Christmas Traditions

I love looking at all the Christmas decorations that are around our town.  Some of these decorations/items have been around for as long as I can remember.  The two things that mean a lot to me from my hometown is the mini church that is now housed at the museum here in town. As a kid this was sitting outside the Otto Giese funeral home. I am not sure who but a member of the Giese family made this little church.  There was benches that you could stand on, on all sides of this so you could see inside.  I wish that the pictures would have turned out so I could share what it looked like inside.  There are pews full of people of all nationalities inside. There is a choir that comes from the back of the church up the middle aisle and sings many different Christmas carols. The inside is just beautiful.  It is a tradition to go see this church every year. When I was a kid my family would bundle up and head to town to look at all the lights and then before going home we would stop at this church and didn't matter how cold it was outside we would stand there for a long time and just gaze inside.  This happened every year growing up.  When I had children of my own we did the same thing. Then the funeral home closed and the church was removed.  I wasn't able to see it for many years but my understanding is it was being restored.  Well now I can continue this tradition and go see it during the Christmas season at the museum.  I still feel like a kid and I no longer have to stand on the benches but I do look through every single window and just smile.

The other decoration that has been around for a long long time is the huge Santa that stands on the courthouse lawn.  I think I was probably a teenager when this was put up for the first time. But it still brings smiles to my face when I see it go up.  This is something my children still love seeing and now my grandchildren and great granddaughter love seeing it. My great granddaughter Randi just beams when she sees Santa standing on the courthouse lawn as we drive downtown.  She is not keen on seeing the real Santa and won't go anywhere near him. But this Santa she loves seeing. 

My mother found this 10 1/2 ft Christmas tree at the pawn shop near our home.  It was pretty scraggly looking and only 1 set of lights worked, but my mother thought she could rescue it.  They wanted $10 for it but while talking to the sales lady and talking about how the lights didn't work, the lady offered to reduce the price to $5. My mother was happy with 10 but hey 5 works.  We got it home and my mother worked her magic.  Turns out the lights worked except for a very small area in the middle.  They just didn't have them plugged in right.  My mother fluffed this tree all up and WOW it is just beautiful and looks so grand in her living room.  She has always wanted a tall tree for the living room due to having the tall ceilings that could hold it.  The other 2 trees she puts up in the family room and back porch are 6ft trees but are just as beautiful. 

Last night I was able to get a new tote made for myself.  I can use it through January for the winter season.  I am happy with it.  I am already on the hunt for some placemats for Valentines Day, Easter, and anything else that looks cool to turn into totes. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season. And spend lots of time with family and friends.  In light of the recent tragedy in CT  take the time as often as you can to tell your family and friends how much you love them. Give lots and lots of hugs especially to your children, grandchildren and family/friends because you never know when that will be the last time you have that opportunity.  I am still in shock and just don't understand but am keeping everyone involved in my prayers. 

A little update on what this month has been like :)

Once again I have been busy. I enjoy being busy for the most part. But lately it seems I really really have been busy but am enjoying myself.  I still have a lot of projects to get done before Christmas plus still get some shopping done.   Here is more or less a picture view of what I have been up to since the last time I posted. 

The top picture is a pile of about 30+ snowflakes I have made so far to take to church to be hung from the ceiling for our Christmas party that is on Friday.  The next picture is what the snowflakes actually look like. I have posted a tutorial on how to make these very easy snowflakes.  They are made from 6 pieces of computer paper or whatever paper you desire.  They take no time at all to make but really make a nice decoration.

I made a tote like this last month for a friend a church to carry her manuals and scriptures and when my sister and my aunt saw it they each wanted one to give away as a gift.  So I made 2 more just like this over this past weekend.  They are made from 3 placemats.  2 for the tote and then one cut up for the handles and the pocket that is inside. The possibilities are endless on the different types of totes you could make.  I have a snowman one I will be making for myself tomorrow.

My oldest daughter is going to have a baby boy in a little over a month, Jan 22 is her due date.  I made her a car seat cover/blanket this evening.  These are so nice and easy to make and really protects the baby from wind, sun and even strangers from reaching in and touching.  It is lined with flannel so will give some extra warmth. 

