Charlotte - Wedding Trip

I had a little girl who had completely convinced herself into believing that she was not going on an airplane, no matter what. She was scared. She kept saying, "I'm going to Aunt Sis's house, but I am not going on an airplane." We kept trying to prepare her what it would be like, but no matter what...Marinne was convinced she wasn't doing it. That is, right up until we arrived at the airport and had this airplane...... fly right over our heads! Immediately she screamed,
"THAT'S the airplane I'M GOING ON!"
(sure, baby...whatever you need to believe!!! ha ha!!!)

And that was all she needed. The up close and personal and she was ready to go. She spent our "wait time" watching the planes come in and out. Griffin did, too. But, he was way more nonchalant than his sister!
They were WAY EXCITED, but she was still a bit nervous, too! But, when it was time to load "those passengers who might need a little more time" they were ready to go. (UM, ya...with 6 traveling together, 2 of them being their first time and a total of 4 children....we qualify!!!)

Once we decided who was sitting with whom, it gave me time to drag out the ol' camera and snap some pics..... ...priceless, really!

And then, we were off.....heading toward the runway.

Griffin and Marinne pulled out the Safety Card and paid attention to what the Flight Attendent said. (I did not tell them to do this.) Again, priceless!

Believe it or not, Griffin took a nap. And Marinne spent most of the time doing this. She just loves these "Kitty, Puppy, Safari in My Pocket" toys!And we made it just fine. Except a few slight squabbles involving window shades being up or down. The kids were PERFECT!!!!!

(obviously the stern talks/threats did work!!!!!!!!)

And then, we were in North Carolina!
(but did not get to Sis's house in Salisbury until after Midnight!)
(yawn....very LONG day!)


Before we left town, I had a deadline....I got the project done and I loved it. But, I didn't have time to take the photo's. So, I threw it in the old suitcase and decided I'd do it in Charlotte. (like I've had to do a million and one times!) But this time, it did not go as planned.

Sometime, in flight, an entire bottle of hairspray I packed in my suitcase for Marinne's wedding hairdo, exploded in my suitcase! WHAT A MESS!!!
And my poor project and the beautiful wedding card I made for my niece were both in the firing line! Damn!!! I was so upset!!!
(but thanks to Big Daddy's fantastic photoshop skills, it appeared on the TPMS Paper Crazy blog in FINE FORM!!!! WOOT, Big Daddy!)


Anyways, on to the wedding.....we did all the normal stuff.....

Up first on the list.....

GO GET THE TUXES and TRY THEM ON.

Simple, right?!?!
(After all, I did wait until only 4 weeks before said wedding to take all the kids to be fitted, so no one would outgrow jackets, vests, shirts, pants or shoes. We took them to the "big" store in Tulsa to have it done. Although, Big Daddy had his measured here in Kansas. And he did his only 2 weeks before the wedding..... ya know, the schedule of the New Director puts Tux Try-ons pretty low on the list of stuff to do!!!)

Well, you'd think it would be simple.....

UM.....NOPE!!!!!

We got the 4 tuxes and headed to the fitting rooms, taking up the whole place ourselves!!! Logan in one room, BD in one room and me with Griffin and Jensen and Marinne in the last room.

Well, I knew we were screwed the minute I unzipped Jensen's tux bag and found pants that were size 5T - Griffin's size. (but, I just figured they switched the names....) So, I reach over and unzip Griffin's tux and pull out the pants......WHICH ARE THE EXACT SAME SIZE AND LENGTH AS THE ONES IN JENSEN'S TUX BAG!!!!!!!!!!!! (Jensen boys size 9!)

I said, "Ike, we have a major problem in here!"

So, I call the girl over and show her and they start freaking out.

She starts asking me dumb questions....
"...did you let the waist out?" (i'm aware of how they works)
"...did you mix them up...." (um...they are the SAME SIZE...DUH!)

And, that's when my patience ran out. We have a wedding in 27 hours and the tux store is a 1 hr. one-way drive. And we now have determined that Griffins tie has a stain and his shoes don't fit.
Jensen's pants are Griffins size and a mile too short.
Jensen's shoes are too small, his pants, shirt and vest are all too small.
Big Daddy's pants and vest are too small.

But, Logan's was perfect....and HOLY CRAP how handsome he was!!!


After a pile of phone calls and some panic....it was finally all re-ordered.
And if you can believe it....they let the legs out of the Griffin-sized tux pants and Jensen wore them....and they more or less worked! Seriously!
So, they ended up wearing the exact same size pants! CRAZY!!

So, we went home (another hour) knowing at 10am on Saturday morning we had to go right back and PRAY that everything gets there and that it all fits! Talk about some stress......

~WEDDING DAY~

So, Saturday morning, it was back to the tux shop 1 hour away...

...some issues were fixed, some weren't.
Big Daddy's shirt had a stain, but we hid it under the tie.
Jensen was wearing a shirt that didn't fit, but they got the rest worked out....if you count his pants as "worked out." It was more like
making due with what we had to work with!!
And Griffin's tux jacket sleeve, we discovered, was not even hemmed.
(and we paid like $150 for each tux x 4!!!!!!)

