A Walk in the Park

The other day, we took Rei Rei to the park to swing and enjoy the sunshine. She loves the swings!


Making sure Daddy is still back there!



She loves when her Da-deeeee makes her laugh!

Swinging under Daddy's legs.

My favorite picture! Daddy was whistling using a blade of grass. Which she apparently thought was the funniest thing that has ever occurred.


Then we cuddled in the shade.


By the end of our day, she was pooped in her big girl car seat!

She sure had fun! All good fun ends with a nice car seat nap, doesn't it?

The Big Beautiful Day!

Right now, these newlyweds are on their honeymoon in a tropical land with no cell phones or internet. I am dying. What are you guys doing? What are you eating? What are you drinking? What are you seeing? Have you gone snorkeling? Have you witnessed any shark attacks? I need to know these things! Come home now. Thank you.

Look at how beautiful they are!

This is mama and brother of the bride walking down the aisle.

Babygirl being carried down the aisle like a little princess, because even though she is 14 months old and has a 30+ word vocabulary, she is not walking. But she is the cutest little non-walking flower girl I ever saw!

And then came the stunning bride, escorted by Daddy. Although you can't tell, she was barely holding it together at this point. She's one of those girls that has been picturing this moment since she was little, and probably choked up when she thought about it then.

Nobody at the wedding knew what her dress was going to look like, least of all her groom. I think his breath was taken.

They said the beautiful vows, I tried to keep it together, and I did for the most part. Then, they were husband and wife!!

And we blew bubbles, and cheered and screamed.

And then the party started!! And as you can see, they brought the party.

This is a shot from the amazing cocktail hour. This is only the cold food table - there was also hot food, multiple carving stations, a regular and wine bar, imported cheese station (my personal favorite), and sushi station to name a few.

Little know fact: Hubby and I had my senior prom here before he was my Hubby. We stood on line waiting for our picture to be taken, and I said, "I could picture our wedding being here." And he agreed. We loved it. (Yes, we were 18 and knew we would be married.) One year later, I was engaged. And we returned to this beautiful place to look into it for our big day. And I made everyone swear that when they said, "How did you hear about us?" NOBODY told them I had my prom there one year ago. I was all about being the poised, engaged, woman fooling everyone into thinking I was older than 19. And 5 short years later - we are married, returning to the scene of our prom and wedding for Sissy and Eric's day, and my BFF who was sitting next to me in our prom limo is watching my one year old baby for the evening. This is what people mean when they say that time flies.

Anyway, back to the craziness of the party! We danced and danced until dawn.

They cut their pretty cake and gave each other respectful little bites.

Precious.

I gave a speech (no picture yet) and cried when I talked about how much Eric loves Reilly and had to cut off about 2 sentences. But nobody knew, I wrapped it up quickly before I really lost it. And in the end, I'm glad I teared up a little. Otherwise, some might not really know how sincerely I love these two together. And how much they mean to me.

Here they are with some of their besties! Danielle and Greg (right) recently got engaged themselves, and Shanna and Doug (left) caught the garter and bouquet! So in conclusion, everyone get married and have babies so you can have play dates together. The end.

Oh, there she goes again! Breakin' it down.

A nice shot of the dress bustle (courtesy of mama and I), and the feather!


Hubby taking advantage of the cheesecake bar that got rolled onto the dance floor. I loved being on that dance floor with you again, reminiscing about where we've been and where we're headed.

Girlfriends!

Family dance time!
Bride and groom getting crazy!

All in all, it was a perfect day and night of celebration. I wish we could do it once a year.


And may you two dance, hand in hand, for the rest of your lives, as crazy as you did that night.


Love & Forever,

Dirt Road Mama

Builder of Bookshelves

You may remember when I proclaimed that the way to my heart is via beautiful pieces of furniture. The truth is it's only when my hubby builds pieces of furniture. I just love that we work through the organization need that we have, look at different designs, and then BAM. Hubby builds it.

Our most recent need was a bookshelf. He built this in one day, with wood that he had in his shop, that we got for free (thank you God for providing us with free wood!)

I love it so much. I just stare at it. I love it for many reasons, the first being that Hubby made it with his hands. The second being that it's white. I love white. I love that it stores all her toys and books - literally all of them! Every single thing on those shelves were in my living room, all around, in baskets on the floor. I love the space we have now.

Guess who else loves it?
I brought her over to show her around. I showed her how to take a book out, how to slide the bins out, and how to put things away. Isn't it funny that you even have to show a toddler how to use a bookshelf? But how would she know otherwise? She caught on quickly, as you can see.


I don't know who loves our new bookshelf more - me or this happy little baby!

THANK YOU DADDY! YOU ARE THE BEST BUILDER! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Ew.

I interrupt this wedding update to talk about a new development in our house. Reilly has discovered the word "Ew". Now, this could be an obnoxious trait, if she were to pick up her food and say "ew" and then throw it or something. But no. Reilly says "ew" completely appropriately - and I can't understand it.

