Here’s all that I have to show for this week. I’m so bummed AND illness has struck me again. Sore throat, sweaty, chills, cough, and drained feeling. I just don’t like it when I can’t even pick up a crochet hook. (well I could probably pick it up I just don’t want to make anything with it) I hope everyone else is well and making lots of things. I’m wishing you all a very pleasant weekend and I’m looking forward to this weekend of my second session of Crochet 101 AND I’m officially on vacation. Whoop! Whoop! Now I had better start feeling better because I sure don’t want to be sick when I arrive in New York.

I know I’ve said this before but this time I really mean it. I don’t have anything to share in the way of completed crochet items. I know you can’t believe it and you probably think I will start showing you something, right? Nope, not this time. The only thing that I have to share with you on this lovely middle of the week day is that I am the winner of Ms. Laura’s 200th blogpost celebration. I could not believe it when I saw my name on her blog on Monday. I know, right? I checked and double checked to make sure that I was the correct Tamara whose name she drew and much to my surprise I am the WINNER. Hurry go read all about it here on her blog, www.cuteasabutton82.wordpress.com. Isn’t that COOL?

Oh by the way in one week I will be in New York loving up on my son. I can not hardly wait, it’s been a year since I’ve seen him. Anyway I hope I have something to show you on Friday and I hope you all have a lovely rest of the week. Love you all!

My weekend started off with my Daughter surprising me with Mother’s Day cards.

First of all she picked out the most perfect card to give to me from Joshua.

I thought it was such a very sweet gesture from a big sister and I couldn’t help but share it with all of you.

Then I lost it on the beautiful card that she picked out to give to me from her and I couldn’t hold back the tears.

It was so sentimental and meant so much to me just knowing that she did notice all the little things that I have done for her over the years. Plus she secretly came by and picked up my ironing and did all of it for me. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. Oh wait a minute; maybe I just did. 

Now on to the crochet front; one of my co-workers asked me to make a pom pom hat for a baby girl. He and his girlfriend just found out that they are going to have a girl and he was so excited. This was his reaction when he first saw the hat.

He is going to be a good Daddy!

Then I made another pink and brown hat with the largest pom pom maker. Someone asked me how I make the pom poms so even; well I wouldn’t say that they are exactly even, but I have found if you count the times that you wrap the yarn around each time and do the same amount on the other one it works out pretty well.

Remember when I said that I was thinking about doing something with two of the pom poms that didn’t turn out so even? Well I thought they might look cute on an earflap hat with the braids and oh my gosh. I think this is my most favorite pom pom hat so far. I can’t hardly wait to make another one.

Saturday was filled with the KS My Stitch officers meeting; I made tacos, rice, and pico de gallo. Lucy had never had my tacos before and I’m so glad that she finally got to try them. After the meeting I was off to Twist to hang out until it was time for my Crochet 101 class. I was so excited to see that I had 4 people to teach and one was a man. I loved teaching all of my students and I can hardly wait until I see them again next Saturday. John and I finished off the day by having dinner with Jennifer to celebrate Mother’s Day.

Sunday started off by John and me meeting up with Mom for breakfast at the Egg Crate. After breakfast John and I stopped in at Stutzman’s which has a greenhouse set up in the Egg Crate parking lot.

We got tomato plants, bell pepper plants, jalapeno plants, and a few flowers. My plans were to get them planted on Sunday but its funny how sometimes my plans get changed all around.

My sister-in-law Cathy called from Mom’s house and said that she and my brother were there to spend the day with her. She wondered if John and I would like to come up to have lunch with them. So I jumped up and cooked some brussel sprouts, turnips, and made a garlic salad. Mom made her wonderful homemade chicken and noodles, creamed asparagus, and cooked carrots.

I had a wonderful time visiting with my Mom, Cathy, Terry, Jarred, and of course Bub.

Cathy’s Mom even was able to stop by to visit. I loved spending time with part of my family and hope you all got to enjoy yours as well. Make it a good Monday!

