A sad day, losing something and St. Anthony

On June 7, 2002 Jake gave me this ring and asked me to marry him. I have never taken it off, except when my fingers were too swollen to wear it during the last part of both of my pregnancies.

Yesterday sometime from when I left the Ohio Cattleman's meeting to when I returned home after picking up tires and a half of beef I lost the diamond out of my ring.  Jaelin has had an attachment to my ring since she was a few weeks old.  She rubs the diamond when she is sad, mad or tired. I often left my ring with Jake when I was going to late night FFA meetings when she was an infant for her to rub before she went to sleep.  She really isn't as attached anymore. However, last night Jaelin climbed up on the coach to sit next to me after I had gotten home.  She instantly grabbed for my ring and then looked at me and said "what did you do with it?"  I have looked everywhere and prayed to St. Anthony, the saint of missing things.

O blessed St. Anthony, 
the grace of God has made you a powerful advocate 
in all our needs and the patron 
for the restoring of things lost or stolen. 
I turn to you today with childlike love and deep confidence. 
You have helped countless children of God 
to find the things they have lost,
material things, and, more importantly, 
the things of the spirit: faith, hope, and love. 
I come to you with confidence; 
help me in my present need.
I recommend what I have lost to your care, 
in the hope that God will restore it to me, 
if it is His holy Will.

Amen. 

I still have not found it and very much disappointed.

What is the worst thing you have ever lost?  Have you ever prayed to St. Anthony?

A beautiful day of Christmas celebration.

Yesterday was a wonderful day of celebration at St. Mary's Central.  Another mom and I volunteered to  host the Kindergarten Christmas Party.  We had a gift race, where students raced to open gifts for the classroom.  We also played pin the nose on Rudolph. We made our own snacks, my stacking three powdered doughnuts making a snowman.  We then gave him a hat with a little chocolate bell, two arms made from pretzel sticks and a scarf from a licorice. I apologize for the messy navy blue uniforms.  Some of the kids looked like they had rolled in powdered sugar. The parents sent in wonderful Christmas treats, including bags of candy, and cookies.  However the hit seemed to be a small notebook complete with pen that all of the children began getting signatures in.  I signed in at least 15 times for the Christmas Party.  Bless their little hearts.

We came back in the evening for a very special Christmas Program. My favorite thing about the girls not going to public school is that God is not a secret.  They pray before school starts, before lunch and before they come home.  They even sometimes stop to pray for emergency vehicles going buy, because after all someone must need help. They even sing about God and Jesus being born during the Christmas Program and that is awesome.

My favorite song the Kindergartners sang last night was a song about lambs, complete with adorable lamb masks.

Baa, Baa, Baa,  Baa, Baa, Baa
Now you know just who I am,
I'm a little wooly lamb,
God has made me what I am,
juicy grass is what I eat,
do you want to hear me bleat . . .

He sees you when your sleeping  . . .

 My favorite song that Jacie's class sang was "From the Manger to the Cross".

From the manger to the cross,
From the manger to the cross,
Jesus made a road to save the lost,
From the manger to the cross

 Jacie played the cow bell in the Angel Band.

There were 1, there were 2, there were 3 little angels, there were 4, there were 5, there 6 little angels, there were 7, there were 8, there 9 little angel, 10 little angels in that band . . .

Merry Christmas!

Wolfinger-Hanes Wedding (part 1)

The rehearsal dinner started Friday at 6PM at St. Mary's in Lancaster.  The church is so beautiful inside and so meaningful for Jake and I because we also got married there and both the girls were baptized there.  After everyone finally got there, the Priest got everyone seated and Calvin's mom was on the phone giving directions about wedding stuff.  The Priest was giving her the evil eye and the person on the other end of the phone was just not taking the hint that she had to go.  We all thought it to be very amusing, not sure the Priest thought so.

Our group had to practice twice, because we didn't get it right the first time or maybe because he thought we needed the practice.

Jacie and Jaelin were so excited to be Aunt Katy's flower girls.

I don't know what they were talking about at this point.  Maybe: Are you sure you have the rings? or Why didn't we elope? or maybe What kind of kiss it would be at the alter?

We then went to Calvin's parents' house for a pork chop dinner. It was delicious. We left as other people were finishing the decorating.  I was worried that the girls were going to be grouchy for the wedding day.

The next morning Jake dropped the girls and I off at the salon to get our hair done at 8AM.  I already feared the long day and how the girls would handle it. The girls played a game of go fish as I got my hair done.

Then Jaelin asked Katy if she could be next. Since Aunt Katy never tells her nieces no, she went next. Jacie got her hair done after that, and I was now hoping Katy would be done in time for pictures.

