lulu

Lulu. Sally. Laymie Cakes. Laynie Kaiten. Laynie Kate. She's a little sister to her siblings and also to my two boys. She's a cousin, best friend, sister-in-law, and the second best aunt in the world (I'm the best, if your wondering). She's a softball player, a deer hunter, a duck caller, and a skeet shooter. And unless she's shooting a bow, pink has always been her last favorite color.

yep, that's me with a towel on my head. i was getting ready for prom too.

Everyone was a bit surprised that she chose black and pink for her first prom dress.

 Her next big decision was what to do with her hair. She decided that she wanted to wear it the same way her sister-in-law Leah had worn hers during her wedding this past summer. Pretty simple since they both have very curly hair. The difficult part was finding a hair decoration. After several shopping trips, we took apart a headband, used those feathers behind another flower, and added some crystals. 

We had the whole crew there for the get ready party -Nannie, Mrs. Gaye, her momma, sister, sister-in-law, cousin, me, and Eli. He thought we were all there to see him, and he was entertaining everyone.

Lulu only got a little tired of the constant camera clicking. Leah kept reminding her that she did like it no matter what she was saying. Because this is what we know about Lu - she may not be a girly-girl, she may not wear makeup and nail polish, but the girl loves some glitter and sparkle.

 She is not  much on makeup - but neither am I. Her momma made her wear eyeshadow and blush for Dusty and Leah's wedding this summer. She had never had mascara on at all. And she doesn't have pierced ears - those clip on earrings might have pinched a bit when I first put them on, but I think her ear went numb after that and she couldn't feel them for the rest of the night.

Unfortunately, the rain started just before get ready time so there was no going outside and taking pictures. But almost everyone got in a picture with her before the date arrived.

Cousin Emily.

Mom and Dad.



Big sister and nephew.

Lots and lots with the nephew.

Eli just couldn't get over this new look his Lu had going on.

And he wanted to love her up. His lovings can get rough - when he kisses, those baby teeth hurt!

Because I was having to get ready myself, I missed some of the picture taking. And my phone was ringing constantly with one catastrophe or another, and I completely missed the flower exchange and the leaving.

I also missed her big brother coming in and questioning the date, the dates mom having a "moment" over her baby boy going to his senior prom, and the date holding her dress to keep it from getting wet as they ran for the truck in the driveway.

But because I was a prom sponsor, I got to see them at the prom.

I got to snap a few pictures with friends and teammates.

As I was coming in to write this post this morning, I noticed a picture that sits on my bookshelves. It was taken while we were building our house, and Laynie spent many, many days here while we worked.

I looked at the picture and thought, "Can this have been so many years ago?" And then I opened the computer and saw that she and the date were Facebook official. Whaaat?  I think I'll go back to bed now.

behind the scenes look at making the prom

I know that what I've been busy doing this week may seem trivial to some of you. But to about 90 teenagers, it was anything but trivial. Prom is an important part of of most teenagers' school careers, and I am happy to have been a part of helping to build great memories for the students of WHS.

I dubbed it my marathon week, and last night was the finish line. But I want to show you some of the decorations that we pulled together.

First a look at what we started with.

A huge cave. A black hole with basketball goals. And bleachers.

Earlier in the year the junior class chose a disco style and later chose the theme I Love the Nightlife. I knew that it could be a fun prom, but it took me a while to form a plan. One of the things I had to do was come up with some choices for t-shirt designs so that the students could vote for their favorite. The winning design turned out great - it's one of my favorites of all time.

Another big decision was what to use as a photo area. Of course, it needed to fit the theme. I also wanted it to be interesting and fun. After a few weeks of thinking, it magically came to me one afternoon. Then we had to build it.

Painting the photo background was one of the first things we did.

The day we needed to paint outside was very windy. This may have been an omen for our weather luck all week.

A little rainbow paint.

A few old records picked up at a junk store for a few bucks.

I thought it would be easy to let the boys put the hinges on. I was wrong. But they finally got it together. We added an old turntable, a lava lamp, and a disco ball to finish the picture area.

