The busy day before the wedding.........

...........started for me in this cabin...............

.............with these girls (plus several others!)
It was a day filled with much decorating; rehearsing; and laughing!

The little people kept themselves occupied pretty well with the box of toys that was found under the green table....

Some not-so-little people enjoyed writing on the white-boards.....

Rose needed to finish her gift to James & Amanda yet and, when she got tired, Hannah volunteered to help her finish with the cross-stitched names of the new couple...

Throughout the day, there was much hustle and bustle happening in the kitchen! Several cakes were baked, cooled and decorated over the course of the day (from morning to midnight!) Here, I believe RubyAnn is helping Alida get all the batter in her pan...

Cake crumbs are so tasty and are worth waiting for! :)

RubyAnn made a lovely apple pie. I just loved the way she fluted the edges and asked her to tell me how she did it (which she did)!!! By the way, this is an $80 pie--as we later learned at the cake auction! More on that later...

James' sister, Johanna made this prize-winning caramel cheesecake (it's not finished yet in this picture. She added a little wagon and a cabin that she built out of Lincoln logs!) This was the only cake I tasted actually and it was VERY delicious!
Rose again--holding her cute niece, Daisy...

One time, as I was heading for the girls' cabin to get something, I saw this deer eating grass between two cabins. It didn't seem like it was too scared of people!

One of the afternoon projects was to decorate James & Amanda's vehicle and camper. Everyone was nice about it and used materials that would come off easily in the future... :)

The sign on the back of the camper...

I helped with writing on the windows. ("Me N' God" was their theme song and now James has ordered "We N' God" license plates for their camper...)

Here Mara Wiechmann's drawing some hearts...

The finishing touch...

Some of the girls decorated the windowsill and cake table very prettily...

Here Hannah is busy with a tasty job...

Charis all dressed up and ready for rehearsal...

Rose (holding Daisy--still or again) and I--about half ready for rehearsal! (We still needed our hats and scarves...)

Nate & Liz with their girls...

A new friend I met, Kathlyn and her adorable little sister...

My dear friend, Susanna Dagley and her youngest daughter, Clementine... As Susanna and I are about the same size and our hair-color is similar, several people said they couldn't tell us apart from the back. Her little girls even came to me a couple times, thinking I was mommy. :)

Here James and Ethan were making a little room at the back of the area where the wedding took place. The original thoughts were that everyone would be in there while the guests were being seated and then we would come out at the appropriate time. However, when we tried to fit everyone in, it was very uncomfortable and it was agreed that everyone would like to see Amanda walk up the isle anyway, (her father walked her up to James and then they sang some songs together before bringing the rest of the wedding party up,) so the room just got used for storage and we all just stood at the back of the room before going up.

"OK everyone, get your bandannas tied on... Blue is for the ladies and brown is for the guys."

Everybody needed to be dressed in their wedding finery that night, as James & Amanda had decided to take some of the pictures beforehand, so as to have more time for other things the next day.

I really like this picture! James is helping his oldest sister, Johanna get her scarf tied neatly...

Getting closer to being ready...

"Look at this picture..."

Carrie (Dagley) Maertens getting her little girl, Mercy ready...

Hannah was such a BIG blessing to me!!! She cheerfully agreed to run our camcorder during the rehearsal and the actual wedding--plus she got many other great videos!!!!!!!! We haven't watched all of them yet, but I hope we can this weekend...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just thought I'd say thank you again here, Hannah, as I know you'll be reading this sometime. :) It was SO wonderful to be able to spend so much time with you and to get to know you even better! You're a dear, dear sister to me (in the Lord) and I'm just so glad that you were able to go along too...

Here James & Amanda are singing "Me & God" I believe--shortly before singing "Come on brother, let's go down...--the song that the wedding party went to the stage during. It took a couple times of practicing to get everyone in the right places at the right times, and we lost several little people along the way due to weariness, but it was a lot of fun and things went pretty smoothly at the wedding the next morning. PTL!

The beautiful bride...

Then it was time for pictures with Amanda! Here Mercy is with her lovely aunt...

RubyAnn and Amanda... (I wish this picture had turned out better, but the lighting made some funny shadows on this photo!)

The mother of the bride (Lynette) and her happy girl...

The maid-of-honor and the bride... :)

Rose (Jame's sister) and Amanda...

Gloria (Amanda's niece) and Amanda...

Mara and Amanda...

....And James and Amanda...

...again...

Another funny picture of the happy couple and their attendants... I don't think I have a serious picture of us that turned out well. :)

The fathers talking over some last-minute wedding plans with their children...

A back view of the gown...

Both James & Amanda are very gifted musically, and they make lovely music together:

Once the rehearsal was done, most people headed for bed, but a few of us stayed up until past midnight to finish last minute projects...

When I went downstairs, I found MaryAnna and RubyAnn working on cakes. One of the cakes, a very large, round one, was James' cake, but it wasn't decorated much at all, so MaryAnna had asked RubyAnn to work on it. As there was still a lot of cake to decorate, I asked RubyAnn if she wanted help with doing the border, and she said she'd appreciate it.

MaryAnna was busy with her own cake...

So, I helped RubyAnn for close to an hour--deciding how to decorate the monsterous cake and we wondered together why there were speckles in the frosting...? (There'll be more to this part of the story in tomorrow's post!)

We did finally finish and set the cake over on the cake table...

James--looking at the cakes...

Carrie was still awake too, and she talked MaryAnna and Amanda into painting their nails for a treat--something that they wouldn't usually do.

Here are the tables with their decorations... The jars have peacock, pheasant and turkey feathers; wheat; and grasses in them. There are cinnamon scented pine-cones by each jar...

Amanda and her soon-to-be sisters-in-law!

To be continued (at least) once more!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just thought I'd say here that we are so grateful for this warm, dry weather, as Dad and Andrew have been able to combine our sunflowers these last couple days and should finish tonight if all goes well. Jacob & I helped this afternoon by unloading a gravity box and the white truck into the grain bin. Then, shortly after we finished, our dad showed up again, as the trucker we were expecting was close by and Dad decided to help him load a load of our sunflowers. We hired this trucker the last time we needed something hauled far away and we liked him so much that Dad asked him to come back. His name is Robert (my dad's name), but I don't think that has anything to do with the reason we like him... He's just nice. :)