Wedding Central

Things are moving right along over here at Wedding Central, USA.

Exhibit A.- Bridesmaids dress

The girls will be wearing this dress in dark blue {'Marine', to be completely specific} but with straps and blue Marine shoes. The dress is longer on all my girls because none of them are 7 1/2 feet tall like this lovely lady seems to be.

Exhibit B- My dress

Although it may appear that I am holding a person in the picture below, I assure you that I am not. Aaron took this picture yesterday before I went to the seamstress to have my dress altered. I must be very attached to my dress because I felt like I was leaving behind my child when I left it at the shop in the hands of Manuela, the Seamstress Extraordinaire.

Exhibit C- Invitations

Katie,well-known for her beautiful handwriting, volunteered to help me address all the envelopes. We did a surprisingly small amount of chatting as we wrote because we realized the solemnity of the addressing occasion. Even with our solemnity Katie still managed to write that I live in "South America" on one of the rsvp envelopes. I may live in South Something but last time I checked it is not South America.  

Exhibit D- The church

Subtitled: A very important location on the wedding day. 

 Please note that the mens choir does not come with the church rental and will not be performing at the ceremony.

Exhibit E- The reception venue

The reception is being held in a renevated barn on a former farm. Molly was quite disapointed that we won't be able to milk cows or gather eggs since it's not a real farm anymore, but I assured her that we'll have lots of other things to do. Speaking of Molly and the wedding, I think she's convinced the First Dance involves her.  

Exhibit F- The date

I don't know if you've heard it through the grapevine or not, but these two are getting married.

  

What you may not know is that after hearing which day we choose for our wedding, they decided they wanted the same day. That's right, William + Kate + Sarah + Christopher = April 29th. I don't forsee this being much of a problem as I highly doubt any of my guest are also guests of W & K's, but you never know. Grandma told me she's holding out hope that she might recieve an invitaiton from them. Not that she'd actually go to their wedding over her granddaughter's, you understand. She just wants to know what their invitations look like. 

 Exhibit G- The Ring

Subtitled: Here it is in all it's glory

{Raise your hand it you're jealous.}

Ask and you shall recieve

God has abundantly answered someone's prayers this winter.

The Weekend Review

I almost didn't write anything about this weekend because nothing overly exciting happened, but I don't want to look back in 15 years wondering what in the world I did February 18th-20th 2011 only to discover that I had a GAPING hole in my life.

That being said, nothing overly exciting happened this weekend. The excitement o'meter pretty much hovered between normal and average. I shouldn't be overly surprised about that based on how it started off on Friday while Zachary and I were curled up under a blanket on their couch discussing things important to his young life such as his loose teeth and his upcoming birthday party at a sports club. After we exhausted those topics, I suggested we discuss "how the sales at Home Depot are going to effect the economy in the next ten years." That topic didn't appeal to him so he moved on to bigger and better things like telling me about the Playstation remote {which was just an indirect way of asking me if he could play it}. In retrospect, I'm glad he didn't want to discuss Home Depot. The only thing I'd have to say on the subject is that I like Lowes better than Home Depot because I like the color blue better than the color orange, and I hardly think that would have added much to the conversation.

For a good part of Saturday morning, Aaron entertained himself by watching Julian Smith videos on Youtube. After a while Mom told him he could watch one more video then he really needed to get to his chores because the pans, they weren't going to wash themselves. Being the strategic homeschooler that he is, he choose the longest Julian video he could find and invited us all over to watch it along with him. And that's how we came to be crowded around the computer at lunchtime on Saturday, February 19th, 2011 watching an 18 minute video of Julian Smith travel from Nashville to California. The only thing that brought more excitement to Aaron's day occurred while he was washing the pans and Josh Groban and I started serenading him in French. The look on his face clearly said, 'your birth certificate says you're 21 and the ring on your finger says you're engaged so maybe you should start acting more grown up and respectable instead of using the end of the vacuum as a microphone.' I think he was just jealous of my French skilz. 

In other news, my friend Joy {Katie's sister} got engaged to Colin from Mississippi on Saturday!   

Wedding bells are ringing all around me.  