And every good disco had a VIP Lounge. I had to find a way to include one in our disco. One day I was in the library discussing the decorations with my friend Robin (the librarian), and I was moaning and groaning that I wanted a lounge area. I just wasn't sure where I could find the seating area we would need. And then it dawned on me, the library had three couches. They weren't attractive, but we could temporarily alter that .

Thursday morning we moved three not-so-attractive and definitely not-vip-material couches from the library to the  gym and started the plan.

A large amount of disco fabric and a few staples later.

What an amazing difference.

But the VIP lounge would also need a backdrop. The Beta sponsor was great and offered the backdrop from this year's convention skit.

Again, just a little paint to transform the backdrop, a water feature, a few disco balls, and we had a fantastic lounge area.

And here's a few VIP's enjoy their lounge. These beautiful girls are members of the Lady Bears softball team.

We used those same rotating disco balls as the centerpieces for the tables.

Another important part of a successful party is the food. The stand for the disco ball cake pops didn't workout, and at the last minute I had to make something else work. It's not pretty, but it held the cake pops.

We had cheese dip, chips, and salsa; cheeese and crackers; summer sausage; chicken... there was more. And raspberry lemonade and sweet tea. It was all good.

These rainbow fruit skewers were really pretty.

The juniors choose prom servers from the sophomore class. These kids worked hard to help make the prom a success. And their costumes were perfect.

The boys even added some surprise hair to their costumes - it was too funny.

After just a few dances, I was walking around snapping a few pictures and saw this. It's one of my favorite pictures of the night.

We had some great lighting. In fact, it was so great that when the DJ got all of his equipment plugged in, we flipped the breakers. It was something we battled all night.

Some of the staff got together for a group picture.

And here's some of my creative writing girls - love them.

The night ended with the crowning of the prom king and queen. Well, actually it ended with cleaning, but you know what I mean.

Today a few of us worked for about 5 hours to transform our disco back into a PE building - it wasn't nearly as much fun.

I'm linking up with:

bonnie and trish and uncommonly yours
six sisters' strut your stuff saturday

my mid-week update

Wednesday. Hump day. Middle of the week. Shouldn't I be seeing that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel? I woke up at 3:15, and the only light I saw was the numbers on Lovey's alarm clock. I do this when I've got a lot on my mind - can't sleep (an apparently can't spell - you all should see my first attempts at some of these words, gees). My marathon week only seems to be growing longer and longer at this point.

Yesterday was crazy. I called to check on an order that should have arrived Monday. It took forever to get someone on the phone then the guy took my number, told me that he would check with his boss and get back to me - I knew then that I wouldn't like his answer. But I didn't get one; at least not until I called him back several hours later. My items were on back order and wouldn't arrive for two weeks. I'll just tell you that the man listened to me explain how pitiful his company and his costumer service is for several minutes before I hung up. I also explained that most companies send an email if an item is on backorder. The company was ProAudio, the website name cheapdjgear. Because it is a disco themed prom and we need disco stuff, we ordered quite a large amount of our things from this company. I had better get a last package from the company today - a package that I was promised would be here last week (because something else was on back order!) - or you will all hear me yelling at this guy. The items on backorder were to be our centerpieces for the tables. After some agonizing phone calls and searches, we located replacements which should be here Thursday; I'll keep you posted.

While all of that was going on, one of the students was trying to hook up projectors and a video camera for live streaming of the dance floor. That wasn't going so great either. We'll work on that some more tomorrow. If we can't get it done, I'll call in the calvary.

And then I got a phone call from the t-shirt place (Print Mania). My t-shirts were ready for pickup. Which sound great except that I thought they were being shipped and would arrive Thursday afternoon, and the place is in Arkadelphia, and I didn't know when in the world I would have time to get to Arkadelphia to pick them up. It set off another small panic, but Robin and I came up with a plan that would work only to happily discover an hour or so later that the t-shirts were, in fact, delivered by the UPS guy.  I have done business with this company before, and I'm always pleased with the quality of their work and their customer service. I'm not sure who, but someone has t-shirts ready for pick-up in Arkadelphia today.