We had a baby shower this past Saturday for my daughter and it went very well.  Spent most of the day on Friday cooking the food for the shower and then heading over to church to set the room up for the shower.  I took some pictures of the room and of course her and her ever growing baby bump :)  but my computer is having issues for some reason whenever I put my SD card in from my camera to download the pictures I took.  It won't let me download the pictures without freezing up my computer, UGH!!! will have to have that checked out. 

The Young Women I teach at church wanted to make a Scripture Advent calender for Wednesday night activity this past week.  I cut out 480 felt squares then glued them together, I sewed the 4 pieces of felt for the background and the tabs to hang the calender before hand. We only have an hour and half to get a project done so I needed to get as much done as possible for the girls to be able to go home with a finished project.  The girls that came that night had a good time putting these together. They really seemed to enjoy themselves and I think the calenders turned out great.  This coming up Wednesday night we are frosting and decorating cookies for the Christmas Party on Friday. We really have a great and beautiful bunch of Young Women at church. They are always willing to help in whatever we ask them.  I love working with these girls.

Well that is pretty much it for what I have been up to since my last post.  When I get the rest of my sewing/crafting done I will again post.  I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday season. 

What has been keeping me busy this past month

Right after my last post, I got called to a new position at my church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  I am the 2nd counselor in the Young Women Presidency. We are over the 12-18 yr old young women at church. I teach the 12-14yr olds.  This really is a very busy calling as there is an activity every Wednesday night either with all the girls or individual classes then once a month we meet with the young men and have some sort of group activity. There are a lot of church related firesides for the youth each month and also a stake activity which includes youth from the surrounding youth in my church.  As a presidency we have to oversee a lot of things and all three of us were relatively new to this calling. So we had lots to learn. On top of all this we had to plan a YW in Excellence program in a month.  A MONTH...I could not believe we had a month to plan this party/program.  I am not one to wait last minute to plan things like this, so to say I was a little freaking out was an understatement.  But it had to be done so we had to get busy as this was happening on 11-17-12.  This program is an end of the year showcase on what the YW had been doing all year. What they have accomplished in getting their Women in Excellence program.  We needed to decide on decorations, food and their is always some sort of gift that is given to the girls.  I had made a ruffled tote bag for myself to carry my YW notebook/lesson books in.  Many of the girls had commented on how they really liked my bag. So I brought up the idea to the other two in the presidency what they thought about me making bags for each girl to carry their scriptures in. Neither of these women sew so they were a little startled and thought there wasn't enough time. I assured them it wasn't a big problem. The bags themselves don't take that long to make. The biggest thing would be to figure out which material to use for each girl as I didn't want them to be the same. I made 10 bags. They are a little larger then half a placemat just as a reference.  One of the girls in our program is not girly at all. She would live in flannel shirts and jeans everyday if she could get away with it, so I knew here bag would not be ruffly so that was one down, now onto the others. Here is what I came up with.

The girls all loved them and they each knew who's bag was who's before they looked inside to find their name. We also bought them little pocket calendars to keep in bag so they could write down activities as we are told about them. This way they could see at a glance what was coming up. They loved that also.

Next on my list of things for this program was making a cake. The program theme was Color me Beautiful and we decided on doing everything in a rainbow theme.  I had seen a couple cakes on Pinterest that I thought might work.  Here is my version of the cake I made. 

It is hard to tell in this picture but there was 6 different colors. Not sure why it didn't show up that well.  The cake was 2  9x13 cakes side by side=6 cake mixes, 5 cans of frosting for between layers and a double batch of homemade cream cheese frosting for the outside. That cake was heavy to carry.  Everyone was in awe of the cake and just couldn't get over how big it was and all the colored layers.  I was asked how long it took and would I be doing it again. It took one whole day to do between baking, cooling, drying a little to frost, layering and then covering it all. Would I make it again...probably NOT.  It was fun and I am ok with how it turned out, but WOW.