Um...ya...we were not happy.
AND THIS IS A WELL-KNOWN, National TUX CHAIN!!!!!!!!

Anyway, yes...we demanded some refund on that!

ONTO the GOOD STUFF.....

The Beautiful Bride....our gorgeous niece, Kamryn.
It's so hard to believe that this beautiful, grown-up girl was our flower girl 16 years ago when she was only 7 years old. Now, she's all grown up!

The bride and her flower girl, Marinne. And look at this little angel!

Now, you must understand when we went and bought this dress, my girl hated the attention. Everyone in the bridal shop was oohing and aaahing over her. And my daughter threw her face into my lap and refused to get up and let us even see if the dress actually fit.

And as we bought shoes, ruffle socks and talked about the
"PRINCESS DRESS"
Marinne would act embarrassed and tell us don't say that.
(like she didn't want to talk about it...)

So, the concern all along was would she even walk down the aisle?!

She did it at the rehearsal, but she stopped part of the way down when she ran out of the few practice petals we gave her. Just stopped. She thought she was done. (I joked we better cram those rose petal in the basket, so she won't stop 1/2way down.) So, we made sure she had lots.
(now it did not help matters that Ike joked that if she had "left overs" she should just dump them out up there...I could have killed him!!!)

And when there are actually people in the church, well, that ups the odds she might freak out and not do it. After all, she's only 3.

We shall see, we shall see.....

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It's showtime!!!

Logan was in charge of gifts.
(and spent the wedding helping his dad video the wedding)

Jensen was in charge of the guestbook.

Now, this is funny. While preparing him for his job, it was discussed that their might be certain family member who we really wished wouldn't be at the ceremony, but definitely would be there. So, as this was discussed, Jensen joked his job would be to keep them out.

He had his spiel down pat.

(to the guest we wish was not there...)
J: What's your name?
guest: Mr. XYZ
(checking list)
J: Sorry, not on the list....go to the end of the line.


Or this one:

J: Hello. Name?
guest: Mrs. ABC
J: Thank you for coming. Would you please sign the guest book?

Bottom line, he was a cutie pie and did a great job!!!

Here comes the ring bearer........and now the flower girl! She did it! Success!!!!
(although, she did stop where I was sitting in the front of the church cheering her on....and I had to remind her to keep going up to the front.)

And remember what daddy told her?
When she got up to the front by the Maid of Honor, she grabbed a huge handful of the petals and threw them down! (but it was cute!!)


And as for their time on the stage, Griffin did really well.
(he's almost 6 and can understand the importance,
I was really proud of him!)

As for Marinne, she did great, too.
She was absolutely silent.
But she was....
incredibly

B.O.R.E.D!!

(well, except when papa was teasing marinne from the front row --
and marinne mouthed "stop it" to him!!

Now, THAT, was funny!

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Adam Moose...
And here's a picture I snapped of the bat that was flying around the top of the chapel. (see it in the left light, to the right of the light)

When we arrived for the wedding, there was a city animal control officer trying to get the bat. (he failed) And my poor niece was so freaked out!


I didn't get a chance to take any pics of the kids until the reception.

~Reception Time~

Marinne.....Jensen....Logan.....Griffin......Kami and her brother, Eric.....Eric and his mother (Ike's sister) Trying to encourage Marinne to dance.....Dance floor fun! And I *love* this one of my niece!
It's just so "her!"This was so hysterical...they had these cans and giant 5lb. paint buckets under the truck hiding...and when they pulled out...HOLY CRAP was it noisy!!! So funny, those groomsmen! And I hate to admit it, but this my most favorite picture of all....just one of eight we took trying to get one that's good. And I was overjoyed to see this one....ONE GREAT FAMILY PHOTO!!

Ike and Roxann
L to R: Griffin, 5 3/4, Logan, 12, Jensen, 9 3/4 and Marinne, 3 1/2.

I'm almost OUT

...of scrapbook deadline insanity!!

Almost.

I still have an end of the month report to do and send something to try to be published.

(now you know why I've been missing in action....I had 3 deadlines to meet!)

And I have to drive to Oklahoma for my dad's surgery tomorrow.

Trying to finish up laundry.

Pack the kids. Pack myself.

Pack my scrapbook stuff for deadline while I am gone.

Remember everything I am supposed to remember.

Logan's baby turtle just died. Gotta go deal with that.

Crap.

THIS "Do-Over" Birthday Rocked the Casbah!!!!

So, Jensen went back to work with his daddy after lunch today. He just loves going with him and I think the special time together is good for both of them!

Anyways, they left work early, due to the working 37hours in a row....and came home with these cool balloons... ...and this, a huge ice cream cake! Super yum!
Chocolate w/ vanilla ice cream and that whipped cream icing!

Isn't this cake festive, too! (Jensen picked it out!) So, while Big Daddy lit the candles...Jensen was taking pictures. I was happy at first, until I realized that the candles must be showing 93....not 39!!!! LOL!! Jensen seemed to find this completely hilarious! Little Stinker!! So, we flipped the cake around and tried that one again! Then, in his quest to get the candle blowing shot...he got this picture. And I think it's pretty darn cool!!!!

