Oh Scratch! YUM!

I am in SO MUCH TROUBLE!!!  A new cupcake bakery opened this weekend, so we stopped in the check it out and of course had to come home with one for each of us.  It is called Scratch Cupcakery.

Hope came home with a Princess cupcake.  Karen (Joe's mom) got a raspberry one, which I think was my favorite one out of all of them (she let me try a bite).  :)  Joe got Happy Day!

And I ordered the Blackout, which was a triple chocolate combo with chocolate buttercream frosting, chocolate cake and a chocolate filling.  It was good, but my head was spinning by the time I got done eating it.  YUM!

The weather is beautiful, so a lot of our snow is melting today.  YEAH!  But the nice weather is short lived as it will be back to single digits by Monday.  Boo!

So since we are hoping for an early spring, here are some spring inspired cards to share with you...

These were made from Pink Paislee papers from a few years ago.

Some of them I added some beautiful laces too and sometimes a touch of glitter to the pattern in the papers.

The button below is one I got from Joe's grandmother in a big container of buttons from her.  :)

For Christmas I received a small jar of antique buttons that were originally Joe's other grandmother's.  The small jar was an old prescription bottle from 1973.  That was the year I was born.  :)

I will have fun using the buttons that were inside the jar.  :)

Well, I am off to try and work off my sugar coma from the cupcake I had.  Oy!

Enjoy your weekend!

Darla

  

Mom, did you hear about the incident?

This question took me by surprise when I picked Hope up this afternoon.  I figured there was an email from her teacher waiting for me in my inbox, but then she started to giggle and told me...

Well, this morning the door on another bus wouldn't close and so my bus stopped behind it on the side of the road and picked up all the kids on the bus.  So she got to sit with a boy from her class, Peter.

She giggled again and said, he LOVES ME!  Mom, he whispered in my ear that he loved me!  Yikes!  Here we go again!  I just had to laugh.  He is a new boy in her class, so probably just a "new kid" crush.  :)  Mom, we were also late for school!

Then once we got in the van she said they had been coming up with funny jokes and she had come up with the funniest one of ALL!  What is angrier than an angry bird?  An angry chicken!!!!  And then she laughed her head off and tried to explain to me why a chicken is angrier than a regular bird.  I don't get it, but still laughed my head off!!!!!  LOL!

Then while I was cooking super, Hope was singing SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPEALIDCIOUS (or something like that)!  Ironically, I loved this song when I was a kid and used to sing it over and over and over too.  You know, the song from Mary Poppins.  They have been singing it at school in music class.

Well, so far, that was my evening in a nutshell, how about you?  LOL

So here are some cards to share with you...

I hope I get to send one of these baby cards to a friend of mine really soon, who has been matched with a birth family and have been chosen to adopt their baby.  Prayers to all involved, for peace and comfort to the birth family and prayers to (hopefully) the new adoptive parents.

Well, I am off to keep watching the premier of American Idol!  Love me some Keith Urban accent!  :)

Darla

More Birthday...

I think we are FINALLY done with Hope's birthday week.  :)  She invited five other girls to open gym time at her gymnastics gym and then we all came back to our house for cake pops and play time.

It actually worked out pretty good, so they just had a little time to play after eating the cake pops.

It was the first time Hope and I used her cake pop making machine.  It worked pretty good, but there is a learning curve to some of it.  We will do better next time.  :)  I ended up wrapping a card board box in fun paper and poked holes in the top for the pop sticks to hold and display the cake pops.  It worked great.

Here are a few more cards using the Crate Paper scraps from the baby gift album I made a while back.  Some of the cards even worked to make into kids birthday cards.

Alright, it is cold outside, so I am going to go snuggle up for a while.  Sure do miss my furry snuggle buddy.  :(  Goodnight!

Darla

Thanks for the memories Reilly!

Yesterday was a hard day that I knew was coming...our dog Reilly died.  I am so thankful that I was able to be there for him just like he was there for me during some of the darkest days of my life.

I had Hope give him a hug and a kiss before she left for school.  On the way down the stairs she asked if there are funerals for dogs.  :)   I got her on the bus and shortly after I got back to the house he passed with me by his side.  It was very sad, but peaceful.

He LOVED playing in the snow, so I was also glad that we got some significant snow for him to play in this winter.  Somehow I knew it would probably be his last year for snow.  :(

He was always so happy.  It always looked like he was smiling and would always wag his tail anytime he was around.

He was sometimes a big ol' furry beast!  He had so much fur!!!!!  And it was always so soft.

He got me through a lot of tough times...he filled my empty arms while we waited for a baby....he snuggled with me during times of loss...he helped me through the year when dad was sick...all the aches and pains, disappointment, etc during our infertility years...job losses...and just ordinary bad days.

He brought a special something to our family since they day his cute little puppy self came into our lives 13 years ago.  He was so cute!!!!

Reilly...I know you are up there with the best...dad and all his grand-dogs (Polly, Wally, Sammy and Lucy) and I am sure he has already called you dumb dumb like he used to.  :)  Thanks for being everything a dog should be!  Love and miss you...

