Grad Party Prep

We (I) might have over-planned the graduation open house. We had double of just about everything we needed, including locations (we needed a back up plan for rain :) It was a surprise, though, when my double order of elegant lace tablecloths arrived with dinosaur stickers in the package. Lol!!

I forget we have a hot glue gun, but Caelan remembers and put it to work sticking burlap and lace ribbons to mason jars. I figured these would be a good place to put stray candy wrappers, rather than having robust breezes blow them across our pastor's property during the party :)

We did a quick "before" picture of the graduation greetings Caelan received so far . . . she's been overwhelmed with the amount of mail! She said it's like her birthday, but it just keeps going and going :) She is up to her ears in thank you notes, including one for a $1,000 scholarship she was just granted through the college. She now has enough funds to fully pay for her first year of school. Praise God!

I kind of jokingly drew up this schematic for the party layout. I slipped it into a plastic binder sheet cover and dropped it into the box of decorations. Buck and his NGF set up the tables as close to the schematic as they could. My NGF and her daughters set the decor up EXACTLY how I laid it out, and beautifully! Oh wait, that's blog fodder for the next day :) (But I seriously could not have gotten everything arranged and had time to run home to shower and grab the cakes if it hadn't been for their family, our youth intern and her hubby, those of our own Crew not working, and my brother's sweetheart!)

Our deck was in great need of its semi-annual painting (or every other year painting, bi-annual?). I took care of the railings, then the boys took care of the planks. I'm not sure how it turned into a full repainting on the deck, but it did, sure enough. In preparation for all this preparation, Buck and I tackled a list with 11 errands on it--which expanded to 14 before we were done--including four different home improvement stores in two states. That was quite an afternoon!

Meanwhile, we collected flowers from two different floral departments and a good friend's garden, so Caelan had lots of blooms and greens to work with for her graduation party floral arrangements. Before we knew it, our kitchen turned into a floral shop with stems and petals all over the floor and flying through the air! The arrangements looked really pretty though when she was finished!