The Flower Party

Last Friday I hosted a Flower Party. {NO, it wasn't a hippie party!} 

It was a special party at which I asked four of my little friends to be my flower girls. I set the table with all manner of flowery decorations and, seeing how the party was due in part {more accurately, completely} to Christopher, a picture of us as the centerpiece. 

Molly, Keturah, Anna and Jillian arrived precisely at 3 o'clock and calmly and quietly sat down at the table. They calmly and quietly painted their flowerpots.

They calmly and quietly held up the finished pots for pictures.

They got a little more excited once I brought out the supplies for part 2 of our party. We filled plastic cups with chocolate cake, put green Cool Whip on top for grass, and little candies for seeds and bugs. Molly was especially interested in eating the food as we went along. All I have to say to that is she's related to me so of course she'd want to eat, bless her little heart.

As our final craft, we made little butterflies to stick into our flowerpot cakes. I was slightly proud of mine, hence the below picture. 

Once I announced the real reason for the flower party {they thought it was just a regular ol' party but oh no, it was much more}, the EXCITEMENT LEVEL! IT SHOT THROUGH THE ROOF! They ALWAYS WANTED to be flower girls! Can they THROW PETALS? Can they HOLD MY DRESS? Can they see the, what's-he-called? Um, um, the GROOM! THE GROOM! CHRISTOPHER! Is he going to be there too? How will they know WHO TO LOOK AT when everybody's taking pictures? Should they PRACTICE??

Apparently "practice" meant chasing each other up and down the hallway and around the living room waving fake flowers in the air as they went. They also used a bear by the name of Bedford, pictured below on the left, as a substitute groom/ring bearer/thing to be kissed, hugged, and thrown around with enthusiasm. "I LOVE this bear! What's his name? Where did you get him? Can he COME TO THE WEDDING TOO?" 

I showed them the formation they'll be standing in and they practiced walking for a good 10 times JUST TO BE SURE they had it right. "But what if we grow and our SIZES ARE DIFFERENT? How will we know HOW TO STAND if I'm taller than her now but she's taller than me then? WILL YOU TELL US?"

By the time the party ended, I had four little girls who were SO EXCITED AND JUST CAN'T WAIT TO THROW PETALS!! And, according to Anna, "have CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES at the wedding."

Because all good weddings have chocolate covered strawberries.

It was a great trip until I went insane

I have spent so many hours sitting in various trains over the last few months as I travel from here to the land of the Yankees {they get way too much publicity on this blog} and my new house that this view out a train window is now very common:

This is another view I saw various times throughout my last trip to visit Christopher:

We have discovered that when cooking anything, even something as small as toasting one little tortilla, it is VERY IMPORTANT to turn on the fan above the stove or the smoke detector will go off and you will have to open the door and windows to air out the house. Notice the significant amount of snow out there and think for a moment about the significant amount of cold air that would blow into the house every time we had to open the windows. Needless to say, it didn't take us too long to learn the moral of the use the fan story.   

The flowers Christopher got me were a very wonderful view.

The first thing on our walls was the wall vinyl I got from CSN a few months ago. I put in above the front door and spent approximately 8 too many minutes sticking, unsticking, and sticking it before deciding it was straight, only to look at it again with my head tipped to the side and decide that maybe it wasn't straight after all. I can foresee that pattern repeating every single time we put something up on our walls throughout our entire marriage. I will just be a joy to decorate with.

On the train ride home I read my book, looked out the window, and entertained thoughts of throwing paper balls and pens over the back of my seat at the guy who did not stop talking for over 4 hours straight. He told about how he did a radio commercial with Robin Williams on 1994, meet Steve Carrell,was in a movie with so-and-so and "you can see me for the first 15 minutes of the movie! Well, I mean, like, in the first 15 minutes there's a close -up of me. I think  it's around minute 3 or something. And I'm a film writer and I use dummies to film scenes where people are thrown off buildings and run over by cars 'cause you can't do that kinda stuff with real people when you make movies. And when I was in that movie, I was like, a total celebrity at school and all the kids would come up to me and say  'hey Wally' 'cause they all saw the movie. Well, like, the first 3 minutes of the movie. Someday I'm going to make a movie about blah blah blah blah blah. And when you commit a crime, make sure you remove all the evidence! That's really important if you used a bat. One of my movies blah blah blah blah."  

