Survived the Wedding and Life is Good

The wedding went well, except for my $15 of music that did not get played while the guests were arriving. I was a little bugged about that because we had the music at rehersal but they wouldn't play it on their sound system. We had to play it on our player. Thus, the day of the big event, the music would not play. The start of the ceremony was delayed about 15 minutes because they had to copy the processional and wedding march songs onto another CD.

It was a hot July day, but actually the coolest of all the days of July. Once again, I picked the perfect day!

Mike and the boys looked so handsome! The girls all looked beautiful and I felt like a princess! I love my dress and wish I could wear it any ol' time. I have had it cleaned and boxed for a future woman to wear. Maybe one of my future daughters-in-law, who knows.

Life is going on just as before, no new changes except for the rings on our fingers. Life is good. I couldn't be any happier!

Wedding Approaching

The big day is creeping up quickly. This week I have managed to order the foil for the chocolates we are making...yep, we are making them. Mike is obsessed with Oreo cookies, so there will be two chocolate covered Oreo cookies at each place setting, along with a box or bag of chocolates. I am anxiously awaiting our bigger guest gift. It should be in this next week. I have ordered one of the girls items I am giving them and have purchased their jewelry. My friend Tracee is working on the deoorations and they are turning out fabulous! I am so excited to see the hall when it is all decked out. We paid in full for the flowers, cake, and other rented items; including the margarita machine! We are meeting with the DJ on Wednesday to go over the reception stuff. I downloaded and made a CD of the music for the wedding ceremony. I am pretty excited about it as it is not all traditional stuff, but more meaningful for us.

I go for my final dress fitting on the 2nd of July. My mom and sister are meeting me there. I am excited for them to see my dress. My sister needs to know how to bustle up the back. I think there will be quite a few buttons.

It's just a task of cleaning the house for the in-laws that are coming in and getting the little things done.

Other excitement this week was the butchering of our meat hens. I was fretting how I was going to take it, but let me tell you, it is all worth it. I had a friend come out and walk us through the whole process step by step. His method is much easier than what I have watched on TV. Speaking of TV, this is what brought me to raising my own meat hens. After watching several specials on Kentucky Fried Chicken and the chicken in the grocery store, I thought I would go vegetarian. Then, after speaking with families in our area I convinced myself to try meat hens. I know exactly what they have been eating and their pristine living conditions. They are cage free, free range, grain fed, and healthy, healthy, healthy! Tomorrow we are cooking up one. I wanted so bad to cook one yesterday freshly filleted, but Mike would have had to microwave it. We want to try it fresh off the grill. I am sure I will be raising more next spring. Hopefully enough to get us through the year. I am filleted 4 of my 5 and will use the carcasses for soup stock. I am not an avid soup eater, but think I will become one now! It is good for me to know I can keep us fed if times become tough. Beside our meat hens we have the 20 other hens and two roosters. We hatched 15 babies in May. So we have plenty of eggs to go along with our chicken. We also have our garden growing strong. I picked 5 cherry tomatoes today. They are so much better than the store bought!

We are on break from school this summer. Nico still does math and reading, but everything else is on hold. It has actually been very nice! We are planning on staying off until the end of August. We will definitely start up the beginning of September. We have a family camping trip planned for mid-August, so I know it will be after that. It is nice having so much free time and not worrying about getting lesson plans done for the next day. I have been preparing for the next school year by getting our curriculum in order. Luca will be starting a more structured pre-school program. Nico is moving onto 5th grade. I have changed some of our things around to a more literature based program. More the Charlotte Mason style of learning. I am excited about it as several of the classes I'll be able to dual teach in the future years, at the different levels.

That about wraps it up here.

Too Long!

Oh My! Time has gotten away from me~ I check in every week and read all the blogs I follow but am bad about updating my own. One I don't think many people read it and two I spend a lot of time on facebook and am posting so much there.

Anyway, wedding plans are on track. We have done a lot in the past week doing all the little things. We met with the florist, applied for our marriage license, ordered the cake, and visited the garden center for ideas and things to rent for the reception. My dress is in and it fits just about perfect, except for the bust area - go figure! I bought my shoes today and have an appointment with the seamstress next Saturday for a fitting. The invitations are all out. I love going to the mailbox to see who sent their RSVP back.

Our school year is still in progress but will be wrapping up within the next few weeks. We finally finished the school house! I spent the last week also moving things out of the house into the school. I can't believe the amount of stuff I have accumulated. I am sooooo glad I bought the building with the loft overhead, because I can hide most of my stuff. I have everything organized in totes by subject so when we finish one year, I just go through all the totes to see what I need for the next. I am also working on making lists of all the books I have so when we study a topic I can look at the list and go up and dig out what books I need.