There hasn’t been much going on here but I have had time in the mornings before heading off to work to make a few more Pom Pom Hats. I wanted to make several not only for baby girls but also for baby boys. This was the first one that I came up with.

Here’s the second one I completed. I used blue and brown held together. I really like the way this one looks.

I have had this yarn since last summer when I was making those plastic grocery bag holders. So I thought I might look good in a Pom Pom hat. Can you believe it? I love how it turned out too.

Since I had so much of this yarn left over I decided to make a young childs sized hat with the two pom poms. I can’t believe how hard it is to make the two pom poms the same size. Now I have 2 extra pom poms that don’t match. I think I have an idea of what do with them and I’ll let you know if my idea works. I’m again looking forward to the weekend. The May KS My Stitch crochet guild officers meeting is tomorrow morning and the first session of the May Crochet 101 class is in the afternoon. So what have you all been up to? I would love to hear all about it. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day to all.

As I stated in my last post I said I was on my 9^th dish scrubber, well I’m happy to report that I completed it and made a 10^th and 11^th one.

My favorite is the pink, green, and turquoise one. I think these will work great scrubbing the shower walls, dishes, and you could even use them instead of those netted scrubbers in the shower. The nice thing about them is that they are wash and dryable. And yes Jill G. you can use them to clean your cat’s dish.  ;)  Just saying!

Over the weekend I picked up this little pamphlet at one of the stores or restaurants we were in. I didn’t really care what it had in it; I only wanted it because I loved the hat on that baby.

So, on Tuesday I used one of my favorite base hat patterns from RepeatCrafterMe of just double crochets and then used my large Clover Pom Pom Maker to make the two pom poms. Can I say that I just love it? Never-mind I just did.   The baby doll is my doll from when I was about 9 or 10. She doesn’t look too bad for being 46, right?

My cousin Sue asked if I would share my tomato soup recipe. Sorry Sue I don’t have exact measurements, I just dump things in my soups and they usually come out alright.

So here goes:

1 Large Can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup (fill the can with vegetable or chicken broth swish it around with a spoon to clean out the can)

1 Jar of Spaghetti Sauce (Herb and Garlic) (Garlic and Cheese)

1 Regular size Can of Diced Tomatoes

Chopped Onions

Olive Oil (Tablespoon)

Garlic Cloves (chopped)

Italian Seasoning (dash)

Cumin (dash)

Curry (dash)

Salt and Pepper

Half and Half

Unsweetened Almond Milk or Whole Milk

Sugar (1/2 cup?)

Grated Mozzarella Cheese

Grated Cheddar Cheese

Grated Parmesan Cheese

 Sautee the onions in the olive oil on medium heat until they are translucent, add garlic cloves let cook until you can smell the garlic cooking. Add the diced tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, add tomato soup, broth, spaghetti sauce (pour milk into jar, put lid back on and shake jar to clean it out) pour the milk from the jar into the pan, add Italian seasoning, cumin, curry, sugar, add milk until the soup is the consistency that you want. Let mixture simmer, stirring occasionally (about 30 minutes). Then you can either use a blender; transferring the tomato soup little bits at a time to blend or you can use an immersion blender (which I prefer). Then add the cheeses and cook on low until the cheese is melted. I hope you like making the tomato soup as much as I do. How’s you guys’ week going? Do you like to cook? And if so what do you like to cook?

First of all on Friday when I arrived home from work I found my package had arrived from R.G. Soap Co., LLC. I was quite surprised that it had arrived so soon; as I had only ordered it a few days before. I forgot to mention that I had written to R.G. Soap Co. via email and had inquired how I could order some soap from them. I received a reply right away and found out that Rhonda is the owner and maker of the wonderful bar of soap that I had gotten at Jessica’s baby shower the weekend before. I asked Rhonda what different kinds of soap she had and she told me: “The bars are $4 each. I currently have spearmint clove, cherry honey, cherry almond, nutmeg, eucalyptus spearmint, and lilac available. I also have an unscented bar and a lavender scrub bar available.” And to let her know what kinds I wanted and she would mail them to me. Then I asked her how she received payment and she told me by check. I asked her if she was familiar with PayPal and she said that she had wanted to get setup with PayPal. So I encouraged her to do so and I’m happy to announce that I was her first customer to pay with PayPal. Can I say, I love the bars of soap? Well I guess I just did.   Anyway if anyone wants to order soap from Rhonda please send her an email at rgsoapco@gmail.com.

