Images from Easter

While I did wish this year that we would've done something a little extra for Easter at church, simply to help me remember the true celebration behind the season, it was a very lovely Easter.

(Not that Hilltop didn't have a nice Easter morning service and not that they didn't focus on Christ. Just that I was a little hungry for a little more....weightiness. Does that even make sense? Something to snap me into the reality of what we were celebrating.) 

But we did take the Lords Supper, which is a bit rarer for us and therefore brought to mind more of the occasion, and I was certainly much more aware of The Reason this year than I have been in years past.
I'm in Numbers right now, working my way through the Old Testament, and I really loved seeing the sermons leading up to Easter we've been receiving side by side with the stories of the Old Testament. This year when Gary read the phrase: "We have no king but Caesar" it suddenly reeled in my mind how truly awful (and really blasphemous) that was since I'm also concurrently reading about how God is their Head & their King in the Old. It was shocking - as it should have been - and seeing moments like this lined up beside each other continue to help me have a better grasp of the bigger picture at the cross. Anyone else have specific memories of moments like that?

Anyway. Easter has this way of bringing out joy in another fashion: super cute kiddos.

Unfortunately, I failed miserably at getting photos of the Plumb celebration (Shannon, I'm looking at you. I saw that camera flashing. ;) ) But I did manage to get quite a few when the Kime's & McBride's came down on Easter Sunday.

I know most of them feature *ahem* me, but I was so thrilled to have updated photos with these kiddos, that I'm certainly putting them in anyway. :)

 Awwww..... look at that face. My darling Lexie Lou!

I haven't had as many pics of Brighton to feature in general, so she shows up often here. :) Plus, it was her very first Easter!

Gorgeous see-sters... (this was the "two cookie" bribe picture.)

 

I adore these faces. Can you believe they're so grown up? I can't.

Oh, I adore Lexie's face too. :)

(Please note the confetti in my hair. Story forthcoming.)

 And of course, baby Bright's as well. :)

 Picture perfect. :)

Seriously, how precious are these kids?  The amount of cuteness here is staggering.

 Ooooooh..... the confetti. Jeff & Brittany brought these eggs down called Confetti Eggs and they were awesome.  You crack the egg open (preferably by smashing them over someone's head, which appeared to be our method) and all this beautiful confetti comes flying out. But not the sticky kind, just pretty small bits of colorful paper. They brought a dozen. Next year I'm convinced they need to bring a dozen for the adults and then another dozen for the kids. :)

You see, by the end of it I was the only one that hadn't been confetti'd and all the eggs were gone. But then they found one that had still been hidden in the backyard. So while I avoided Jeff like the plague (who was whistling innocently nearby), unbeknownst to me he had swapped with my oldest kiddo and she NAILED me on the back of the head. There was a traitor in my midst! :)

Anyway, moral of story: go buy confetti eggs. They're fun. They're colorful. Buy plenty for each age group to play. :)

Last photo op.

 Priceless. :)

Because the status is NOT quo.

Poinsettias? Check.
Grave blankets? Check.
Christmas shopping started? Check.

YAY! Christmas, Christmas time is here....

But first! Thanksgiving!

That's actually a pretty good sample of what my Thanksgiving looked like. :) It was full of kids, and that was awesome. I snagged a few pictures with some of them because I hate my camera and have very few new ones. So here's a flurry of Thanksgiving shots with the McBrides:

Seriously, can you believe that's Kylie? She's so grown up! What a beauty. 

Khloe loves to play with the iPad, so we got several shots in a row similar to these. Look at that smile. 
 

Awww....my boy!! So handsome. So sweet. I love this guy.

So we were sitting down to eat Thanksgiving lunch with the McBrides & Kimes, when suddenly I realized I was not at the kids table and that was sad. I don't think I've ever NOT eaten at the kids table (which, this year, was a picnic on the floor.) And then I realized there wasn't enough chairs for the adults so YAY! KIDS TABLE! 

While we were eating suddenly Kaden asked me if I could rap. And I said no. But would he rap for me?

I really wished I had filmed what happened next.
Not only did he rap, and pretty darn well I might add, but when he finished Khloe decided to join in. With a rap about zombies. And THEN two-year-old Lexie purposely stood up, grinned, and and made beat boxing noises while dancing. TWO YEARS OLD.

This is why you sit at the kids table. To help prevent duels to the death over deviled eggs and listen to impromptu rap sessions.

Sadly, I don't have Lexie & Brighton pictures this time around. But wait! I have to share their cuteness somehow!

Oooooooh! Those eyes! That baby face! They're so freaking cute! (Seriously, aren't those gorgeous pictures?) Lexie is so full of spunk & happiness. Love it.

