What's Black and White and Red All Over?

A "blushing bride" (or maybe a little sunburned?) in a black and white dress! My niece, Crystal is getting married on 9/25/09. She and her fiance had a combination shower/golf outing/bachelorette/bachelor party on Saturday. The guys went golfing, while we women were told to wear our "little black dresses". Alternatively, we could dress in black and white with red accents. Since I do not own a black dress, (and it certainly would NOT be little if I did), I wore the black and white sun dress that I got for my other niece's wedding in May.

Here are a few of the "little black dresses" All the ladies looked lovely.

One of the games we played, was to design wedding dresses out of really cheap toilet paper, that would rip if you looked at it too hard. We split into 4 teams by the tables we were sitting at:

This is my sister-in-law, Rose and my mother, Lenore working on my niece, Holly's dress. Holly just wore her REAL wedding dress a few months ago, in May. Looks good so far!

Above, was my team's model, my grand niece, Desiree. My sister, Connie is putting some of the finishing touches on her creation. I didn't do anything but watch, laugh and take pictures.

These are the 4 finished products. Don't they all look stunning in their new gowns? Crystal was the judge, and chose the 3rd one from the left. I believe it is her SIL-to-be. Maybe she was just making points with her new family?? BTW, those are rose petals on Holly's dress, that they took off of the table decorations...she's not actually wounded!

And then of course, there were gifts to open. Here, she's opening the "Slap Chop" that Jessica and I gave her. Now she can remember us every time she chops onions...but she won't have to with tears in her eyes!

After the games and gift opening were over, the guys joined us back at Crystal's for dinner. There were alcoholic, and non-alcoholic versions of punch to choose from at the shower...
My brother Bob, decided to wear the "alcohol" name tag from the punch. He also stole the clothespins that we had been using earlier for a game...Looks like he'd already had enough alcohol while out golfing, don'tcha think? JK, Bob is always kinda silly like that.

We took a picture of my mother with all of the granddaughters that were present, those that are pictured here range in age from 32 down to 12. L to R: Jenny, Mom, Holly, Crystal, Lacy, Jessica, Molly and Amber. Molly wasn't actually at the shower, she and her cousin Tanner were watching CJ and Shelby at my sister's house a couple of blocks away, and then they all joined us for dinner along with the guys.

Here's one of me and my sisters, sisters-in-law, and my mother. Unfortunately, two of my sisters couldn't make it. L to R: sisters, Connie and Sue, me, Mom, my sister Kathy and SIL's, Lori and Rose. Notice how Rose is standing on her tippy-toes. I didn't even see that when I took this picture.



After dinner, the "party bus" showed up. Some of the guests decided to participate in this part of the day's activities. We opted to play it safe and take Molly and Christian home after dinner.

Here, Crystal and Kathy pose in front of the bus. I'm pretty sure this is one of those things where, "what happens on the party bus STAYS on the party bus"... and I'm not even sure I WANT to know...so I'll just leave it to your imaginations ;-)

April Showers Bring May Weddings ~ May Showers Bring...July Babies??

Last Saturday afternoon, I went to my niece, Holly's bridal shower. She's the daughter of my "internetaphobic" brother, Dan. I don't believe she has a problem with me posting her picture here...after all I swiped it off of her facebook page. Holly will be marrying Nate C. on May 16th. It seems like forever since we've had a wedding in our family...and this year two of my nieces are getting married. The funny thing is... they're BOTH marrying Nate. No, they aren't polygamists...both girls just happen to be engaged to guys named Nate. The other niece, Crystal is engaged to Nate B. They'll be tying the knot on September 25th.

This Saturday afternoon, I'm going to a BABY shower...for another niece, Jenny. She is due on July 2nd...but I'm thinking if she tried real hard...she could have it a couple of days early and Kathy and Bonnie and I could share our birthday with him/her too. No, they haven't found out the sex of the baby yet....because they don't want to know. We're all very curious!

