A "Little" Graduation

My Little Sister (with Big Brothers Big Sisters), Cassie, graduated from elementary school this past week, and invited me to join in the festivities. Her school held a fantastic graduation ceremony for the 5th graders. They gave out all sorts of awards, played a slideshow of photos from this past school year, awarded each student a diploma and had cake and punch afterwards to celebrate. The students also sang and danced to two different songs.

For the first song, the 5th grade choir students were invited onto the stage to sing, and a few of them even had solos (Cassie is in the light blue dress on the right).




Sorry it's so fuzzy, but I had to do some major zooming to get a close-up of her singing. What a beautiful song!

Here we are after the ceremony. She is so excited that it is her last day of elementary school! In the fall, she will move onto the middle school!

Congratulations Cassie! I'm so proud of you!

Thunderstorms are Scary Business

A few nights ago, we had a pop-up thunderstorm. Of course, Hoosier is afraid of thunderstorms (along with just about everything else).

Here is where I found him, panting for dear life...




For some reason, to Hoosier, the bathtub means safety...

Happy Memorial Day/Indy 500 weekend!

Goodbyes Stink

Last weekend, we had to say goodbye to two of our closest friends, Kim and Steve, and their two little ladies. They are moving to Ohio, and we spent Saturday helping them pack up their house. By Sunday, the moving truck and trailer were packed and a few things had made their way to our house for storage so we headed to Champp's for dinner (excuse the grunginess...it was a long, tiring weekend).

Kim, Livie and I after dinner...



Steve and Don (they really are like two peas in a pod, these two)...

We're going to miss them so much, but we already have a couple of visits in the works! Best of luck to them in Ohio!

First Communion

A couple of weekends ago, Don and I dropped Hoosier off at daycare and headed north to Aurora, Illinois for our nephew, Andrew's, First Communion. Unfortunately, we missed the Mass but made it just in time for the party! I didn't get a whole lot of pictures because I was busy catching up with family.

Here is Andrew with his parents (Don's brother, Dave, and his wife, Amy)...



The whole family (Dave, Andrew, Amy and big sister, Elizabeth)...

The one (terrible) picture of Don and me...

After the party, we headed to South Bend to spend Sunday with our moms for Mother's Day. We had a delicious brunch at Houlihan's with my mom and a few other family members and then enjoyed a late lunch with Don's family. It was great to catch up with everyone, but I can't believe I didn't get a single picture on Sunday. Oops!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Milk and Cookies

Last weekend, I decided to try my hand at decorating cookies. I had oodles of leftover royal icing from my last cake decorating class and figured it would be a good way to use it up. I headed over to Annie's Eats (one of my favorite food blogs) to look for a sugar cookie recipe. I'm fairly certain I found the most delicious sugar cookies ever baked in the history of this planet...ok, that may be a slight exaggeration but seriously...TRY. THEM. NOW. I got wonderful compliments from my co-workers that they were better than cookies from a bakery. They really were that good.

Anyways, I made several spring-y shaped cookies for our moms for Mother's Day. Luckily, I had a few extras to keep the natives at work from getting too restless. Hey, they need their sugar...what can I say?

Here are a few of the cookies that made the cut for our moms. Please excuse the horrible picture. I'm working on my photography skills (actually I didn't even take this picture-ha!)...bear with me for another couple of years.

I found that I really like polka dots...don't judge.





All boxed up and looking pretty...

Of course, being the perfectionist that I am, I am not 100% happy with them, but for my first attempt, I don't think they're too bad. In fact, stay tuned. I am toying with the idea of creating another blog and possibly an Etsy shop (if I improve, that is). I'll keep you posted.

Happy Friday, and Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!