While I'm giving my opinion on businesses I've used for prom, if you've never visited save-on-crafts, it's a must. I ordered things from this website several years ago when I did prom. This year I knew I would use them again. Got a big party coming up?  A wedding? You'll find good stuff and great prices here. And the stuff arrives very fast. Customer service is amazing. This year a vase that I ordered had a chipped corner. One phone call and yesterday the replacement vase was here. No problems - we didn't even have to send back the broken vase.

Our souvenir cups also came in yesterday. Yay! Today Robin and I are off to do some last minute shopping. We've got several things to find. It will be another long day, but we will have some fun too - we always do.

Okay, so now that I think about it, maybe there is a tiny flicker of light. Somewhere off in the distance. I started taking pictures yesterday. When it's all over, I'll show you how we transformed that huge cave of a building into a trendy disco. Or something close to it. For the next few days, if you could send me all of your techi-good thoughts and a few prayers that we get the live-stream video working, I would appreciate it.

Of course, I wasn't paid for my opinion of the companies mentioned. These are just my observations/experiences from my marathon prom adventures.

my marathon

Okay. I'm not a runner. I have started couch 25k at least 4 times in the last year. I've never gotten past the third week. I want to be a runner. I will eventually get past the third week. But right now I'm not a runner. I did however, begin a marathon this week.

Prom week.

We've done the planning. We've placed the orders. We've even opened some of the packages.

And today kicked off our own little hell week.

For those of you who were wondering, a 4X8 sheet of plywood will fit in the back of a Nissan Armada. But it would be best if the driver was a tiny person - like Flat Stanley. After school today I went to Lowe's to get some plywood to make a backdrop for the pictures. I called Lovey on the way there and ask if he thought it would fit. You know, just for reassurance since I was more than halfway there and had to get it tonight. He questioned whether my truck was wide enough. I assured him that it definitely was; and I was right. That plywood slid right in there without even bumping the sides.

The problem came when I tried to close the back. I had scooted the front seats up as much as I thought I could and still fit in to drive, and about three inches of the wood was still sticking out. I ended tieing the door and was good to go. (I have experience with this sort of thing. Several years ago my sister and I fit two ten speeds in the back of my firebird - and the two of us.)

The interesting part was my trip to walmart. With the plywood in the truck. I couldn't leave the back door open, so I had to scoot my seat completely up and tug the wood in enough so that the back door could click shut. No problem. I went in, did my shopping, and came back to the truck. I knew I would have to scoot the wood back before I could  load my things in the truck. But the door would start to open, the rope would tighten, and the door would shut again. I finally clicked the open button, shoved a packaged drop cloth under it, and used it as a wedge to hold the door open until I could scoot the wood back to the needed position. Then I loaded my sacks into the truck, scooted my seat back a bit, removed the drop cloth prop, and climbed in. I probably gave a few people something to talk about as they drove home tonight.

It was just the first leg of my marathon. I think it's going to be a long week.

If you see me this week realize that I am really stressed and will be a bit on-edge. I can't promise that I'll be nice. Let me just apologize now.

bloopers

I don't care how beautiful you are - sometimes you're just going to take a bad picture and look like a goob. And if I'm doing the clicking, there's an even higher chance of those photo fails. I just click - it doesn't matter if everyone is "ready" or not. And sometimes I get the best pictures this way.

This morning I posted pictures of Abby and her friends all dressed up and looking beautiful for prom. Now you're going to get a look at some not-so-perfect shots. While I love the perfect pictures, some of these are my favorites - some because they are funny, some because I see personalities just screaming in these pics.

I love this picture of Julie.

I have no idea what was going on here, but the expressions on the girls' faces crack me up.

Here's another of my favorites. Abby likes this one too.



Ever been photo bombed by a cat?

In a large group it is so difficult to get a good picture of everyone, with this group it was difficult to get a picture where someone wasn't talking. Here, everyone is talking to someone - this one makes my top ten favorites of the day.

There are more of these photo fails here.

If you missed my post of Abby's homecoming this year, it's here. And here's a few from last year's prom.