Here are the boys in the new school house. We hope to run electric from the house to the building by winter so I can run a heater. We have the room all wired up and ready to go. I have added a small futon for a reading corner and a large bookshelf in the back for all our books we use and reference material. Nico will be moving onto 5th grade and Luca will be starting a more organized Pre-K year 2 program. He loves creating his letters with Hand Writing Without Tears and asks to do his lessons everyday.

Both boys played soccer this year. Luca had a blast just running around and making friends. Nico was more serious this year and really focused on his skills. I am so proud of both of them. Nico continues to dance HipHop and does his tumbling. He is excelling at both and hoping to go competitive in HipHop next year. He will be getting one on one lessons this summer. Luca will be starting tumbling and dance this summer. I am really pushing for him in tap and jazz to start with because now I can't get Nico to try tap at all. Luca can't take hiphop until he is 5.

Luca turned 4 this May. I can't believe it has been 3 years since my trip to Guatemala with Brian and Nico to celebrate his first birthday. He is such a character. He cracks me up everyday. He always has something funny coming out of his mouth. He is into so much more than Nico ever was and I mean getting into things. I have to keep a sharp eye on him. Nico is the best big brother ever and is a great help. It does not go unappreciated.

We have been having a good time with our chickens. Well, after the bout of largnyotrachetitis that they had. Many still have garbling breath sounds. I lost about 10 hens this summer. Lucky for me Missouri University Veterninary School took two of my birds and tested them so I could find out what they had. There is a vaccine for it. My 22 remaining chickens (2 roosters and 20 hens) are all immune to it now, but are carries of it. This spring one of the hens got really broody so we let her sit on 10 eggs. None of them hatched. They were slowing dissappearing and the last one she walked away from. We broke it open on day 24. There was a chick inside, but it must have stopped developing. I decided I was going to break down and buy an incubator. We put 15 eggs in it. We candled them and let them all go. I was totally surprised to find that all 15 hatched!!!! I cannot yet determine how many roosters we have ended up with though. I am hoping for more hens than roos. They are all so cute. Our two roosters are white leg horn and rhode island red. Thus, our chicks are mutts. Our hens range from americauna, rhode island red, red/white sex link, black austrolope, and new hampshire red.

We have been blessed to be missed by the horrible storms raging through the midwest. I pray for all those who have lost everything. I can't imagine what it would be like. We went through the house and collected toys and clothing to donate to some of the families. I know it is not a lot, but hoping it gave help to some.

So, until later.....all is good in our neck of the woods.

Say Yes To The Dress!

Since I started looking for a wedding dress, I have gotten addicted to this TV show. (Say Yes to the Dress)

So, I have said YES to my dress!

I am super excited about it and can't wait until July to walk down the aisle in it. I cannot post pictures because I don't want to ruin any surprises. I'll just say I was going to go with what I thought would be a '2nd wedding style' dress, but once I started trying on all the pretty dresses I had to change my mind! I remember my first marriage when I put on the dress I just knew it was the one. I walked out of the dress store last Wednesday evening pretty sure I wanted that dress but not totally convinced. That night I dreamt all night about me in that dress. So, Thursday evening I went up for a fitting and put my deposit down. I have about 4 months to wait for it to come in. I'll also add it is a designer dress, Alfred Angelo. (I had one I sort of liked at David's Bridal, but was so dissappointed with their service I didn't want to give them anything!)

I also have some fabulous tuxes picked out for Mike and the boys. We will made an appt. soon for them to try them on to be sure they all look fabulous in them. I am sure they will. Brian is going to be walking me down the aisle. I feel at 19 he is perfect for the job. I asked my dad today if he would be upset if Brian walked me down the aisle instead of him. He said, "No, not at all." With a big grin, "Brian will like that a lot." I think he was proud of my decision. Brian is very excited for me. He likes Mike and knows that we are very happy together. I have lots of other exciting surprises and beautiful things in store.

I am also amazed at the outpouring of help I am getting. My cousin is going to be our officiant - super excited about this. I also have a homeschool mom who I recently met that has offered to help me make the ring bearer pillow and flower girl basket with her lace machine!

On that note, I will leave you with pictures of me in my brother's wedding just two months ago.

Walking with my nephew. I can't believe he just turned 21!

My sister, my new sister-in-law, me having a drink at Hooter's!