Way-Back Wednesday #4: Jeremy & Lydia Style #2

Welcome to Way-Back Wednesday #4:

Jeremy & Lydia Style #2!

Growing up, every Christmas we got a formal portrait taken of Jeremy and me. These are some of my favorite pictures, partially because it shows a progression of us on a yearly basis, but also because you can see how styles changed from year to year. Enjoy this Wednesday before Turkey Day!

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It's beginning to look a lot...

LIKE CHRISTMAS :)

Okay, not yet. Because I don't believe in decorating early. Although I feel like this year people have really jumped the gun and a lot of people are already decorated for Christmas. IT'S NOT EVEN THANKSGIVING YET!!!! I will wait until at least Friday.

I was itching to put up my tree last night but decided that to combat that itch, a blog post about Christmas decor would have to do :) I honestly can't remember if I've purchased anything new for this year, so the decor may be quite similar come Friday!

Oh, Christmas Tree...

Last year's newest addition was the large red/white houndstooth bow--the first big bow that I have ever successfully made!

Most of the stuff that went on my Furniture Design Pecan table was new last year :) including this apothecary jar!

The rest of the table decor...

Perhaps one of my favorite decorations...CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS! Over the dining room table :)

Adorable plates that my mom got me :)

I made ornaments for my FISH (church) group last year when we had a Christmas party at mi casa. My FISH group was all of the seniors that were graduating in 2010...

So the joke with our group was that it was no longer "Class of '08" or "Class of '09"...they were instead "Class of oh-10" :)

Happy Monday!

Way-Back-Wednesday #3: Jeremy & Lydia

Welcome to Way-Back-Wednesday #3:

Jeremy and Lydia Style

These are just a few pictures of us growing up...some of which were at the Rehearsal Dinner, others of which are scanned because of a Christmas present that I started last year compiling all of the Frost Family Christmas Poems (another post, hopefully in the near future). Enjoy.

Lydia's first Christmas...1987

A favorite in the Frost Family archives...

Christmas--maybe 1990?

No clue what year this one is...but an interesting tidbit: the extra-large shirt I'm wearing was won in a radio contest or something. I wore it to sleep in for a LONG time (think years). And apparently, I also thought it was a great ball-playing shirt.

American Gothic: Frost Style

cool acid wash jeans Jeremy

I'm wearing a romper...which has now come back in style after 17 or 18 years...

This picture makes me laugh. This was Easter one year....probably around 1993 if I could guess. Mom made the lace hat that I'm wearing. I LOVED that thing. And Jeremy is wearing a Star Wars tie...that orange thing is a light saber. Enough said.

~THE REHEARSAL DINNER~

Remember my previous blogs about the rehearsal dinner and how I wanted to do cute little place cards made out of tree circles? Well, after my brother so patiently cut 30+ pieces of wood for me...and I lugged them back to Oklahoma...they ended up molding in the Oklahoma humidity. I didn't have the heart to tell my dear brother, and was quite disappointed. So the name cards ended up still being cute, but not the "it" factor that I would have liked.

Part 1: cutting leaves at 1 am. Being that it was a fall New England wedding...the whole idea was centered around leaves changing color. Good thing I picked up these fake leaves at Hobby Lobby before we left because it rained for 2 days before the rehearsal, which would have been VERY nasty to pick up actual leaves in.

Part 2: The actual wedding rehearsal was right before the Rehearsal Dinner, which made it impossible for me to be the control freak I am and get to layout every decoration that I had carefully packed and shipped up to New Hampshire.

These two tables were in the corners of the room and housed a walk down memory lane for Jeremy and Tina. I had been gathering embarrassing pictures of my brother for a few months, and I completely forgot to email Tina's parents to see if they could gather some too. Betsy, her mom, did a wonderful job of getting them to me in a hurry! Thank you, thank you! All of the pictures were a surprise for Jeremy and Tina and will be featured on a Way-Back Wednesday post soon. I've been waiting for months to post some of the pictures!

The Rehearsal Dinner had wonderful food at the Coach Stop, including fish (for the New Englanders) and chicken and pork (for the Okies). There were other great side items too--quite possibly one of the best meals that I've ever had before in bulk like that.

the happy couple--Jeremy got a new hat from the Figenbaum's. It didn't fit his head, typical :)

Mom and Pops with Jeremy

cousins picture again

and the new tradition for the Frost/Figenbaum father's: a purse pic (Bob walked past me holding Betsy's sparkly purse and said, "Lydia, you can't take my picture with this on...". Wrong thing to say to the picture freak, Bob. And thus, a new tradition is born...)

