Charyn's Wedding

After almost a week of recovery I finally decided to blog about Charyn's wedding. She got married last Friday, the 5th of March at the Old Shelton Church in Ririe. It was a nice little ceremony and my dad was able to marry her and Mike. My mom and I have been preparing, along with Charyn for quite a while to get everything ready. They had quite a long engagement, which gave us plenty of time that we weren't really stressed about it until the few days before and the day of. The place where she got married was going to charge her $250 just for a chocolate fountain. So we decided that we could do the chocolate fountain on our own along with the rest of the food for not much more than that. So the day before the wedding the three of us, Mom, Charyn, and Me, along with our grandma Sharon and a family friend Barbara got together to do all the prep work. Washing and cutting vegetables, making chicken salad filling, cutting cheese into cubes and stuff like that. With all of us working we got a ton accomplished in a short amount of time. Charyn was so wonderful and took my mom and I afterward to get pedicures and manicures. It was so fun!! It has been a long time since I was on the recieving end of either of those and it felt great!! The morning of the wedding mom and I packed the suburban, when I say packed it, I mean packed it to full capacity for things we would need. We drove to the reception center and got under way preparing. I was also asked to do Charyn's hair for the wedding. We had previously gotten together a couple of times and practiced and I was confident that I could do it. I allowed for 2 1/2 hours to get her hair done just in case and when the time came to do her hair for some reason it was not coming together like I had hoped. we were running out of time and she was getting antsy and I was frustrated with myself for not being able to do it. I was so close to having a meltdown, but I tried to hard not to do it in front of her. I just wanted her hair to be perfect. Afterall she will look back on her wedding pictures and be reminded of her hair and I wanted her to LOVE it. Well I finally finished and the hair turned out Okay, but not perfect. I was really disappointed in myself and I felt horrible. Although she did look beautiful and several people complimented on her hair. Thank You to nice people. So from now on I vow that I will not do Bridal hair again. It is too stressful for me and I don't feel like I do that great at it!! Back to the wedding. Mike and Charyn had a friend take their pictures and another friend made the cake. What great friends they have!! The ceremony was short and sweet and we are all so glad that it went well. We are so happy to have Mike in our family along with his son Jackson. We considered them a part of the family along time ago, but now it is official. They had a great turn out of family and friends to come and support them and the food was a big hit. We had gobs left over, but it is far better to have too much than not enough right! So we had leftover wedding food for the next few days, which was wonderful not to have to cook! Congratualtions Mike and Charyn, have fun in Mexico!!!

Cream Puffs X 500

My sister is getting married next weekend and my mom and I doing all the food for the reception. We have been getting things we need throughout the last couple of months, but now that the wedding is less than 1 week away we are trying to get as much done ahead of time as possible. This includes making 500 cream puffs to stuff with chicken salad on the day of. I had made a test batch last night of cream puffs to see how many the recipe I had makes and how difficult they were to make and how long they would take. Well we (my mom and I) decided that they were fairly simple to make, but they would be pretty time consuming to bake because each pan full has to bake for 27 minutes. So today after I picked up my produce basket we got to work making 12 batches of cream puffs which will be over 500 cream puffs when were are finished. I have baked 170 and have 30 in the oven right now and about 72 left to bake. My mom has done the rest at her house so between us we have been making cream puffs like crazy! We are going to package them up and freeze them until the day of, then they will be filled as they are needed at the reception. I am really excited for Charyn and Mike and I look forward to the wedding and the wonderful evening it will be.

Bountiful Basket

My Sister-in-law was telling me about a produce co-op in our area and how she had just started participating in it and all the food she got for a great price. So I decided to check it out. The open the "donation" at 12 noon on Monday and close the ordering on Tuesday. So I made sure and was on the computer on Monday at 12 to put in the order I wanted. Today was the pick up date and I was so amazed at how much produce I came home with. I took a laundry basket and came home with it heaping full!! In the basket this week I got 5 bags of baby carrots, 7 small cucmbers, 3 bundles of asparagus, 2 heads of broccoli, 1 head Romaine lettuce, 2 bundles Swiss Chard, 2 5lb. bags of potatoes, 6 Apples, 1 lemon, 4 oranges, 14 bananas, and 1 container of strawberries! Can you believe it?!! I was so excited, my fridge is now overflowing with fresh produce that looks so yummy. I can't wait to eat it all. All of this only cost me $19.50 and next time I do it it will only be $16.50 (there is a $3 start up fee) I think this is my next big addiction, but at least it is a healthy one!! It made me even more excited about this after I had to run to the store for eggs and saw strawberries there for $3.98 for a small container. I know I got a great deal, there is no way I could have gone to the store and got the same amout of food for the price I had just paid. All I have to say is THANK YOU TARA for telling me about it!!!!

Weekend of Fun

Last week I went to visit one of by best friends. We have been friends for almost 15 years and have stayed really close even after High School. Some friends are just so great that you want to keep close with them and Anne is one of those truly great friends. Her and Her husband recently moved away from me (sniff, sniff) and I was really sad, but glad that Josh had found a great job. Unfortunatley for me they now live 3 hours away! I guess it is better then 10 hours ofr across the United States. But still it is further than the 30 minutes they used to be. So I made plans with Anne to come for a weekend and visit. She was gracious enough to let me and the kids stay with them while we were there and we had such a wonderful time. The kids really play pretty good together, they do have the occasional disagreement, but overall the get along good and really loved having someone new to play with. I had hoped that Anne would like to work on a little craft project that I put together from the site HOW DOES SHE. I saw it on there and knew that it would be something we could do and finish on a day. I didn't want to start a project and then take it home to finish. Well we were able to complete 3 projects!! It was a very successful day. The kids played well, watched too much TV, and ate too many snacks, but we finished!! It was so much fun to sit with her and visit about life now and to reminisce about the "old" days. We are hoping to make this a common occurance to get together as often as possible. I know it was well worth the long moutainous drive!!!

Our Rockers!

Matt and I got a return from our taxes and decided that we should spend a little of it on something fun for the family. So we went and purchsed Rock Band for the PS3, thinking it would be something for the whole family to enjoy. We set it up the minute we got home and the kids were going crazy trying everything out. It was so funny to see them trying to do the drums and sing along. Of course we can set it so they can be banging on the drums and think they are playing along so Matt and I can actually score some points! I do admit that it is pretty fun. You know what we will be doing on the weekends! Family Rock Band!!

The List

Well I have at least done well on one of my goals. I made the list again for the month of January at the GYM!!! Yay!!!!

He needs our prayers!

I happened across this blog through my cousin's page and was so very touched by the events in this families life right at this MOMENT! I want to spread the news in hopes that many more prayers will be said on their behalf.
The Staker Family