Busy, Busy, Busy

Christmas break was a long one this year in our household...3 weeks long!

Not that I'm complaining, mind you...I love having the family home altogether. But things were a little frenetic to say the least.

In addition to all the usual activities and preparations leading up to Christmas (parties, cantatas, etc.) then Christmas and New Years (with our annual New Year's Eve bonfire), we also had a snow day



Ice Skating with the cousins











an aunt visiting from Pennsylvania (I regret to say I don't have a single picture of her due to camera problems) and a family wedding.

Oy...the wedding!

This was the LA Lakers themed wedding I'd been asked to help the happy couple plan for the week of March Madness, but which back around Thanksgiving or so (after I'd already said yes) suddenly got backed up to early January. Yikes!

There I was, trying to get my Christmas cards and packages out on time while also making 100 custom wedding invites. It was crazy.

Thankfully my friend Linda from church was able to step in and help with making some of the wedding reception decorations.



Oh, and the pew bows. Below...the poofy tulle creations.



Everything turned out just as we'd envisioned. And the bride was thrilled with how it all turned out...which was good, because keeping the reception from looking tacky yet Lakerish was quite a challenge, let me tell you!

Here is the sweetheart table at the head of the dance floor.



The arrangements had LED votives inside to prevent a fire hazard. They glowed beautifully for the evening reception.



See's Candy had chocolate bars that came in the perfect colors...and the little bags contained puzzles of the bride and groom for the guests to put together while the pictures were being taken. Every place setting had a different photo at each table (8 in all)...which were the very same ones used in the guest book.





I can't take credit for making this lovely cake or the next one...but I did have to position the topper and the flowers (the yellow flowers I made from cut apart artificial lei's...because hibiscus flowers are hard to find in December) and because those turned out so well, I am gonna take a little of the credit. However, it was a place called The Cakery near the venue that was responsible for the delicious and lovely cakes.

From the groom's cake you may gather they are die-hard Laker fans. And you would be right.



Also note the groom, groomsmen and ushers shoes...the Black Mamba series from Nike.





Incidentally, it must be noted that the very expensive (but talented) florist that made their boutan--bouten man corsages ended up using the exact same silk flowers I used on the cake and pew bows (not quite laker purple, but it was all that was available, and so everything was at least matchy... a really happy accident. The Lord made sure all those details were tended to for us)

Here is the lovely bride and her darling flower girl





And again, the bride with her bridesmaids...wearing the flower girls jacket because she was shivering and it was all that could be found.

Yes, you read that right...flower girl. She's a petite little thing.

My favorite part of all the wedding decorations, however, was the guest book table which I put together as part of their wedding gift from us.

Those were actual cheerleader pom poms made from vinyl tablecloth in Laker gold. The guest book was made of black and white photos of the couple on black pages, which guests could sign around in white pen...and which constitute the first few pages of their expandable wedding album scrapbook.





Then there was the un-decorating after the wedding.

Here we had our Martha-esque/Laker PomPoms all in a pile, ready for the garbage. I must admit it was a little painful to see after all the time spent folding, cutting and pulling the layers apart. I had become rather protective of them after spending so much time with them.



But alas...it was all over before we knew it.

I must add that if Jeff hadn't been home handling all the day-to-day stuff over those three weeks and taking the boys out for blocks of time here and there, I would never have gotten everything done in time. He's the man, and a really good sport about it all.

He even mixed up cookie dough and stuff for the boys and I to bake and decorate for Christmas.





Generally, after a two or three week spurt of heavy activity like that, I have to take at least a week off to recover and catch up on all the stuff that fell through the cracks in the meantime.

Things like un-decorating the house after Christmas.

Our decorations were left up waaaay longer than most folks would.

We actually kind of like to stretch out the Christmas ambiance as long as possible...particularly sitting in living room together in the evenings with just the Christmas lights on, sipping hot chocolate or hot tea.



The tree, however, was the first thing to come down, being a 9 foot tall fire hazard.

Then the decorations sat around a while, because I was too tired to put them away they were so pretty.



After the wedding, I just didn't have the energy to reorganize it all for storage right away, and so it sat around taking up surface space in the house for days. (Read: "Here, honey...here's your breakfast. Just move those Nativity Scenes aside, okay?")

In fact, my Christmas decorations only just got packed away in the attic this evening.

It couldn't be helped...we simply had to take off some time to have fun.

I realized I needed it more than ever when a few nights ago at dinner I crossed the line by joining in one of the never-ending conversational threads amongst the males in my house...what our family should do in the event of a Zombie apocalypse.

Which, as we all know, is just soooo likely to happen. **voice drips with sarcasm**

I still can't believe they wore me down. I needed some girl-time, stat!

On Saturday, we took a day-cation to my Sister-in-laws house. My guys all went hiking with my brother-in-law while us gals spent some time poking through some wonderful shops in downtown Temecula, California. It was a lovely day.

The only thing to mar it, though not horribly, was that in my haste to get to the antique shops, I'd forgotten to switch over Judah's car seat to his uncle's car.

Which meant the guys had to make do and took Judah with them using the standard lap belt in his uncles car (a one time deal, as we're sticklers for following the rules.) However, because it was a gorgeous day and everyone came out of the woodwork on the back roads, they hopped on the freeway for a short distance only to get stuck in more stop-and-go traffic.

It was during this period of time that Houdini Judah decided to unlatch his restraint and open the car door and see what the holdup was. ON THE FREEWAY!

I do not make these things up! That boy has shaved at least a couple of years off my life already, not to mention given me every gray hair I have. I shudder to think what his teenage years will bring!

All was not lost, however...on that particular excursion I totally scored in finding this gorgeous Milk Glass platter for $17 dollars.



And miracle of miracles, even with church activities on Sunday, I even had a little time to work on my two latest crochet projects as well.





Ahhh...a much needed and relaxing 3-day weekend!