Winter Blues

Winter is not my favorite.  EG and I had a discussion today about how she does not like to be cold, neither do I darling daughter, neither do I.  And cold it has been.  Record breaking lows in this polar vortex called home.

This has made it hard to be motivated to write anything on here.  The chickens aren't very entertaining right now.  They are just trying to stay warm.  They rarely step outside, so we rarely see them.  Our little light bulb water warmer is still doing its job, although it is now equipped with a 60 watt light bulb.

Valentine's Day was a little bit of a bright spot in our winter white world.  We exchanged Valentines with some long distance friends so that EG would get some in the mail.  In addition to those, she received them from a few of my aunts and her grandparents, aunt and cousins.  Very exciting for a 3 year old!

I made a fun new wreath for our front door, with yarn and some felt.  I followed a tutorial that I found at this link.

 

Our chalkboard theme for Valentine's Day was 1 John 4:19.

 



EG and I made some delicious no-bake cake balls.  So, so, good and so, so much easier than real cake balls.  Find the recipe here.

 

We've kept ourselves busy with local indoor activities too.  We received a membership to the local children's museum for Christmas this year, so we have been there several times this winter.  We've also gone to 2 other children's museums for a family fun day and a friend's birthday party.  So much fun!

 

 

There has been some outdoor fun too.  Snowman building, sledding and plenty of snow shoveling (if you can call that fun), always followed by hot cocoa, with marshmallows (of course).

We may make it through this winter after all.  Keep warm!

Celebrating Love's Patience

Love is patient.  This was a perfect theme for the wedding we attended this weekend.  It was a great weekend of celebration and such a blessing to be a part of.

I have known Suzanne since college.  We were in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship together during school.  She became staff for IV after college and I started volunteering with IV.  She is the kind of friend who, no matter how long it has been, is so easy to talk to and have fun with.  We share a love for football, especially our alma mater, and pizza.

We also shared a similar struggle after graduation, being single in a post collegiate world.  We both talked about being a single girl in our twenties, late twenties, turning 30 and being single, in our mid-thirties...

I got married in 2010 and Suzanne was there.  Celebrating with me, wearing the latte dress with the persimmon belt that I asked her to wear, carrying the fall flower bouquet that I made for her while she helped "process" the rest of the flowers for my wedding.

In March, Suzanne came to my birthday party, and she brought a date (!!!).  A very nice gentleman that I didn't really get to talk to, but EOP did and thought he was cool.  Then we met for lunch in April and I asked her how things were going with Nathan and she said great (!!!), like late summer wedding great.  A week later, she sent me a text with a picture of her new engagement ring (!!!).  The date was set for August, a short 4 months away (yay for short engagements).  Late summer wedding it is!

I was so honored that she asked me to help her out with her wedding by handling her flowers and coordinating the ceremony logistics (helping out with gathering people for photos, pinning corsages on people, running errands, cueing people's entrances).  I was also so excited to return the love that she had given me when I was getting married (and all of our friendship before and after).  We talked details and I ordered what we needed.  The wedding colors, turquoise and coral, were so bright and cheery, I was so excited to see the final product!

The fun began last weekend when I stayed at her house for the bachelorette party.  On Sunday, we worked on some wedding projects, including custom color M&M favors and chalkboard table numbers.  Since I was on a roll with chalk boards, I volunteered to handle those.

They looked so awesome nestled in the hydrangea centerpieces.  The only thing that would have been better is if my fine tip pens (both of them) did not quit working at the same time, right around number 9.

 

On Thursday, I picked up all of the flowers for the wedding from my favorite farmer's market in Lansing, Horrock's.  I have been ordering flowers from them for about 15 years, so we have a great relationship.  Plus they have a great selection of cut flowers to choose from.  We used white hydrangeas at the reception and an assortment of orange and pink flowers in the bouquets.  I ordered the extra flowers, like the corsages and the dad's boutonniere, from them too.  I am not a huge fan of making corsages, they are tricky.

The bride carried a hand-tied bouquet of peach roses, free spirit roses (such an amazingly fragrant and lovely flower), coral spray roses, orange waxflower, and peach and orange hypericum berries.  The stems were wrapped in aqua ribbon.  The maids carried hand-tied bouquets of the same, without the waxflower and with pink spray roses added, and the stems were wrapped in orange ribbon.

The orange flowers popped so well against the turquoise bridesmaids dresses.  Such a beautiful wedding color combination.  Beautiful bride, beautiful maids, beautiful day.

 

Congratulations Nathan and Suzanne, your wedding was beautiful and the party was super fun!  May God bless your marriage and future together.  I'm looking forward to our October football game with pizza after!

 

Weekend Adventures

We tried something new this weekend.  We stayed home - ALL WEEKEND LONG!

  

 

So we spent Saturday blueberry picking at our favorite blueberry farm - Cook's Berry Farm in Charlotte (3534 W. Kalamo Hwy).  I discovered this farm, 5 years ago, totally by accident when I was trying to find another place that I had been told about.  Last year, I wanted to find this one again, but I couldn't remember the name of it, or where it was.  So we looked up another blueberry farm, just in case we couldn't find it.  After about an hour of searching, we gave up and started looking for the one we had directions to.  We got to the address - and it was the same one I had been looking for!  I took a picture of the sign last year so I would remember what the name was for future blueberry picking excursions.  Like this past weekend.  Got there this time with only one wrong turn!

 

EG loves picking (eating) blueberries.  We had a rule this year that she had to put 2 in her bucket before she could eat one.  MOST of the time, that happened.

 

The Country Mill leases Cook's from the owner and runs the blueberry picking operation.  They also sell donuts there.  Mmmm donuts.  We wanted some, and the ones that were there were not the kind we wanted, so we drove to the Country Mill afterward.  Our wedding reception was at the Country Mill, so we try to make a trek there once a year for apples and donuts and cider slushies.  Mmmm cider slushies.  We never got this picture on our wedding day, so we had EG take the pic this year - 3.5 years later.  Not a bad shot for a toddler. 

On Sunday, we decided to see if we could let the gals out of the coop to graze in the yard, under supervision.  I also wanted to check them over to make sure there were no obvious issues with them (chicken lice or the like).

 

So we started with Ronnie, since she's down a wing and can't fly away on us.  We opened the coop door and coaxed her out on the top of the run.  She was too scared to jump down so we had to set her down on the ground.  She immediately dropped down to the ground and tried to get as close to the ground as possible.  She looks good though, no bugs and her wing is healing well (the feathers are growing back too).

 

Then we tried to get Ginnie, coaxing her out with grapes.  She came out for about 2 seconds and then ran back in (Ronnie was already back in there by that point).

 

EOP grabbed her out again so we could check her over.  She calms right down when you cradle her on her back.  We didn't see any issues with her, so I think we are good to go for now.

 

As a reward for being tortured, we gave them a little bit of plain yogurt.  They LOVE yogurt and it's good for their digestive system.  It's fun to watch them eat it and then wipe their beaks on the grass to clean them off.