Now if I can just make myself untie the string and take that cute paper tag off I’ll let you know how much I love the way the soap works. For right now I’m content to just look at it in the soap dish and smell the fragrance when I walk into the bathroom. If you were curious, I ordered the cherry almond and lavender scrub.

On Saturday my friend Sandi texted me and asked me if I could help her with getting started on a crochet pattern for a scarf that she had purchased in Phoenix. I told her sure and directed her to come on over to my house. I took one look at the directions and knew exactly why Sandi was confused with “make a sliding loop.” A few years ago I would have been very confused by these directions too, but I immediately knew that what they meant was “make a magic loop.” After all the scarf consisted of two granny squares put together and stripes of back and forth stitches on either side of the squares.

I have known Sandi for about 7 years now and met her through my sister and the quilt guild.

It seems like every time we are together we get to laughing so hard that both of our eyes disappear. Look how funny I look trying to get my face into the picture too. Saturday was no exception and we had a good laugh. I loved helping Sandi get her project started and know that she will be on her way to finishing her scarf real soon. Thanks Sandi for making my Saturday a good one.

Thanks to my friend Lanora, I couldn’t stop making these Bobble Stitch Scrubbers all weekend. I have made 8 so far, started on the 9^th one, and hopefully by the time you read this post I’ll have started my 10^th. You can find the pattern here. Hopefully these will be good sellers at the Kansas Barn Sale in October?

Saturday evening I made my homemade cheesey tomato basil garlic bisque soup for dinner with homemade croutons. It was YUMMY! The flowers were on my doorstep May 1^st for May day, it was cute the neighbor across the street brought her two little children over and had them lay these flowers on my doorstep and rang the doorbell and then they ran and hid beside my house. Of course the little boy couldn’t stay hidden for long and poked his head out so I saw him. The little boy and girl were grinning from ear to ear and how sweet that was for them to think of me. It made me smile.

John couldn’t stand it he had to stick his nose in the picture too.

Then that reminded me that we hadn’t had our picture taken together in a while so I had him take our picture. We ended the evening with a movie from Redbox called The Guilt Trip.

Sunday John and I went with Mom to breakfast at Emilia’s.

As always we have a nice visit and it’s nice to get together with her.

Then it was time to attend Truman’s 2^nd birthday party. He is beginning to act so grown up and he’s talking quite a bit now. I love to hear the little ones as they learn to talk.

Of course Miss Ava is such a good big sister and helps him when he needs it.

Angie made Truman’s birthday cake and she chose a circus theme. The table and everything was so cute and perfect and oh my goodness the cake was yummy!

Here are some random photos during the party.

I just want to kiss the back of that little neck. 

On Sunday we also uncovered our onions and potato plants hoping that the temperature doesn’t drop down below 30 again. I’m very proud of these few little vegetables and we couldn’t wait to see if the onions were ready, so John pulled one. Of course they are still too small but now we know. We plan to plant bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and tomatoes once the threat of freeze is over. So how was your weekend? Did you have a good one? I would love to hear all about it.

I’m sorry I have been away for a day or two. If you were worried please don’t. I am fine. I just don’t have much going on right now, except work. But I did want to stop by to tell you how grateful I am for the little things. While I was finishing up this giant green basket, my friend Steph messaged me and asked if I could make her new grandson a crocheted turtle shell with a hat. I had seen a photo of the little set before and thought it was cute, but never had any reason to make it until Tuesday when Steph messaged me. So I searched on the internet and found a pattern on Etsy, you can find the pattern here.