It's 12:30 AM and I'm still thinking about what I'm going to put on her baby shower cake. It really WOULD help to know if it's a boy or a girl! LOL! Oh well, I'll figure something out. I'm thinking I should go to bed and "sleep on it" (no, not literally)...and get up and decorate it in the morning before the 4 year old grandson wakes up and wants to help. Goodnight.

Week 7 Weigh In ~ Rainy Days and Mondays...

...always get me down. Well I was down a little, 0.4 lbs to be exact (an even 88 more pounds to go). The last few weeks, it has been a struggle just to keep the weight off that I've taken off thus far, so knowing I hadn't changed much since last week, I was just happy it was a bit of a loss as opposed to a bit of a gain. I did get on the treadmill a couple of times this past week...I guess I need to do more.

Have you ever had one of those days? I got a phone call last night, from a friend who was supposed to come up with some games for a wedding shower for a gal from our church. This friend was feeling a bit under the weather, so I was asked if I could get a couple of games together, and pick up some prizes. Sure, I can do that. Well, I guess I shoulda got started on it earlier today, and didn't really look at it until noon. Lisa had e-mailed me a few that she had planned on using, and then I did a search myself. I thought we'd do the ol' clothespin game, you know, where you all put a clothespin on yourself and if anyone catches you crossing your legs they get your clothespin? Okay, that will work. I found a game where you have to scoop cotton balls from one bowl to another while blindfolded too, that should be fun. Then I found a word scramble using wedding related words. Cool. All I have to do now is print out a few of these...oh, wait...I only have 2 sheets of copy paper left...okay, I'll have to pick some up when I get the prizes.

Flash forward to about two o'clock. I copy out the game, find the answer key to it and makea copy of that too. I'll make more copies when I get back with more paper. I go to three different stores to get prizes and gift bags etc. By the time I'm done with that, it's almost 5pm. I need to run home and change clothes before I go to WW to weigh in, because I know that the scale hasn't moved much this week, and I don't want it going the wrong direction just cuz my jeans are too heavy. I run home, change clothes and my daughter and I head back to town to weigh in....except, when I get there... I realize that I've forgotten my weigh-in book and monthly pass that shows that I'm pre-paid! Back home again...I find them, and now Molly decides she wants to stay home. Okay, I'll be right back.

And I zoom back to WW one more time. I stand in line, get weighed in, and figure I can stay for a little bit. At about six o'clock, I realize I haven't bought paper yet, and need to go make copies...gotta go! Stop at Pamida, pick up paper, look for clothespins...they're out of them.

Run home, to find Jody in my driveway, (she's dropping off the gift from the two of us, and she says Molly's not there), make my copies, call and find Molly at her friend's house, run out to my clothesline to grab clothespins...we get in the car and I start it at about 7 pm. Right about this point, I realize I have a nosebleed! Why??? I don't ever get nosebleeds...and of course, it dripped on my blouse!! I am not having a good day. Thankfully, it quit just as soon as it started, but I now had to run back in the house and change my blouse.

Thankfully, I found Maggie's house, where the shower was being held, with no trouble at all. I suppose it was about 7:30 by then, and most of the guests had arrived. The games went pretty well, except for the part where I had accidentally copied the key to the word scramble...instead of the scrambled words ... aaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!

Oh well, it actually ended up being more fun that way. The bride's aunt suggested we each take a scrambled word, and come up with a definition for it. We have some pretty creative ladies in our church and they came up with some doozies. Did you know that right after you get married, you generally find yourself in a state of ohnomoney? That a subhand is an underhanded man? Were you aware that an agremair is a meter that measures your corn crop? How about that if you smoke cigars, you start to look a little scragi around the edges, (we never did figure out what the word cigar was doing on there). There were more, but you get the idea. We decided that Millie won that one with her agremair.

Anyway, it turned out to be a very nice shower, at the end of an otherwise mostly rainy, "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Monday".

One little P.S. to my sister, Laurie: With all my running around, I kept thinking about calling you and telling you happy birthday, but never got it done, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! a little late.