DIY Wedding

Our family began on May 27th last year.  

We had a DIY wedding reception.

Here are a few of our favorite things from that day.

Paper flowers Center Pieces

Guitar guestbook

Boylan's Soda in an antique Utility Sink

Antique Window Chalk Board Menus

"What love means to you"

"Two Love Birds" Pinwheels

Thread Spool Cake Topper

Photo Booth

Handmade Wedding Dress and Veil

Sparklers

We made over 300 paper flowers and glued them to branches to make the center piece arrangements.  We filled large mason jars with bird seed to secure the branches.

We put vintage records underneath each of the large flower arrangements.

My sister and her husband made our home made "Peg Board Games" using golf tees and then dressed them up by gluing buttons to the top of the tees.

We also decorated the tables with antique books tied together with string and teacups and saucers.

We left the guitar case open for wedding cards and any other money!  It was surprising how many people just walked by and would throw in a $20. Score!

Instead of having a wedding guest book we had a "guitar guestbook".  (Because let's be honest, who really goes back and looks at that book time and time again?)

For our table setting we used my great grandmother's silver and napkins from my parents wedding.  This added a really sentimental and personal touch to the decor.

I wanted to save all of the bottle caps so I could do (this) project.

We used an antique utility sink for the drinks.  It looked fantastic and kept the drinks pretty cold.  Now I use it in our bedroom to separate laundry!

I bought some old windows from an antique shop in Roswell.  I got some spray chalk board and then we made these.  It made for a unique way to share the menu.

The live jazz band made for such a classic atmosphere. 

Our first dance to "Embraceable You".

This lovely little idea came from my sister.  She is the one who did all of the paper signs by the way.  We loved going back through and reading the responses we got.  Its amazing how love is something different for everyone.

The cake was made by my best friend's mother.  It was an almond pound-cake with butter-cream frosting.

My aunt made all of the cake table decorations.  She made these pinwheels to go on top of the windows.  She made the cake toppers out of vintage thread spools and some of our paper flowers.  She also made two clay birds to go on top of the main cake.  My little bird had a veil on and John's was holding a guitar that said, "Murphy Rocks" on it.

Our friend Taylor did a photo booth for us.  One of my biggest regrets of the night is that John and I never even got to go get in it!!  It was such a busy night that we never even got to eat!

(My mother and I designed and handmade my dress and my veil.)

We left to the flair of sparklers and fireworks.  It was such a magical evening and I want to do it all over again!

And that was part of the beginning of forever...

Hanky Panky GIVEAWAY!!!

Ok folks, it's time for THE talk.

You got it, we are talking about "Hanky Panky".

The "Hanky Panky" Giveaway that is...

These lovelies are NOT meant for wiping your precious schnoz.

They act as beautiful Hanky Wall Art.  

Here are a few examples of how you can use your hankys to get you so so very excited.

(Here) you can see how we had our Hanky Wall Art arranged once upon a time with all 9 together.  Since then they have gone their separate ways and 3 of them broke off in to a colony of their own.  See...

Here are the two beauties YOU will be receiving if when you are the randomly selected winner:

"So, what do I have to do?"  you may be wondering?

The Rules/Entries:

1.  You must be/become a follower friend of the Tunes and Spoons Blog

2.  You must leave a comment telling us where you would hang your lovely new Vintage Hanky Wall Art

3. You must leave a comment with a way for us to contact you if when you win! (i.e your email or your blog)

4. You must grab the following button and post it on your blog until the giveaway is over!

<a href=http://tunesandspoons.blogspot.com/2011/02/hanky-panky.html><img src="http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/9454/hankypankybutton.jpg" /></a>



5. And if you want to have an extra entry, you can tell us a joke.  We like to laugh.

*Please remember to leave separate comments for each entry!

This giveaway will end on 3.2.11.

Hanky Panky is fantastic! 

Burnt Cheese

Is there anything better than melted buttery cheese taken almost to the point of incineration?

No.  No, there is not.

This past Sunday we went to church and as John and I were dutifully tending to our church calling in the nursery with wee little ones, I thought hard about what to make for dinner.

After much pondering, here is what I came up with.

Mr. Murphy has declared this to be his new favorite way to eat chicken. He has lovingly named this concoction: 

"Rotastic Chicken"

-I beat 3 voluptuous breasts of chicken to death with a hammer. (I have yet to equip our kitchen with a mallet.)