I was so happy with the results and could hardly wait to show Steph and her daughter.

When I messaged Steph to tell her that I had the crocheted turtle shell and hat done, she brought little Colton, her daughter, and son-in-law over to my house to pick it up.

What a lovely surprise it was, and I even got to hold the baby. Thanks Steph for making my day, no for actually making my week so much better. Steph will be doing a photo shoot on Saturday and she said that she would send me some pictures of Colton in his little turtle outfit. I can hardly wait to see them. Well, here it is the weekend again and I’m hoping that all of you have a good one. I know I plan to!

On Saturday, Mom, Jackie, and I went to my Brother Terry’s son and daughter-in-law’s baby shower. Jessica is the beautiful Mom to be and I couldn’t go without having each of us photographed with her. Jessica and Zach are going to be wonderful parents.

Here’s Sarah with 2 of her brothers; Zach and Keegan. Jake had not arrived with the two little ones yet.

It was good to see Dean’s oldest daughter Shannon and her little boy Joseph. They were trying to guess how much change had been donated in the glass jar. By the way Shannon was the closest and won that game.

Here’s my lovely sister-in-law Cathy with Jackie. Cathy is a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, and sister-in-law. I love her more every day.

Of course I always try to gather my family together for a photo when we are together. I loved this one of us three.

Sarah and Terry always take a lovely father and daughter picture together.

Here was the view outside across the fence from the church where the baby shower was taking place. It was a cloudy cool day all day long. I’m sure the church yard has had a cow or two in it before.

Then Jake arrived and my Mom saw them coming so she met them at the door to hold my youngest great niece; Charlie, (I love how Mom’s face lights up when a baby is in her arms)

and her big sister Lily. It’s so cute you ask Lily to turn around and say cheese for the picture and she does so, then you better work quickly to take a photo because she is just too busy to stick around long. Lily is pictured here with her sweet Momma Kim (who put on a wonderful baby shower for her sister-in-law).

I also decided to give Charlie the little hat that I made from the Sweet Elegance Cloche pattern designed by Elizabeth Alan of Lovely Crow designs, along with the braided sandals to match. I loved the little hat on her and the fun thing about it was that she left it on. 

At first Charlie did not want to go to anyone except her Papa Kingery. Terry is such a loving man and if there is a baby in the house you can almost bet that he will have it in his arms.

Jake and Sarah always take a good picture together too. I love the way all of Terry’s children treat each other. They all are just a very loving family.

You can see from these photos that Sarah could hardly stand it,

she wanted to hold Charlie so bad and was willing to sit and wait until Charlie made up her mind to come to her. As you can see her patience paid off. 

Of course there were games played at the shower and one of them that was my favorite was cloth diapering a baby doll with real diaper pins. I was one of the winners from the first round.

Terry, my Mom, Zach, Jessica, Cathy, Sarah, me, and a few others joined in on the fun. I got a kick out of how Zach diapered his baby for the second round of diapering. He made a cape out of the diaper and said that super babies didn’t poop so they only need a cape. 

It looks like Zach was rewarded with his patience to hold Charlie also. Sometimes it’s rather hard to keep up with all the activities going on in a group this size, I’m so glad that I captured this moment in time. 

Jessica and Zach loved the gifts that I gave them for the baby.

They also loved the quilt that my Mom pieced and hand quilted.

Jessica loved the Market to Market bag that Jackie made for her too. Just click on Market to Market link and you will find Jackie’s patterns which are available for purchase and downloadable from her website at www.jackieclarkdesigns.com.

I loved the look on her face when she opened someone’s’ gift of the book, “Love you Forever.” Priceless!

I couldn’t resist having my picture taken with Charlie and the crocheted puppy hat that I gave to baby boy-to-be,

this little girl guest was kind enough to pose with my newest crocheted girl puppy hat. Don’t you love the pink heart patch around the eye of the puppy?

