Hot pink roses

        Sunday afternoon, my family that had come in from Houston headed back to their homes. Sweet Presley had colored quite a few drawings for me, and that little determined girl made sure they made it on our fridge before she was ushered to the car (for movies and most likely a nap). The colored sheets of princesses have stayed on my fridge since they left, and I've enjoyed them every day since.

         My family had loaded up all the flowers from the service in the backs of their cars and toted them in to the front room of our house. When I got up from a nap on Saturday, Alex and I both commented on how the front room smelled like a flower shop and we loved it. We received 5 green plants that I will attempt to keep alive, but I knew the rest of the flowers would fade quickly and I hated that reality. Quite a few of the arrangements had hot pink roses in them, and I absolutely loved those flowers. I thought Kaitlyn would have grown up to love those flowers, they seemed to fit her little personality so well for some reason.

          My cousin, Holly, had just gotten married in April and her parents had her bouquet freeze dried and framed for her to hang on her wall. I had seen this for the first time when my aunt had thrown me a baby shower in Houston in early August, and I really liked the way the flowers still had their color. I wish I had known about this fancy preserving technique when we got married, I would have liked to do it with my own bouquet.

         Sunday afternoon, I started searching for a way to get a selection of the flowers from the service arrangements freeze dried. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single company in Dallas that was still in business for this service (which I was really surprised by), but there was a company in Houston that made the wall hangings and they have a drop-off location in Richardson. Bingo! I went through probably 10 different arrangements and picked out my favorite flowers, some that had bloomed and some that were still closed. I called the company, arranged the drop off, and talked my sweet husband into playing chauffeur since I wasn't cleared to drive yet.
        Here's the arrangement I put together:

          I wish I had taken a few more pictures of it, but this is the only one I have. I picked out quite a few of the star burst lilies, a white lily, a white hydrangea, and several hot pink roses, daisies, and carnations. I also included a gold glittery butterfly from one of the plants. I was really proud of the way that it turned out, and I can't wait to see how it looks once its dried and we can put it on our wall. The process takes 6-8 weeks for the flowers to be dried out, and then we will have to make a final decision about which way we want them preserved (in an oval or round frame? what wood for the frame?).