Our Fall of Wedding Preparation

Our fall was a flurry of wedding preparations thrown in between our regular life schedules.  At least with Jas moved out, we had one less schedule to work around, but also one less person around to help with things!

 

This is a summary of the Love Story that was happening around us with Richelle and Logan.  From the day the ring was on her finger, we had 5 weeks and 6 days til the wedding day.  Our lives were completely full of wedding stuff, but it was a wonderful time!!!

 

 

In June I had the brilliant idea to start sewing chair covers.  Our happy couple weren't even a couple yet and had only gone on a date or two when I bought my first bolt of white fortrel polyester fabric.  I just thought that this could be a good summer project for the girls and I, just to sew chair covers whenever because we'd need them someday for all the future weddings.

I ended up sewing 118 over the summer.  It was funny as their courtship evolved and Richelle said to me one day, "Mom, maybe you weren't too premature in making those chair covers after all!" 

 

Then there was other sewing going on.  Chelle found her dress and the dressmaker was working on making it modest.  We found outfits for the bridesmaids and fabric for the flower girls and sister's skirts.

 

This is a game:  can you spot twenty differences between the two pictures?

Katia modelling her dress with two different sashes.  We ended up going with the black sash.



There were a ton of other projects on the go too, lots involving wood and paint.  This plastic was covering the carpet for a long time so we could do the mindless painting while watching movies and drinking milk.

Chelle painting centerpiece bases.

 

Our house really was a mess for quite a while - housework was not a priority!!!

The office was a mass of bits and pieces of various projects.

It was so nice to finish projects and scratch them off the list and store them away somewhere.  Eventually we could see the desk top again.

 

Mackenzie wanted to get in on some of the painting action . . .

One day I found the green paint job, and the next day I found the teal one!

 

There was even spray-painting shoes going on!  The garage was the spray-paint center.  We even spray-painted white flowers in the colour of teal we wanted because we couldn't find actual flowers in that colour.  Spray paint is awesome!  But stinky - so glad we could use the garage.

 

At this time we were especially grateful that Richelle didn't meet Logan last summer.  Could you imagine all this wedding preparation if we were still living in the workshop and finishing the house?

 

Total random picture!!!  But it was funny.  Whenever it's time for the blessing on our meal, Richie takes off his hat and tosses it like a frisbee - always aiming to have it land on the newel post of the banister.  Sometimes it even gets close!  This time he was just sitting in the living room and tossed his hat and whamoo - it landed in between the couch cushions like this.  We had to get a picture because I don't think that will ever happen again!

 

In the beginning of October the office turned into a flower shop.

Chelle making her bouquet.

She did hers, the bridesmaids' bouquets and Logan's boutonniere, and I did the rest.

I made all the flowers on top of all the centerpieces while watching the Saturday sessions of general conference on the computer.  Those aren't pictured here though.  After making all the necessary flower projects, I turned the rest of the flowers into arrangements to use for decorating the reception.

 

Since it was fall, of course it was volleyball season! 

Jordyn made the Junior Varsity team - she's the yellow 4, playing libero.

 

They had a really good season, winning the silver in their league.

Carlee played on the grade 9 team and was one of three setters.  Her team really improved this year and got second in Divisionals and in Zones.

Jenna also played at the grade 6 level.

 

There were other little details for the bride to take care of - like practicing hairdos.

 

 Since it was October, there were other things going on . . .

. . . like Carlee's 14th birthday.

She got a camera!!!

She requested a mock cheesecake for her birthday dessert.

 

Jasmine also had a birthday, but that was four days before the wedding and she wasn't living at home anymore.  I think we took her out for dinner or something - can't really remember.  Obviously it was a very special celebration for her 18th birthday!!!

 

The youth in our ward also took a bus trip . . .

. . . to the Temple Open House.

It's a gorgeous temple!!!  We went to tour the open house as a family on Thanksgiving Monday.  It was General Conference weekend.  We watched the Sunday morning session at home and the afternoon session while on the road to my sister Rebecca's house for Thanksgiving Dinner.  We went to the Open House on Monday morning and the line-ups weren't too bad.  We about froze to death though in the wind and rain but eventually got inside.  There was a beautiful spirit in the temple, even though there were parts of it that weren't completely finished yet.  Work crews would work all night and members would come in the morning and clean up before the Open House began.  I couldn't help but cry with joy in the beautiful Celestial Room.  The sealing room was wonderful for our girls to see because they were able to be in a room that was a lot like the room Chelle and Logan would soon be sealed in.  It was so fantastic to be able to take our girls into a Temple of the Lord.

 

Time was marching on and the wedding date was getting closer.

Logan was a most helpful groom when he wasn't working tons of extra-shifts or sleeping.  He's making wedding favors here, looking very thrilled about it!!!

As we completed things, we'd do little mock set-ups so we could see if we had everything we needed.

