the show sign it.

Fame looks good on you honey!  :)

So if you love make over shows with a twist, check out their show, you can get details on their website HERE.

So in honor of Joe's birthday, here a a few fun birthday cards.

Well, time to go watch some basketball!  Have a good night and I hope we pull out a win!

Darla

Spring???

Well, the calendar says it is officially spring, but I don't think Mother Nature got the memo.  BRRRR and I think we are still to get more snow this weekend.  WHAT!!!!!!  Seriously, I am SO OVER winter.

I am ready to hear a nice rumbly thunderstorm and birds chirping and flowers blooming, etc.  How about you?

So I have been missing in action for a while.  Just busy and haven't taken the time to post about our adventures in life.  :)

Hope's favorite meal at school is Chicken Patty on a Bun, so both Joe and I made arrangements to eat lunch with her last week on that day.  It was ok, but definitely not my favorite.  :)  The veggies were good.  Maybe it was because I kind of lost my appetite before we even got to the table.  I noticed a kid in her class that had a glossy look in his eyes and yep, you can guess what happen just a few seconds later.  The teacher walked by our table and commented..."never a dull moment around here, is there".  LOL!  (sorry for the blurry photo)

Hope finished up another round of swimming lessons and showed great improvement.  She felt it was necessary to wear these goofy looking goggles.  Oh well.  Cracked me up!

And I might just be the luckiest wife/mom around.  This week was been spring break for Hope and Joe took the week off to hang out with her.  They left last Saturday to go visit his family and I got to stay home and enjoy some quiet mom time.  I worked all weekend on a scrapbook project for The Scrappy Gourmet.  I will share it with you SOON!

So this is Hope and her horses she won at the school festival a few weeks back.  She HAD to take them with her and they nearly took up the entire back seat with her.  LOL!

Joe and Hope went to the Science Center today, and apparently Hope wasn't impressed with seeing Sue the dinosaur.  :)  They are at the dentist right now, so can't wait to hear all about it when they get home.  I hope she had a good report from the dentist, but not expecting it for the little sugar eating monster!

Anyway, on to some other crafty shares...

Kristi, this one is for you.  Hope you are feeling better soon so we can go scrapbook in a few weeks.  Can't wait!!!

I love some of the spring inspired images and hope they are just outside my own window very soon!

I will try and be back soon!  Have a good one!

Darla

AWESOME!

This was Hope's reaction the other night when she put the pieces together that (someday) she would grow BOOBS!  Yep, you read that right.  I busted out laughing!!!!

While we are on the subject, the last time we were shopping at Target, she also asked if she could get a bra.  Oh my!  Let's just say she doesn't need one yet and I am not ready to go there yet either.  I know the day will come though.  I better stock up on some wine before it gets here!  :)

We have been some busy people around here.  This weekend the twins came to stay with us.  Dawn is trying to sell her house and was having an open house and needed it to stay clean.  So the best plan was for them to vacate.  :)  They were busy building with legos almost the entire time.

This picture cracked me up!  Yep, those are headless lego bodies and legs.  I loved it how all the arms are up in the air.  Just struck me as funny!

And here was another area of bodies and legs.  I wonder where all the heads are???????  Well...

...Hope was using them in her creation.  Not sure what she was creating, but it is cute how the little heads at the top are just peaking over the edge.

And here they are with their final creations.  Ally had a four story bus that even had lights that lit up.  Annie built several cars and buildings that were pretty cool too.

Well, I need to cut this short.  I am sure there a lot of other things that happened over the past few days, but time to commence the Battle of the Homework!  Oy!

Anyway, here are some cards to share with you...

My heart was heavy today as another sorority sister was affected by a tragic death.  Her son was tragically killed in an accident when a tree branch fell on him.  So sad...today was the funeral and my heart and prayers go out to Tiffani and her family.

Her son's name was Garrett and his final act of life was to be an organ donor.  His organs were donated to help over 50 people.  It is good to know his spirit will live on in each and one of those recipients.

Please consider being an organ donor.  Ironically, this past weekend I went to renew my driver's license and I gladly (continued) to answer yes to being a donor.  I hope you will too.

Have a good night and blessings to you all.

Darla