The Weekend #3

Sunday morning after church we headed downtown for Emily's Graduation! She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Exercise Science (pre-Physical Therapy). Note the white rope on her gown -- this means she graduated with honors. Yeah Em! We are so proud of you!

Here are the three sisters together: Christina, Emily, Heather
And the lovely graduate:
Mom and Dad:
And the whole family (at least the ones able to attend. Michael stayed home with the munchkins.):
And now Em has this week off to enjoy life and next week she heads to her first job at a local Hospital. She plans to take a year off of studies and then apply for graduate school.

The Weekend #2

After the wedding on Saturday, we headed to my sister Christina's for Emily's Graduation Open House. It was a lovely evening full of wonderful food and fellowship with many friends.

Here is the lovely graduate, surrounded by friends:
We had one day without rain! It was perfect for visiting out on the deck:
Poor Baby Cakes tipped right over into the drainage just like a baby duckling:
After a bit of a dry off, Baby was happy to sit with Grandma and enjoy some food:

Here is our wonderful hostess with her mother-in-law. JK, Christina's husband who is not pictured, also did a terrific job of hosting:

The dessert table was amazing!

Especially the chocolate-strawberry cake!
The food was mouth-watering. There was marinated chicken on the grill, steak on the grill, two kinds of potato salad, chips (for the sake of vocabulary: "tortilla crisps" :) ) with homemade bean salsa, veggies, and fruit salad.
Here is the grill master herself -- our friend Christine:
It was fun to see old neighbors, friends from in the city, and people we hadn't seen in quite a long time:
After the party we headed home for some rest before beginning the next round of adventures.

The Weekend #1

The first event of our weekend was Brian and Jaci's wedding. Michael and I both have ties to Brian's family that go back (for me) long before Michael and I met. Brian's family were the first to meet us upon our arrival in the Midwest. In fact, Brian's father actually picked out a house for my family to rent and then showed up to help us move in, all without us having met them in person yet.

They invited us to visit their church the morning after we moved, and we fit in so well that that's where we ended up attending. Years later Michael moved to town to intern at our church and Brian's grandparents graciously offered him their spare bedroom for more than a year. Michael joined in with many of Brian's family's activities, and thus our families have been connected.


The flowers were absolutely gorgeous! Choi-ha, who helped my mom do the flowers for my wedding, was in charge for Brian's wedding. God answered her prayers, and the lily of the valley bloomed at just the right time (despite the strange weather patterns this year) and all the bouquets and arrangements were filled with flowers from friends' gardens.

Here are Brian's grandparents, Don and Ellen, with whom Michael lived when he first moved to town:
Here is a picture of the bridal party at the front of the church. Michael performed the wedding, but there were several other pastors involved as well:
The bridge and groom were very happy!
Brian's youngest sister, Nadia, looked very grown up! One of the best parts of the wedding was at the end. The groomsmen walked the bridesmaids down the aisle and Nadia was left on her own as the junior bridesmaid. So, Michael, being somewhat family anyway, escorted Nadia down the aisle to the smiles and applause of the congregation. :)

Here is the bride's bouquet beside one of the bridesmaid's bouquets. The daisies were in memory of Jaci's mother who passed away four years ago this month:

Johanna, Brian's other sister, also looked just beautiful!
This was Rachel's first non-family wedding in several years and she was very excited to attend. She paid careful attention to the ceremony and enjoyed every bit.
Here we are in our wedding outfits. We never got a picture last weekend, so Rachel took one for us this weekend:
After the wedding we headed to Emily's Graduation Party which I will post next.

It's Wedding Season

Last weekend was the wedding of a good friend of ours, Shannon, and her fiance, Jeff. Shannon's sister was married last August. I had looked forward to that wedding for 9 months and then found myself laid out flat in bed and unable to attend it. Michael came home from that wedding and promised me I would be better to attend Shannon's wedding. :) That was little comfort, as we had no idea just when Shannon would be married. However, little did we know things would happen fast! And, yes, Michael's promise came true and I made it to Shannon's wedding!!!! Yeah!

