We've been One Up'ed

It is hummingbird season, and this weekend we put out some feeders at our new house.  They didn't have any troubles finding us.  :)

HOWEVER...Grandma Deloris somehow managed to capture six hummingbirds at her feeders (at the same time).  Do you see them all?

Well, we had a busy weekend...so here is the condensed version.

I took Hope, mom and the twins to the farmer's market.  Hope had a snowcone for breakfast, mom and I had Dutch Letters, Annie had a cinnamon roll and Ally had a rice krispy bar.  Healthy, right?  LOL!  Maybe that is why I don't make it down there very often.

There wasn't even a line for the balloon animal guy, so each of the girls got one.  Ally...giraffe, Annie...a bird on a swing, and Hope got a bunny.

This shirt cracked me up!

We decided to go for a walk on the Principal River walk bridge and to the Chinese garden by the river. On a side note, Annie had on the I (heart) bacon shirt and ironically enough it was nation bacon day.  She had a LOT of comments on her shirt at the farmer's market and could have sold a bunch of them.

Hope found this rock by the river and wanted to bring it home as a pet rock.  (eye roll)  LOL!  Well, it turned out to be the perfect rock for our newest Fall fairy to sit on (see first picture too).  Good eye Hope!

I found this cool teapot house and all the halloween decorations for our fall fairy garden.  My favorite is the witch legs.  :)  We have added several things since this picture too.

That isn't all...my friend Kristi, her son Owen and friend Chris also came to visit.  And Joe's mom was also visiting.  We had a full house, but we had a great time together and of course got in some time in the hot tub too!

It was Still HOT on Saturday, so the girls stayed cool on the slip n slide on our hill.

Once it cooled down we finally lit a fire out back.

On Labor Day we planted some fall flowers in Hope's window box.  Joe set up her doll and horse on the bed so they could watch us.  LOL!  We ended up with pansies and two mums on each end.  I guess we didn't get a picture of the finished boxes.  

I actually grew a potato this summer.  While I was mixing up the dirt in the pots I found this and couldn't figure out what it was...then remembered the vine was a potato vine.  :)  Hope wanted to cook it for supper.  LOL!

Well, that is about it for tonight...here are some fun bird cards for you!

(card inside)

I love making cards using pattern papers with built in designs on them.  Love the MME glitter papers.

Time for me to fly...

Darla

Oh the DRAMA!

Ok, it is too early in the school year for drama.  Oh my friend was playing with someone else and I asked if I could  play with them and one girl said No!  Oy!  So I handled it kind of badly...sort of.  :(  We are constantly working on being a good friend, etc.  Ultimately after some conversation (the part I didn't handle good) I asked her what she would say if those same girls asked if they could play with her and other friends.  Well so and so I would tell her no (obviously the one who told hope no).  So I explained the golden rule and all that and she was pretty upset about it all.  Oh, it is only the third week of school.  I am sure it is tough being a new kid, so I hope things work themselves out, especially without drama between mamas too.

SO.....onto happier events (in no particular order)!

Last weekend it was HOT, so we went to Dawn's to swim.  There were lots of friends there and even Max the dog got to swim too.  He loved it.  It was so cute, we we pulled him out of the water his legs would still be doing the paddle.  LOL!

There was a town festival with fireworks out at the new Hy-Vee (that opened this week-YEAH).  We got there early to hang out and Hope got to meet Tinkerbell.

Dawn had another open house last week, so we got some puppy time with Regis and Max.  Hope loves it when they come to visit.  She was playing with them in the laundry room.  I even went and sat in there too for a while because I just wanted to hang with the dogs.  :)  Oh I miss my Reilly!  Sniff...Sniff.

Speaking of dogs, I think we finally agreed to get a GoldenDoodle.  We found a nice breeder that will have puppies available in the Spring.  I wish we didn't have to wait so long, but that will give us time to get everything ready.  Oh I can't wait!

The hummingbirds have found us here at the new house and we have enjoyed watching them in the mornings and evenings buzz all around the feeder.

And Hope's newest sleeping place (when she comes in the middle of the night) is our closet.  Made me think of  Harry Potter in the first book where he lives in the closet under the stairs.  LOL!

Well, it is about time for me to head back to the dance studio to pick up Hope from her dance class.  It was too hot to sit in there today so I decided to come home since we live really close.  That is nice!

So here are some random cards for you to enjoy!

Have a good night and stay cool out there!

Darla

Just a short update...

This will be way shorter than the past updates, since we haven't done much since the last update.  LOL!