Gives new meaning to "make a wish and blow out the candles!"

And all the kids approved of the cake...... Now, if you feel like one is missing, you're right! Logan has been in Oklahoma for 1 1/2 weeks..hanging out with the Grandparents!! (and actually....it's his birthday today!)

This is gonna be a LONG ONE........

...so get a cup of coffee and get ready for the story!!

First of all, in my last post...I said I was "no fool." Turns out I was wrong.
Ha! Ha! Ha! The husband of my best friend played one heck of an April Fools Joke on me and I bought it "hook, line and sinker!" That big turd!!!!
(and mind you, he played the joke on me not 30 minutes after
I made that post!!)


The next day was Wednesday, April 2nd. And I caught a plane to St. Louis, MO for CKC-St.Louis. My connecting flight went thru Atlanta and so did Amber, so we were able to share the second leg of our flight into St. Louis. We had a great time on the plane...laughing and sharing stories!
And of course, we had to get a picture!! Although, it was called CKC-St. Louis, the convention center is actually in Collinsville, Illinois. It's a small area with basically 8 restaurants, a few hotels and the convention center. I thought the convention center was nice, but my bed at the hotel, well, it was the worst I've slept in yet. So, I started work with an aching back. Thank goodness for Advil!!!! :)


One of the nights in the hotel, I made this little KaiserCraft mini-book! (KaiserCraft is an Australian company that has a large line of wood products, in addition to their fabulous papers, felts and their well-priced bling I love!
I used the new Fancy Pants Celebrate line! These papers are really cute!!
The ribbons are all Fancy Pants, too! The little shapes are little die-cuts that come on a 12x12 sheet. Really makes it easy to make your own embellies. And each line has these "Titles & Tags" and rub-ons to match, as well.

The felt, I cut from a large KaiserCraft felt. And I've added bling, as well.The brads I used on the left side page here are left-over KaiserCraft brads. They are really nice quality and match so many different things! Aren't these the funnest papers?!?!
That was using the half of the Fancy Pants Celebration that is girly, the remaining papers are more boyish...so I decided to throw something together for that, as well. And here it is.....a tag with my sweet Griffin.
(and a super old picture from when he was 2 years old.....) Love that BLING! And the back has those lovely KaiserCraft brads.... I have another yummy layout I did, but I haven't gotten pictures of it, yet.
I promise to try to get that done...and show you soon.


Here we are getting ready to go down and finish up the conference on Saturday. It's Amber, Amber's baby boy, me and my boss, Kim. We really have a great time together and we work as a very good team. And this trip, Kim brought her cutie-pie daughter! This little girl is a really good scrapbooker! She is obviously her mothers' daughter!! One of the best parts of my trip was getting to see my Uncle Richard and Aunt Penny, who live just outside of St. Louis. They came the 45 minutes to come see me and have dinner with myself and Amber. We had a nice time, we laughed and talked about old times. And I got to see them. Which was really important to me. I love them both so much. I only wished we lived closer, so we could see each other more often! Maybe again someday....

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When I got back to Tulsa, my Step-Mom suggested that I stay an extra day so we could hang out. So, I did. It was fun. We went to 2 scrapbook stores in Tulsa and checked things out. It was really fun! (can you believe I got off a plane from that convention and I was back in a scrapbook store within 3 hours?!?! Hilarious! It's an addiction, I'll tell ya!!!)

So, we did that....then we went to Chili's for dinner with my dad and shared a big plate of Fajita's, which were delicious! After we got home, we watched a "chick flick" we had rented....and that was a really nice change for me!

Then, I went to bed at 10:15pm and slept like a rock! I was T-I-R-E-D!!!
And I was so sleepy, it was good I stayed instead of driving home tired!

Then, the next morning we were just getting ready to watch our 2nd "chick flick" we rented......and we hear this huge POP. And all the electricity goes out! A squirrel had stepped on the transformer and fried himself!!!!
So...we sat in the dark for the next 3 hours. So, I finally just threw on some clothes and got on the road home. I got back to Topeka on Monday night at about 5:30pm. So, I'm running a day behind this week!!!!



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So, the thing is, I had found out the day before I left for California (about 3 weeks ago) that the diabetes is back with a vengence! I lost some weight, I've maintained the loss and I am still having blood sugar issues. It's not really surprising, considering there are so many people in my family who have been diabetics. (my mother, 2 of her brothers, both maternal grandparents and my paternal great-grandmother.) But, I guess why it surprised me so much was that in October, my numbers were back to normal. And now, they have jumped. It's scary. It's annoying. It makes me mad.
But, now I am gonna fight this thing like hell.

It really stinks because now, me...the girl who hates needles...I have to check my blood sugar levels (meaning use a lancet to poke myself) 8 times a day. I hate it! Every single time I sit there with the machine loaded with the lancet and I have to really work up the courage to do it, each and every time.

So, there it is. The bad news.
I had to kinda soak it in a bit before I was ready to share it.

So, keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

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