That time of year again…

It’s that time of year again…. When I go crazy trying to finish the gifts I’m making for the Illini ladies swim team for the Big 10’s.    This year I decided on making them mittens from recycled sweaters.  So I spent my summer and fall searching garage sales and Goodwill for cute sweaters to use. 

This is what 39 pair of recycled sweater mittens looks like.  I hope they like them.  They were fun to make and Caitlin helped me A TON by helping cut the liners during Christmas break.  Thanks Cait!

 

Two years ago I made the girls these cute “ugly dolls”.  And last year I made them these personalized recycled tee-shirt bags.  What will I do now that she is graduating? 

Senior Night

Last Thursday was Senior Night where they honor the senior swimmers before their last home meet.  Brian flew in for the weekend so he could be a part of the special night.  To our great surprise…Caitlin showed up, and just in time.  She didn’t tell us she was coming…as a matter of fact when I asked her if she wanted to come she said she had a group project she had to work on.  So imagine our surprise when they started calling the boys and their families up and they were on the first boy (Conner was the 4th boy to go) she RAN in and said “Hi Mom”.  Well, Brian was having a hard time keeping it together before then, that was all he needed to push him off the edge.  What a wonderful surprise for her brother.  The night was just perfect for Conner.  Time sure does fly….

I know these wonderful young people will do great things with their lives. I love them all!

Holiday Cheer

This weekend we were invited to the Wang’s for a little holiday get together for the boys swim team.  Since we are the “Frogs” I decided to make Santa Frog cake balls and some Oreo snowmen cookies.  I think they turned out adorable…and they didn’t last long at all!

 

Featured Blog Post!

Today, Moncy3 has posted a feature blog post on ME!  You can check out the post here Moncy3.  Thank you Claudia for featuring me and my little ole’ shop on your blog!

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.