This is our practice guest book table and card basket.  They used a calendar as their guest book and had guest sign on their birthdays.

 

 

Finally it was the day before the wedding!  We had gone into the church the night before after all activities were finished, and vacuumed and set up the tables and chairs.  So once it was decorating day, all that grunt work was already done and we could focus on making it beautiful, being finished as early in the day as possible.

My friends Cindy and Sarah tied all the chair sashes.  Katia and Mackenzie were very good at distributing the chair covers (don't they look marvellous!) and sashes to all the chairs.

Richie and Richelle arranging the food tables.  And mounds of other things on the floor awaiting their various locations!  We got it all finished around 5:00pm.

 

Logan worked that last day but then showed up with his dad (in the red shirt) and they helped set up the last thing, the back-drop.

Then we went back to our house where my brother Andrew had arrived with his daughter Victoria.  Richelle and Logan opened the lovely quilt that Diana had made for them.

And they opened a laundry basket full of treasures from that couple sitting beside them on the couch - Kevin (Logan's brother) and Ashley (Kevin's fiance).

 

Then everyone left until it was just our family left for one last night together.  Jasmine had come home by now and we were all together again.  Daddy gave his big girl a blessing and we had some special time together, talking, laughing, reminiscing and crying.  Mackenzie was oblivious to it all and kept prancing around singing the same phrase of a song over and over, making us laugh.  (Too bad none of us can remember which song it was!).  She was just excited that tomorrow she was finally going to "mawwy Logan and Wichelle in the temple in her lellow pwitty dess".

 

Richelle left us with one last gift on her last night at home - she flooded our bathroom!  She didn't have the shower curtain right somehow and there was water everywhere.  We mopped it up and thought that was the end of that, but later in the night when we were sleeping, Carlee (who's room is under our bathroom) woke us up to tell us that water was dripping from her light fixture onto her floor.  So after mopping it up again, we got to sleep, again, only to dream of that special day tomorrow . . .

 

. . . when Richelle and Logan will take that big step and begin their eternal journey together! 



Moving - Phase II

After Gramma and Grampa returned from their mission, we lived with them for about a week.  It was nice - too nice!!!  We weren't working fast enough - we'd go back to their house for lunch and then sit around talking for an hour.  Then we'd go back for supper, and stay all evening.  The socializing was great, and it was nice for Mackenzie to get to know Gramma and Grampa again, but it wasn't so great for us trying to finish building our house.

These are pictures of how we lived for August and half of September.

Rich in the living room of our workshop.  Behind him is the dining room and kitchen.  That orange thing is a big drill press in the middle of the "pantry".  We have a fridge, stove, freezer and microwave, but no running water (we used a lot of paper towels!).  We mostly ate prepared foods off paper plates, used a lot of water bottles, and hauled water in.  The only running water in the house was in the toilet.

Don't garage doors make beautiful living room decor?  That's Katia on the couch.

Don't piles of boxes and furniture make great living room walls?

I'd take our laundry to the local laundro-mat.  Didn't have to go too often as we each wore about two outfits per week - our paint/work clothes and our Sunday clothes!!!  Once in a while I'd take a mound of dishes over to Gramma's house, or the laundro-mat and wash them in the big sink while my clothes were getting washed.  As for bathing?  Don't ask!!!  Let me just say that it was a good thing we had a season pass at the pool!

This is the lovely view from our doorway. 

We had a row of girls' dressers there on the right.  We used a lot of area rugs and carpet remnants so we wouldn't be walking on cement.  See that blue and white rug on the right that disappears?  That's heading to the master bedroom.

My room - still had queen size bedding on the new king size bed.  Rich was always scared that wood on shelves above our heads would fall on us.  I wasn't worried because I knew Chelle and I had packed it in there well.  Only an earthquake could knock it loose.  Mackenzies bed is that navy playpen at the foot of the bed.  Isn't that wall an amazing packing job?

Now, about the rest of our kids . . .

Carlee and Jas shared a bed in the camper.

Jenna and Katia shared bunks at the other end of the camper.  (Katia was on the couch, remember?  That's why she's not in her very messy bottom bunk.)

Jordyn and Lacie were in the middle section.  Jordyn's bed is the table and she used the couch for all her junk.  The girls liked having Lacie out there with them - for protection and for warmth!

Richelle still had her apartment through August, but she was always with us during the week.  She moved out and the end of the month and lived with Gramma and Grampa til her room was ready.  So that was another move and clean that was taking place at this time.

Most of the time, we had the left basement window not installed.  We'd climb through the rough opening and get to the bathroom.  That's why we have a plank sidewalk there, so during times of rain, we wouldn't have to walk through the mud.  Fortunately for us, the weather was lovely and we only had a few rainy days.

