The things that matter most

The most important things in life…are not a things at all.   

Busy Baker

I’ve been a little busy with the baking lately.  Caitlin had their Blue and Orange meet this past weekend so I made some cupcakes to take for the tailgate.  They were soooo cute.  I frosted 1/2 of them blue and the other 1/2 orange.  Then I made the Illinois “I” out of candy melts and sprinkled them blue and orange.  Cute, cute, cute.  Sadly…….they had to sit in the car during the meet, and while it was a beautiful cool fall day, it was too warm in the car and the “I”s melted.  I was so disappointed.  So I was sure to post the before photo on FB so the girls could see that they really were cute and I didn’t purposely make ugly cupcakes!

This Friday Conner is hosting a bake sale to benefit a local PTO group for his senior project.  So I thought I would make a few things for him to take.  I dipped Oreos in pink candy melts and made pigs and then dipped some in green to make frogs.  I’ve done the frogs before for a swim function…but the pigs were new and I love how cute they look. 

 

He is making cake pops and cookies as his donation……I’m sure I’ll be doing some of the decorating since he doesn’t quite have the patience for such things.

I’ll post some photos of those goodies later this week.

 

Summer catch up because I’m a bad blogger

I suck at blogging… I won’t lie.  So here’s the short version:

June: Went to Colorado to help my mom out when the old man had his knee replaced.  He didn’t know I was coming and I had this grand idea of how the surprise would go….I would walk in the hospital room and he would JUMP out of bed and walk on his new knee like it was a miracle!  This is what happened….I walked in the room and he said “oh, hi Cin”. (Cindy is my oldest sister).  WHAT!?!?!  Okay, we do look alike, and I should be happy because I out weigh her by about 40 lbs.  BUT really?…you didn’t recognize me, your FAVORITE daughter?  I really think it was the drugs…it had to be the drugs….

This is my beautiful mother, my sister Cindy, me, and my brother Rob.

July: Brian started a new job in July down in Spartanburg South Carolina.  He left 2 days after I got home from Colorado…so there was really no time to think about any of this…Conner swam at the senior state meet and had an AWOME meet…resulting in a few more colleges being interested in him…always a good thing.  And Brian got one year older.

August: August was quite a busy month….

Caitlin turned 21!

Conner had senior pictures.

Conner had his wisdom teeth out.

We went to South Carolina to visit Brian.

Caitlin had her wisdom teeth out. (and we now know that she must be a happy drunk!)

And Caitlin is now a senior in college and Conner is a senior in high school….and I find myself crying at the most inopportune times.

Extreme Couponing Denise & Diana style…..

For the new year, one of my “resolution’s” was to use coupons…..which brings me to this post!

I’ve been using coupons and price matching.  It’s going pretty good, I’d say that I save between $20-$40 a week…..BUT I WANT MORE!  Diana and I are both on the coupon band wagon and she talked to a local lady that’s an extreme couponer (as extreme as you can be here) and she gave us some tips on places to find coupons.  So last weekend we looked for coupons together and came home with a bucket full each.  Soooooo, now what to do with them? I’ve been using a little wallet that I made to stick them in, but keeps them in no order.  I wanted to have a book like I’ve seen on the Extreme Coupon show, but just not that big. (I really don’t want to LOOK like an extreme couponer)  So I came up with my own smaller version.

I found this zip up calendar on clearance at Wally World for $8.00

I took the guts out and made my own coupon pages with heavy weight scrapbook paper and some left over clear plastic sheets from the boys high school scrapbooks I made.  Then I stamped each sleeve with a category.

The plastic sheets make it easy to see what’s inside each pocket.

The planner came with a note pad in the back of the book that is perfect for making the grocery list.

And the front pocket is a great place to stick all the weekly ad’s that I take with me in the event I get a new checker a Wally World that wants to see the ad’s to price match.

 

So I’m ready for my debut on Extreme Couponing! 

Fathers Day 2011

Happy Fathers Day to all the great dads out there!

My dad had knee replacement surgery last week and is currently in rehab.  He will be getting out next week and I’m going to fly to Colorado to surprise him! …And to help my mom keep him in line.  The old man forgets that he’s old and does as he pleases.  I decided I better go out and be a reinforcement to my mom when he think’s he can go get on the roof to clean out the gutters or some other crazy shenanigans!  He doesn’t know that I’m coming, it will be a little surprise for him.  I just wish I could lose about 30 pounds before I go….but oh well. 

Happy Fathers Day Dad!  Thanks for always loving me.

It was a quite day for the Father in our house.  Brian enjoyed watching golf all day while I ran some errands.  Then I made a nice pot-roast dinner and a little something special for dessert.  I love how these hamburger cupcakes came out!  They were just adorable and my family was quite surprised with my cleverness.  (here is the secret, I got the idea and printable’s from Bakerellas website!)

Happy Fathers Day Brian! Thanks for being a great dad to our beautiful kids!

Oh, why can they never take a nice picture?  Dorks!

Graduation weekend

This weekend is graduation in Columbus.  It will be a busy weekend running from party to party.  I had a few “orders” for cake balls.  One for CNHS (blue and white) and on for CEHS (brown and orange)  It’s very hard to make ANYTHING cute in brown and orange…but I think I did a pretty good job. 

 

Conner’s friend Jacqueline came by for a few games of guitar hero…..she’s so cute…..

~~PROM 2011~~

Prom was this past weekend.  I  can’t begin to say what a wonderful day I had on Saturday!  When Brian picked up the tux, I thought…I don’t think I like it.  It was a pin striped tux with satin type trim on the edge.  WELL…..let me just tell you, the man makes the tux! 

After Conner got ready it was soooooo apparent that the tux was perfect!  He looked so damn handsome….and grown up.  He clean up nicely!

 

We met at one of the girls houses to take photos before they left for dinner.  It was spitting rain when we left, but by the time we got there (5 minutes away) it stopped and the sun came out….just for these kids. 

They all looked so beautiful and handsome.  BUT, I would be lying if I didn’t say that Conner and Jacqueline were the  best looking ones at the WHOLE prom.  Just sayin’

After the kids left for dinner, Brian and I headed to the CB (Columbus Bar) and met up with some other prom going parents.  The CB is just across the street from where they hold the prom so it worked out well.  We had a nice dinner and a few drinks before we headed out to our seats…that we put out at 8:00 in the morning….which were in the WRONG spot!  So we ended up standing in the crowd watching the kids come it.  It was still fun to see them all waltz in like they were royalty.  The best part of the night was that I was able to forget everything else and just had FUN!

Conner and Jacqueline had a blast and they won tickets to see the  Maroon5/Train concert in August.  BONUS!