Going to the Chapel

We had a busy Labor Day weekend. My sister got married in Austin on Monday, so we drove up to Dripping Springs on Sunday morning to prepare for the festivities. It was a bit stressful because I was involved so much, but it was such a blessing to be a part of Rachel's special day. And Avery was wonderful at being "Mr. Mom" all weekend. :)

Sunday afternoon before the rehearsal we put together the boutonnieres (definitely had to use spellcheck for that one), the mother's corsages, and the bridesmaids' bouquets. We underestimated how long it would all take, so we ended up going back after the rehearsal dinner to finish them. These are the bouquets...giant sunflowers, red gerber daisies, and some yellow filler flowers:

For Monday I had to fix the bride's hair (her hairdresser cancelled on her), my mother's hair, and fix the wedding dress (they found the worst alterations lady ever...apparently she didn't know what a sweetheart top was supposed to look like). And then at the last minute my youngest sister decided she wanted me to fix her hair too. I didn't get to take many pictures, for obvious reasons, but I snapped a few before everything started.


Her cake was gorgeous! And that's her bridal bouquet in the vase in the upper righthand corner of the picture. Her colors were red, orange, and yellow.


The ceremony was outside, but the reception was inside Mercury Hall, which used to be a church. Her color scheme went beautifully with the whitewashed walls and stained glass windows of the old church.



There's me all pretty-fied and ready for the ceremony. :) Since I did three other hairdos I ran out of time for my own hair, so it ended up just being in a bun.

And here's the beautiful bride waiting for the ceremony to start. (Ignore the weird wall-hanging behind her head.)

Okay, I stole a couple pictures from my cousin's Facebook. :)

This is my cousin with my sister and I right after the wedding. Don't we look so bright and cheery? :)

And I didn't have any pictures of the newlyweds, so here's one of their engagement pictures. Aren't they going to have to cutest kids ever?? 'Course, they're both shorter than 5'6" so they'll be very short, cute kids. :)

A Lovely Shower

My middle sister's wedding shower was this past weekend and I was the hostess. I had plans to go all out with cute decorations (the theme was "1950's housewife") and a fun game, but with the two munchkins time got away from me and I ended up procrastinating on most of it until the night before. So opted for a few small decorations (copies of old bridal magazine covers), simple refreshments, and only the costume contest for a game. I stayed up really late the night before finishing the prize for the costume contest - a pink and black dotted apron. It turned out really cute, if I do say so myself. :) I also got up early the next morning to put out the refreshments and finish straightening up the house. Thankfully the kids (and Avery) slept in a bit so I had an hour or so to myself. My sister-in-law came over around 8:30 to fix mine and my sisters' hair to go with our costumes and then my sisters and mom showed up around 9. The rest of the guests came at 10 and it turned out to be a wonderful time! Considering my procrastination and overall tiredness I was very pleased with how it went.

Here's the refreshment table and my few decorations (my mom brought the flowers):

I was also thrilled to have nearly everyone dress up for the costume contest! I was so worried that it would just be me, my SIL, and my sisters dressing up. Everyone looked fantastic!

The beautiful bride.

My mom with Kirk.

The three sisters (I was the glamorous housewife-hostess).

The winner of the costume contest wearing her prize...literally everything she had on was vintage, down to her pantyhose and garters!!

Weddings and Babies

I should be doing something more productive than blogging. Sweeping the floor, picking up the house, scrapbooking, dusting, something on my to-do list. But I am just about to fall over from exhaustion, so this is the best I could do. Avery should be home within the hour, which is why I'm not crashed out in bed, and he so appreciates that I stay up to talk with him when he gets home. (Plus I despise being woken up from a deep sleep, which Kirk does at least twice a night anyway, so I'd rather not make that more frequent.)

Anyhoo, Kari's wedding was amazing. She looked gorgeous, everything went as well as any wedding should, and no one melted in the heat. :) Since I was in the wedding I don't have any pictures from the event, but here's the bride and I at her bachelorette party way up high in the Tower of Americas in downtown San Antonio.

And here's the whole bunch of us girls. Believe it or not (and most of the waitstaff at the restaurant didn't) all but one of us is over 21. In fact, 4 out of the 8 are married and 2 out of the remaining 4 are engaged. I point that out only because it seemed like every other person in the restaurant commented on how young we looked.

