Now Introducing

When I heard the official introduction at the end of my brother's wedding ceremony, I was overcome with amazement!! My little brother was now a husband.... a man committed to loving and serving this sweet young lady as Christ loves the church. I was overcome!!

I remember this little boy....

• the little boy with the bowl cut:)


• The little one that Momma brought home and I helped name:)
• The one that we'd dress up when he was sleeping in the carseat!
• That I had to carry to bed when he fell asleep watching TV when I babysat.
• Or that was homesick when our parents were on vacation and asked me to come home from college to take care of him.... yes, I did drive home (miss a class or two & work time)! TOtally worth it... and I MADE him take a shower... possibly is ONLY one that week.... LOL!!
  

It wasn't that I was surprised that soo many years had passed. Or that he's now mature and able to care for a wife (and maybe one day a another little one).

It's was just that he was my LITTLE brother... and now he's a husband!!

ok, ok.... the wedding...

The flower girls

His Bride coming to him


Taking Her Hand


Saying Vows


The Kiss
**I giggle when I notice the pastor & best man's expressions!


After the ceremony, it was all about kicking back and enjoying the party;)

Chris began with a celebratory handstand;)


Nate made sure he had all his goods:)


Anna went out on the dance floor;) She's quite the party dancer;)




Brian danced with Lydia:)

Even Brian and I danced.... I can't remember EVER dancing with Brian!!! Isn't that strange?

And Chris entertained himself and others...


We had to exit early since we had the kids with us!

We promised them Rita's Italian Ice for doing a good job in the wedding.
All 3 got some, I didn't get a pic of Chris... he was DONE with pictures;)


And while we ended the evening with Ritas...
they wished the new couple well as they left the reception hall... i was sorry to miss this!!

**thanks for the pic Aunt Louise:)

It was simple and beautiful. Everyone had a blast:) And it was a great time to see my extended family again:)

Ponytail Flip : Easy Flower Girl Hair

As you might have guessed.... the girls were the flower girls for Eric's Wedding.

Lydia (4), Anna (7) and little Hannah Grace(2), their cousin, were going to walk down the aisle together holding hands;) Well... it didn't quite work out that way:)

They all DID walk down the aisle!

They didn't hold hands b/c they had the baskets in one hand
and were tossing flowers with the other...

but it worked out well.

Aunt Tori :) left it up to use how to fix the girls' hair. I know she was going for a very simple but beautiful look. I had run a couple ideas by her 4th of July weekend and she was very happy with all the ideas;) Gotta love a bride that is easy to please;)

On Sunday for church I experimented a bit with Anna's hair....

We made a ponytail flip:) You make a ponytail. Then opened up a hole and pushed her ponytail through... very simple. It was very easy and it looked really nice on Anna who has very THICK and long hair!!

Once my mom saw it, we decided just to do that for the wedding:) So hours before the wedding we were washing and blowing drying little girl hair;) Curling the front wisps of their hair using pencils & hairspray:) Flipping ponytails:) And purchasing a little bit of baby's breath from a local florist... they sold me a huge amount for $1.99... what we didn't use ended up in Grammie's flower arrangements:)

At the location, we put in the baby's breath.

Very simple... very pretty:)

and more flower girl pics;)

More Wordless Wednesday at

5 Minutes for Mom,
Go Graham Go,
To Be Thode,
Serendipity is Sweet,
Mama to 4 Blessings,
and any other linkys I find !!!

There are more wedding pictures on my Flickr.... I'll get them up soon... but if you wanted to see them you can link here;) We were busy with kids and feeding kids and catching up with family, so I didn't get as many as I hoped... but I did enjoy time with my extended family and of course...

SEEING my Little Brother getting married!!! WOW!!

A Smile for a Sick Day

I haven't been feeling well the last few days.... We were hoping to head to the zoo today... ohhhh, what a beautiful zoo day we missed!! I just felt rotten enough that I really won't have enjoyed the drive or walking around all morning and afternoon:) So maybe another time when my head doesn't feel like it's about to burst and my nose isn't dripping like a fountain.....

