Bridal Room Bliss

I, along with friends Nan and Chrissy, had the privilege of preparing a bridal room for Kim Mapes on her wedding day, August 16th.  I have known Kim since she was born and have many, many fond memories of playing with her and her sisters - it was my chance to be an older sister =)!  Well, as you can see below, we took a room at church and completely transformed it into a room that the girls would be spending time getting ready for the wedding.  First we took everything out of the room (with the help of our husbands) and then we began to fill it back up with furniture, lights, flowers, toule, toule and more toule!  It was so fun to pull all of our ideas and resources together to make a breathtaking room.

I thoroughly enjoyed making the floral centerpiece.

My mom's antique vanity was perfect for the room!

We were able to borrow an antique dress form and Kim's dress looked beautiful waiting for the special day.

Here is Heidi and her cousin, Erin.  Heidi was so excited to be at her first wedding (well, at least the first one that she remembers!  She was 2 the last time she went to one).

Kim and Jason had a beautiful and meaningful wedding.  Here are a few pictures of them and the Mapes family. 

New Hair Cut

About three weeks ago, Heidi & I went to our hairdresser, Jill, and got matching haircuts!  Heidi had been asking to get her hair cut like Lucy (from the Chronicles of Narnia) for quite some time.  It turns out that she had enough hair (10") to donate to "Locks of Love."  We were so excited!  Here is the website if you are interested in checking out the details.  http://www.locksoflove.org/

What a beauty!

Butterfly Kisses

We discovered last year that we have milkweed in our backyard. At first, I pulled them all out and it was not until Heidi and I were reading about Monarch Butterflies that we learned that milkweed is what they eat and lay their eggs on. So, we raised about three caterpillars last summer in jars and were able to see them turn into butterflies. What an awesome experience! This year, we were prepared! We had our jars ready and looked everyday for butterfly eggs. Last year, we found them as caterpillars, but this year, we hoped to see the process from the very beginning!
On the leaves of the milkweed, we were able to find one tiny caterpillar and three eggs. Heidi named them Kenny, Martha, Mars & FiFi =). Not all of them made it, but we found more eggs as needed. It is absolutely amazing to see how tiny the egg is, to see the caterpillar emerge, to see how much they eat (we had to add many more leaves for food) and to see how fast they grow.
We forgot to take a picture in between the egg and full grown caterpillar - oops! Anyway, after the caterpillar is full grown, he attaches himself to the top of jar and hangs there for awhile. We had always missed when the caterpillar makes his chrysalis, but this year Heidi and I got to see one of them do it! Amazing! Here is a video we found online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY-Fiyq8jc4&feature=related

Here is Martha in her chrysalis and below is when she emerged as a beautiful butterfly.

Finally, we were ready to let her go. Heidi had her on a stick for awhile, but then Martha crawled right onto Heidi's hand! She said it tickled, but enjoyed the experience. After a few minutes, she flew off and Peter was able to get one final picture of her in our lilac bush.

"Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth." Psalm 96:11-13

Camera Troubles...

Lately, we have been having serious camera troubles which has hindered me from blogging for the last few weeks. It all started when the button on our camera fell off! Definitely a bit tricky to take pictures without a button =)! We bought the camera less than a year ago, so it is still under warranty - that would be great if we could locate the receipt....we are still working on that =). So, we dug out our old camera and finally located a battery online that was not too expensive - just in time for a friend's wedding and our trip to the Adirondacks. Alas, a couple of days into our vacation, the battery died and is mysteriously refusing to be recharged. So, most of our vacation pictures were taken on our camera phones =)! Anyway, I was able to get all the pictures down loaded from the various sources and I am now set to get going again on my blog!

Trees! Trees! Trees!

For those of you who have been to our house, you know we have a forest in our yard =)! Over the course the of last year, we have taken down three trees and have trimmed up a few of the others. We actually had grass in our backyard this year! Unfortunately, most of the trees are not climbing trees. Although, our kids have discovered that the Japenese Maple by our front door works pretty well and here they are showing off their climbing skills.