Ten Deals on This Prime Day

Lip gloss in a barely there tint:

Stadium seat for all of my sports-watching:

I've been listening to a lot of her books, and this has twelve stories in one:

Great sheets in tons of colors:

Kids sports socks - soccer, basketball, baseball, you name it:

We use our air fryer a lot:

We have one downstairs, but at this price I think we should get one for upstairs too!

When our kids turn 10 they get one of these:

Phil surprised me with these last Christmas and I use them everyday:

Something on my wish list:

How about you, got any good deals to share with me?

An Ode to Our First Season

The end of our first season at The Cottage has come,

The planning, building, and serving customers is done.

What began as a dream too unrealistic to ponder,

Became a reality that makes us look back and wonder.

It's amazing what hard work and bravery can do,

Once the leap is made, and the plans are followed through.

We stumbled and fell but we kept moving along,

Made decisions aplenty, some right and others wrong.

The lessons learned are long and invaluable,

The successes and failures are certainly memorable.

None of it would be possible without our family,

Their guidance and expertise, even loaning us money.

Our children stepped up and matured before our eyes,

Opportunities for life skills that wouldn't have come otherwise.

So many new friends and supporters have come our way,

Followers on social media or customers both night and day.

The ice cream business is a fun one to be in,

Making people happy while making a living is a win-win.

While we can look back in awe at all that we've begun,

We are more than happy to say that our first season is done.

Eventually we will clean the shop and begin to tweak things,

Make improvements and rest up for the coming spring.

Thank you all for the support, thank you for the love too,

We owe much of The Ice Cream Cottage's success to YOU!

Week in Review: Sports of Course, The Tramp is Dead, and Living the Life

Happy Friday!  Fridays are always my favorite day of the week, but they are especially nice when they begin a long weekend!

Are you sick of hearing about fall sports yet?  Me too!  Haha, but it is what it is.  Declan's team won their first two games (the season has started late due to all the rain) and my little man scored goals in both games.  At the beginning of the game, they all put in their hands and yell "1, 2, 3, ICE CREAM COTTAGE" and parents will cheer "Go Ice Cream! Go Ice Cream!" and it all just cracks me up.

Cotton Candy for the fans

Our doctor's wife passed away years ago from breast cancer, and their two boys are in the same grades as Andrew and Eamon.  The family hosts a big 5k race each year that we have run in multiple times, but this year only Eamon ran and he did awesome, coming in 8th place overall:

I was finally able to watch one of Eamon's soccer games...and they lost horribly...maybe I'm bad luck?

Maggie's volleyball team played against the team from our town, so we invited them to come get ice cream after the game and opened The Cottage up just for them (and for the older gentlemen who thought we were open to the public and bought two pints!)  This is our last weekend of the season and we are ready.

Andrew with the Misspelled Middle Name, Born on the Feast of St. Francis

 It's birthday season in the Martin family, and today we celebrate Andrew's 19th birthday!

Andrew was due on October 9th and we thought it would be so funny if he was born two days late on his dad's birthday, especially since JP was born on his mom's birthday.  We didn't know his gender before birth and had decided on Andrew Philip for a boy or Emily Margaret for a girl.  That pregnancy has a few memories that stick out for me, the first being that my younger sister got engaged and asked me to be her matron of honor at her wedding nine months later.  I looked at Phil and said "Well we just can't get pregnant this month or I'll be giving birth at the wedding!"  Hardeeharhar guess who got pregnant that month?  So this is what I looked like at my sister's wedding:

I was very thankful to still be pregnant and not have to miss the wedding, and I danced like crazy that night and ended up giving birth nine days later.  Also during Andrew's pregnancy, my dad's brother passed away whose name was Padraig but everyone called him Poric, and that's how he signed his name.  We decided to honor my uncle by naming the baby Andrew (which is my grandfather's name) Padraig.  When he was born, I was so concerned with getting the spelling of Poric/Padraig correct that I didn't even realize he was born on the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi.  I felt so bad to have missed the naming opportunity of including Francis in his name that I spent the next years convincing Andrew to take Francis as his confirmation name.  He listened and is Andrew Pauric (spelled wrong) Francis.  And now he goes to Franciscan University where they celebrate St. Francis's feast day each year (I think classes are cancelled?) which means Andrew's birthday will be extra fun.

Week in Review: Big Kids, Big Schedules and Advice for a Care Package

Hello!  Not much to say this week, but here's the look back in the rearview mirror.

I felt really overwhelmed this week when trying to figure out the kids' schedules.  On Wednesday alone, we had a volleyball game, soccer game, basketball clinic, soccer practice and swim team practice.  Tuesday had been the same, less the basketball clinic.  It's exhausting and we do the bare minimum when it comes to kids being involved in sports - one sport per kid per season, no travel teams - but it all adds up quickly.  Technically, Declan is playing soccer and now has a once a week basketball clinic at his school because they are trying to prepare a team for the CYO season.  Thankfully, a friend whose son is on the same soccer team as Declan offered to bring him from basketball to soccer for me, which is a huge help.  The fall is just always crazy, and it's nobody's fault but a young Colleen and amorous Phil, so I am complaining in the mirror.

Does anybody know if Elisabeth Frost's blog is still functioning?  I can't seem to get on her website anymore and I don't see her commenting here and I hope everything is ok.

Today at work, my one big annual report is due and I have everything completed on my side but I am waiting for the Town to send me their numbers and it is killing my Type A Goodie Two Shoes Top of the Class Teacher's Pet self.  I think I'm going to have to turn it in late!

Tomorrow we will be mailing out a birthday package for our freshman in college and I need to shop for some "fillers" today.  And tips on snacks or dorm room ideas would be helpful!

There is a hotel verrrrrry close to our house that will now be hosting illegal immigrants.  The story is here and people are upset and I have lots of mixed feelings about it, especially as I am the daughter of an immigrant and feel so very badly for what is happening in Haiti.

Some photos from the week:

Favorite daughter

Focus

Phil and I tried a new Indian restaurant and it was DELICIOUS

Police dog visiting the kids school

Brendan sees me rolling out my back and has to join in

Rainy Saturday mornings = soccer canceled = pancakes!

Cousins and scoopers

Andrew and friends after a game

Have a wonderful September-October weekend everyone.  Hug your families tight :)

Eamon: From a Difficult Bambino to the Easiest Seventeen Year Old

Our little meatball turns SEVENTEEN today.  

Eamon was one of the hardest babies, having colic and a mother who became pregnant/sick/exhausted when he was only five months old.  His whole babyhood is a crying blur to be honest, with lots of puke, from both of us.  Have you ever been in public and heard a baby cry and thought "Thank God that isn't my kid!  That cry is piercing my soul!" except it IS your kid and he does it almost nonstop until his first birthday.    

But!  

Phil has a theory that hard babies make easy kids, and Eamon really did turn into the bestest little guy anyone could ask for.  

Eamon has always been so funny, so easy to smile and laugh, always has a little twinkle in his eye, is constantly up to something, very witty and charming and so much fun to be around.  He has the winning combination of natural intelligence and a strong work ethic that result in amazing grades.  He gets along with all of his siblings and is the life of the Martin Family party.