Market Prep, Part 6.
Help came when most needed...

Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.
~Carol Saline

My dear sister, Caty, came over yesterday to put order in this chaotic life of mine, so that quote above seemed quite fitting. Yes, surprisingly enough not everything in my household looks as pretty and orderly as the pictures from my last post, which, by the way, thanks so much for all your kind words. Your support means so much to me and I am so thankful to have such an amazing circle of friends to help me make the best showing of Andalucia possible!

But, getting back to Caty...ohmygoodness, where do I begin? She washed, dried and put away every last stitch of clothing in our house... even the bed linens and towels. Anyone who knows me knows how much I despise laundry. I'd much rather clean toilets than fold & put away clothes... really! So, Caty came to my rescue when I most needed it, filling in the gaps while I sewed and upholstered around the clock!


Not only did she do all my laundry but she also organized the kids closets, which is something I just hadn't gotten to in so long. I'll have to take a picture of Sydney's closet for all of you to see. It looks like a boutique display in there... all pieces are neatly hung and organized in an orderly manner, not spilling out of laundry baskets or piled up in a corner of the room, LOL!

And in between loads of laundry she helped me with some much needed Market Prep busy work. She finished collating & stuffing the remainder of my 500 Greeting Cards and assembled the remaining of my 400 bookmarks... with a little help from my assistant, of course (an assistant for my assistant).


When I was scouring the internet looking for the perfect "sister quote" to put at the top of this posting (something fitting but not too corny) I came across these funny ones that just totally describe our relationship:

Sisters never quite forgive each other for what happened when they were five. ~Pam Brown

You can kid the world. But not your sister. ~Charlotte Gray

A sister smiles when one tells one's stories - for she knows where the decoration has been added. ~Chris Montaigne

If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she's wearing your best sweater. ~Pam Brown

Caty, I cannot thank you enough for what you did for me these past couple of days! The house looks amazing and I am this much closer to having everything ready for my Market debut. THANKS, SIS!!! LOVE YA!!!!

Oh, and I haven't forgotten that I promised to share some wonderful quilts from my talented sample sewers and some upholstered chairs and other miscellaneous sewing projects by yours truly. All that is coming... very soon! Patience, my friends. I am working around the clock here but hope it will all pay off soon! :)

The Wedding
Part 2 of our 3-Day Weekend in St. Louis

Let's start with a few pre-wedding shots.

Beautiful gowns...


On the bed...

Bridezilla... hahaha... just kidding! She was the most calm, most at-ease bride I have ever seen (especially considering that we had an incredibly short time to get everything ready for it!)


And now, the wedding!

First off, I want to apologize for not having any pictures of the actual ceremony, which was breathtaking by the way. Since I was the Maid of Honor and my whole family was in the wedding party, I had to reluctantly hand my SLR over to a friend of my sister's. So what you're seeing here are a few pictures he took with my camera.

The wedding party at the receiving line after the ceremony.
From right to left, the Bride & Groom, Best Man Steve, Jon & I, Danielle & Matt, Felicity & Chris, Ring-Bearer Asja, Flower-Girls Sophie & Sydney:


Bride and Bridesmaids (yes, my dress fit... just barely!):


The Bridesmaids (Danielle, Patty & Felicity):


Bride & Maid of Honor:


Flower Girls Sophie & Sydney:


First Dance as husband & wife:


Father-Daughter Dance:


There was some singing...


A lot of dancing...


And a heck of a lot of hugging...
(here is my sister & I with our sweet cousin Olga, who came all the way from Puerto Rico!)


And then it got interesting.
Threshold smesh-hold! How 'bout I carry you over the ice cold fountain, honey?


We couldn't let the bride & groom have all the fun...


So what if we all had rented tuxes, made-to-order dresses and $100 up-do's?!? This was a sympathy soaking...


I stood on the sidelines documenting the festivities, but the second I set my camera down I was carried over the fountain too!!!


Did I ever mention having a crazy family?!

The Graduation
Part 1 of our 3-Day Weekend in St. Louis

We truly packed in as much as we could this past weekend. We left on Friday to attend a Graduation and a Wedding, but we also got to see family members we hadn't seen in ages, meet new friends and even do some light sightseeing. A great time was had by all!

So, since this is way too much to post at once (and to tell you the truth, I just can't edit pictures fast enough since I had over 200 of them) I will break this up into installments.