My camera battery died so I didn't get pictures of all the decorations we had around but as soon as the president posts hers I will copy and add them.  Everything went off without a hitch. Everyone pitched in to help with the cleanup, Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves a lot.

On Sunday I always go over to my cousin Dale's house and we have dinner together and visit, watch a movie, chat etc.  Sometimes it's just Dale and I, sometimes it's other cousins that come over. They all know it's an open invitation and are always welcome. So we never know for sure who will be there. But it is fun getting together.  A couple weeks ago Dale and I discussed making some crafts for the holidays.  This is what we did last night from an idea I found again on Pinterest.

The top one is mine, middle is Dale's and the last one is his sister Chris's. And then all 3 together.  They are made from white knit gloves. They were so easy and we had so much fun making them.  Chris really isn't a crafter she said, but I think she did a great job.  We all laughed, giggled and just had all around fun.  Not sure what we will make next but looking forward to it.

Here is one last thing I made during this past month for the other two ladies and myself to carry our things we need for church.  I made them from 3 placemats. 2 for the bag and one cut up for the handles and a pocket inside.  I had a couple family members who have asked me to make them the owl one for gifts. So will be getting those done in next couple weeks.  I can see me making more of these from placemats for the holidays/seasons. The possibilities are endless.

I know this post is long and lots of photos but wanted to document what has been occupying most of my time this past month.  Now need to get working on the rest of my Christmas stuff.  Everyone have a wonderful holiday season.

Fall is my favorite time of the year

Fall is my favorite time of the year.  I love the more comfortable weather, having a nice fire in the backyard, roasting marshmallows and just relaxing.  I also love all the fabulous colors that surround all of us in the trees.  Here in the Midwest these fabulous colors are everywhere. In the town I live in we are called the Maple City and that's because of the abundance of Maple trees that we have around here. There are not to many streets that you drive down that don't have trees lining them.  You drive under the gorgeous canopy's everywhere here.

I also love to decorate for fall.  I don't put out as much as I used to due to having my 2 1/2yr old great granddaughter living here with me. She has a tendency to TOUCH everything and thinks everything is fair game and hers.  I also am expecting a new grandson beginning of the year, so for the next couple years I will forgo decorating as much as I used to and settle for putting things up on shelves out of reach of little ones.

I took a few pictures the other day of some of the beauty around me.  I still want to take a few more but the weather hasn't been cooperating to get out and enjoy.  It is suppose to be nice and sunny beginning of next week so hopefully I will be able to get out and take more pics and enjoy the scenery.

The first picture on here is what I see while sitting in my living room out my front window.  The next one is of this round barn that is across the street from my church.  Next is one of the canopy lined streets I was driving down and the last one is of the chest my mom decorated for me for my birthday.  I hope you enjoy the little slice of fall heaven here in Northwest Indiana.

Enjoy the beauty all around you and take time to stop and look around and actually see it.

Busy Busy Busy week

This past week has been a busy one for me. I pretty much didn't do anything but make a pinata.   Last year for a church picnic I made an Ice Cream Cone pinata for the kids to break.  They all seemed to enjoy that very much and some had really never seen a pinata so they were thrilled and for the most part all the kids got to take a whack at it.  Then when all the candy fell out, well...you get the picture.

Well that pinata led to one of my friends at church asking me if I could make a pinata for their daughters birthday party the next month.  I guess when they got home from the picnic, all Paige could talk about was the pinata and how much fun it was.  The theme of her party was "Paige's Pink Purple Plane Pony's" (she was turning 4)  so we decided on me making a "P"   I decided to decorate this pinata with little pink and purple tissue paper flowers.  I think I made approximately 1000 flowers to cover this pinata.  It took about 3 days to make the flowers and then another 2 days to make the form. You have to let the layers dry in-between when using paper mache.  It took about 3 days to glue all the flowers on.  But in the end she loved it and the kids at the party thought it was pretty cool and had fun breaking it all apart. 