As I was driving the winding, curvy steep hills back to Madison, Kansas I asked Jackie to take a picture of this cool aqua and red brick house. It was just too pretty not to.

Then we stopped to take pictures of the goat and sheep farm.

When I got home I finally put 2 and 2 together and figured out that that’s where the cute little soap prizes must have came from at Jessica’s baby shower. I am going to have to check out their website and order some of that soap. I have emailed the owner to see where I can purchase her soaps. I’ll let you all know when I find out.

After Jackie and I dropped Mom off at her house we hurriedly headed to the second baby shower for our dear friend Stephanie’s

daughter Lauren. She loved the tiny crocheted puppy hat that I made for her baby. I loved her comment of, “o-h-h I can’t wait to take a naked baby picture of Colton in this hat.” You can go here to see what she’s talking about.

Lauren also loved the Market to Market bag that Jackie made for her. Her comment here was, “did you make this?” Then she answered herself by saying, “that was a stupid question.”   Great news; I found out on Sunday that Lauren gave birth to her baby boy Colton at 1:02 a.m. What a busy day Lauren and her family had.

Sunday was a laid back day. I just had to share this note that John left me on

this can of Men’s Health Nut-rition. I thought it was quite funny.

I managed to finish up this Big Crochet Basket, made with Deborah Norville’s Everyday yarn, and made from the Big Crochet Basket pattern designed by Petra at ZoomYummy. I had to make it a little smaller than the pattern because I started running out of yarn. I like it ok but the yarn is so soft that the bag isn’t quite stiff enough and the pattern of the basket weave stitch doesn’t show up as well as if I would have used a plain color.

So I decided to make another one with Bernat Super Saver and

I love the way this one turned out, plus I have quite a bit of yarn left over to make Amagurumi animals out of it or something that doesn’t need to be soft, because the yarn is fairly coarse. I feel very blessed to have had such a full weekend spent with family and friends. So what did you guys do this last weekend? I would love to hear all about it.

I asked Jennifer where she wanted to go eat for her birthday dinner and she chose Town and Country. It’s a family restaurant that has been in the Wichita area for many, many years. Most young people would call it an old people’s restaurant, but both of my children grew up knowing this restaurant was a good place to eat.

A lot of the wait staff has been there a very long time too. One waitress in particular was Joshua’s favorite. I bet he still remembers her telling him that her name was “Glenda!” Just like the good witch in Wizard of Oz. On Thursday when we dined at Town and Country Glenda stopped by our table to chat and to ask about Joshua. She said that she wanted us to take her picture and send it to Joshua and to tell him that she wanted him to come home to see his Momma, Daddy, and her. Glenda has always sat down with us to visit especially when Joshua was with us. She would pull his headphone back and tell him to listen to her and she would always have something wise to say to him. Like; “work very hard and you will get somewhere in life.” I remember a few times she would mention to him that she wished she had a set of headphones to listen to music while she mowed her neighbors’ yard and her own. When Joshua decided to get a new set of headphones he told us that he wanted to go to Town and Country so that he could give his old headphones to Glenda. On our last visit to Town and Country she told us that she still had the headphones that Joshua had given to her.

This story makes me miss my Joshua so much and I can’t wait to see him next month.

As I mentioned yesterday my nephew Jarred was born the day after Jennifer. I still remember when this picture was taken. I loved the little corduroy jumper and white eyelet blouse that Jennifer was wearing and Jarred’s little blue vest that made his blue eyes pop. He was so cute when we would walk into their house he would go over to Jenny and hug her as he touched the back of her hair. As Jenny walked away you could see him reach out to touch it again. I guess it must have felt soft to him. I have such good memories of them as children and I wanted to take a moment to wish Jarred a very happy birthday today.