Darla

Proceed to Party...

Red Solo Cup, I lift you up....yep this is the song Hope turned on when we got home.  SO for her birthday party tonight, we decided to use red Solo cups.  LOL!!!!

Hope turned EIGHT years old today.  I can't believe it!!!!  She received a lot of birthday wishes from everyone and I think she had a pretty good birthday.

This morning we had a sign on the door for her.  Here she is being CRAZY eight in front of it.  :)

You would think as crafty as I am that I would have made a beautiful crafty sign...yep didn't think of it. I don't know why, guess I have had too many other things on my mind.  Maybe next year.  :)

Grandma Deloris and I took cupcakes to school to celebrate with her classmates.  Of course she requested rainbow cupcakes like normal.  This is Hope with her teacher Mrs. Harper.

Then tonight we dined on gourmet macaroni and cheese (AKA-Kraft from a box) and turkey burgers.  And of course a birthday cookie.  We don't do anything normal around here do we????

Before we got to eat, she insisted on unwrapping her gifts.  She got the scooter for her dolls from Grandma Deloris.  We got her a few small things...markers and sketch pad, which were sneakily wrapped in an American Girl Doll box.  So she was a little surprised when she opened that box and it wasn't from American Girl.  :(  She also wants the doll camper from Target, but they are nowhere to be found right now.  So we wrapped up a pictures as an IOU.  :) 

She also got legos AND her very out laptop.  She had mentioned the other day that was one thing on her list.  So Joe got an old one we had in the basement and cleaned it out so she can play a few of her own games on it.  And there are no major worries of her breaking it since we hadn't used it in years anyway.  

And she can learn responsibility of taking care of it too.

And I also downloaded a few other pictures of the eagles, which were on the little camera.  I can't believe I was able to get a picture this good with a point and shoot camera.  Pretty cool!!!

Alright, here is a birthday layout I did for Hope's 6th birthday, that I haven't shared yet.  That year I took her to get her nails done and she wanted rainbow nails.  She picked out a different color for each finger.  The man at the salon wasn't sure what to think at first and then thought it was funny!

I used the heart charm to encircle the number six, since it was for her 6th birthday.

To make the rainbow I cut circles and just layered them on top of each other and then cut the circle out of the middle.  Then I just cut it in half.  Now I have another rainbow to use on a card at a later date.

Alright, it is time for the birthday girl to get to bed, so goodnight!

Darla

Eagles and Mr. Snowy...

Yesterday we drove downtown to try and get a glimpse of the bald eagles hanging around the river.   We were able to get a few shots of them flying around.  It was pretty cool.

Then I had to go out and buy some birthday presents for Hope.  This year I decided I would wait until after Christmas to get her birthday gift.  BAD IDEA!!!!  I don't know what I was thinking, but there is NOTHING left out there.  I did manage to find a few small things, but the thing she wants is out of stock.  So I told her we would get it when it comes back in stock, but she wouldn't have it to open on her birthday.  So hopefully she won't be too disappointed tomorrow.

Anyway...while I was out shopping Joe and Hope went sledding and made a great snowman for our front yard.  Hope named him Mr. Snowy.  :)

The other day, when I was taking pictures of my latest batch of cards, Hope saved one for the very last and said it was her favorite.  So that will be the card she gets from me and Joe.  This is it...

I can't believe her birthday is tomorrow.  Eight years...hard to believe.  More on that tomorrow.  :)

Anyway, here is a few more baby related cards to share with you too.

Have a good night!

Darla

Happy New Year! 2013

Welcome to 3013!  And as Hope puts it...only 7 more days til my birthday!  Yep, maybe I should start thinking about getting presents and planning a party?????

Well, we spent a nice quiet evening at home last night.  Hope was convinced she was going to stay up until midnight.  We didn't bother arguing with her, since I didn't think she would make it this year.  And  I was right.  She fell asleep around 11.  She wasn't too upset she missed the ball dropping in NY.

And today was pretty quiet too.  We kept ourselves entertained with a movie this morning (The Odd Life of Timothy Green-highly recommended), some scrapbooking, football, Wii and cooking up some of these...

YUM!!!  They were so good.  We grilled half and steamed half.  Really I couldn't tell much of a difference other than if you cook them outside you won't have the smell inside.  :)  So if you stop by in the next day or two, you have been warned.

Since it is a new year I thought I would share pictures of a baby gift/album I created this fall.  My friend Pam had twin boys.  I rarely get to do scrappy boy projects, so this was a lot of fun to make.

I used a Fancy Pants album with the pocket and journal pages in it.  It also has picture sleeve pages too, so you can just slip in pictures too.

 These are just a few of the pages I decorated in the album.

This is the back cover.  I wrapped the train die cut around from the front of the album.

I created a coordinating gift bag and made several baby cards too, that I will share over the next few posts.

Well, I am off to enjoy a fire in the fireplace and watch one of my favorite shows...Parenthood!

Goodnight!

Darla