Hopefully I'll get some wedding pictures from someone soon because [according to my hubby] I looked freakin' gorgeous. :) Don't worry, I didn't overshadow the bride...she looked breathtaking. I can't tell you how excited I am that Kari and Topher finally got married...I nearly cried during the ceremony (and I never cry!).

The weekend was fun but I am horribly exhausted today. Maybe at some point I'll be able to catch up on sleep, but with the way Kirk is sleeping (i.e. not much) that might take a few weeks. And this weekend the kids and I are headed down to Leakey, Texas for an annual family camp we attend every year. Unfortunately Avery has to work, but my parents volunteered to help me with the kids so I'm attempting the trip on my own. Plus, I don't want to miss this year because for the first time in three years I won't be pregnant!!! Seriously, the past two years I was 5 months and 2 months pregnant (i.e. horrible morning sickness) and it was NOT a fun experience. In fact, every time I think about sitting in those cabins I start to feel nauseous. Hopefully that feeling will vanish once I get there and realize that I'm actually feeling fine! :)

Let's see, as far as babies go both munchkins are doing pretty well. Shiphrah seems to be in an endless cycle of teething...which also means an endless cycle of whinyness. Plus she caught a cold from the doctor's office last week (hate those germ-infested places!) so she was pretty miserable for a few days. I have to say though, I liked those 4-hour afternoon naps she took though. :) Oh, and can I reiterate how incredible breastmilk is? Ever since Kirk was born, I've been giving Shiphrah 4 ounces of breastmilk with 4 ounces of whole milk every morning. She has had zero diaper rashes and hasn't been sick a day (until this cold) since I started doing this. Anyway, usually she takes a long time to get over her colds...at least a week. Well, this time, 3 days. Seriously, all she had left was the tiniest runny nose 3 days after she caught the cold! So, all you nursing mamas out there, I highly recommend pumping a little extra milk for your older toddlers...it's totally worth it!

Kirk is, well, Kirk. He's still an incredibly happy and content baby, as long as someone is paying attention to him (which makes Shiphrah a lifesaver most days). He's still not sleeping through the night and unfortunately seems to have abandoned all desires of sleeping a longer stretch at night too. (He may just be going through a growth spurt though...I seem to remember Shiphrah going through one at this age.) I haven't really started him on baby food yet, just cereal about once a week for the past three weeks. He doesn't like it much, so I'm not pushing the issue. The cereal hasn't seemed to help him sleep better at night (all 3 times I've fed him about an hour before bed) so there's really no reason to force it on him. If he still doesn't like it when he's 6 months old I'll start him on the other foods (peas, carrots and such). I attribute part of my milk supply issues with Shiphrah to starting her too early on baby foods, so I'm being extra cautious this time. Our doctor encouraged me to try foods with him now to make sure he didn't develop an "opinion" about them, but I'm not too worried about that. For centuries women exclusively breastfed their kids until they were one or so and I don't think their babies refused real food. So again, not a concern for me. We'll take it all one day at a time. One thing I do know though, I will breastfeed Kirk as long as I possibly can. It's my only form of birth control. :)

Well, I just heard from Avery and he's getting off late tonight. Darn. Looks like I should have gone to bed early after all. Oh well, I'll try to find something else to keep me awake for another half hour or so. 'Night, everyone!

Kids and Plans

Tomorrow starts our "weekend" again! I tell you what, I am really enjoying Avery's work schedule. It's a little exhausting because I get to bed so late at night, but I like spending time as a family in the mornings and I really like having our weekend in the middle of the week. Because of the way his schedule is set up, it feels like we have two weekends. Since he works evenings, we still get to go to church together as a family, which makes it feel like a weekend. It's nice. :)

Kirk had his 4-month doctor's appointment yesterday morning and Shiph had her second set of shots. Kirk is just under 14 pounds which puts him around the 25th percentile. He's got a big head though so that's in the 50th percentile. :) The shots went okay, but it tears me up every time we have to get it done. I can't even look when the nurse is giving them. Kirk screamed bloody murder this time, but other than his initial reaction and a tiny bit of a fever yesterday, he's been fine. Shiphrah, on the other hand, had a low-grade fever, went to bed early last night and took a 4-hour nap this afternoon. Plus she's had a runny nose all day and her eyes are clearly bothering her. I hate how the vaccinations lower the kids' immune systems like that. It's like, hey, we're giving your babies shots to protect against a disease that kills 1 in 100,000 kids, but it's going to lower their natural immunity so they might catch a million other bugs instead. It's so stupid if you ask me. I'm glad we'll be done with it in two months. (For those who are curious, Kirk is getting DTaP, HIB, and the Pneumococcal, and Shiphrah is getting HIB and the Pneumococcal. We wouldn't be doing vaccinations at all, except for the line of work Avery is in brings a whole lot more germs in our house than we'd normally encounter.)