I was looking through more wedding pictures and ran into this sweet video! I'm pretty sure I haven't posted it yet. We were all waiting for the the last few guests to arrive and the wedding to start. Brian and Lydia were standing on the porch getting the wiggles out before "quiet time" (AKA wedding ceremony)!!



In the background you can hear the ladies trying to convince the ringbearers to hold the little pillow:) Christopher just didn't want to and David wanted to play with his digger (a gift the bride and groom gave him)!!! We had two different languages within the wedding, so they're speaking to David in Spanish and English and Christopher in English... The little boys never did make it all the way down the aisle.

I've also added some more wedding pictures to my flickr account.... HERE!!

BTW... isn't my sweet hubby so handsome in a tux:)

Another Wedding Pic and Thanks

We never did get a good family or even grandparent picture using my camera on this trip. I think we were all pictured out from the weeding events.... anyway... I don't have a good pic but I do have a ....

BIG THANKS!!

I am soo thankful and grateful to my sweet in-laws... they are such a sweet blessing to us and me. They are always very generous to us! Like to let us come and almost totally take over their home!! (I wrote almost b/c it depends on which you ask about whether it's really a take over or not.) Their normally quiet, relaxed days are quickly turned into chasing grandkids, stepping on toys scattered and trying to please three little ones who don't always know what they want or know exactly what they want!

Thank you for letting us stay. Thank you for all the great meals! Thank you for our date night:) And for all the extra outings for me to find "good" deals!! FOr your servant example to us and our children! Thank you!

We are blessed!

Too Many Pictures (funny wedding photos)

More Favorite Wedding Pics

Here are the Groom and Grandma (Gran-grandma to our kids... she'll be 100 in January)

The Bride and Groom (the wedding photographer was in a much better angle)

Ringbearer in the Sand

Flowerbaby in the sand

Ringbearers playing with their new silver tractors:)

The Rehearsal

Tonight was rehearsal night... we met everyone and then started rehearsing:) But everything was done inside tonight, outside it was drizzling :( Everyone was optimistic that tomorrow might bring some sun... we shall see!!

Lydia hanging out on the stairs:)
Anna was Uncle Scott's shadow this evening. She just wanted to be near him the whole evening and during rehearsal she did a fabulous job... she is the perfect age to be the flower girl (we'll see what she does tomorrow with more strangers... but tonight nothing bothered her).

I ended up finding a little black jacket-ish top for my $10 find:)So I decided to wear that dress tonight and then one of my other dresses for the actual wedding. I think the balck top toned the dress down a bit:) Anyway a pic of it on is Here for you:) **Keep in mind it's 10pm and we're all exhausted! And I'm not sure how many times my head was rained on!!

Pray for NO Rain... just for a day:)

Well I know rain is good for plants, people and just in general!! Being in a farming community I've prayed for rain plenty of times:)

But tomorrow is different! Scott and Beatriz are supposed to get married on the BEACH. Rain would NOT be good... a couple clouds would be fine or even some wind.... but NOT rain...

If it's raining at your house, or you think of us, please pray for the rain to cease just for a day, so Scott and Beatriz can have a beautiful wedding ceremony, like they've planned and been hoping for:)

Dress Deal... What do you think?

Well even with the reaction at home I got a little bit of shopping in...my goal was to find a dress that is suitable to wear to the wedding. It's a wedding on the beach, with a reception to follow at a local downtown restaurant. I consider both the bride and groom to be people who are young preppy professionals, so I'm assuming the atmosphere will reflect their style.

CONFESSION... I am NOT good with fashion stuff. I wear clothes that I like, that are comfortable and that I "hope" look ok on me (hahaha). So I asked the sales associate about what to wear and she suggested something casual but nice...hmmm??? I need more like "this is good, this is good, this is not good"....

Anyway, I looked around around and found a couple things I liked but were too fall/winter or too old for me... then I found the clearance rack LOL and this....

