it's the little things...

I'm pretty particular. And slightly obsessive. And totally notice the little things. I wanted our wedding to be our wedding. You've maybe realized this already? I also love music. It can help dictate the mood and help you express your emotions and help encourage those emotions in others. And it can surprise you. I had music class starting in Kindergarten and continued on with band until graduation. So, yeah, this was an important part of the day for me. The Hubby really enjoys music, too. He has opinions (which are often different from mine). But we did well making the selections together. (I'm not gonna lie--I think he gave me more say than he had. In this and in everything about the day.) Our prelude music (aka the music that only the early birds got to hear--hopefully--I don't know for sure since I wasn't there), was very standard classical, wedding-type music. We were in a museum. I wanted people to think things were going to be fairly standard and traditional ...

I know, I know. Everyone is tired of winter. The 10-day forecast doesn't even call for anything closely resembling spring. So sad. But we did have a nice weekend and were very productive. The new annuals (dianthus) on the porch: Those ranunculus bulbs I bought and planted in October/November have survived the multiple freezes and are still growing. No flowers yet. Just in case they never come, I did buy one white one. Sigh, I love them. And my MIL gave us two pots of hyacinths for Valentine's Day so I went ahead and divided them and put them in the ground. Wasn't sure if they'd like the spot I picked for them but they have grown! And are starting to bloom. There are 4 pink bulbs and 4 bluish purple. And just a random picture of the bird. This bird survived the hurricane (only for me to drop it while cleaning up afterwards and humpty dumpty it back together) and then broke irreparably in that crazy storm that followed. I found a replacement a few months back and it sits...

We have a fence around our yard and it has two entry points. One is a small, people-sized gate that could lead you to the mailbox if there weren't a giant ditch between the two. The other is a pair of giant swinging gates that allow you to drive your car down the driveway. Now, I never closed those gates ever before Maggie came along. When it's nice weather, we've been throwing her outside during part of the day so she can get some sun and explore her yard. She hadn't been too adventurous (until today). When the Rescue folks came to evaluate our home (to see if it were fit for a dog), they said we had to have locks on all our gates. The people-sized gate always remains locked now. The big gate has a chain and lock on it but generally it's not locked even if the gates are closed. If we're not out there with Maggie, one of us is in the office with a view of said gates. Feel pretty sure we'd notice if someone were to break in. But today! Lo! The gates ...

When we left off, all the ladies and all the gents had been beautified and were ready to go. While we were doing that, some really nice folks were putting the finishing touches on the ceremony site. If you'll remember, it took quite some doing to find our venues . Even though it was stressful and I thought the search would never end, I think it turned out fabulously. We got married where we met, two years (almost to the day) later. We were indoors--since I didn't want to worry about rain or heatstroke in August in Texas. But, man! There were so many windows and such great natural light. And when you add in the huge butterfly habitat behind us, we might have been outside. With air conditioning. The area we were in is just a lobby. I had to rent the chairs and have them set up by nice friends. There's a large sculpture hanging above our "altar" that happened to go perfectly with our colors. Since there are such high ceilings, I wanted to pull down the eye a little a...

( It's Maggie. We'll start off with a gratuitous shot of her. She's still doing really well and has put on a lot of weight. Yea! ) I turned 33 on Friday. Can I still say I'm in my early 30s or must I switch to mid? I'd prefer the former. I celebrated with some presents (some I knew about but some I did not). And Hubby and I went to dinner at a fancy restaurant. Then we headed back home for some movie rental/couch cuddling time. It had been a long week and I knew it would be a busy weekend so I chose to be lame. And I'm not ashamed. Yes, I cut my own bangs. No, they don't really look this bad in real life. We also ate cake. Hubby's decorating skilz: On Saturday, we took a photography class from Leisure Learning. Even though I love photography, I just have the ol' point-n-shoot. We took a class on SLR cameras and borrowed the SIL's. I didn't want to buy one before I knew a bit more about them. What if I got one and never learned how...

I realize it's Thursday. I had a long day yesterday, traveling back home and whatnot. It's time to reveal some of my favorite formals. The guys did such a great job posing and working with props (you'll see a bit more of that in the post-ceremony shots). First, a semi-traditional pose: Now, with props. You remember how the girls got parasols? I couldn't leave the guys hangin'! A little back story...the groom is known for having some weird facial hair moments during our courtship. I like scruffy best, then clean-shaven, then a normal beard. Everything else? The cowboy mustache and chops? Really any of his various stages of shaving off the beard? Yeah, not so much. So to let him have wacky facial hair for a bit, we made mustachios! Seriously. Awesome. The guys posed for individual shots with the groom: Best man (from grad school, great guy, super subtle sense of humor): Groomsman (from childhood) Groomsman (from childhood, both of these childhood guys live in-state--...

First, let me admit that we forgot our camera for this one but I'm sure we'll get pictures forwarded to us. Stay tuned for photographic evidence... Second? If you ever get the opportunity to throw beads during a Mardi Gras parade, do it. It's really freakin ' fun. No matter how much preparation you have for an event like this, there will still be last-minute craziness. The FIL forgot his cell phone charger (pretty important when you're the King/contact person) and The MIL forgot her camera at home. Hubby picked those up before we headed down to the island. We me the in-laws at their hotel and frantically get dressed to head to the float. Did we remember to take MIL's camera? Nope. The King and I (ha ha) stayed at the float while MIL and Hubby went back to the hotel so at least someone would have a camera... While they were off doing that, I was prepping beads. Each rider got 75 POUNDS of beads to throw. That translates into 2 giant bags. The floa...

Ah, guys preparing for a wedding. It doesn't really take all that long--no day chocked full of appointments to get beautified. Since The Hubby doesn't get to see these guys very often as they're pretty scattered across the country, I wanted him to have a nice hang out place the day of the wedding. We booked a room at a nearby hotel that they would use to get dressed in during the day and that we would spend the night in that night. The hotel ended up upgrading us so the room was NICE. Too bad I can't show you any more pictures... Due to some lack of communication and then some miscommunication, the guys didn't really take many pictures there. Oh, well. Bygones. Regardless, I think they enjoyed hanging out and playing the Wii. To give the guys equal time, I'll show you their formals in the next post. A few informal boutonniere pics. First the parents, then the groom. While most of the flowers held up reasonably well in the Texas heat, the groom's white rose ...

Hey, it's blog post #500! We should celebrate with cookies. Really fattening cookies... (I sure wish we had sunshine again. Good lighting really helps make better pictures.) It was a good weekend. On Friday, we took Maggie to the vet to have her staples removed. She did so good! There were two badly placed staples that were a bit of a struggle to get out and those were the only two that caused her discomfort. She was a real trooper. Now, I'm about to make a confession. One of those really bad, I'm-a-1950s-housewife confessions. I love my husband. He's done a really fantastic job being a househusband in these sad economic times (aka while he's looking for his next job opportunity). But (here's the confession part) I kind of miss the housekeeping tasks. So on Friday, I went to the grocery store and made dinner and on Saturday I cleaned the entire house. I mean really cleaned. I even did a little laundry. It felt oddly satisfying. He bathed the dog (again, she did...