the flower girl

I have been waiting for this for a long time. It had to be a perk of having three girls, that ONE of them would get to be a flower girl at just the right age to be completely adorable. Thank you, Ryann, for finally making it happen! Addison was such a cute little flower girl, even if she kept her mouth wide open the entire time she walked down the aisle. She was a little nervous, so the mouth stayed wide open, but she was adorable anyways:)

She practiced a bit in the hotel room on the morning of…

But then she was ready. She loved putting her fancy dress on and her “beautiful, beautiful wedding shoes,” as she called them. Warning: LOTS of pictures here. I couldn’t resist.

the bride

We only saw her for a minute before she headed downtown for hair and make-up. So cute, with her planner and things! Off to get beautiful.

And beautiful she was. Not much else to say, I love these pictures of my little sister.

Can you see her in there? She was off to give Gerry his first look, and I barely caught her.

the preparation

We got into Spokane on Thursday and the rehearsal was that evening. There were a lot of people to coordinate at this wedding, so the coordinator had her hands full. Lots of laughing, lots of talking when we weren’t supposed to be and lots of keeping the kids occupied while waiting in line.

Here is the bride and her Dad, followed by random rehearsal shots.

The flower girl carefully practiced throwing flower petals down.

Derek and Paul (Megan’s boyfriend) did a great job at managing children. There was a lot of waiting for them. And Derek actually deserves the credit for most of these pictures, as I was a little busy. He had his own little photo shoot to occupy them.

After the rehearsal, we headed to a mexican restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. I failed and only got a couple of pictures of this – hopefully Ryann had some friends take some!

There were no plans for Friday, so we were able to head to the Spokane fair, hang out and have some of our own family time that evening. I have tons of pictures of all of this, but it doesn’t fit this theme:). So on to the continued preparations for the wedding, starting at 9am on Saturday morning. My mom had found this lovely girl to come do all of our hair. I am so glad she was a lovely girl, because Mom found her on Craig’s list and Megan and I were a bit concerned. But it worked out wonderfully and she was great! The girls had their hair put in rags to curl it. I think I will steal this idea for the future.

There was a lot of tv watching, ipad playing and any other thing we could think of doing to entertain them after this. Derek had the brilliant idea of taking them down to the pool to “put their feet in the water”, or rather get all the bottoms of their rags wet so we had to spend extra time blowdrying them. But I shouldn’t complain because Derek was extremely patient and helpful through all of this “girl stuff”. We all got our hair pinned up, which was great since it was 95 degrees outside.

Addison was able to sleep in her rags and then have her hair done at the last minute. This worked out perfectly, and Derek brought her to the venue later. I was amazed how quickly this day of getting ready went, and then we were off to the big event. Stay tuned…

The Wedding

I have been sorting through hundreds of photos, trying to figure out how to post about my sister Ryann and Gerry’s wedding. It is a little overwhelming! It was a beautiful wedding, in a beautiful place. So, that is where I thought I would start – the place. I figured out some categories to show the highlights, and that will be my next few posts. Warning, you are about to see a ton of pictures, but I know you are dying to see them:)

They were married at Belle Victorian Gardens, just north of Spokane. This place was amazing, with more photo spots than I could even take pictures of.  The house, the gardens, all of it was just made for taking cute pictures. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with what we were there for, you know, the WEDDING, then I would have taken about a thousand family and kid pictures. But wedding pictures are fun, too.

More to come…..

Mom is engaged!!

Isn’t it beautiful and sparkly?!!

Let the wedding season continue for our family…. so excited for you, Mom and Leon!

A new school year

They were ready and they were excited for the first day of school. My first and fourth grader – can that really be?? Time is seriously flying by.

Hailey was not sure about her teacher, although she had only met her once. Hailey tends to be a bit negative lately, but she perked up and headed right in to her classroom  to check out who was sitting by her. Isn’t her hair so cute??

And Symantha had the same teacher as last year, which she was excited about, and she just hugged her right away.

So Addison and I begin our two years of just the two of us all day. I miss my big girls sometimes, but to be completely honest, it is so fun and so easy to have Addison by herself. Well, not totally by herself. Baby “Gracie” often joins us