Okay, one parting shot:

My cousin Sam, Kylie, & Khloe bug

And bedtime for me. I hope your Thanksgiving was full of family, friends and food and all the lovely laughter you could hope for. Mine sure was. :)

Wedding, wedding, wedding

Dun dun dun.......THE WEDDING.

Okay, no need for that. But sometimes, you just have to. Yes, you do.

The reason you didn't hear much about this wedding prior to it was mostly because the bride hadn't settled on some details, and I finally told Pam to just catch me up the week of. So... I really didn't know a lot about it until the flowers were arriving.

But this wedding was a ton of fun. It was large, but still a fairly simple setup. Also, it was at a fancy schmancy country club in the city which was a lot of fun - and getting to interact with their wedding coordinator was fantastic because she was awesome. We also ended up arriving an hour earlier than we anticipated and just had tons of time to make sure everything was exactly what we wanted.

First off, here's what the back of my bosses van looked like:

And that's just the top half of the reception pieces, friends.

And that also explains why I ended up driving up ALL the glass vases...when it was the one thing I repeatedly said I didn't want to do. Ha! So much for that. (Actually, it turned out great. Everything was so tightly packed they couldn't go anywhere anyway. I just thought it was really funny.)

The big uncertainty for us on this wedding is brought to you by the letter 'W'. That's right, a 'W' was taking us down. No, we just simply hadn't made one before and with the our well-known state winds, we simply didn't think this would stay:

The Ceremony Site:

YEAH. Our W!

Haha, it actually didn't take us that long and it didn't turn out to be that big a deal. We were mostly concerned about the rose petals blowing away and they never did (even with an unexpected storm brewing...I told you, DUN DUN DUN.) But it did have to be pretty funny watching my boss and I stand there and debate whether we had it in the right shape. ("Sherri, somethings wrong!" "No, it looks great!" "No, something's really wrong!" "You're parano...oh wait...the center's upside down! The center's upside down!") Ahahaha, and we even had a stencil. It was hysterical.
200 roses, folks. That's about 200 roses right there.

What's that? You want a close up to admire all those pretty shades? Of course:

Oooo....aaaah....

Okay, now the rest of the ceremony site:

There were two of these pieces, one on either side with all that gorgeous ruskus draping and curly willow adding so much pretty height, and green dendrobium orchids and hydrangeas and pink callas and sweet william and.... aww... I really, really liked this color combination. Green is is a perfect color on its own, but it really makes all the others shine as well.

The Handhelds:
Bridal bouquet on the left, bridesmaids on the right. All callas. In a bit of a role reversal, my boss made the bridesmaids and I made the bridal, as much to my surprise as I'm sure it is to yours. Blush blush...


The bridesmaids wore black dresses, so those black pins were perfect to tie all the colors together. And my, isn't that a pretty handle wrap! Those suckers are harder than they look (at least for me. I get glue EVERYWHERE.) After all our weddings this year I'm just now getting...um...a handle...on them...can't.figure.out.any.other.wording...ahhhh! PUN NOT INTENDED. Lets move on.

If I were to talk to you about flower detail and what about this picture makes me weak at the knees floral wise, I would point out those stunning green tips on the white callas. Love. Gives them such a natural, yet incredibly elegant, appearance.



Reception:

I really, really love this style and this is partially what made this wedding so fun for us. This style is super popular right now in the wedding world, but we haven't had many opportunities yet here to apply it. The reception centerpieces were in two parts: the bottom half is a glass cylinder filled partially with black rocks and then the rest includes curly willow all wrapped up with a few mini callas. The top half includes pink asters, callas and alstromeria, with fuchsia sweet william & carnations and green dendrob's & hydrangea. And that's curly willow giving it all that fantastic height. (Yes, those are airplanes in the curly willow.)

Seriously, I just couldn't get a picture that would do them justice. My boss created the design, it was really lovely.


Top Half:


Lower Half:
If I were to try and pick a signature style, I think I would automatically tend towards this look. I really, really enjoy the submerged or flowers tucked inside the vase - especially for weddings. In fact, a lot of receptions now use this look without the top half - just a few callas & rocks down inside the cylinder. I'm a big fan of that too.

The only thing was it was HOT. We actually only had to be outside about 40 minutes, but that was long enough. We hadn't had enough (any) water that day and by the time we finished up and I was leaving I immediately hit a gas station for some water.
And an hour before the wedding suddenly we noticed this storm clouds starting to move in...and then while we were having our what-does-a-W-look-like debate, we started hearing thunder, and seeing more clouds. But, happy ending, they made it without any bad weather.

I love working on-site with my bosses. There's so much I can pick up while we're out there that you can't learn in the shop. We've got one more big wedding in September that should be really pretty, and then we're out of it for a little while. Which makes me a little sad. Especially when you've just come off one this enjoyable.

In other news, my family arrives TONIGHT! Yaaay! Woo wooo woo!

