I am not going to say we had a great Thanksgiving week, that would be a bit of a lie. It was however still a week full of blessings and reasons to be thankful, we just weren't as blessed as we usually are. The week started off really well with the arrival of my 2 kids who are currently attending college. With everyone back in the house there was a certain kind of peace, well maybe that is the wrong word, how about comfort.  We did happen to lose a child or two periodically to a flu bug that seemed to be in the house but we managed to fit time in together between the flower orders that were being created for Thanksgiving tables. I love the above piece that was designed for a new customer who also confirmed that she wants me to do her daughters wedding. She also confessed the girls are only in middle school. I am glad to know I have a fresh group of brides growing up every day.

We also received a request to create several bouquets for a magazine. The designs were created and given to photographer  Genevieve Leiper who got them photographed and sent in for possible print.  I was grateful to have peonies in my house the week of Thanksgiving.

We made our debut appearance on the Martha Stewart blog the Brides Guide. Our wedding can be seen here.

On Wednesday we spent time in the shop receiving the flowers for our bride Lara. We never do weddings on Thanksgiving weekend. I try to keep this weekend reserved just for family but I got really tempted with the whole look of the wedding and the vendors involved so I committed to design during the holiday weekend. Baby Grace was a huge help processing the flowers. We also did a whole lot of cooking on Wednesday to help prepare for dinner at Grandmas house.

On Thursday the new Holly Heider Chapple website launched and this was a whopper for us. It took several months of preparation to get the site ready to go live, primarily because I decided to create a new site in the height of wedding season. We will be adding additional information and weddings to the site so it will be a great way to see our most current work.

First thing Thanksgiving morning, I created this design for my moms table that was made with leftover flowers and hydrangea leaves from my garden. Favorite part of the design was absolutely the hydrangea leaves from my garden. The deep burgundy leaves were amazing and a total miracle because they had not been burnt yet by frost.

We finally made it to Grandmas house and everyone was so happy to spend time with their new baby cousin, Clayton.

Baby Grace spent a good bit of the day sleeping, playing with her cousins was exhausting. It seems I don't have any other pictures of the day because everyone was so busy eating.  In addition to the Thanksgiving festivities we had a little trip to the ER with a family member who had previously cracked a rib and the break began to throb and required a trip to the hospital. While I was as the hospital I started to feel very sick and left to go to bed. I woke in the morning feeling not quite right but I had my wedding to design so I hit the flower shop.

Upon creating this beautiful bouquet I headed to the ER. I thought I was having a major medical emergency only to find out that I was having an attack from the same virus my kids had. I thought my gall bladder, kidneys, stomach, and eyes were falling out. Please note I had 5 of my 7 kids naturally so I am not a whimp. This was a whopper.  I got treated for nausea and pain and headed home to bed because I had a wedding to deliver. I could have left this to the flower shop girls because everything was finished and beautiful but I wanted to see the job through. So I loaded up with the girls and headed to the wedding. Here are a few pictures from Sat. event.

We will hopefully see more from this wedding very soon, but I heard it was stunning.

We also got the Christmas lights up and the boys got in a little football.

If you minus out the 3 trips to the ER, the entire family having the flu, and our first Thanksgiving ever without our son Alex, Aunt Carla and Uncle Ed, you could still call this a pretty amazing Thanksgiving week. My absolute favorite part of the week was staying up late and playing games with my four big kids.

This is my whole clan and I took this picture last night just before we headed to bed and just before we said goodbye until Christmas.

What a week!!