-Then I seasoned each side with sea salt and fresh cracked black peppercorn pepper.

-I cut thick slices of pepperjack cheese and rolled them up in to the now flattened chicken breasts.

-I cooked all three breasts at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Or maybe it was 400 degrees.  Yeah, I definitely don't remember that part.

-At 20 minutes I took them out and poured a can of "Hot Rotel" over the sizzling chicken.  I also added some hot salsa.

-I let it cook for another 15-20 minutes and then took them out and served them with:

black beans

brown rice

and

creamed corn

The next day we ate the rest of our chicken, beans, and rice for left-overs and John prepared it for us.  When I sat down at the table to eat he blessed our food and then told me that there was a surprise under my rice and beans.

Giddy with excitement I squealed, "What can it be?!?"  Then I uncovered something heavenly.

It was a pile of burnt cheese. 

Now that folks is real love.  He is the ultimate eternal companion.

Somewhere in Europe

And for this reason when I saw this album in Goodwill...

...it had to be mine.

It was a quiet evening in the Murphy home and we decided to make some ruckus with this bad boy.

So, we pulled out our new Andrew Sister's album and this dropped out on to the floor from the inside of the album cover.

I doubt Lorin ever thought her letter to Tom Brust would travel from The Hotel Luna in Venice, to Syosset New York, and somehow inside of a record to a Goodwill in Atlanta Georgia, and then to the quaint little apartment of two newlyweds.

But it did.

She spoke of Venice, Rome, Paris, Florence, and Switzerland.  She wrote of Italian leather, Swiss watches, and French hash.  She painted pictures of American doctors, gondola rides, and 72 hour bus rides through the European countryside.

After we devoured Lorin's words and soaked in her stories, Mr. Murphy swung me around our living room in our bare-feet to the sounds of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" flying through the air.  We learned a lot that night.

3 things we know about Tom:

1. He lived in New York

2. He knew a girl named Lorin

3. He loved the Andrew Sisters

3 things we know about Lorin:

1. She never saw the Eiffel Tower, The Statue of David, or the Pope

2. She was once bitten on the eye by a mosquito in Europe

3. She smoked some hash with a girl named Cheri in Venice

3 things we now know:

1. This letter makes for excellent inspiration for a song in one of our jam sesh's.

2.  It would take us an hour and a half to get to 8 Arizona Avenue from downtown Manhattan and someday we might try.

3. We want to go to Europe and see all of the things Lorin never did.  Even the Pope.  And we will do it in her honor.

my heart's like a kick drum

I woke up this morning after a glorious night's slumber to a feeling of complete overwhelming gratitude for that little husband of mine.

I really have no way to describe it but I will say that marriage is by far the most rewarding and positive thing I have ever done. Companionship is such a marvelous thing.

John Murphy here are a list of things I love about you right now at this moment in our lives:

-i love it when you call me "wife of my life"

-i love it when i am cooking in the kitchen and you come up behind me and give me a smooch and say, "emmm, that smells good."

-i love that you get so concerned for the well being of my feet and you have now told me that i am no longer to wear a certain pair of flats.  if i do, you said you will not go out in public with me.

-i love it when we have surges of energy and we wrestle like 10 year olds and some one always ends up getting hurt.  i swear i don't think we will ever grow up.

-i love when you get cranky when you get sleepy.

-i love how excited you get when its so so late and i give us permission to watch one more episode of LOST.

-i love all of the hilarious quirky things that you say. i wish i could remember every single one of them.

-i love when we talk about all of the baby names that we love. please let me name one of our sons marion. please.  i promise i won't let the other kids call him marion the fairy-on.

Although I am sitting here alone in the living room in our little apartment with a rug burn on my knee from our wrestling match earlier, I couldn't be filled with more love.  You are taking a nap at 9 o'clock at night and all I want to do is wake you up so we can play some more.  Ready or not, here I come.

love,

wife of your life

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Dearest Papa

Dear Papa,

Tonight I went over to Nanny's house.  We sorted through dozens and dozens of family albums.  I missed you as I saw pictures of you smiling and laughing.  I loved seeing memories of your life that still remain.  I loved hearing stories about you and feeling the love that we still all have for you.  You died when I was 5.  You were a man that I never really got to know well here on earth but I have felt your loving spirit close to me throughout my life.  I have thought of you so many times.