Maybe he'll make a movie about the girl who went straight from the train to an insane asylum because she LOST HER BRAIN after sitting in front of him for seven hours straight. 

During the brief time Mr Yada Yada was sleeping, I came up with a new plan: listen to every single song on the ipod Christopher gave me from A all the way to Z. I have obviously reached new levels of high caliber goals for my life.

Maybe Wally should make a movie about it.

The long distance movie date

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how people in long distance relationships celebrate Valentines Day

a very important message

My Army bear is helping me pass on a very important message.

The Small Edition

Andrew and Debbie have announced that they are going to present us with one of these:

 I have three thoughts about this.

1. IT'S ABOUT TIME SOMEBODY AROUND HERE HAD A BABY.

 I've only been asking for a new baby since the twins were around five years old.

2. I'd like to state right here that I firmly believe it's a boy. 

The stomach, forehead and nose on the child clearly point in that direction. Besides, Andrew needs a little boy.

3. We're going to mold this child into a true and loyal member of Red Sox nation. 

We're going to name it {him} Jason Varitek or Tim Wakefield.

{Some people have tried pointing out that I really have no say whatsoever about what the baby is named. I choose to completely ignore such comments.} 

I will not be wearing any of these when I walk down the aisle

In my many Google searches through out the course of this wedding planning, I have come across many unique wedding options. Not the least of these options has been a VERY large selection of odd, interesting, weird, crazy, ugly, and ridiculous wedding gowns. 

Exhibit A.

Very creative and unique , but I think those feathers were better off attached to the peacocks at the zoo

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Exhibit B.
 And some people think we have a lot of people involved in our wedding
{Also,what's up with that guy in the bottom right who appears to be holding a gun? Who invited him to the wedding?}


Exhibit C.
As someone who always said she was going to have a patriotic wedding, I am almost tempted by this dress.

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Exhibit D.
 I don't think this qualifies as a wedding dress.
 It looks like something a nun would wear but nuns don't, in my limited experience with them {meaning I've seen them at the Christmas Tree Shop and Walmart},wear much white.  


Exhibit E. 
This dress gives a whole new meaning to the term "glowing bride".

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I think I found myself a new health care provider

Because picking health insurance based solely on how cute the children in the commercial are is the grown-up and responsible method of doing things.

When the Single Ladies turn into bridesmaids

Autumn and Joanna both knew they would be in my wedding, but I had to give them the 'would you please?' cards to make it official anyway.

I've know these girls for 20 years but I'm not even going to attempt describing what these faces mean. All I will say is that I presented these cards immediately after they discussed what types of wedding parties they want to have for me.

 While Joanna succumbed to the giggles, Autumn was TOUCHED by how special the moment was. Just TOUCHED.

I think this picture speaks for itself.

They immediatly jumped up to dance around and sing Single Ladies at the tops of their voices and ask what groomsmen they're going to be with. They even got out the computer to do some Facebook stalking see the groomsmen possibilities for themselves.

They're not exactly the meek and mild bridesmaids.

It's going to be a snowy delivery

The abundance of snow 'round these parts has provided us with the potential for hours of snowy entertainment. Elizabeth was so excited to join me outside one day last week that she could barely put her boots on, she was jumping so much for joy. {Or maybe what happened was I had to drag her out with me, but the first story sounds much nicer.} Once we were both outside, we decided we really had no other option than to build snowmen next to the driveway.

So here they are, Lionel Skinny and his wife, Pakasandra Thermoplae.



I made Pakasandra and we quickly noticed that her bottom third was so ridiculously round and fat that she must be a very pregnant snowman. Because we like to be creative and different in our snowcreations, we choose to carry on the pregnant snowman idea and make Lionel hold his wife's hand just like he would if she was in the hospital about to have Baby S.

Please don't ask how we think of such things.

The snow nonsense did not end there. On the other side of the driveway, Nicholas made and married a snowball named Chloe. Supposedly she broke in half at one point so he stuck her back together then put her in the freezer so he could keep her indefinitely.

Sometimes I wonder what this family is coming to.