Best blog-hopping night...EVER (Fairly wordy, but I think it's a good post)

So tonight after I left Ian's house I felt so good. I am so excited to marry him and be sealed to him forever. I sent him a text from the first light after his house (no drive-texting for me!) and said "While I don't like the feeling of leaving you at night, I love the feeling of knowing that we are being completely good right now." We've been engaged FOREVER it seems and it could be very easy to mess up, but we both know it's not worth it so it's not going to happen.

So after I got home, feeling all good about myself and what not, I decided to do some blog hopping. I hit the lovely "next blog" button on the top of the screen. I was sent to a family from St. George. I ended up clicking on a friend of theirs, a photographer, because I wanted to see more of her work. After checking it out, I hit "next blog" again (what? You know you blog stalk too :P)

*This time I was sent to one with a quote in the sidebar about heaven.
*Then one with a tagline (that's what I'm calling that little line people put like over their picture) "We have been chosen to raise children of the King. A son and two daughters of the Most High. What a privilege...and a responsibility."
Again..
*Thanking Jesus for the men in her life
*A blog with a list of ministries and Bible commentaries in their own section of sites s/he visits.
*I was greeted with a picture of a man with a cartoony giant ear and the title "Listening to God today?"
*A blog titled "Moms United Prayer for Unsaved Family"
*A blog from a cancer patient who leads ministries around the world. His tagline is "Dave's point of view with a Christ-like perspective. "God said it, not me""
*A blog following a mission youth group's activities
*A pastor's blog
*A blog from a student who's just finished her first year at a Christian University who had an amazing poem of God as her top post. (Remember this one...)
*"Chocolate and Coffee, being a Pastor's wife"
*A mom wanting to update her friends on her daughter's Bible study*
*A religious works author, who is a convert to the Catholic Church and a former Episcopal priest.
*Another Father's Day post being thankful to all the fathers in her life, including in Heaven
*Looking at Truth, Looking to God's Word for real answers to all the questions life brings
*Lectionary commentary from the Massachusetts Bible Society
*Remember that blog about the student with the poem. It brought me back here...


So I decided to read the poem. It's the lyrics to a song called "In Christ Alone." There are so many versions of it on youtube. Here is just one I found...



I think it's interesting of all the times I hit "next blog" I ended up with a strong overtone of love of God. It's funny because I always feel weird talking about religion too much on here, but I'm not sure why exactly. Here's 20 some blogs that I just clicked on randomly that have no fear or regret posting these messages.



By the way, I thought I'd see where else it goes. The next one led me to a post about a solar oven. I thought I had finally run out my luck? Nope, I scrolled down a little further. The man was making a solar oven because he lives off the land so he can enjoy all of God's wonders. Let's see what else....

My bouquet!

So I finished my bouquet! Yay me!! I wanted something original, something that wasn't silk flowers (real ones are $$ and they would die between the wedding and reception seeing as they're on two different days), and something I could be proud of.

And what better time than to come up with some sort of crafty skill to put in my book of things I know how to do.

My inspirations....

Aren't they FANTASTIC?!

I love them. So this is what I came up with. I can't wait to get some better pictures of them (like with me in my wedding dress haha!) I made "button-eres" for the boys and some to put on the tables as well.

Here's my basic approach:

100 ft of "clothesline wire" (I think that's like 9 gauge?)

800 buttons--slightly overkill if you're just doing bouquets, but I've made table decor, "button-eres" and jewelry for the Moms also.

Beads

Needle-nose pliers and wire cutters

Tape (floral or duct)

Ribbon

There are different types of buttons. Some have "shanks" on them and some have holes, either 2 or 4. I bent a 12-15 inch piece of wire at the top third and added a shanked button at the top. After bending the wire tightly around the shank (without breaking it off), I would add other buttons either by sliding them through two ends of wire, or alternating them with one button on one end and another on the other. I added beads to space the buttons out more. Then I wrapped the ends together and made it as small as I could so it would stay together. The bridesmaid bouquets have about 15 "flowers" and mine has 30. I wrapped them in tape to keep from getting poked and then added the ribbon to make it look prettier.

The great thing about these being on wire is I can bend it out wider or narrower as I want. The button-eres are single "flowers" and the bracelets for the moms have the buttons laying flat on the ribbon.

Mother's bracelets

Mixed in with the other table decor

"Button-eres" Notice the center one has a matching button as my bouquet. That's Ian's. Awww

All of the girls

Hardest project of all of them. I had to stack the beads, connect the ends, and loop them around so they'd connect. But I LOVE it now that it's done! This is something I feel like I can hang on my wall even after the wedding and be proud of!

I got to see my love!!!

He surprised me on Sunday! I was supposed to see him on Tuesday of this last week, but when I got to church he was there!! I was shaking I was so happy! I spent all of Sunday-Wednesday at his house (coming home to sleep and shower and then I went back). It was absolutely perfect. Next time I see him for sure is July 28th! I'm hoping to go to the temple on July 10th, and I should be able to see him that trip. And I'd love to see him another time before that. We'll see though.

We've got almost everything for the reception and it's all sitting on my floor in my room. My room's a mess right now but I don't want to clean it up because I don't know where to put it all! I thought about putting it all in my closet, but that's really just hiding the problem haha! All we need to get now is a few more little containers to hold the centerpieces, the food (how much ice cream do I get?!) and borrow another punch bowl. I'm thinking I might want some white Christmas lights too, but I haven't decided yet. Ian is actually pretty helpful in all of this, but when both of us just don't care about a certain thing, like decorating, it's hard to make a decision.

School started for me on Monday. It's just one class, "Intro. to BYUI Online Classes", and it seems okay. Kinda just seems like busy work right now, but I guess it's getting me back in the mode of doing homework before I start my real semester in September. And it's required so I can't really complain about it can I? :)

My birthday is coming up and I don't really have anything planned. It kinda saddens me. I'm used to having huge parties with all my friends. But things are always so hectic/chaotic here and there are a lot more people's schedules that need to be considered around here I guess. We'll see how it goes. This is my last birthday before I get married though. Next year is going to be totally different :D