Now this year again I was asked to make her another pinata for her 5th birthday party. This years theme was Unicorn Rainbow.  I couldn't seem to wrap my head around how to make the horse/unicorn form as far as what to use to make it and still be able to get the paper mache on it and still have it open on the inside so that you could put the candy in it. Yeah it could have been made in pieces and then put all together but sometimes they just aren't as strong and fall apart to easy.  So since she also wanted rainbows, we ended up deciding that would be what I would make.  The size to make the pinata was up to me.  Well I never can seem to gauge size very well, it always ends up being bigger then I planned. But its all good.

I had the from all made and proceeded to add the paper mache strips and it took about 3 days total this time. It just wouldn't dry. I think the humidity had a lot to do with that. I even had a fan turned on it the whole time hoping it would help.  While waiting for this to dry, I cut out the 2in squares of tissue paper in the rainbow colors.  I made one change in the colors and that was to use pink instead of the indigo.  Now on to the decorating.  For this one I basically just twisted up each tissue paper square and dipped in glue then put it on the form in a rainbow pattern.  Well approximately 4 days and over 5000 squares later the pinata was done. A layer of batting was added to each side of the rainbow to resemble clouds which her mother wanted on the pinata.  It turned out pretty cute, but then I might be a little prejudice. :)    

Making a pinata is a lot of time, love and patience. And I have had a number of people tell me that's to much work. And yeah it is a lot of work to just be beaten and destroyed with a stick by a bunch of kids in like 5 minutes tops.  But that's what it is made for.  

I delivered the pinata last night and everyone in her family was pleased with it and really loved it.  I got a message from the father last night on picture I posted on my Facebook that said they decided to not break it and to hang it in Paige's rainbow themed bedroom.  Although it was made to be broken it sort of was a relief that all that time and work put into it would last longer and be enjoyed for awhile in her room.  I am sure she will enjoy it being in her room.

Well for the next couple days I won't be doing much as my shoulders, back, arms and hands are going to take a break.  Sitting in one position doing very repetitive movements for long periods of time (I usually worked about 5-6hrs at a stretch with a little 30 min break in-between) really takes its toll.  There were times it felt someone was sticking knives all across my back from shoulder to shoulder.  I noticed last night my left index finger felt bruised and at first couldn't figure out why then it occurred to me that was the finger I used to roll up the squares against with the stick.  I will be fine in a couple days then its on to my next project of which I have a number of things to choose from that need to get done. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

I LOVE being a Grandmother!!!

My daughter Amanda and my son in law Ed went yesterday to the OB specialist for an ultrasound. Her OB wanted her to see a high risk doctor for the first ultrasound due to her being over 35 (she is 37) and this being her first pregnancy.  The doc said everything is fine, looks fine and seeing the ultrasound pictures, I have to say my new grandson looks very handsome. Well maybe I am a little prejudiced, but that's just the way I roll  :) 




Logan Charles should make his appearance sometime late January 2012.  I am very excited and can't wait for him to get here.  I can't wait to love on him lots and lots!!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day and are enjoying life. 

Never ending battle

I have decided it's a never ending battle that I have no chance of winning.  I live in a small 700sq ft house. 2 bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bath. Which for me is just fine...But add a few more people in the mix and well it can get crowded. At the moment my granddaughter Morgyn and great granddaughter Randi live here with me.  Randi is 2 1/2 and very very active. I also have a 1 1/2yr old grandson Noah and a new grandchild on the way and due in late January. I have finally decided I am not meant to have a clean clutter free home. And you know what I am not going to stress over it. I am going to embrace it best I can.  I can at least enjoy a picked up living room after Randi goes to bed and before she gets up. Other then that as long as we can get out of the house in case of a fire or some other disaster, I am ok with that.  Oh don't get me wrong I am sure I will get upset from time to time when it gets to me, but I will calm down and life will go on.  Here is a picture I took the other day after I had spent most of the day cleaning while Randi and her mother were gone.  I enjoyed the clean living room for about an hour and then, well they got home and this is what my living room looked like after her being home about 5 min.

