POST-WEDDING POSTS...

There's so much to tell you, or should I say, write about, and I want to remember every little detail about this special time in our family that just happened...

Still on the wedding high, so I can't even really think straight except to  say maybe I'll have to make several posts and draw this thing out for a while...so I'll just apologize right now if that's self-serving to you!

Three days before - Monday:   We headed to Denver early in the morning.  We had packed our car to the gills with wedding decorations, presents that they couldn't fit in their car from a shower, and our own luggage.  After getting there, we met our daughter and her fiancee for dinner and gave them their Christmas gift - a WS Rapid-boil pot that they had registered but we ourselves are thinking we need!  Went by her apartment and saw some more goodies that they had received and got to see the wedding dress - my dress she had restyled. It looked more beautiful than I had imagined!  She told us she needed a slip, super glue, and tiny pearls for her dress.  My last-minute list had started.

 We had rented a house through vrbo about one block from the venue.  We loved being close and and also the fact that the house slept 10 people!  We filled it up.  We had room to work on wedding things that we couldn't fit in the car or could only be done the day before.

Two days before - Tuesday:  The Hubs and I went out and ran some errands.  We stopped off at the donut shop, paid our bill for the wedding, and sampled a couple of donuts.  We shopped Target for miscellaneous items needed, and went to a grocery stores where they had pears for $.99 pound.  We bought 90 pounds of pears for the wedding.  We then headed to a flower wholesaler where we bought almost $200 of flowers for the bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages.  We were unsuccessful in finding a full slip for our daughter.  We decided we needed to go to a bridal shop, so after picking up one of the bridesmaids at the airport, she and I went into David's bridal and bought a half-slip.  Everything was coming together nicely! Our boys arrived with my mother and their girlfriends, in another of our cars that held the same - more decorations, luggage, ski gear, and lots of live greenery riding on the bumper!

Yummy donuts from our donut caterer, "Glazed and Confused" - they had lots of flavors, including Maple bacon, Sweet & salty, and Samoan.  Thankful this donut shop decided to work New Year's morning!

The flower wholesale shop was overwhelming to me!  But a sweet friend of mine assured me I could do the flowers for the wedding.  I wasn't going to spend the average $1000 on flowers, so I taught myself from youtube how to make what we needed.

90 lbs. of pears!

THIS YEAR'S HOME-MADE CHRISTMAS GIFT...

was almost non-existent!

But Pinterest came through for me and I found something that could be done in about 30 minutes.  Six gifts, that's 5 minutes each.  Just what I needed!  It wasn't without a FAIL, though.  I bought the wrong kind of glue and it dripped all over the ornament, so I went back to HL another day and got the  right kind.  SUCCESS!

Kinda pretty, huh?  Maybe I should decorate my laundry room in gold shiny balls all the time.

IT'S GETTIN REAL, FOLKS...

Christmas was pretty low-key around here...but wedding is getting REAL.  I picked up the programs the other day from the printer and almost cried.  It just hit me how beautiful they were (designed by my son) and that this event is really happening!  You'll get to see those later.  Here's a few other sneak peeks:

Two kids pretty pleased with themselves!

Learning to make boutonnieres and all that good stuff!

Sewing some table runners...

Staging some tables...

Wedding has taken over the dining room 

and is threatening other parts of the house!

  

Good thing this is happening in a week.

CHRISTMAS MYSTERY GIFT...

We've had a family activity night close to Christmas for several years now, and it's always a mystery to our kids what will happen...this year our boys both brought their girlfriends and our daughter, of course is in another state.  We missed her, but still had fun!

After eating dinner at Saturn Grill we went to the Tunnels of OKC - I had heard about an interesting art show called OKC 125 in the red and blue tunnels and wanted to check it out.  They were all kind of thinking we had lost it when we parked and started walking toward a sketchy parking garage (I think they had walked through the tunnels once when they were little).  

 It was pretty cool, actually, and FREE.  So it didn't really matter how good/bad it was...

 But it was kind of a fun detour on our way to Bricktown to go...

 SNOW TUBING!

After that we headed back toward The Cheesecake Factory for a little late night dessert.  It was a fun evening with our changing family!

CAMO CHRISTMAS...

 Oh, goodness...did we laugh!

We had a frog leg eating contest (gummy frogs)...

ring toss reindeer games

 duck call contest with straws

even camouflage plates!  

My sis puts on a pretty good party!

MY NEW FAVORITE CANDY RECIPE...

I tried this recipe from Pinterest this fall and immediately fell in love with the salty and sweet flavors!  It's so easy, too.  Then I entered it in a contest where all you had to do was tack on a name to a recipe that reflected one of the Broadway shows coming here soon, and I won!  I'll be getting three pairs of tickets for shows and autographed posters!  Anyway, I was getting ready to make a batch and realized I never shared it on here... so, ENJOY!

I forgot to mention that I vary the chocolate chips sometimes - do what you want - I like to put in 1 cup of semisweet and 1 cup of dark chocolate chips. 

A WEDDING, A GRADUATION, A BABY SHOWER...

This weekend had it all for us - except Christmas parties!  Pretty funny this time of year.  The wedding was for a good friend of mine's son, and it was really beautiful!

Our girl is the next bride coming up!

Her fiancee was in the wedding party.

Here's a few beautiful decor pics!

The Graduation Party was for a young lady that Son #1 spends a lot of time with...she graduated from OSU this weekend with a degree in Architecture! I couldn't help but take a picture of this "building" with edible windows!(They were like cake balls, only rectangles) She made it with her Dad.  Pretty cool!

I don't have any pictures from the baby shower, because I didn't go to it...my husband did!  He really knew the couple more than I did.  They are baristas at the Starbucks he frequents and some friends from church that are also Starbucks addicts wanted to do this for them.  They all went to Starbucks and surprised the mother-to-be with the gifts!  So all I did was buy and wrap the gift but I loved the gesture!