Scrapbook Life Journal

March’s SLJ was about “Owning Your Talents”.  Not just your creative talents, but who you are as a person.  Below is a collage of the pages I made for the month.

Being creative is not a hobby it is away of life.  God created us all as unique individuals to carry out His purpose. 

“What we are is God’s gift to us. 

What we become is our gift to God.”  

 Eleanor Powell

Hymn & Scripture Challenge

I have been away on vacation.  I am busy sorting through about 1500 pictures from our Alaskan aventures.  So stay tuned for details.

Until then......

 Here are a couple of pages I have been working on to catch up on the Hymn and Scripture Challenge.

I haven't sung this hymn since living up in New York.  It was always sung with great strength and praise.  You can read the devotion here

Below is a more modern version (using a band) of this hymn.  What a great Easter song.

The next hymn is another of my favorites. You can read the devotion here.

With all the changes in my life I find comfort in surrendering everything to the Lord and He will lead me in all that I do.

Below is a video for you to listen to. 

If you want to see all my Hymn pages just hit the tab at the top of my blog.

Wedding Cake & Shoe Game

Let me introduce the baker and designer of the wedding cake, Kristin. We have been friends with Kristin and Bob since we lived in Germany.  Our kids played together and Michael and Bob work together again in the civilian world. 

 

This was such a fun and colorful cake.  Perfect for their carnival themed wedding.

 Thanks Kristin for a beautiful cake!

Another fun thing they did was the shoe game.

Here's what happens:


- in the middle of the dance floor put two chairs back to back.


- Bride and groom take off thier shoes, keep one of their own and give spouse the other shoe.


- bride and groom sit in the middle of the dance floor back to back with the shoes in hand.


- MC then asks a selection of questions.


- bride and groom answer the questions by holding up either their own shoe or their spouses.

 

Example:



Who is the better driver:


Groom holds up his shoe (because he thinks he is the better driver)


Bride holds up her shoe (because SHE thinks she is the better driver)

Who's the first to say sorry?


Who refuses to throw things away?

Who wears the pants in the relationship?


Who apologizes first after an argument?


Who has the wackiest family?


Who do you love the most in the whole wide world.?

You can google the wedding shoe game for the full list of questions.  This was really fun to watch. 

EU Day

Living in the DC area allows us to experience some really fun stuff.  This weekend we attended the EU Open House with Christopher and his girlfriend Kara.

 It is when all the European Union countries open their

embassy doors to the public. 

There were forty open embassies and we visited five.

 First stop POLAND.  Everyone here was so friendly and welcoming.  The building had awesome architectural details.  They gave us free samples of kielbasa and pirogi.  YUMMY!

Next stop SPAIN.  We saw flamingo dancing and walked around their building.  They were selling Spanish cuisine so we skipped eating here.

 On our way to the bus stop we went into LITHAUNIA.  They had a folk music group and free samples of breads and pastries. 

 Then we headed to the SWEDEN.  Since I am of Swedish heritage this one interested me.   The building was located right on the Potomac River.  They had a fun photo booth and games to get a bunch of free things.  We also stopped in their cafe so I could get my fix of Swedish cookies!

Our last stop was the FRANCE.  They were cohosting with GERMANY.  Germany's embassy was being renovated.  We mainly went to the Germany booths.  They were giving out some cool free stuff. 

It was really fun to see the different countries "homes".

  I liked seeing how proud they were

of their customs and cuisine. 

So that was our little trip around Europe.  It was a long but fun day!  We will have to hit some more next year.  If you are local, look out for this event next May!



The Reception

The evening started with the couples first dance.

Then we had buffet stations with:

Salad

Chicken Skewers

Mac & Cheese

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

and

Corn on the Cob

 Then it was time to cut the cake.  The cake was three different flavors.  (vanilla, chocolate and red velvet)  Yummy!  I will show you more about the cake on another post.

This is James.  He is a college friend of Matthews.  He made all the playlists for the entire day.  He did an awsome job!!!!  Thanks JAMES!

Then it was time to DANCE!

Chris and his girlfriend Kara did some swing dancing.  Notice the shoe change on Chris.  He had suede put on the bottom of his shoes just for swing dancing.  He and his girlfriend take lessons all the time.  They have great fun!

The bride and groom getting their groove on!

Some outside line dancing!

It's garter time!  I don't know the history behind this tradition, but it just makes me uncomfortable. 

Then Sarah tossed her bouquet.

Sarah's friend made this cute backdrop for people to pose for picutres.

We had props for people to do "photobooth" type picutres.  They had people do this for the their guest book.  I will show that to you later.

They played the "shoe game".  They were asked questions and they had to raise the shoe of the person who was the answer to that question.  I thnk they answered the same for all but one question.  I will find out the questions and do another post about the game.  I had never seen this done before at a wedding.  It was fun!

We ended the night with a sparkler send off.Well that was the wedding day.  It was over in a blink of an eye. The kids had fun and all their friends said it was great day.  Mission accomplished!  I may have a new career in party planning.  Hahahaha, NOT!  I want to thank all the people who helped and the Lord for guiding the day.

The Ceremony

Today I will share with you the wonderful ceremony.  Here I am with Matthew before the cermony.  He looks so handsome in his tux!

This is Sarah's Grandma, Margie.

Matthew's Grandma, Miriam came all the way from Portland OR for this special day!

Sarah's brother Jon, walked her down the aisle.

 Matthew watching his bride come down the aisle.

Did I mention there were lots of BUBBLES!  The girls had bubble guns as they danced down the aisle.  So fun.  These dresses are so cute and I just loved the colors.

Chris must have gotten the wrong pants.  A bonus is you can really see those rocking shoes!

Instead of the unity candles of our day, they did unity sand.  I like how it turned out.  And you can keep it forever!

This is my favorite picture.  I hope the photographer got a shot of this! 

Tomorrow I will show you the reception. 

Wedding Decorations

I have so much to share about this wonderful day.  It just went so smoothly.  All of our prayers were answered. 

So let's start with the decoartions.  We took this very nice looking barn and turned it into.....

THIS!!!!!!  Sorry for the blurry pictures.  They are from FB and I didn't want to waste time waiting for the original jpgs.  All of our hard work transformed this room into a carnival.  I had a lot of help pulling it all together.

Here is their sweetheart table. 

Another shot of the whole room!

A different angle of the room.

The placecards

All the cute carnival touches.

The girls made these crepe paper flowers for the aisle.  What a great idea to add color.

To look at all the wedding posts go to the left side of the blog and click on the wedding label.  Tommorow I will show you the ceremony.  Stay tuned!