Well I better get going and enjoy my clean living room while I can before she gets up.  I hope everyone has a wonderful day and beautiful weekend. We are expecting some thundershowers today but cooler temps, and some cooler fall like temps over the weekend which I am going to enjoy immensely.  I am going to be involved in a church service project outside tomorrow morning so the cooler temps will be a welcome relief. Then everyone will enjoy a nice picnic at the park.  Again enjoy and don't sweat the small stuff, life is to short and you never know when things will change in an instant.

FIREWORKS

I love fireworks, I love going to watch the fireworks, I love to look at pictures of fireworks. Must just be the kid in me. Fireworks is something that brings back wonderful memories of my childhood when every 4th of July my father's side of the family would get together for a family reunion of sorts. My father side of the family is big. There were 8 children in the family and of course then came the spouses then the children. I have 27 cousins.  Needless to say between the siblings, spouses, children, siblings cousins etc there would easily be 150-200 people in my uncles backyard. Lots of good food and family to round out the day. BUT the thing that all of us looked forward to was watching the fireworks at night from the comfort of my uncles backyard. They didn't live that far away from the fairgrounds where they shot off the fireworks so we had a very good view and didn't have to "fight the traffic" (parents words not mine).  Lots of oohhs and aaahhhs from all of us. 

Over the years I have seen many fireworks on various occasions and have loved every minute of it.  A week or so ago in our town we hosted a fireworks convention PGI (Pyrotechnics Guild International).  I thought cool would see a few fireworks as they were putting on shows a few times during the week. I didn't know what to expect but honestly didn't care because I was going to watch.  Now we were warned as a town that these would be nothing like our local fireworks on the 4th, they would be bigger and louder and for people living near the fairgrounds this could prove to be interesting.  They suggested that if you live nearby and had animals you might want to board them for the week. The county even moved all the animals at the local animal shelter out of town for the week because of the stress we were told it could cause the animals and the animal shelter is located on the same property as the fairgrounds so this was a good idea. 

All this talk really got me excited to see exactly what they had in mind to show us.  Let me tell you I was not disappointed.  These "little" shows they were putting on were amazing. They were bigger, stronger, brighter and louder then any I have ever heard in my life.  My great granddaughter and I went every night to watch them from a parking lot not far from the fairgrounds. Actually if you could see the sky from any where in town you could see fireworks.  From what I have heard you could see some of them 12 miles away in the neighboring city.

The Grand Finale was held Friday night and my cousin and I went out to sit with my sister at her friends tomato farm which was just on the outskirts of the fairgrounds. We could see everything and we had such a nice cool evening to sit outside and enjoy the show.  From what I hear their were over 10,000 people actually at the fairgrounds watching the show and that number doesn't even count the people sitting in various places around town.  But seeing the number of cars in the parking lot at the fairgrounds I can only imagine and I actually am glad I wasn't sitting in the fairgrounds.

This video is about 28 min long and was just a glimpse into one of the shows that was put on that night. This is truly amazing and actually doesn't do it justice after seeing it in person but does give you an idea of what we saw.  If you have the time it is well worth watching.  Turn up your volume as there is some wonderful music that goes right along with the fireworks.  I don't think you will be disappointed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksuN58qGSNM&feature=share

If you ever get a chance to see anything this company puts on anywhere close to where you can go see, trust me its worth going to see.  They will be back in 2016 for another weeks convention and I will be right there watching every minute God willing.   

I can Breathe again :)

For the past couple months prior to June 28,2012 I have been extremely stressed. The reason for this stress was preparing for my oldest daughter Amanda's wedding. She is not one of these people that gives you much time to plan. When she makes up her mind to do something she thinks and feels it should happen NOW. When her and her boyfriend Ed decided to actually get married, (after all they had been talking about it for a year or so) she told me that it would be in 2 months. 2 MONTHS is she kidding me, PLAN a wedding in 2 MONTHS???? You can't even order a wedding dress or for that matter make a wedding dress in that amount of time. We had the location for the wedding, that wasn't a problem. She wanted to have an outdoor reception...Ok but do you realize daughter dear that you are talking the last part of July when the weather normally is FREAKING HOT??? And the way the weather has been this summer she has got to be kidding, but she wasn't. Ok fine but we need a backup plan, you know in case of rain, which by the way we hadn't had any so far this summer and everything was drying up because of the FREAKING HOT WEATHER.