We have no real plans for tomorrow and Thursday except for a going away party for some friends on Thursday evening. Oh, and I think Avery is finally going to get serious about trying to fix our toilet. Our house has one lone bathroom and the toilet doesn't flush without help. I've been getting increasingly embarrassed about having to tell guests to use a large cup of water to "help" the toilet flush anytime it's used. I'd rather just buy a new water-efficient toilet and be done with it, but Avery likes the old one (it's the original, turquoise color and everything) so he's going to buy some really strong solvent and hope that fixes the problem. (Our water is really hard and when we moved in the toilet was clean and worked fine, but gradually the build-up has gotten really bad and subsequently the flushing has gotten worse and worse.) So if he gets that done, that will be one really big item checked off on his "Honey-Do" list. Which will be a feat in and of itself since he gets to those things once in a blue moon. (I think I've had the list on the fridge for five months and he's done maybe two of the things.)

My friend's wedding is this weekend. I still haven't decided what to do about the pre-wedding festivities and whether I'll take the babies or not. My husband severely dislikes passing our kids off on other people (our kid = our responsibility) so he's not too hot on the idea of getting a sitter for Shiphrah. I just can't imagine how I will be able to handle both kids by myself during the rehearsal. It'd be one thing if Avery could be there with me, but he can't.

Well, the babies are finally asleep so it's time for Mama to finally eat dinner. Catch y'all laters! :)

Life in General...

...has been pretty darn awesome. :) Avery heads back to work today after having the last two days off (our "weekend"). Wednesday morning we went to the free summer movies at one of the local movie theaters and saw "Hotel for Dogs." Cute movie, but it unfortunately didn't hold Shiphrah's attention for long. She sat through about 30 minutes of it really well, but she had already sat through 20 minutes of advertisements prior to the movie starting so she got pretty squirmy. Avery had to take her out and let her run up and down the halls while Kirk (who was sleeping) and I watched the movie. We decided she probably would have done better if one of us had let her run around before the movie started and if it had been an animated film. We'll probably wait until next summer to try again though.

Speaking of the munchkin, she's been a ball of energy, drama, and whinyness lately. I think her teeth aren't bothering her anymore (she has 6 coming in at once...4 molars and 2 eye teeth) but she's just gotten into a really bad habit of whining constantly. She whines when she wants something, she whines when she gets frustrated with a toy, she whines when she's hungry...and over and over and over! It's exhausting for Mama. She's getting more verbal by the day and has starting stringing words together. Mostly it's just two at a time ("hi Kirk" and "eat please" and "Daddy's shirt") but she's put three words together a few times ("hi Daddy, poop!" = excitedly telling him she had gone poop in her diaper).

Kirk is still mostly an easy baby, although he has become a bit more clingy in the recent weeks. He's always happy and cheerful when he's being held, but he gets quite cranky if he's left alone for more than a few minutes at a time. But that's where it's nice to have a 19-month-old to entertain him. She loves sitting down next to him and "reading" a book to him or giving him one of her toys. I love my kids. :) He's still not sleeping through the night...in fact, he's hardly sleeping longer than 3 to 4 hours at a time. My body's adjusting, so I'm not horribly exhausted...I just feel like I'm in a fog much of the time.

In other news, I'm in a couple of weddings this summer. My best friend since elementary school is getting married next weekend and I'm one of her bridesmaids. My sister is also getting married on Labor Day and I'm also a bridesmaid for her wedding. (Buying two dresses at once hurts my wallet though!) In a little less than a month I'm hosting a shower for my sister...I'm doing a 1950's housewife theme and I am soooo excited about it! :) Anyway, it makes for a busy rest of the summer, but loads of fun. It'll just be interesting trying to handle the kids without Avery (he'll be at both weddings, but not for the whole time so I'll be by myself for a lot of them).

Well, that's all I have time for...I've gotta fix lunch before Avery heads to work and the kids and I head to a friend's house for the afternoon. Have a great weekend, everyone!