We now had been at the salon for 3 hours and the girls were doing fairly well.  They now were busing themselves reading some stories about Olivia the pig that Katy and Calvin had bought them.

Then Jaelin got bored with the books and found the camera and took this picture . . .

and this picture . . .

and this picture.

Then I realized she was a decent photographer so I had her take a picture of Jacie and I.

 4 hours in a salon and now we were just goofing off!

Then I took the tutorial on how to remove the veil.  Which was easy.  I really should have taken the tutorial on bustling Katy's dress again. That didn't go so well.

And then we were off to the church . . .

Katy's 2nd Bridal Shower

Katy's Aunt Peggy and Aunt Susan hosted the second shower at Shaw's Restaurant in downtown Lancaster, Ohio.  It was a wonderful afternoon of fun. I think they may have given more door prizes away then Katy got gifts.  They had several items on the tables, many of them antiques.  Katy picked which one she like first on table one and second on table two and so on.  Then we had to try to guess what Katy chose.  Katy and I have similar tastes, so I thought I would do fairly well.  Wrong - I only got two out of six.

It was finally time to open gifts.  Katy called and asked me to be her matron of honor almost a year ago.  I was so excited!  I immediately thought I need a really special gift to giver her. I have been working on a special double top secret gift for Katy on and off for almost nine months.  In July when Jennifer came to Nebraska and taught me to make quilts we picked up Amy Butler material at Material Girls in Grand Island, Nebraska and made a quilt top.  The colors I chose were what I thought she had described as her wedding colors.  Although the wedding colors have changed I still feel they are great colors and remind me of Katy.  Mostly because these colors are bright and cheerful.  Jennifer quilted this quilt on her long arm with bright and beautiful variegated thread.  I put the binding on with a "hidden" hand stitch this week.  This is the first quilt top I ever made (with the help of Jennifer) and I am so happy to give it to Katy.

Jaelin, Katy, me and Jacie

for the love of beef (part 8)

On Friday the 13th we had our rehearsal dinner in the neighbors farm shop.  It was a great evening and we had a wonderful meal planned by my mother in law and cooked by her and several other family and friends. It was a great evening!

It is now June 14, 2003, the house is not finished.  However we deemed it livable after the honeymoon.  Neither of us wanted to move back in with our parents as a newlywed couple.  We had no kitchen and carpeting went in a couple days before the wedding. It was a long summer.

It was raining that morning and I was a little bummed because we had plans for the wedding party to have a hay ride from the church to the reception.  I headed from my parent's house to Newark to get my hair and make up done.  Jake and his friends (including my brother) were supposed to be doing some last minute things for the wedding and reception.

Mary, Amber, Katy, Jamie, Me, Jenny, Marie, Kelly and Amy

Andy, Travis, Joe Lee, Ben, Jake and RJ, Lippy, Matt, Nick, Jason

By the time I reached the church it had stopped raining and my bridesmaids were gathering in the church basement.  They all had the same color dresses but each had a different top.  To compliment the differences they each got a different bouquet.  The boys were I have no idea where doing things I still don't want to know about.  My mother showed up with food for everyone, which saved the day.

It was soon time for the ceremony, where Father Dennis married us.  It was beautiful!

We then had several pictures taken.  By now the sun was shining and the hay ride with our bridal party to the reception was a great time.

When we reached the reception it was 100 questions for me music, toasts, cake, food, etc..  Not Jake, he was off talking with everyone. We had a wonderful caterer that served Wolfinger beef and homemade noodles that my Grandma Poorman and I spent most of the winter making. Every time we needed to dance, toast, take a picture or kiss we first had to send a search party for Jake.  We even had to find him when it was time to surprise his Dad and his Dad's twin sister Rosie with a 50th Birthday Cake.  We chose their birthday for our wedding day. Unfortunately I didn't feel like I got to see or talk to anyone.

No one had a better time at our reception than Jake's brother Andy.  He gave a wonderful toast and then danced with everyone there.

It felt like I turned my head and everyone was gone.  Jake finally revealed the surprise honeymoon would be to Cancun and I was excited to leave the country for the first time and lay on the beach.

We left soon after that and headed to change our clothes and head for the Hyatt in Columbus for our Honeymoon night.  We were leaving in the morning for Cancun.

We checked into the hotel.  We started asking a lot of questions about each other's day.  After all this was the first time we had really talked in 24 hours.  I found out that he had greeted almost all of our guests as they came into the church.  I was jealous because I was locked up in the basement.  I said I can't believe so and so didn't come and he would say yeah they were there.  By the end of the conversation I was saddened that I had missed a lot of our guests. The whole day seemed like a big blurr. However I was now Mrs. Jake Wolfinger and we were now working on the happily ever after.