 Going here in the middle of the night wasn't too bad as we had a motion sensor light that would come on and light the way.  But eventually, the window had to be installed so we could finish the inside.  Then we had to find a new route in to the bathroom.  Wanna see it?

This is exactly how it looked - dark!!!  That orangish blur in the front is a cement mixer.  We made a pathway over to the door in the back of the garage, which was certainly better than walking around to the front of the house in our jammies.  The hardest part was climbing up three steps on a sawhorse to get in the doorway.  But we all survived and no one wet their pants!

Once in a while we needed a fresh dose of air in the workshop . . .

. . . so we'd open a garage door.  You could only do this at the right time of the day though - not when the hot sun was shining, and not when interior lights would attract flies and mosquitos.

It certainly felt weird to be sitting in your house with traffic driving past a little ways away.

So once we moved here, work on the house progressed much more rapidly - there was nothing to do but work!  Katia would look after Mackenzie during the day here in the living room while we'd all be working in the house.  At the end of our work day, we'd usually relax with a movie (we enjoyed the series of "Merlin" and "Robin Hood" at this time) and then fall asleep.  For the first time in her life, Mackenzie started sleeping through the night, which I found truly delightful!

Although it was a crazy and busy time, it was also delightful!  We had no interruptions from the world:  no phone ringing, no computer and internet distractions, no friend distractions.  It was just family, working together to accomplish something great - a home, our little shelter from the world.  We'd rejoice together over every accomplishment - I think a working shower may have got the most rejoicing!!!  It will be a summer to be remembered.  And you know, when I started being able to brush my teeth indoors, I missed my time outside at night under the huge star filled sky, when I'd feel very close to my Father in Heaven.  I just might have to start doing that again - next summer!

Moving - Phase I

The last week of July we had to take some time off house building and focus on moving.  Gramma and Grampa were coming home from their mission, and we were living in their house.  They had other people renting their basement so we couldn't move there.  Their garage and house was filled with their stuff and our stuff.  So the first part of the move was to get our stuff out of their place.

So, where to put our stuff?  We have this wonderful workshop, only problem was that it was filled full with tools, equipment, bikes, future house stuff like doors, lights, and junk (but good junk of course!).  So all the stuff that was in the workshop, we hauled over to our newly painted garage.  I attacked the workshop with the shopvac and it was ready for us.

It looks pretty big and empty right now, but just wait!!!  That is the front door laying horizontal under the windows - probably waiting for the last coat of verathane to dry.  Look - our stove (and fridge) have been delivered, and our new king size bed is in place.

Rich is assembling our dining room table which will go where the door is.  We emptied some of those cabinets for our kitchen use, but the rest were full of work shop type stuff.

We've got a carpet remnant down in what will soon become . . .

. . . our living room!!!

Looks comfy and spacious eh?  Just wait . . .

Add a couple trailer loads of stuff and wo - not so spacious anymore!!!

Seriously, where was anything?  Oh, there's the piano!

So I spent some time trying to get some semblance of order.  We made walls out of boxes and dressers to create our master bedroom.  We had a bit of time to get this organized because we weren't going to move in until we had a toilet in the house that worked!!!  We weren't exactly sure when Gramma and Grampa were going to arrive home - they had a long drive from South Carolina!!!  They were perfectly willing to let us continue living with them though.

Thinking back, there were a few delights I can think of:

- that it was summer!  None of this would have been fun (or possible) in the winter!

- that we were strong and healthy!  All this moving was by Rich, the girls and I!

- that we had a cargo trailer to move and store things in!!!

- that we have food storage (even though it was a big pain to move and store!!!)

There are always things to be delighted about!!!

Curls for Daddy

One Saturday night, Rich said to the girls, "Wouldn't it be cute if you all had curly hair for church tomorrow?"

I groaned, thinking to myself, "Sounds like lots of work for the momma."  (You must remember here that I am a white personality - motivated by peace, but lazy, unless it's something that I want to do!)

Anyway, the girls did all the work!  They rolled the younger girls' hair up in curlers, and used curling irons on the older hair.

They all looked so cute sitting there in church - all these blond curly heads sitting in our pew!

Katia . . .

. . . the exuberant six year old!

Jenna . . . 

. . . the graceful ten year old!

Carlee . . . 

. . . the mischievous twelve year old!

Jordyn . . . 

. . . the sweet fourteen year old!

Jasmine . . . 

. . . the happy sixteen year old (with naturally curly hair)!

"Daddy . . .

. . . my hair is too little to be curly.  I promise I'll curl it for you someday!"

"Now, can we play our game?" 

"Ahhhhh!"                     "Ahhhhhh!"

And then we all laugh!!!

We just enjoyed sitting around outside on a lovely Sunday afternoon, spending time together, laughing at nothing and everything.

I delight in Sunday evenings, because it's usually always family time in one way or another.

A time to be with those we love the most.

Is there anything more delightful?