To Have And To Hold

Saying farewell to M for the day

 With my 26 week old date for the evening. In husband's absence, he does provide me with the sweetest company.

 I was able to snap this with the bride moments before she slipped into her gown!

Something blue  

 Beautiful bouquet!

Darling little face in the corner

 All ready
                                                      
 Love this one

 Man and wife!
                                               
A beautiful July day!

 Over the summer, I saw my sweet D three times~ each time at a wedding :)

 A beauty with an engineering brain
                                           
The bride-to-be!

                                                      
How precious

I love bustles~ the look~the process~ and all the helping hands

And she is a married woman!  After 3 years of marriage, don't you think I should know how to wear wedding rings in the correct order? I love the look of my four dollar "sticker" manicure.

 First dance

 Playing around with the huge sunflowers

Two of my favorite aunties

Celebrating

This summer has been wonderfully full of weddings. How delightful to see a dear childhood friend get married!  I also felt particularly blessed to be able to enjoy the prewedding festivities with her. We spent one evening together with her fiance and his family folding the wedding programs. Living far from her, I was deeply grateful for this opportunity to get to know the family she was joining; having never met them before, I was particularly gladdened to see how much they all cared for her.

The next day, I was able to get a lovely one on one outing with the bride. I took her into the city to treat her to lunch and pick out her wedding present.

We enjoyed lunch at Max Brenner. The restaurant is unique in its preponderance of chocolate.  They make amazing crepes, the best hot chocolate, and delicious cocoa free burgers. 

 Two days before the wedding, her sister threw her a days long party. We began the day at the shore.

It was a rare treat to be with so many of my girl friends at once (although we greatly missed you, DH!).

 The hand shot

 All ready to enjoy dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy in family style.

 These 2 girls are ready to eat :)

The restaurant was beautiful, and thoughts of the food is getting me hungry.

To Love and to Cherish

The radiant bride and groom

Her gown was breath taking

Dearest friends since grade school

How sweet it was to be with my dear girls once again and show them my 17th week bump

After five pictures, we got a great one together

Me and my date for the evening

Beautiful women from the inside out

I love this one

And the Birthday Festivities Begin : )

Here is the birthday girl surrounded by her girlfriends and a cute little boy hiding behind her. My dear little girl is turning one!!!

Happy Birthday, my sweetie! We love you and thank God for you everyday!!

I had a blast making baby's MM fondant covered cake. I would love to make all my kid's cakes and can't wait for little hands to help me decorate. Making MM fondant is easy, inexpensive, and would be really fun for kids. I felt like I was playing with play-dough.

I was really pleased with how neat the fondant looked my first time around even though I did make it too thick. The rest of the vanilla cake and buttercream icing were too sweet for me. Do you have any favorite cake and frosting recipes. If so, please share :)

Here is baby patting her cake. That is as close as she got to a cake smash. lol.
For the invites, I made a collage through Picasa and then printed them at Sam's.

As it was a tea luncheon, I served cucumber sandwiches, pigs in a blanket, mini quiches, scones, and blueberry muffins. Although it was mid November, it ended up being too warm for tea. How funny is that!
Here are the beautiful handmade cards. Aren't they adorable!! I LOVE that this group of friends generally does not exchange birthday presents. The best presents a little girl could ask for are her dear friends.
Our version of a cake smash- playing with the cake ribbons and pearls. Thank you to all who came to spend time with us in celebration of baby's first year of life!! I greatly enjoyed your fellowship. I cannot believe I threw my first birthday party for my own child!

Friends, Family, and Flowers

I love gardens and am greatly looking forward to having one of my own (larger than those potted plants on the balcony). We are blessed to have a beautiful large public garden close enough to our house for a sweet day trip.

This is a new friend from church who is also a fellow navy wife. Baby and I had a wonderful day celebrating her birthday with her.

Her husband proposed to her in a similar Japaneses garden.
Silly happy baby sticking out her tongue with dear friend. Baby is so happy but...

then smiles quickly turned to tears as she got pricked by a rose thorn. Poor sweet babe

She even drew blood! So sorry baby
Auntie
The caption speaks for itself :)
Mama, Babe, and Auntie
Sweet
Of all the pretty butterflies we saw, the ugliest one landed on me.
Strangely beautiful
"I do not like this" (baby's first time on grass)

"this is too stressful"
"I want off NOW"
Beautiful auntie stopping to smell the roses
stopping to lick the roses
What's more fashionable than wearing a baby?
Friends
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a flying baby
"I don't think I like this"
I thought these rose trees were beautiful and of course the little baby too.
I love this little girl.