Ok now what do you want your wedding to look like? Any thoughts, as I keep a smile on my face when I ask her. No she really hadn't given that part any thought. She had the guy, had the ring, set the date, had the church so she would have to think about that, as I had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because I know how she is when she makes up her mind. She will decide what she wants and it needs to be done NOW. Not in a few days/weeks but have it done like yesterday.

Well first on the agenda was she decided on her colors, Purple, Pink and Orange. At first I didn't quite grasp those colors mainly because I was thinking a little ahead as far as flowers, but hey it was at least a start. Then since we live in a small town and not many places to buy a wedding dress I started looking up places nearby where we could go look and pray they had dresses in stock she could buy and have altered in time. Oh and did I forget to mention not only did we need to find a wedding dress but we needed to pick out some affordable bridesmaid dresses for the 2 friends that were standing up for her. They are both single mothers with a tight budget. Ok the headache was starting and let me tell you it didn't go away for day AFTER the wedding.


Now going shopping with my daughter is a challenge in itself. I need to mention here that she has these ideas in her head and there is no deviating from those ideas. Now trying to find those ideas is another story. She gets very frustrated quickly when she can't find what she is looking for when she steps into a store. But again I keep the smile on my face and tell her it will be fine we will find what she wants or we can find some material and I will make her wedding dress exactly how she wants it. The first place we went to turned out to be closed that day, oops forgot to check that little detail, but then in my defense why would a store be closed in the middle of the week is beyond me. But that's ok I had my list of stores. The next store we went to was this small little local bridal shop. Cute and I saw potential, all Amanda saw was to many choices and I could see she was already getting stressed and I was waiting for the explosion and her just throwing up her hands and saying forget it, we will just elope. I told her calm down and just look we have time. AHHHH did I just actually smile and tell her we had time NOOOOOOO. But I again being the mother said it would be fine. Every dress we were shown just wasn't what she had envisioned for herself. The lady showing us dresses was so nice and so calm with Amanda which made it easier on me. I looked around myself and found a couple to show her that I thought she might like. She ended up trying on about 5 dresses in this shop. With each dress she tried on she was getting frustrated because for one they were to big on her so she couldn't tell exactly how they would look, but I explained to her that these were basically sample dresses so they needed to be a little bigger for a wide variety of people to try on. The first dress she tried on was one I had found and even though it wasn't her size I could tell it looked beautiful on her. I had to look away so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes... MY DAUGHTER WAS IN A WEDDING DRESS... After the 5th dress she said she was done, this wasn't fun anymore and wanted to leave. I quickly helped her out of the dress and told her that was fine we could leave. I didn't want her to have a meltdown this early in the game. I knew one was coming I just didn't want it to be so quick. We left the store and discussed the dresses she tried on as we were on our way to the next store. The next store we went to wasn't that far away, and when we got there, there was this young girl sitting behind the counter, she never really looked up at us and we started looking at the dresses on the racks. Well after about 15 min the girl ask if she could help us, DUH... The girl asked what she was looking for and when was her wedding. When she gave her the date of just 2 months ahead, the girl looked at both of us like we had all of a sudden grown another head. We were told that wasn't possible and she couldn't help us and basically she just walked away. Well needless to say we left. We then again discussed looking at a couple more places on my list and she said she didn't want to but that she really liked the 1st dress she tried on, the one that I had picked out for her. I told her then if that is what she wanted and she liked it then we should go back there and get it. Which is what we did. Now all we had to do was set up for the alterations. The bridal shop consultant was wonderful and so helpful which I am so happy and relieved for.

