Wedding Week and a Party for Laura

I'm still blogging about May's events, but the biggest event for me and our family was my youngest sister, Laura's wedding, on May 21st. I was able to spend the whole week leading up to her wedding with her and that week was EXHAUSTING but absolutely wonderful! My sisters lived together and their old roommate, Andrea, who flew all the way from Germany, was there the whole week as well, so you can imagine we had a blast, you get those three girls together and it's like a stand up comedy show 24/7! We had lots of jobs to do while Laura had to go to work Monday and Tuesday of that week, but we wasted no time in tackling our "to do" list! We planted begonias in little clay pots for the centerpieces at the rehearsal dinner, made 6 satin pink sashes for the bridesmaids, painted a big "L" pink & "S" gray to be hung by pink and gray satin ribbon on the door to the rehearsal dinner, made 10 centerpieces for the reception, organized and shopped for the lingerie shower (pictures below), put together "welcome" bags for the out of town guests, made a playlist of fun music for us to listen to on the big day, and some other stuff that I've probably forgotten about by now.


We rented 5 beach houses in our favorite beachy community along the Gulf Coast for our big family and Shannon's family and moved out to the beach house on Thursday afternoon. Laura had to be completely packed for all the parties and events, and her honeymoon when we moved out there, packing was one of the hardest jobs! This is Laura starting to pack around midnight on Wednesday night, with a scared/I'm so tired/ "I don't know where to start" look on her face!



Thursday began the wedding beautification procedures...





And this is what you do when you bring a 2 year old boy with you to get a pedicure...thank you Andrea for having your laptop handy! And thankyou Asian salon man for having 200 DVD's (only of which 1 was semi-appropriate for my son to watch, it had something to do with chihuahuas).




After our pedis and a quick stop at publix, we were FINALLY on our way to the beach! We unloaded everything and got to work on the lingerie party preparations.




A wedding cake made of Gouda, Brie, and Provolone cheeses, served with crackers, yes please!



We served petit fors (b/c Laura loves them!), heart shaped brownies, veggie pizza, the BEST chicken salad EVER from a local deli with crescent rolls, cream cheese, powdered sugar and pecan stuffed strawberries- a delicacy created by Andrea, and spinach dip in a bread bowl. To drink...Go-Go juice and Love Drunk Punch (kudos to Andrea for bringing it all the way from Germany!!), and champagne with fresh black berries. The food was a hit and everything tasted delicious!


Lots of family and several of Laura's friends came to the shower at the bridal party beach house! In this picture, Lizzy (cousin Kyle's girlfriend), cousin Melanie (aka Scuz- b/c she's like a sister and cousin all in one!), Aunt Karen, Aunt Beryl, friend, Verna, and my Grandmom - Doris, p.s.- she's 91 and I wish you could have seen her dancing with Laura on her wedding day! I hope I NEVER forget that memory, it was awesome!!


This is my mom, Kristin, and my paternal grandmother, Arlene.


Long time family friends, Monica and Julie...Now, after we ate and opened presents that's when things got good. Oh wait, the funniest present she got was a pair of boys camouflage underwear! When Laura opened them she said she was trying to be polite and say thankyou without laughing but then realized they were a joke and so it was ok to laugh, they were hilarious and Laura modeled them later for us, awesome! Then it was time for some trivia, Andrea had secretly emailed Shannon earlier in the week some questions about Laura, then we asked Laura the questions to see if she could guess his answers and then we read his answer out loud. The questions ranged from when and where was your first kiss, to how long do you think it takes Laura to get ready, to what are you most looking forward to on your honeymoon! :) There might have been some diagrams involved in one of his answers ;)






As a little girl, Laura LOVED mad libs, and I think it's safe to say that she still LOVES them today as well. So... to honor that love, we wrote a little mad lib of our own, the story of how Laura and Shannon met, their first date, how long it took Laura to get ready for said date, (it included the detail of her falling asleep in the car on the way home from their first date, which is true, by the way! Haha!), and how many kids they will have. Laura had to ask everyone to shout out a noun, verb, a number, etc. and then fill in the blanks with those words and read the story aloud. She was laughing so hard she couldn't get the words out, it was priceless!






It was a really fun party and a great way to get the wedding festivities off to fantastic start!

My cousin's wedding

I love this time of year because there is so much to do and so many fun things going on! May was no exception for us this year, it was jam packed full of family, fun, and travels! On May 13th, we attended the rehearsal dinner for my cousin, Logan and his fiance, Ginger in Destin at Loisianna Lagniappe. (It was an awesome restaurant overlooking a marina and we had the best grouper picata-the best grouper I've EVER eaten!!!) I loved how my aunt decorated the tables with the wedding colors and starfish and the same flowers that Ginger would have at the wedding (hydrangeas and calla lilies).


Daniel has sleepy eyes because we spent the morning of the wedding at the beach and then took a long nap before the wedding (which I was so grateful that he took a nap because the wedding started at 6pm!)


Logan and Ginger have a sweet story, they were next door neighbors for a lot of their growing up years. She went away to Samford and he went to FSU. She ended up marrying someone else and unfortunately that didn't go as planned, but she was blessed with her daughter, Ashlyn. Logan and Ginger reconnected and have begun a new chapter. Logan is amazing with Ashlyn and I love to see the sweet relationship they have.



I loved Ginger's bouquet, it's a little hard to see but she had a silverplated starfish hanging from her bouquet, Logan also has one on his boutiner. Logan LOVES to fish and has grown up on the water and boats all his life, I liked how they had personal touches reflecting each of them throughout the reception.



This is my dad holding Daniel, and his youngest brother, Scott (my uncle- who is 13 years older than me and 13 years younger than my dad). Uncle Scott married Ginger and Logan and he married my sister and Shannon the next week.