First off we have THE GRADUATION. My sister, Catherine Prann, and her fiancé (and now husband) Jason Alviene received their Doctorate degrees this past Saturday from the Logan College of Chiropractic in Chesterfield, MO. All their hard work finally paid off and we couldn't be happier for them.

Here is the happy couple right after commencement.



My sister graduated with High Honors so she received a special award at the beginning of the ceremony.



We have a Doctor in the family ... and the documentation to prove it!


I am so proud of my lil' sis...


The girls had some fun playing "graduate"...


And even did some posing for ol' mom...


The family got together for a family picture (sans the graduates). Here we have my cousin Olga and her husband Jorge (on the far left of this picture), who came all the way from Puerto Rico to celebrate with us. We were so happy to see them again! Then right next to them we have my mom & dad (a.k.a. mami & papi) who came up from Florida this weekend and are staying through the week.


Patty, Sydney, Olga & Sophie:


Tomorrow, if time permits, I will share pictures of the wedding... which, believe it or not, went off without a hitch just hours after the Graduation.

Then I will also share pictures of our meeting with Michael Miller designer Laura Gunn and her lovely family. Check out her blog today... she has posted a recipe for her homemade peach crisp which I was lucky enough to try at her house.

It's good to be back.

baby got back

My sister gets married in less than 4 weeks (August 23rd) and I am the maid of honor. I tried on the bridesmaid dress at David's Bridal and ordered it way back before I went to Quilt Market (sometime in May) and it fit perfectly (well, it was a little tight but I figured if I lost a couple of pounds before the wedding, it would look HOT!) The dress came in the day before we went to on our FL vay-cay. I just picked it up in a huge hurry, didn't try it on and just stuck it in the closet.

Well, you probably know where this is going... Two nights ago, when my mom & sister were here, I put on the dress... or should I say, tried to put on the dress... for my mom to see how cute (NOT!) I looked in it. I couldn't even zip it up!!! (sob). I looked at the tag to see if they had mistakenly given me the wrong size but nope, it was the size I ordered. So I pulled out the scale (I haven't stepped on this thing in weeks!) and I was a good 8-10 lbs. heavier than when I went to Market. (SOB!) What do I do??? I needed to lose 2 lbs. but instead I gained about 10! It is waaaay to late to get the thing exchanged (since they were special-order) and there is no way to alter it (I could take it in but there's no way to let it out!) WAAAAAAA!

On another note, I totally missed my 200th post. It was 2 posts ago, but I guess I was a bit pre-occupied. Oh well! Today is the first day of "back to normalcy" here in the MODKID household. The girls returned from FL last week and my mom stayed with us until yesterday, and in between then & now we've had a flurry of activities, including (but not limited to) a birthday party, a weekend trip to St. Louis, a bridal shower and a visit to the local water park. Oh, and of course, the modgreetings launch, which by the way, thanks so much for all the wonderful comments and your purchases. I have a couple of wholesale inquiries already, plus one more local store that wants to carry them, so that's great news! :)

My mom, my sister and my niece all left yesterday and now it's just the 4 of us... for the first time since, well, June! WOW! Sophie actually asked me last night "So, is it just gonna be us from now on?" heeeheee... KIDS! Gotta love them! :)

So, speaking of the bridal shower, I made these super cute personalized favor boxes for the attendees using one of my Andalucia designs, "Jester" in the Aqua colorway (which just happens to be her wedding color!)



I searched & searched the internet for a good favor box template (and I did download a couple) but they were all too small or just not shaped right, and I wanted to fill these to the brim with chocolates. So I made up my own template. It worked out perfectly. I even made a little sleeve for the Hershey mini's (hmmmm... in hindsight, I probably should have stayed off the Hershey minis and maybe I could still fit into my bridesmaid dress... sigh!)



So, anyway, I will be putting together a sweet little tutorial (with plenty of step-by-step pictures, of course) on how to make these. It will include a PDF download template for the box with or without the Jester pattern. Hope you guys are into that kind of stuff... we had the best time assembling these last week!

So, I will leave you now. If anyone has a great crash diet tip, please leave a comment. Hey, all you Cook It. Blog It! members... please send me links to any low-fat recipes you may have, or some sort of lose-12-pounds-in-4-weeks diet plan or something. I am allergic to exercise but I guess I can make an exception and maybe take some Claritin for this occasion. ;) I promised my sis I would run on the treadmill 1 hr. every night but I already broke my promise once. :(

HELP! I don't wanna be a naked bridesmaid!