Matt and Jen's wedding photos

Brenda Smith is the BESTEST EVER friend. She made this amazing video of Matt and Jen's wedding on September 15. What a great keepsake for them. Oh, and for me, the mom.

I swear I cried when I saw this. If you were at the wedding you may cry too. I love the fun funky non traditional photos. So artistic and they are going to be a hoot to scrap.

The song playing is the song for the first dance. It is about a Back hills country boy and a fairy tale princess. It is SOOOOOO the right song for them. Describes them perfectly to a tee. The name of it is "Livin our Love Song."




For those of you that dont know any of us, I hope you enjoy the photos. And a BIG thank you to Brenda for putting this together.

Baby Shower Cake

Here is the cake I made for Claudia's baby shower at work last week. I had to teach myself how to do the basket weave on the top. I missed that class when every one else learned. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. I think it turned out kind of cute. I was going to put roses around the bottom but they were not turning out good so I skipped that idea and just did a quick little border.

I did absolutley nothing this weekend except sit/lay on the couch. Watch TV and read a little Harry Potter. Talk about lazy and loving it.

The Look of Pain

A couple of weeks ago I got to go to my daughters Marine PT (physical training). One Saturday a month all of the Poolee's (recruits waiting to go to boot camp) have a mandatory PT. Gunnery Sgt. Monroe leads this training. I was amazed at how well Jen did. She gave it her all and never gave up. She actually out did most of the guys that day. This photo was durring the circut training portion of the PT. After running as a group the Poolee's must run from station to station. They spend 2 min. at each station doing an excercise. Non stop. This was the crunch station. She did not give up no matter how much pain she was feeling.

At this station they had to jump down, feet go out, do a push up, feet come in, stand and punch. The look of pain on her face as she was doing this was amazing. Jen could not do a push up to save her life a couple months ago. She is pretty proud of herself that she can do them now. She will show any one that is willing to watch now.

Now this excersice amazed me beyond belief. They had to go from a laying down position into a crunch and then right into a standing position. Then they would have to go back down and do it all over again. Matt and I both looked at each other and said "there is no way she will be able to do that". Well, we were wrong. Not only did she do it she did not stop. My mouth was hanging open at the shear amount of pain in her face and determination.





Each time she started to stand a horrible grunt/yell would come out of her mouth. The guy she was paired up with was a real go getter. We got mad at himself because he could not do one more before they had to switch. He was amazing with Jen. We could hear him grunting along with her saying things like, "cmon show these guys up, your a bad a**, do it again, yea thats the way" and he was grunting right along with her. Each time her turn was done he would pat her legs and tell her how awesome she did. I was so proud of her.





This is when they were learning how to choke someone out in 8 seconds. Some of the guys were not paying attention and messing around laughing. Jen's recruiting Sgt. Brown got angry and yelled at them all. "you thing this is a joke moth*** effer, its not, you can kill someone, this is serious, now pay attention and quit effing around." Yep, he was mad as all get out.

This is the point where I really realized just how serious of a choice Jen has made. She will be learning how to kill someome with her bare hands. And, someone may be trying to kill her. Pretty serious stuff. Chances are she will not be in that position as women are not allowed in combat. But there is a chance. It was eye opening to realize these Poolee's will be taught to kill and not be afraid of that fact. They are all volunteering to dye for our country if they have too. That is beyond belief amazing. Don't you think?

Wedding Cake

I have not blogged in forever and now you can see why. My Daughter Jenni got married to Matt this weekend. These are the only pictures I took myself. Can not wait to see the others. This is the cake I made for them. First off I must say I knew it would take a lot of work but really I did not know it would take as long as it did. There is 17 hours of work in this cake. No joke.
The bottom layer is chocolate with a raspberry filling. The middle layer is white with a lemon kist filling. And the top is both. That way, on their first anniversary they both can still have the cake they wanted for their wedding day.
This was the very first tiered cake I have ever done. The tiering was the easy part. It was the fondant that was hard. Next time the fondant will be better. All in all I think the cake turned out pretty decent for my first one.

I loved that neither one of them had a problem shoving cake in the others face. I did warn them ahead of time to decide if they wanted to do this or not. I have seen many a bride be very upset when the groom did this. It ruins the makeup. But Jen being Jen had no problem what so ever. They both shoved away.