(Also, a short interview with Tom Hardy aka Bane on Dark Knight Rises! A slightly disconcerting comment regarding the ending, gah! But no spoilers, obviously.)

Fourth of July huzzah! Time with Family

Grandma and I had a lovely time this afternoon spending it with the Kime's & the McBride's. It can be tough to get everyone together anymore, with all our schedules, so time spent is sweet. I'm lucky to be close to my cousins on both sides, especially when you consider how large that number has grown over the years (including kids & spouses: 23.)

I did manage to snag more than one picture, but unfortunately they're not uploading right now. (I'm so bemused by my router. I no longer understand how it works at all.)

However, one was emailed to me, so for now it'll do.

I promise, Lexie is not crying. She was actually giggling. I promise.

Although with that scary man in the background, it might cause one to wonder. ;)

Smock, smock, smock, smock, smock...

It was yesterday. And I missed it. But here it is anyway:

HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY CALVIN & HOBBES!!

C&H is my all-time favorite comic strip. There is no doubt. The great thing about it is that it can make you laugh when you're seven and it can still make you laugh - sometimes even for the same reason - much later. It's universal. It's ageless. The topics are always handled with care. The characters are all beautifully written. Did I mention it's hysterical? I love it. Everyone needs a Hobbes.

Bill Watterson, you are wonderful. You still make me smile.

Speaking of Bill Watterson, here's a rare interview he gave just this past February - believed to be his first interview since 1989.

Love. Love these two.



Psst... While you're here, you need to see this:
National Geographic Pictures of the Year

Absolutely breathtaking shots. You won't regret taking a few minutes to at least scroll through them. Personal favorites: 2, 12, 22, 15, 33, 34. And really, there's no way to pull any real favorite. They're incredible.

Playday with the Plumbs & the Pucketts!

While we did have a playday already scheduled for this past Saturday, on a spur of the moment whim we were on our way to Sulphur! And after some scenic touring in Wanette ("Grandpa, why are we going backwards?!") we made it, scarfed down some Mazzios and spent the rest of the afternoon in the park.

Some shots:

Papa and his girls enjoying Little Niagara.


Exploring....


It was such a gorgeous day. It was absolutely perfect weather.


The pretty Puckett girls and my wonderful Uncle Phil.


One has to wonder why, if there are four girls, only three flip flops can be found? Indeed, a matching pair of flip flops went floating down the river...


Sulphur in fall is really, really pretty.


More of the lovely ladies! Amy & Anna rocking the Team Plumb tees.


The fantastic pair of aunt Phyllis and my cousin Amy.


Parting shot of Phyllis & I...


And now, with that, it is bedtime. (what? at 10:00?) Yeah. We also moved Brad & Regina in this week, had Sunday madness, played 'Splosion Man with Sam & Holly (which, for the record, is awesome) and had a day at the shop that has already stacked tomorrow through Thursdays orders.

But what a perfect weekend. :)

Yeah! I 'splode!

Update on Tate: He's officially theirs! I can't wait to show off pics. In the meantime, though, I'm holding off. There is so much legality involved that I don't understand I just want to wait until after their embassy date. But if you want to see pics, email is always an option! :) I can assure you, he is incredibly cute. All smiles! Brian & Shannon are doing well, but ready to be back in the states. Can't wait to see their family as a whole!

In the middle of it all.

My birthday week ended up pretty spiffy. On the evening of I was super excited it was completely free of errands, projects, etc. Grandma & I went to Chilis to celebrate. We ate too much (including dessert) but it was deliiiicious. Yum.

And then I napped for three hours. It was wonderful.

Again, thanks to everyone who made my birthday week really awesome. By the end of the day I felt really special and it's because I'm surrounded by amazing people. :) You rock.

Anyway, today was also very quiet, which was nice. Jesse & I caught a matinee of Scott Pilgrim vs the World this afternoon which was very enjoyable. I loved all the video game music references and I'm sure I didn't catch them all. It was just a fun movie. I had Chick Fil A. And then I came home and got started on (another) project involving pictures. The whole day was calm. It was nice.

While I'm here:
Did you know yesterday was National Lemonade Day? I'm sorry I'm late on this, but I'm not heartbroken since I'm not a fan of the drink. So my apologies to all you lemonade lovers out there. Hopefully you already knew or celebrated anyway. :)

But this is super cool: Images of Russia, color images no less, from a century ago. They're really beautiful shots - you can't help but stare at their faces and wonder who they were, what their lives were like. I was in awe since I can't even wrap my mind around their lifestyle.
Also, the website those images are on (The Big Picture) is a really awesome photography blog to keep up with. They usually update once a week with a theme or category and show an average of 40 pictures or so from around the world that fit it. The images are always wonderful.

And while the Russia pictures caught my eye more, if you're looking for old photographs to browse through, the Life gallery is here. Also, beautiful, beautiful pictures.