Hockey Tournament Gifts

The past 2 years I have volunteered to make "hockey mom" gifts for our home hockey tournament. Many times when you go to junior league hockey tournaments the home team will give out little gifts to the moms (or dads). Most of the time they are homemade little trinkets with the child's name and/or jersey number. A little something to show our appreciation to the parents for supporting our tournament.


Last year we made wooden star pins. Each star was spray painted each teams color. We added the players name and number to the front and hot glued a pin to the back. They looked great! Lots of moms wore them during the tournament.


This year we decided to go a different route and make keychains. Each keychain has the teams colors, number beads, and a wooden star with the players name. We just finished making them today---198 of them!! It was a lot of work, but again, I think they turned out great! I hope the other mom's like them as much as I do.

Now to start planning for next year..... :)

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer---**** (4 stars, out of 5)

Oskar is not your typical 9 year old. He asks LOTS of questions, retains knowledge about everything, and is a avid inventor. On Sept. 11th, his life comes crashing down when his father is killed during the 9/11 terrorist attack. A year after his fathers death he finds a mysterious key among his belongings. He sends himself on a quest to find the lock to the key throughout New York. The quest takes him to many places and different people, including a long lost grandfather.

I picked this book up after seeing and hearing about the upcoming motion picture based on the book. I was surprised to find that it wasn't exactly as I thought it would be, however it made it that much more interesting. The book is difficult to read, especially at first. The chapters written from Oskar's point of view are very jumbled with lots of run on sentences. Other chapters are written from other characters point of view through letter form, with some being written 40 years prior. It can all be a little confusing. While some might find it too hard to follow and give up, I found it interesting and wanted to know how it was going to come together in the end. A definite heartfelt book with so many underlying meanings and feelings. If you can get through the confusion, I would highly recommend the book. Looking forward to seeing how the movie compares.