So the original price was $72.... and I bought it for a whopping $10!!! BUT......

Do you really see me wearing this dress with everyone else wearing solid colors??

The Tux Again and Our New Additions

We pulled the tux out and stuck it on Chris again.... the first two times he screamed and pitched HUGE fits... just because he didn't want to do it. Anyway, this time it was soo much easier, although I did promise him a "pop-pop" (lolipop) for putting on the tux and practicing walking:)


These cute scraecrows were gifts to us from a sweet church couple to help us decorate. They help me out with my door wreaths and now with extra decor!! We thought these were soo cute!! And giving us three (one for each kiddie) was a cute idea!!

I think the are tickled with them about as much as I am:)

As you can see we started the day with smiles and candy. Lydia has been pretty fussy... we're just waiting for two little bottom teeth for her fussiness to diminish! But besides teething, we're having a great day!! Practiced for the wedding, did a great amount of school, tidied the house and played with a little friend while the moms planned a church event!!

Off to get our lunch together, nap and wait for Uncle Eric!!

Busy little Bees and Printable Coupons

That's what we've been up today... buzzing around everywhere getting all sorts of stuff done!! Our sweet friend Mary came over to pin up Lydia's dress and then whisked it away to be hemmed:)

We traveled into "town" to get our van appraised from the "hit and run" in Canada this summer. We're thankful we had insurance and had checked with our company regarding the trip mostly because the guy who hit us had NO insurance. So the annoying door croaking will be gone shortly!! YAY!!

While in "town" we also ran around looking for ivory sandals or slippers for the girls to wear with their little dresses.... NOTHING... I found some adorable little white slipper/flats at Payless for the girls.... cute but WHITE!! So I finally decided that we needed to bring home some sliver flats from Target to see if they might "work" with the dresses... we will see:)

I'm hoping they work because (with this amount of time left) my options are no shoes (hey... it's a beach wedding) or white shoes! If the girls can still wear the dresses in the spring ....maybe ivory sandals will be easier to find:)

I went back to my new favorite grocery store... Kroger!!! Got some ok, deals but I was most excited about the roast I got for our meal on Saturday afternoon with my "little" brother, sister with "baby" and Uncle Carson!! Spicy Beef Roast for our meal together ... yum!!

Totally unrelated......

I thought I'd share some fun couponing news I JUST learned... I'm such a newbie:) On the 1st of the month the online printable coupons change!!!!!! (all you veterans can laugh now) So here were some of my visits that kept my printer active tonight!!!

www.coupons.com

www.coolsavings.com (I skip all the ads and just get to the printables)

On the first there were a lot of cereal deals... like $1.00 off two normal General Mills cereals:)

They can be visited anytime throughout the month, but I've noticed that it's slim pickings at the end of the month when many coupons have reached their limits!!

Ok... I'm done tonight.... my sweet husband has fixed my snack and we're going to relax with a movie! Sweet isn't he?

Chris in the TUX

Here's a first glimpse of Chris in the tux... the lighting is terrible in the house at night so forgive the poor quality of the pic...


Notice the lolipop in his hand!! We have some WORK ahead of us.... for him to wear the tux AND walk down an aisle.... this should be interesting... we have....

less than TWO WEEKS!!!

Anna's Turn

Anna had been feeling poorly all day... her highest temperature was like a 103.5!! I had been giving her children's ibruprofen, but it wasn't helping so her last dose of medicine was children's Tylenol....

An hour later she asked for two things:
1. Cheerios
2. To try on her flower girl dress, like Lydia did :)

Here she is:




She didn't want to take it off..... Like Lydia's the dress is a little long.... so I'll be looking into that tomorrow:)

Showing Off the Flower girl dress..... maybe??

We got our flower girl dresses in the mail this morning.... very quick delivery... yay.... Lydia got to try it on first.....




It's a "little" long... but it's soo cute!! So we'll see what Anna's looks like before we decide what to do:)