The Wedding
Part 2 of our 3-Day Weekend in St. Louis

Let's start with a few pre-wedding shots.

Beautiful gowns...


On the bed...

Bridezilla... hahaha... just kidding! She was the most calm, most at-ease bride I have ever seen (especially considering that we had an incredibly short time to get everything ready for it!)


And now, the wedding!

First off, I want to apologize for not having any pictures of the actual ceremony, which was breathtaking by the way. Since I was the Maid of Honor and my whole family was in the wedding party, I had to reluctantly hand my SLR over to a friend of my sister's. So what you're seeing here are a few pictures he took with my camera.

The wedding party at the receiving line after the ceremony.
From right to left, the Bride & Groom, Best Man Steve, Jon & I, Danielle & Matt, Felicity & Chris, Ring-Bearer Asja, Flower-Girls Sophie & Sydney:


Bride and Bridesmaids (yes, my dress fit... just barely!):


The Bridesmaids (Danielle, Patty & Felicity):


Bride & Maid of Honor:


Flower Girls Sophie & Sydney:


First Dance as husband & wife:


Father-Daughter Dance:


There was some singing...


A lot of dancing...


And a heck of a lot of hugging...
(here is my sister & I with our sweet cousin Olga, who came all the way from Puerto Rico!)


And then it got interesting.
Threshold smesh-hold! How 'bout I carry you over the ice cold fountain, honey?


We couldn't let the bride & groom have all the fun...


So what if we all had rented tuxes, made-to-order dresses and $100 up-do's?!? This was a sympathy soaking...


I stood on the sidelines documenting the festivities, but the second I set my camera down I was carried over the fountain too!!!


Did I ever mention having a crazy family?!

Back To School!

I apologize for my bloggy absence. It's not like me to leave things unattended for such a long period of time, but this week I have had very little spare time and so some things had to be put on the back burner.

For the most part, we've been preparing for the BIG DAY... back to school! So, I wanted to share some pictures with you.

Tuesday night (Aug. 19th) was our "meet & greet" session in which all students had to bring in their supplies and meet their new teacher and future BFFs. Sydney's was first. I made her an appliqued pillow to bring to school for naptime. She loved it. It made me feel good.



Here she is pointing at her name taped on the table. She is so excited to be going to "big girl school"... and mama is excited to have a few hours each day for herself. ;)



Next, we headed over to Sophie's "meet & greet." Sophie is in 1st grade now, which means no more naps so she didn't get a mama-made pillow. I will make her one for her bedroom anyway because I had so much fun creating Sydney's.



And, of course, we had to get a similar picture of her pointing at her name taped on the table. I know, I'm such a dork!



But today was the BIG DAY! The girls got up earlier than usual and were dressed and ready to go with plenty of time (no, I won't get used to that because I know it's only a matter of days before I'm back to my usual routine of yelling at the top of my lungs every morning for them to m o v e i t). But today, it was nice to actually have a relaxed morning and have time for the token mailbox picture.





Sydney wore one of her favorite MODKIDs and while walking from the car to the classroom I got asked 3 times where I bought her outfit at. That felt good too! :)



So, now I am hoping my life will return to a less chaotic state. I will have 3 hours each morning of peace & quiet, so I hope to be able to accomplish a lot. I usually can accomplish a lot even with screaming children all over me, so just imagine!

As for the fabric restrikes... they pretty much came & went. I didn't share pics, as I had promised, because there was not much to share. I thought I was actually getting some fabric to fondle, but I only received tiny little swatches that I had to approve and send back to the mill right away for final production. I should receive yardage here in about 3 - 4 weeks and then the angels will sing.

This Friday we leave for a 3-day weekend in St. Louis, for the other BIG DAY... my sister's wedding! WOOOHOOO! Last time I checked, my bridesmaid dress still fit, so I hope that's still the case (I guess I should stop snacking on those dark cocoa covered almonds, eh? so much for my sugar-free diet!)

See you all next week!

baby got back

My sister gets married in less than 4 weeks (August 23rd) and I am the maid of honor. I tried on the bridesmaid dress at David's Bridal and ordered it way back before I went to Quilt Market (sometime in May) and it fit perfectly (well, it was a little tight but I figured if I lost a couple of pounds before the wedding, it would look HOT!) The dress came in the day before we went to on our FL vay-cay. I just picked it up in a huge hurry, didn't try it on and just stuck it in the closet.

Well, you probably know where this is going... Two nights ago, when my mom & sister were here, I put on the dress... or should I say, tried to put on the dress... for my mom to see how cute (NOT!) I looked in it. I couldn't even zip it up!!! (sob). I looked at the tag to see if they had mistakenly given me the wrong size but nope, it was the size I ordered. So I pulled out the scale (I haven't stepped on this thing in weeks!) and I was a good 8-10 lbs. heavier than when I went to Market. (SOB!) What do I do??? I needed to lose 2 lbs. but instead I gained about 10! It is waaaay to late to get the thing exchanged (since they were special-order) and there is no way to alter it (I could take it in but there's no way to let it out!) WAAAAAAA!

On another note, I totally missed my 200th post. It was 2 posts ago, but I guess I was a bit pre-occupied. Oh well! Today is the first day of "back to normalcy" here in the MODKID household. The girls returned from FL last week and my mom stayed with us until yesterday, and in between then & now we've had a flurry of activities, including (but not limited to) a birthday party, a weekend trip to St. Louis, a bridal shower and a visit to the local water park. Oh, and of course, the modgreetings launch, which by the way, thanks so much for all the wonderful comments and your purchases. I have a couple of wholesale inquiries already, plus one more local store that wants to carry them, so that's great news! :)

My mom, my sister and my niece all left yesterday and now it's just the 4 of us... for the first time since, well, June! WOW! Sophie actually asked me last night "So, is it just gonna be us from now on?" heeeheee... KIDS! Gotta love them! :)

So, speaking of the bridal shower, I made these super cute personalized favor boxes for the attendees using one of my Andalucia designs, "Jester" in the Aqua colorway (which just happens to be her wedding color!)



I searched & searched the internet for a good favor box template (and I did download a couple) but they were all too small or just not shaped right, and I wanted to fill these to the brim with chocolates. So I made up my own template. It worked out perfectly. I even made a little sleeve for the Hershey mini's (hmmmm... in hindsight, I probably should have stayed off the Hershey minis and maybe I could still fit into my bridesmaid dress... sigh!)



So, anyway, I will be putting together a sweet little tutorial (with plenty of step-by-step pictures, of course) on how to make these. It will include a PDF download template for the box with or without the Jester pattern. Hope you guys are into that kind of stuff... we had the best time assembling these last week!

So, I will leave you now. If anyone has a great crash diet tip, please leave a comment. Hey, all you Cook It. Blog It! members... please send me links to any low-fat recipes you may have, or some sort of lose-12-pounds-in-4-weeks diet plan or something. I am allergic to exercise but I guess I can make an exception and maybe take some Claritin for this occasion. ;) I promised my sis I would run on the treadmill 1 hr. every night but I already broke my promise once. :(

HELP! I don't wanna be a naked bridesmaid!