More wedding posts in the near future :)

a sneak peak...

I am finally home after spending 10 days in the beautiful Northeast (again!). This time was for my wonderful brother's wedding :) We had so much fun with all of the wedding festivities...from Bachelor/Bachelorette parties, to the rehearsal, to the wedding, to the reception, and then a follow up post-wedding brunch, every bit was perfect.

Don't worry, that is only luggage for me and my mom.

the bridesmaids and the bride at the bachelorette party (getting manis/pedis at the spa)

Rachael, Lydia, Tina, Kim

The happy couple after the wedding :) photo credit goes to John, the best man

and yes, the tree behind them is truly that vibrant

at the reception, Lydia and Jeremy

cousins traditional hat picture, with the newest cousin added to the mix!

Denise, Lydia, Tina, Jeremy, Emily

Off to lunch with my kiddos now, whom I have missed terribly! Qdoba time :)

way-back Wednesday #2: dinner theatre 2005

Welcome to Way-Back Wednesday #2:

Chapel Choir Dinner Theatre 2005

The seniors: Rosemary, Anna, Bennett, Karen, Lydia, Perry (our loving choir director), David, Swenson, and Darren.

Dinner Theatre is put on every year in the spring by the High School Chapel Choir at Mcfarlin. A long-running tradition, Dinner Theatre features a theme that reflects musical pieces of the night. Obviously, the theme in 2005 was something along the line of "The Oldies". (By the way, I am cheating today...these pictures were already on my computer, so I didn't have to scan any in. I think these pics were taken on my parents FIRST digital camera...it had an LCD screen of about 1"x1".) The entire choir would sing a few numbers together and then anybody who wanted to sing a solo, duet, group piece, etc. could put something together if they wished. That leads me to the number we did: Footloose.

Rosemary, Cameron, Lydia, Stephen, Matt, Swenson, Scott, Anna, Bennett

In the middle of the number, Rosemary's platform Keds caused her ankle to give out and fall flat on the stage. It was by far one of the funniest things ever. I have it on video but apparently not on this computer. At the end of the post, you can see some high quality video of Footloose :) hope it makes you laugh.

meet Quincee, or one of the Pink Ladies from Grease!? Look at Quincee's blog by clicking on her name!

Anna, Matt (aka K-Nud), Lydia, Jason (aka Ja-Hawley)

the boys...Darren missing the picture, Cameron, Bennett, Ja-Hawley, K-Nud, David

Darren, Karen, Lydia, Swenson

K-Nud, David, Bennett, Cam Cam

the evolution of a design

Any person from the College of Architecture would tell you that you never use your first design as your final design. There has to be an evolution...that's where great ideas stem from! So let me introduce to you my latest evolution of a design: the rehearsal dinner invitation for my brother's wedding. I had picked out the two designs below a long, long time ago {sidenote: there may only be ONE thing that catches my attention on an inspiration image, but I nonetheless save it to it's respectable folder and wait until I need it again}.

Remember my post from before on wood? That's where I was wanting to go with these invitations. Then I found these neat cards at Michael's and I knew they were perfect. Let the printing process begin...

SIDENOTE: To get the spacing correct, I probably printed this thing 25+ times.

The green part is an envelope with a cutout in the middle where "please join us" shows through. So you pull out the actual invitation from inside the green card.

Attempt #1: This was just a quick attempt in Photoshop, where I didn't know what information actually needed to go on the invite, I knew my parents would hate the fonts, and I stole the tree and tree ring from other places. The main point of this one was to see if my parents would like the tree, enough for me to draw my own.

Attempt #2: changed fonts, messed with wording, still playing...

It just didn't make sense to have a tree ring sitting up on it's edge like that. So I x-nayed the tree ring and decided to make my own tree stump (much more believable?). I sketched the image above, scanned it in, and started playing in Photoshop...

Attempt #3: I could not for the life of me figure out what to put on the tree stump. Mom did NOT like having the J+T on the tree stump because it was on a dead tree then...once she said it, I knew I couldn't leave it there. We also got rid of "A rehearsal dinner"...changing it just to "rehearsal dinner."

Attempt #4: We shortened the wording (getting rid of "to honor the bride and groom-to-be), and then Mom decided that it needed MAPLE leaves falling to the ground (to be more realistic). And you all wonder where my perfectionism comes from.

Attempt #5: The actual invitation! Complete with maple leaves falling (they wanted their wedding in the fall), J+T on the tree that is still ALIVE, and Lydia happy with the end result.