And then they kissed dirty face and all. It was so cute.
The entire day turned out rather nice even if I must say so myself. I did get many compliments on how beautiful it was. Jen was stunning. Matt was so handsome I cried. The decorations in the yard looked awesome thanks to Mary Gail. All of the other decorations (guest book, cake server, etc etc) were altered by me. The food was great thanks to our chef Curtis, Tina, Shannon, Mary Gail and myself. Our DJ was awesome thanks to Justin and our MC Heather. Flowers were perfect thank you to Josie. And the photographs.......I have not seen them yet but I KNOW they got some GREAT shots thanks to Helen, Brenda and Nikki.

Me???????? I am kind of glad it is over. I just wish I could have enjoyed the day more and socialized more. I was so busy it was crazy. Crazy Fun!

What Are you Doing This Weekend

The Crunch begins.......Jen's wedding is in 7 days. AHHHHHHH!!!!!! I have made lists that need to be made into more lists. I have purchased decorations, cake stuff, and most of the other goodies. I have tried to be organized but I tell you it is never good enough. I still have a ton to do.

Then yesterday, I got this hairbrained idea that I really do want to make favors. So I came up with a really unique favor idea. What was I thinking? I was thinking "oh how cute". So off to Tap Plastics" I go. This photo is of the beginning of the project. 81 pieces of 5x7 acrylic. Gonna make wall hangings for everyone. Waht a job.

What are you doing this weekend? Wanna come help?

Not Your Usual Sighting

WOW! They MUST be hungry. This is not your usual every day sight. These cats do not necisarilly get along. Seriously!

So I came home today. One cat is yelling at me. I fill the bowl. Another cat jumps up there and yells. Now What? Grab another bowl and fill it when the third cat comes a yelling. Holy Cow! Grab the third bowl before the cat fight starts. Whew! No fights today. They were all eating happily.

Thats Jen's cat Roxy on the left. My cat Lady in the middle and Matt's cat DeeDee on the right. They are not friends. They kind of ignore each other. Until they get to close together and then one of them will warn the other to get the heck away NOW!

It's Friday and I can not wait for the work day to end. Yes, I know it has not started. But I got so much to do for the wedding NEXT WEEK. It's crunch time. Wish me luck.

My Little Creative Space

I have not been creating much at home lately. Nikki and I were discussing why the other night. I think she hit it right on the nose. My stuff is always in my tote in the car because I take it back and forth to the store. I also don't want to pull it all out and make a mess on my dinning room table every night. Because then I would have to clean it all up to eat dinner. Yes, we eat dinner at the table as a family. Always have, always will. I think it's important.

After our conversation, I was wondering what to do what to do? Then I remembered I had given my desk top to my sister about 3 months ago. Hmmmm.....I could clean out the amoire and set it all up to be just my space to create. Most of you know the amazing organizational furniture I have for my stash. But there is just no room to actually scrap.

So Monday I emptied out the amoire of all my pile of hidden junk. Mostly scrap stuff I stuffed in there to hide from the general public. And I emptied out my tote to create myself a little creative haven. Where I can go and mess my little world up and dont have to clean it up if I dont want.

Of course I will clean it up after every Layout. But, if I have to leave in the middle of a layout or something. I can just slide the work top in and close the doors. POOF! No mess left. I am very excited I can work on something any time I want now. One of my favorite features is where the CD's usually go. Well, I put a blank CD in there and created little shelves for my flowers etc. And, the baskets, yep those are just too cute arn't they? What's your space look like?

New Layouts for you

Couple new Layouts for you to see. This first one is of our very dear Julia. She is now a Sailor with the Navy. We are so very proud of her. I used the Hambly transparancy here and just cut it up. To adhere each piece I used Making Memories Jem brads. One of my staples in my stash. And of course the cute little gold velvet Prima flower added the best touch.

I threw this one together last night in my new little space. Will share the space tomorrow. The cute little flower is one of my favorite new embellishments to make from scraps. You may see a lot of these on my layouts soon. The journaling reads: Letting thesee two loose in the woods is never a good idea. Nikki misplaces everything and Brenda gets lost even with her navigater. The two of them together would get lost for sure.

This is me Journal--more pages

Got caught up on my This is Me Journal Challenge last night. This one is "My Ultimate Mix Tape. I am not so good on the music front. Never have been. But I do love all kinds of music. Just cant remember which songs go with which groups. Kind of embarrassing if you ask me.
The background was done with paint and bubble wrap. Too cute.









This is My Drive to Work. I tried to make it all simple and stuff. But that does not always happen with me. I love the long skinny journaling here. And the "white space". I also love the frame around the outside of the page.

If you have not joined me in this challenge, you should. Been learning alot about myself and getting the "real me" down on paper for future. The website is www.thisismejournal.blogspot.com. Get over there and join me. It is not too late to catch up or just jump in and start where ever.