We also looked in this shop for the bridesmaid dresses and she found one she really liked and we thought they would look good on both girls. It also came in the color she wanted or at least that is what the book said. Well long story short a week later, turns out the dress no longer came in the color she wanted. So now we had to look again. Here again I was the calm one, trying to keep the peace and told her if we couldn't find what she wanted I could always make the dresses. Even though secretly I wasn't looking forward to it but I would if needed. After all I still had my granddaughter and great granddaughter and myself to figure out what we were going to wear. We looked and looked at so many dresses my head was spinning. Nothing was what she had envisioned. NOTHING, did I mention NOTHING??? Well in talking to my mother a couple days later about what she was needing to wear she told me she found a couple dresses online she thought would work for the bridesmaids. I went to the website and looked at what she was talking about and yes they were pretty close to what Amanda had envisioned. I quickly copied the website and sent it to my daughters phone so she could look it up. She did and she was excited because yes that is what she wanted. So I called to see if they had the sizes we needed and they did. We made plans to go to the store that night when she got off work. WELL turns out they weren't exactly what she wanted but she guessed they would work. While walking around the store we ran across a dress in the exact color she wanted, style was good for both girls as they both had different shapes and this dress we both though would look good on both girls and wow they had them in the sizes we needed. We talked to the sales clerk and ask if we could put these dresses on hold till the next day so the two girls could try them on. That was not a problem and we put 4 dresses on hold in a couple different sizes just in case. The next day Amanda took the two girls there and they tried them on and they fit, they fit great, they looked great. I got a text from my daughter telling me they worked. I got off the phone and did a happy dance. We now had the bridal gown and both bridesmaid dresses.


We had also found a dress for my granddaughter and great granddaughter and actually she found a dress for me. I was just going to use a dress I already had and just alter it. But she liked the dress she found, I tried it on and it looked great so we got it. We were done dress shopping YEAH.

She decided on what type of decorations she wanted. What the flowers would look like. Which we took my mother with and picked out all the flowers. My mother was going to make all the bouquets, corsages, for the guys and for the vases for the tables. We found the right colors she was looking for, the vases in the colors she was looking for, ribbons etc. She decided she wanted little gift bags for everyone at the wedding that would hold bubbles, matchbooks and a little candy. I made up the pattern for the bags, she scanned it on the computer and put the initial and date on the bags where she wanted it. Printed them out then I cut them out, and glued them all together and put ribbons on the handles. I made 75 little bags. Her and Ed filled them all up. We had a few extra so we figured we could use them to hold the candy she wanted on the tables. We shopped for table coverings, a few hanging lanterns for the ceiling in the pavilion at the park where they were having the reception. We found everything in the colors she wanted. WHEW

There is a Kitchen supply store in town that did catering also, and when they went down to check it out she found they did a cookout type of food also. So that is what they decided to do. So the food for the reception was cookout style. Hamburgers, hot dogs and brats, salads, veggies, chips, fruit and punch. All sounded good and everyone likes cookout food. Amanda had found a picture of a cake she thought was really really nice and so they took the picture to the lady who was doing the cake and she said no problem she could do that. Wow things were really falling into place in a short period of time. Well not without a lot of stress, delays, meltdowns , but still all in all falling into place.
Needless to say I was sweating out the weather thing. After all this summer so far was a scorcher. And even though it hadn't rained in I can't remember when, we still needed to consider that possibility. We kept track of the weather on a daily basis. Because we needed to know how to proceed and what to tell the caterer and cake lady. And of course would have to rethink the reception ideas because we had gotten things for picnic tables not round tables that would be at the church if we needed to do reception there. In the end we had the reception at the park. It was a BEAUTIFUL sunny nice cool slightly windy day. You couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. I was relieved.

The decorating, the rehearsal, the wedding, the reception went off without a hitch. It was an all around WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL day for a wedding. She had lots of friends and family there to share in her day. I had some wonderful close friends there and it was great to be able to visit with them as much as I could with everything going on. Everyone had a good time as was evident in all the smiles and the pictures we have seen so far. Although it was all wonderful, I am glad it is all over. Even now almost 2 weeks later I am just now starting to feel like myself again and not be so stressed and so very very tired.
I know this post was long and lots of pictures, but I hope you enjoyed a small glimpse in what went into getting my daughter married and trying to make her day a very special and memorable day. Thanks for reading.