Let me give you an example.

The other day, we were at our photographer friend's studio, reviewing pictures she had taken. We were sitting on the couch, and Reilly was standing in front of us by a coffee table. Then Brett put his sneaker up on the coffee table. And instantly, Reilly touched his sneaker, and said as loud and clear as can be, "EWW!".

That was the first time she ever said "Ew". And she hasn't stopped.

Here are some other instances in which she has volunteered her opinion of "Ew", without any prompting whatsoever.

-She took a tissue out of the bathroom garbage, held it up, and said Ew.
-She pointed to a crumb on the floor - Ew.
-She took a piece of grass out of her little pool, said Ew, and the threw it out of the pool.
-She picked up a dirty diaper, held it up to me, Ew.
-She had her foot near her face while I was changing her, pretended to smell it, Ew. (I found out she pretty much thinks everything about feet are gross.)
-We brought her into our bed in the morning, she pointed to the deodorant on Hubby underarm, Ew.

Literally everything gross, she addresses. And this morning, I said the Hubby "Can you kill that bug? It's on the ceiling above Reilly." And Hubby responded, "She doesn't seem to mind too much." (As she was CHOWING on her watermelon.) So he actually forgot to kill it (a moth), and then a little while later I hear Reilly saying "Ew" over and over. And turned to look at her and said, "What's ew?" And she point to the bug on the ceiling. Her skinny little arm, and her tiny little finger pointing to the bug: "EWWWW!"

Besides the fact that her tiny voice is so funny proclaiming everything as "ew", I continue to be amazed at how she is aware of so many gross things. All I know is, she is definitely her mama's daughter.

The Big Morning!

Finally, the big morning came! The ceremony didn't start till 3, so we had a lot of time before - and a lot to do! Of course, we did not see the groom. But we had correspondents going back and forth (his parents, groomsmen, Hubby, etc.) to make sure he was well fed and taken care of. Sidenote: I feed very bad for grooms on the wedding day. I would go stir-crazy. Seeing as men can get dressed and dashing in 36 seconds, (in my husband's case, that includes his lightening shower) I imagine that there is lots of sitting. And waiting. And anticipating.

We, on the other hand, had PLENTY to do. First off, we had our hair and makeup team arrive at our house at 7 am. Then we had hair being done for five of us girls, with the rest of the bridal party meeting at our house by 1. Not to mention the flowers being delivered, the photographer arriving to set up, and one very curious 1 year old who we carried around at arms length so she didn't grab for our "pre-tee" hair and jewelry.

Oh, and did I mention that we didn't sleep? Nope, not a wink. Well some of us did, I imagine. But I can only speak for myself and the bride. We shared a queen bed, you see, in our old room. Kind of how we shared the room all our lives, except this time we were in the same bed, and there was a toddler at our feet in a Pack and Play (A lot can change in 3 short years!). So we didn't get to bed until midnight. Then, at about 3, I was wide awake. Looking up at the ceiling, thinking, unable to sleep, trying not to wake the baby or the bride.

And then I heard a small sound. A movement sound - but the kind that an awake person makes, not an asleep person. But how do I check if Sissy is awake? I don't want to speak too loudly - what if she's NOT awake, and then I wake her?! And then she can't sleep and it's my fault? So I settled on whispering. The tiniest whisper beyond all whispers.

Are you awake?

I barely spoke. Even if she were awake, the chance of her hearing me were slim. Then I heard her respond.

YEP.

And that was the end of our sleeping. I'm still not sure how we functioned the following day.

But she did manage to look ravishing early the next morning!

Mama getting her hair all done!

OH, I forgot to mention our hair team duo. Mariann has done our hair since birth, for every occasion, no exception. She will be giving Reilly her first cut as well. And lucky for us, her extremely talented daughter Nikki is just as gifted as she is in all things hair.

But that's no all - Mariann should be a bridal consultant party planning hair dresser. She recommended all of our shower venues for bridal and baby for sister and I, she found Sister's shoes - she solves all our wedding dilemmas. And with Nikki giving us expert fake eyelashes, they were fun people to have around that morning.

Here are my shoes, and the bride's shoes!

Strolling around the pool, doing a last break-in and scuff-up.

Doing her MIL's eye liner - she was cool as a cucumber!

See?

This is when we first put the feather in her hair. I use the term "we" loosely here. I did not help. But we were all very excited about the outcome.


Pretty feathers!!
Then we got started on makeup.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day. Such excitement!
Stones on her veil were stunning!

And then we got the tiniest flower girl dressed!

I embellished her headband -adding extra tulle, and of course, a feather. See it sticking up the top? Could you just DIE?

And that was our morning of preparation - and the last picture that I took that day. The rest of the pictures I share will be of other guests, since I was too busying MOH-ing and dancing! More to come, and the dress reveal. :)