We LOVED Logan's groom's cake!!! Mike wanted something like this for his cake, what he wanted and what he got were not exactly the same thing :( Logan's cake looked AH-Mazing and tasted AH-Mazing too! It tasted like a mounds bar in cake form, YUM!!



While Logan was at FSU, he went to Stetson's on Friday nights, alot, and got very proficient at line dancing!! So for Logan and Ginger's first dance, they surprised everyone and did a line dance, it was great! They even changed into their boots, and hers matched the wedding colors of course! :) I regret that I didn't get any pictures of that! Logan also squatted down to be at eye level for his dance with Ashlyn on another song, she was shy and I think a bit overwhelmed by all the days' events, but it was sweet none the less!



It was a beautiful wedding, a beautiful setting, a beautiful couple and lots of good food and plenty to drink ;) !! We enjoyed being with our family and I think it made Laura and Shannon get very excited for their upcoming wedding the following weekend! Their wedding is up next on the blog but it will come in multiple posts because there are LOTS of pictures!!

He is Risen, He is Risen indeed!

After breakfast on the porch, we gave Daniel his Easter basket, I'm sure he was thinking, "What?! Mommy is letting me eat chocolate for breakfast?!"




I think he likes it!!



After breakfast, we got dressed, and snapped a few pictures before heading off to church.



Love these two handsome southern gentlemen that I am privileged to share life with!! Love their seersucker suits!



I have tried to talk Mike into wearing a bow tie for a long time, and after 8 years, he succumbed, on his own volition! He came home Saturday and said, "I have a surprise for you!" Out from his bag he pulls this bow tie, ahhhhh, I die!! LOVE IT!!


Daniel has a sweet, special relationship with each of my sisters. After we've been with my sisters, he will ask, "where's Ashy?" "Where's Yara?" I'll respond with "at work, in there hometown" and he will say, "but why?" :) We are to the why stage now, about everything! :)


The Easter family portrait. We took more pictures after church. Church was AWESOME, the music was AWESOME, and it was PACKED!!! We did all get to sit together but were up in the balcony. I loved seeing so many of our friends there! We kept Daniel with us in the sanctuary for the music and he was good.


My mom wanted a picture of all of us looking at Daniel, and we were giving her a hard time but now I'm glad we did it, it turned out cute, he can be such a ham! There's no shortage of attention for this boy when our families are in town!!


I wonder where Daniel gets his silliness from?!



While we were waiting for all the final food preparations, the kids did some crafts on the back porch with foam stickers.


Ahhh, melt my heart!! These two usually love each other very much, but apparently Harper was over Daniel's hugs at this point. Haha!




Lucy and Ellie working on their crafts.



We also played a few games in the yard with the dyed Easter eggs, (LOL, Julie and I were trying to think up as many variations of games you could play with an egg!) in this one, we had the kids line up by Julie, and they were supposed to roll their eggs down the lawn until they crossed the finish line. I'm lucky I didn't get pelted by a hard boiled egg! Ha!






Another game we played was we made the kids carry their egg on a spoon in their mouth across the finish line. Ellie's got the hang of it! These next few pictures crack me up, each one has a different style!


Lucy has her spoon a little to the left, concentrating hard.



And Ainsley...hers is almost falling out, to the right, head tilted back! Love it!! :)


Finally after all our games, it was time to eat! Here is picture of the grown ups table. Again this year I got to use mu and Mike's grandmother's china. I found these hollow chocolate bright colored eggs at Costco and thought they were pretty, so each place setting got one.


This white cake with strawberry frosting is the one I found last year on Edie's blog, it's made with 1/2 cup of homemade strawberry freezer jam, which is divine!! I think it turned out great!



After lunch, the dads hid the eggs for an egg hunt, we had the littles in the back yard and the bigger kids in the front.



Aubrey, Daniel, and Harper checking out their loot! Note the chocolate oozing out of Harper's mouth, awesome!! I think she enjoyed her candy!!



It was a wonderful day and we were so happy to have our family and some of our friends over! What a privelge it is to be a daughter of our Risen King!! Hope you all enjoyed your celebrations as much as we enjoyed ours!!

Easter Weekend

My family drove over to spend Easter weekend with us this year. The newest addition to our family, Shannon, my sister, Laura's fiance joined us this year. Laura, Shannon, and Ashley got busy in the kitchen making some treats for our Easter dinner on Sunday.



What's the big deal, 2 birds in the nest?! I guess they're love birds. :)



As soon as Daniel woke up from his nap, we got busy working on dying Easter eggs on the back porch. Nani sent Daniel some Easter books a few weeks before Easter and one of them talked about dying Easter eggs so I think Daniel was excited to get to do it this year.






Ashley, Daniel, and Mimi display their finished work.






Mike made a DE-LICIOUS Greek dinner for us Saturday night. He made Greek style lamb roast, potatoes, asparagus, a greek salad, spanikopida, and homemade Tzaziki sauce.
Mike grew up with close family friends who were Greek. He has very fond memories of Easters spent with the family and eating this very meal. He even has a story about eating "delicacies" like goat testicle soup. Uhhhhh, I think I'll pass, thanks! Mike also brought home some Baklava for dessert from a local bakery. The dinner was a hit, everyone loved it!! Including Daniel!



I'm a little hesitant to post this next picture, it's funny... The weather was very nice Saturday night, so we ate on the porch. After dinner, we found a lizard inside the porch (there are a lot of them this time of year on our porch) and Papa put it on his ear like an earring. Daniel thought it was funny. :)


Daniel didn't really want to touch or hold the lizard though. Just so you know, we let the lizard go after we were done looking at it, I don't believe he was harmed at all.




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