I remember when you died the cousins and I went out to your beautiful garden out back and we picked the vegetables.  We tried to sell them to people to try and make money to help with funeral costs.  In our young minds it was the best we thought we could do.

I want you to know that I have a happy life.  I am proud of the woman that I have become and I think you would be too.  I wish you could meet the man I married, he is wonderful.  His name is John.  We try to live the gospel the best we can.  He treats me with so much respect.  We have such a happy life together.  I know you would love him too.

Some times I feel mad at you for leaving us so early.  I feel sad that you never got to hear me sing.  I feel sad that you weren't at our wedding.  I feel sad that you will never get to meet our babies.

But whenever I feel that sadness I also feel you, comforting me.   I know you see us all growing and learning.  Someday we want to name one of our sons Aaron, after you.  I hope we make you proud and that you know we love you.

Thank you for marrying an incredible woman and raising 5 strong children.  I am particularly grateful for my mother, Evelyn. She loves you so much and I know she misses you too.

Thank you for working hard to give your children the best that you could.  My mother turned out to be the best mother anyone could ask for.  Thank you for teaching her the things you did.

Nanny is happy as she is surrounded by her family.  She lives a love filled life and we adore every ounce of her.  Tonight it took me an hour to teach her how to put all of her scanned photos in to one folder on her computer.  I thought she was going to wet her pants laughing so hard about it all.  You should have seen it, she is a riot.  She is just as quirky as ever.  She is so lovely, I wish I could be there to see the two of you reunited.

I hope you know that we think of you.  

We speak of you.  

We remember you.

We love you.

I can't wait to see you again.

Love your grand-daughter,

Rachel

Lover's Holiday

(garland made from the same map used to make these)

My lover is taking me on a surprise date tonight.

Happy First Married Valentine's Day to us.

a place for sleeping, and other things...

Today I am sick.

I woke up this morning and I could barely speak a word.  My throat sounded like I have been smoking for years and staying up having yelling contests with big burley men til 3 o'clock in the morning for the past month. 

This was pretty devastating considering the fact that I was supposed to have a voice lesson today.  Ain't gon' happen! (pronounced like Tracy at 1:27 in this video.)

What was nice about it was that I got to stay in bed.

Not just any bed either.

It is a magical Bed-knobs and Broomsticks kind of bed.

The Mr. and I have been on the hunt for an antique wrought iron bed for months.  One like these:

We found our bed back in December and have been waiting ever so patiently for it to arrive!  Its finally here!  

We have been sleeping on a mattress on the floor since last year when we broke our other bed. Oops.  

Nothing naughty, so get your mind out of the gutter.  We were playing a little game of 

"1-2-3 come and jump on me!"

The rules are simple:

1.  You may start this game at any time and the other person has the obligation to join in, no matter what.

2.  Lay on the bed and pile every single pillow possible on top of your self. 

3.  Protect important body parts.

4.  Yell "1-2-3 come and jump on me!" at the top of your lungs.

5.  The other person then gets the biggest and best possible running start, jumps, goes airborne, and lands smack dab on top on the other person, thus impeding normal breath function.

6.  The person underneath the pillows is then obligated to suffocate with giddiness and laughter.

So now we have a lovely new aged bronze wrought iron bed.  I am so proud of our first grown-up purchase together.

After I graduated my Nanny gave me some money to get a gift for all of the hard work I had done.  So, we decided to get the bed that we had been looking around for for quite some time.

When we told Nanny that we had decided to purchase a bed with that money she was overjoyed.

You see, my Nanny is like the real life version of Betty White but even cooler.  When we told her of our purchase she said, 

"Well now I am just glad that I will have helped you get the bed that my great-grandchildren will be conceived in!!"

Oh Nanners.  You are too funny.

So, here I lay.  In our perfect new bed.  Without a voice.  I have had three pieces of cheese toast today with the homemade bread I made two days ago.  I left the house once, to go to the bank and then to buy a printer for our house.  Maybe it's time to take a shower.

Nah.  

I think I'll just wait for John to come home and I'll yell, "1-2-3 COME AND JUMP ON ME"  as soon as I hear the lock turn.