Category Archives: Wedding Shower

Matryoshka Bridal Shower

On Saturday we had a Northwest Bridal Shower for Katie with a Matryoshka Theme.

The Bride Katie

Katie and Laura, sisters by marriage.

The color theme was purple, deep red, and gold.

I was so busy I forgot to take photos of all the other food. We had Savory Blintzes, a Quinoa taboulleh salad, orange-mango chicken salad, pumpkin praline trifle, and pumpkin spice cookies.

It was a fun reunion of friends who have touched Katie’s life over the years. Katie’s maid of honor, Jamie, led us in prayers for Andrew and Katie and she ended with a prayer of blessing on her friend. Such a wonderful dear time we had. Katie was showered with blessings and nice gifts. At the end of our evening the power went out so we rushed around lighting more candles. My sister Lana escorted all our guests to their cars with a flashlight!

I have to admit that I am wiped out today. We couldn’t clean up last night because we had no power so I went over to Lana’s this morning to gather my stuff and to help clean up. By the time I got there Lana had everything washed and ready to go so all I had to do was load up my car. Everything is put away in it’s place here at my house now and I’m just gonna sit around the rest of the day!

I’m linking up with Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

The Story Continues…

Good Saturday Morning to you all. I’m up and busy today getting ready for a celebration.

Today we are having a Northwest Bridal shower for Katie at my sister Lana’s house. The we are my Daughter in Love Laura, Katie’s maid of honor Jamie,  my sister Lana and me. We will be getting together today to decorate and get ready for our guests. Our guests are friends who have helped to write Katie’s Story. Besides our Northwest biological family we have Katie’s lifelong church friends, school friends, work friends, and our extended family through marriage who have all played a part in Katie’s story. Katie’s dad and I are very grateful for the love and friendships that have shaped Katie’s life. Of course I’ll be sharing lots of photos in the next week or two of our celebration. Here’s some of what we are looking forward to today…

Savory Blintzes

Pumpkin Praline Trifle

 

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

We are also serving 2 salads that Gluten Free and Vegetarians will enjoy.

If I’ve been absent in visiting and commenting you now know why. Busy baking and cooking and shopping for a new outfit to wear!

Wedding Creativity…

I know I’ve said this before but if you are new on my blog it bears repeating. Our daughter Katie got married to her Marine fiance last March at the Magistrate’s office in North Carolina before he was deployed to Afghanistan. She’s been living with us during his deployment. We are planning a wedding ceremony with our friends and family and Andrew’s family as witnesses this coming March on their one year anniversary in Seattle. We have a lot of the wedding plans taken care of. Katie’s dress had a huge train on it that she wanted cut off so she used some of the fabric from the train to make a flower girl basket and a ring bearer pillow…

Katie and I will be flying to North Carolina on November 28th to accept her and Andrew’s military housing and to set up their home as much as we can before Andrew returns from Afghanistan. Dear will be joining us on December 3rd. We’ll save any heavy lifting for when he arrives.

Katie and Andrew’s wedding will be in Seattle so she will fly back from North Carolina 3 weeks before the ceremony date and Andrew will arrive the weekend of the ceremony…

Katie’s had time on her hands for wedding creativity and besides the pillow and basket she is painting her cake toppers!

The Marine figure isn’t finished yet since we have to wait and see if Andrew gets any embellishments on his uniform post deployment!

Happy Saturday to you! Today we are having a craft get together to make these for Katie’s wedding shower in November. Thankfully some more crafty people than me are joining us for this endeavor. We are also sampling some shower recipes to see if they are worthy for our guests…

Showers of Blessings…

My mom (Baba) and Katie

My sister-in-law from Dallas with mom.

Niece Melissa with Katie

Sisters by marriage, Katie and Laura. The sweetest sister Katie could ever ask for.

The nieces with Katie and Laura. We are missing 5 nieces in this photo.

My cousin Kathy (Katrina), my mom and my sister Kathy.

My sisters Kathy and Vera flanking my sister-in-laws Mandy and Letty.

Katie with our dear lifelong friend Alice.

My cousin Valia with her daughter Michelle.

Somebody told a great story here. I love the reaction. If I had to guess I’d say my sister Lana is the culprit!

The oldest to youngest sister photo. Kathy, Vera, Ellen, and Lana.

My sister Kathy gave a short devotional about being a married woman. She’s a great teacher!

My mother gave Katie some heirloom linens and other gifts.

Katie got everyone laughing when she whipped out her pocket knife to cut away wrappings. And I do mean whipped as in whipped it open in the air.

These are shoes Katie hung on to from her Grandmother Verna. Verna lived with us when Katie was little and they had a very special bond.

Melissa and Lana…partners in crime.

Michelle and Deb Deb taking a breather…

The girls frosted an all white cupcake for Katie.