Now on to the crochet front; you probably thought I stopped crocheting right? Wrong! I found a cute puppy hat pattern on RepeatCrafterMe’s blog and I couldn’t stand it, I had to make one. Now I think I will be hooked on these cute little puppy hats for a while (for the Kansas Barn Sale). I have already started a 0-3 months one and hopefully I will have that to show you all on Monday. 

I also managed to make an adult size hat made in Kansas Jayhawk colors. (for the Kansas Barn Sale as well)

I also made another scrappy washcloth from the Cascade Pima cotton yarn. So what have you all been up to? Are you looking forward to the weekend as much as I am?

When I first thought about having a child I knew I wanted a girl. My husband at the time wanted a boy so I changed my mind and decided I wanted a boy too. This photo was taken when I was about 3 months pregnant. We had taken a little vacation with my husband’s cousin and wife to Corpus Christi, Texas and over the border to Mexico. I remember feeling sick to my stomach all the time and especially when we went over the border and smelled the food and fish cooking. Yuck, I can still remember how bad my stomach turned.

I was so happy to be pregnant and knowing that I would have a child of my own made it even more fun. This photo was taken when I was around 8 ½ months pregnant.

Little did I know that my Jennifer would take her own sweet time to come into this world and continued to move at her own pace as she grew up (she was 2 weeks late). I never knew I could love someone so much, until they laid Jennifer on my stomach and then in my arms that day 37 years ago. I didn’t even care that she wasn’t a boy. :) My husband and I looked at each other and as we took her home in the rain he said, “she’s all ours!”

It was funny my sister was pregnant at the same time as I was and she ended up going into labor the night that I had Jennifer. So my Jennifer and my sister’s son Jarred grew up more like brother and sister than cousins.

Jennifer was very active and before I knew it she was pulling up to the side of her baby bed. I caught her just in time in this picture; it would have been a matter of minutes before she would have toppled right over the edge of her bed.

I loved putting her hair in piggy tails for the first time.

Jennifer loved to grab my craft project and run away with it whenever I wasn’t looking. Here I was trying to explain to her that the embroidery thread was mine and I needed it.    Of course she didn’t understand, she only knew that I wasn’t paying attention to her so she was going to get my attention one way or another.

I still remember that first Christmas, I think I let her open every present that I had for her way before Christmas even arrived.

Here she was at her first birthday party, my sister and I decided that we would celebrate both of their birthdays on the same day to alleviate family members getting together two days in a row. I can’t remember when we stopped the parties together but my memory was something similar to chaos when all 5 of the nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles would gather for these parties.

I remember my Mom had Jennifer one night and decided to take her bottle away from her. Then the next night she sent her home to me. I told Mom that if she ever tried that with any of the other kids that she should keep them until they got over it. We had a rough couple of weeks, but Mom thought it really was time for her to give it up. What? she was only a little over 2 years old and my first child.   I didn’t want to take anything away from her.

Jennifer and I literally grew up together. I remember Jennifer loved to sit on my lap for about an hour in the morning until she woke up all the way and got hungry. Then the day would consist of me doing my chores. When it was time for me to vacuum, Jennifer would gather up a bunch of her toys and sit them all on the couch. She would stay there until I would go out of the room and then when I would come back into the room with the vacuum cleaner she would hurry and jump back up on the couch. It was funny. I only enjoyed my crafts after my household chores were done and Jennifer knew that she would have to play by herself while I created things. (mostly sewing) Now days the household chores are on the back burner and creating is always on the front burner. 

When Jennifer was in middle school I started dating John and when we found out that we were going to have a baby I worried about telling her. I remember the day we told her and her reaction was nothing like I expected. She only said, “I’ve always wanted a brother or sister!”

Joshua and Jennifer were friends from the beginning. Jennifer stayed up with me when Joshua was little and when I needed an extra set of arms to hold him while mine rested. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

When Jennifer found out she was pregnant she loved every minute of her pregnancy too. She knew that she always wanted to be a mother, just like I did;

and a good mother she has become. I love you Jennifer and I hope your birthday is filled with sweet things just like you. Love, Your Mommy!