The wedding was held at a little, white, country church in the middle of nearby horse country. What a beautiful setting! And then we drove just around the corner to a little Hunt Club for a beautiful reception in the midst of rolling green hills and white fences.

Michael, being the minister, performed the ceremony:
Everyone looked just beautiful, especially the bride whose dress, hairstyle, and flowers blended so perfectly to create a masterpiece!

Being a foodie, there are lots of pictures of the food, which was really delicious!

There were several kinds of vegetarian sushi, crudites, stuffed mushrooms, meatballs, scalloped potatoes and ham.

Shannon made all her desserts!!! I made sure to taste one bite of each kind of cake the following day when we had leftovers at church. They were outstanding cakes! Especially the carrot cake!

Shannon had made 90 chocolate-lined cases for these strawberry tarts and my sister Emily spent Saturday morning filling them with a marscapone cream and topping them with strawberries, glaze and chocolate swirls (this picture was taken before all the swirls were on). All the effort was worth it -- people LOVED these tarts and swarmed on them as soon as the desserts were announced. I even had one myself (they were quite low in sugar) and it was FABULOUS!

Beautiful peonies:

Another view of the cakes:

There were also Lemon Curd Tarts which looked (and apparently) tasted delicious!

The white-clothed tables were decorated with beautiful pots of flowers.

We all had a marvelous time and are very happy for Shannon and Jeff as they begin their life together.

And now Michael and I are about to do a repeat! Yes, Michael's performing another wedding this weekend!

Make, Do, Mend

I recently came across the phrase "Make, Do, Mend" in Amanda Soule's "Creative Family". Apparently, this was a mantra of women during WW II when provisions were hard to come by. I find it just as applicable to today. Although, I think I'd personalize it a bit to read "Make-do and Mend". :)

I've been inspired by many blogs recently: the cute little summer dress Jess sewed, Catherine's talk about making a girl's jumper from a man's shirt (I can't seem to find the exact link to that page), the photos on Soule Mama, Rebecca's beautiful sewing, and various other artsy blogs I read.

Rachel is in need of summer dresses. She's at that size that is hard to find -- she's too big for all the adorable toddler and 5-yr old dresses that are so easily found at garage sales, thrift stores, and regular stores in general. I decided I might try to make some from some of my old clothes that were still in good condition. Then, I was at Goodwill one Saturday and just happened to walk by the pajama rack (which I don't usually look through). There were some lovely pieces of fabric calling my name and I did not resist.

Thus, we turned a pair of XXL pajama pants:
into a jumper for Rachel!
It did help that JoanEtc.'s had a $1 pattern sale, which made this very economical. Plus, I plan to use the pattern to turn my old clothes into more jumpers.

I also bought a brand new ladies pajama dress which looked cute and it is waiting to be turned into another jumper. It is not always possible for me to sew, but I think I might just have some time this spring/summer, so I'm going to try to do it while I can!

One of the Best Things....

One of the best things about childhood is......

licking the beaters!

A Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon we had time for a little walk back down to the pond. Spring is making good progress, and there is so much green everywhere.



When we moved to the Midwest, one of the things I discovered was the redbud trees. They are one of the first to bloom, and their blooms are just beautiful. I was trying to think how to describe them. Really, it looks as if the redbud trees were in a purple ice storm. Blossoms sprout right from the tree branches and trunk of the tree and so it looks like the tree has been dipped in blossoms.
When the redbuds first bloom, there are usually no other trees with their green leaves out yet, and it is a startling picture to see a bunch of redbuds bursting in color among a group of bare, dark trees. But, the redbuds have been out for about 2 weeks now, and the other trees are beginning to go green, so it is not as startling in this picture.


We had to check on Papa Goose and sure enough, we caught a little glimpse of Mama, busy with her nest. She's still easier to see in the full-size photo than in real life.
And we found a nest up in a tree but a picture revealed no eggs....yet.
We've had a busy weekend, and I have plenty of pictures to upload at some point. Michael is already busy in the garden, trying to finish it up. And thus begins our week.