Pretty much since school started we have just been working to get into a new routine, including a later school start time.  It is kind of nice not to be rushing as much as last year.  Her school starts 40 minutes later than her school last year.  So this morning before the bus came, I actually had time to eat breakfast, unload the dishwasher, clean up after breakfast and even catch up on Facebook all before we needed to head out for the bus.  :)

The crazy starts tomorrow, with dance on Wednesdays and Thursdays each week.  We decided to pass on gymnastics this fall.  We will see how everything is going so far.  Hope also decided she was  going to pass on doing The Nutcracker this year too, so she could save the money toward a puppy.

I wish I could tell her we were going to get a puppy sooner rather than later, but I can't.  And that is all I have to say about that.  I think the saying goes..."if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all".  :)  Just another reason to look forward to spring.

The upside to the above is that I BETTER get a lot of extra scrapbooking time since I won't need to go outside with a puppy for potty breaks.  Hint...Hint!

Friday night, Joe and Hope watched the Chiefs game together.

joe dug out all his Chief's stuff for the game.  :)  Too bad they lost, maybe next time!

Hope fell asleep before the end of the game, so she painfully made him watch the end of it again (on DVR) the next morning when she got up.  LOL!

Sunday, the twins came over for a playdate and an afternoon dip in the hot tub!

That is about it...here are some birthday cards to share too, in honor of my friend Shannon's birthday today and Kelley's BIG 40 tomorrow!  Hope you had/have a great one!

Well, I am off to finish up a load of laundry and call it a night!  Have a good one...

Darla

She had a great day!

Hope had a great first day and I even made it through the day without getting a call from the teacher.  :) You know, for cutting a large hole in her new "first day of school" pants, etc.  Ok, that was only in first grade, but I have received phone calls from her other teachers early in the school year for various reasons.  So I was very proud and happy to hear that she did great today.

So, I will share what has been going on around "The Weber Resort" as Joe keeps calling our new home.  LOL!

Hope and I have been enjoying smoothies, and she even drinks them with the secret ingredient...spinach!  You can't even taste it.  I got the recipe here, from Iowa Girl Eats.  She has lots of great recipes.  We have tried different variations of fruits to give us some variety.  Between the two of us, we each have a glass of smoothie.

One day we made too much, so we decided to make popsicles with the left over smoothie.  They were pretty good.

Hope wanted to have a spa day at home, so I got a container out so she could soak her feet and I painted her finger and toe nails too.  :)

We had a visit from Hope's birth family.  :)  This is Ethan, Hope and Luke and...

...new baby Hannah.  Hope was so excited to get to meet Hannah.  She is such a doll.

And of course, one of the reasons Joe has been calling our new home a resort.  We decided to buy a hot tub.  We have been in it each night this week since it was delivered on Monday.  :)

Hope had a lot of fun with the box the platform came in...we called it summer red neck sledding!

She would crawl in the box and I would push it down the slope of our back yard.  That box brought us many hours of entertainment!

And on to other news...before the start of the state fair, my work had a butter sculpting contest.  Of course, this is because the fair is famous for it's butter cow sculpture. Here is what we came up with...

A Minion (from Dispicable Me)

A first place ribbon (this was my creation, along with Amy D.)

Dice

Corndog

A butter "finger"

And the price went to the bird's nest.

There were a few others too, but my pictures didn't turn out.

So speaking of the fair, we decided to go on Sunday and we had a great time as usual, but very tired by the end of the day.  At least it wasn't a million degrees out.  :)

We started at the petting zoo...

Dawn and I by the Floppy display.  This was the kids show on right after the noon time news.  You could get up and tell jokes, beep his nose and then they showed a cartoon.  I was on the show once for my friend Dana's birthday party.  I remember being too scared to beep Floppy's nose, so he beeped it on my arm.  LOL!

Of course, the girls had to get lots of tattoos.

While walking through the horse barn, Joe found a PINK horse.  The girls loved it and the owner let them get close for a picture.

Hope got to milk a REAL cow!

Hope's favorite part of the day was when she discovered she was FINALLY tall enough to ride Crazy Mouse!  For the past four years she has wanted to ride it and this year she finally could.  Joe went with her and she loved it!

We also did "Little Hands on the Farm" too.

And we also ate our typical food on a stick (at least the corn dog was), mini donuts and a lemonade.  YUM!

Well, if you made it through all that, then you are pretty much up to date on all of us!

So, in honor of the fair, I have a layout using pictures from 2 years ago.  I actually just scrapbooked last years pictures this week, but haven't gotten a picture yet.  To follow soon...

Alright...have a great night and I will be back soon (don't expect a third post today though). 

Darla