My sister Kathy with her two daughters.

My Sister-in-law Christina and our niece Kacie with Katie.

Katie and me with our friends Alice and Svetlana.

The shower committee at the end of the night!…Just kidding….

It was such a blessing to be able to have so many of our family members and friends all together in one place for this event. Thank you all for coming.

A special thank you to Michelle for letting me use some of her photos from the shower. Thank you to all my family members who worked hard to pull it all together. We love you and appreciate you!

Katie’s Wedding Shower Preparations…

There are so many photos of Katie’s shower that I’m breaking them down into categories. The first set I’ll be sharing are the preparations and decorating for the fun event. My nieces and sister Lana were the official shower planners.

My niece Debbee and Melissa baked the cupcakes and made the icing for them.

Debbee and Melissa had the flower decorating technique down for the cupcakes and showed Laura, Michelle and Katie the method and everyone chipped in to get all the cupcakes decorated.

They used the Wilton Tip #104 for these flowers. It’s a petal tip.

The colors for the shower and Katie and Andrew’s wedding are purple, silver and cream.

My niece Michelle took this photo and the one above it…

My sister Lana provided the salads and the beautiful flowers.

Thank you to Michelle for these two photos of Katie at the table, too.

My mom, Katie’s Baba, made the meat and cabbage pirog.

We had a fun afternoon preparing for the shower. The shoes Katie is wearing were her grandmother Verna’s.

Tomorrow I’ll show more photos of friends and family who attended the shower. Hope your day is going well. We have sunshine and clear, clear, blue skies here in the Seattle area. We’ll be barbecuing dinner tonight!

The Fun Just Never Stops!

Katie’s Bridal shower was such a wonderful evening with friends and family. I have not had time to put anything together for a post yet. I’m sharing our one nutty photo from the shower. These are my mom, sisters, sister-in-laws, nieces, and daughters. A few people are missing because of family emergencies and Bar exams.

Katie and I are staying with my nephew and his sweet wife. They were so gracious to let us move in even though they just moved into a new house and haven’t had a lot of time to get things organized. We love their new home and are grateful for their hospitality. The best part is that it is close to most of our Bag-o-Rama Jamboree activities.  Here are a few photos of our home away from home…

This is a Ginko Biloba Tree.

The home is in an Equestrian Community and they will be able to board their horse on their property when they build the proper shelter for it.

Sometime soon I’ll share the photos from the shower, and our breakfast outing, and the wonderful Flag Ceremony at Orange Circle where Katie was recognized and hugged…a lot. Thursday we will be at the Happiest Place on Earth. Is anyone else just tired from reading this. I am very tired but content and grateful for the time we get to spend with family and friends. Missing my Dear and glad he has next week off and we can spend lots of time together.

Mad Hatter Tea Bridal Shower…

On Saturday I drove 90 miles from Camarillo to Newport Beach to attend a shower for our future niece, Jessica, who is marrying my brother Steve’s son Timothy. Timothy’s lovely mother is my SIL Kelly.

This is a fun photo of 3 of my brother Steve’s sons. (Joe is missing) Timothy is the one in the middle flanked by his brothers Caleb and Levi.

Oh the destination and the setting and the beautiful ladies that we got to spend the afternoon with made the 180 mile round-trip so worth it.

The table was set perfectly for our Mad Hatter Tea. We gave thanks to the Lord for this wonderful occasion and began the festivities.

Michelle, the maid of honor,  was our hostess and the setting was in her parents gated community in Newport Beach. I can’t even begin to guess what the HOA fees are in this wonderful setting. Did I just say that out loud?

It was a Mad Hatter Tea which meant we were all required to wear hats. My SIL Letty and me.  Jessica, the Guest of Honor. Jessica opening her Samovar from my mother and a tablecloth that my mother made when she was 12 years old (that would have been in Tehran, Iran) The last photo is of the daughters and daughter in laws with my mom. Letty, Vera, My Mom, Kathy, Ellen b, and Kelly.

Jessica with her friends and most of these ladies will be her bridesmaids. Our hostess, Michelle, to the left of Jessica.

After we had our Tea/Lunch we walked over to the Rose Garden in the Community.

Some of my lovely nieces, Melissa, Debbee, and Michelle.

Ellen b. in a hat! You won’t see that everyday.

Well that hat won me a prize along with the great hat on the right that the mother of the hostess wore! I won a wonderful lavender scented candle.

We are having a very hot weekend in Southern California. See that 100 degrees for the outside temperature next to my odometer. That registered when I was driving home and reached the San Fernando Valley. Hot, hot, hot for Spring around here! (Looks like I need to dust off my dash!)

Made it home in good time praising our God for the blessing of family and friends to enjoy life with on this earth.

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”
~2 Thessalonians 2: 16,17