The First of Many (I hope)

SO! We had a small party, right? This was a great opportunity to do what I love the most (throwing parties) but also gave a push to get some finishing touches on the house. Cheri (who did donnie and Liz's flowers) came over and got our shelves and tabletops looking truly amazing with the stuff I already had...and borrowed from Lainey. :D You'll recognize some of the table decor from Donnie and Liz's rehearsal dinner. Living around the corner from my in laws ftw!!

Here's a picture of one side of the bookcases in our living room. The only thing I changed from what Cheri did was I added the gorgeously illustrated Zen Ghosts book to the bookshelves and took down something Mike wanted in his office instead. I love the how the book looks there so I think I'll switch out for another book in the series when we decorate for Christmas.


Remember this?
Craziness.


The other side. There's also a nice little table setup behind the rock banders that I don't have a photo of. All we need is furniture. Or not! We have a great open space for playing rock band and charades, hahaha.


Here's my first buffet in this house. I didn't make enough savory food but I think it ended up being okay.


See that little black bowl?


There's vampire blood in it. :D It's hand sanitizer that I got for what was going to be Liz's halloween bachelorette party before they moved the wedding up.


This is what the former owners used as a desk. I USE IT FOR CHOCOLATE.


Everything's good with chocolate, right? Well, some things more than others. Every year I adjust and add to the chocolate dipping bar. Last year, the runaway favorite addition was donut holes. Tamara brought those for me this year. The new surprise favorite? Waffles.


I got a little theme happy with the drinks.


I got the printables from Hostess with the Mostess. If you ever have to plan a party and need a theme or ideas, make that site one of your first stops, for real.


I absolutely could not resist these bottles.


Mike's dad got creative with covering up a loose step we have in the front yard. He took this creepy little pumpkin man that my mom got us (she does that a lot. Remember the coconut monkey?) and put a flashlight in it.


Now for some costumes! I was sooooo happy because everyone but my brother came in costume. Seriously. It was so much fun. If we ever have another Halloween party, I want to be sure to install someone at the front door to take pictures of everyone in costume because I didn't get nearly enough photos. But, I got a few cute ones. Penny was a kitty and so was Frank's wife Emily.


Valerie came as a boy (complete with black eye) and brought Miss Roxie as a whoopie cushion. Maaaan. So cute and weird!


Tamara was...guess who? Landon is in the rock band pic above as a zombie. The "braiiiiins" he wrote my dry erase board is still there. XD


We had not one, but TWO Indiana Joneses!


After discovering that Cathy was mostly sure her gun was unloaded, Mike decided he'd rather pose with Annie Oakley in the beginning duel position rather than the ending.


I wish I could photoshop either Mike's real eyes into this or maybe those Pirates of the Caribbean Captain Jack eyes on his eyelids because this is an otherwise great picture.


These guys win for creativity...Matt and Jamie were the Black Eyed Peas. I love it!


I love this picture. Notice Donnie rocking out in the background. Also notice Matt from Kali's (as opposed to the above Matt from community group) cool coat cuff.


Anyway, that was our first real party here at the new house! It even ended on a funny note: our neighbor came by and told us he had called the police to complain about our party noise. The police didn't come into our house because you couldn't actually hear anything from outside. Insisting that it was, in fact, our party making the noise, the neighbor decided to come over himself which I wish he had done in the first place because he would have discovered it wasn't us without dragging the poor police out on a wild goose chase.

Apparently, there was another party in the neighborhood that was very loud. When the neighbor asked if it was our radio that was playing (and I could hear what he was talking about), I was able to tell him no because at that point, the 5 remaining people were standing in the hallways getting ready to leave and we had no more music or rock band going. :D He came over the day to apologize and that was very nice. But it does tell us a little about our neighbors. They are really going to hate our Christmas parties!

Alll righty, this is really long. I'll go ahead and split my post in two, hopefully before Tuesday so I can get caught up! But since this post is noticeably Autumn-light, say hello to Princess Bunny.


:) Every day is Halloween at our house.

Halloween Preview...

So, I was going to do a big halloween post but I had 346 photos on my camera sooooo...this is what you get. :D I loooove Halloween. Dressing up? Candy? Seriously, what could be more awesome?? We started our Halloween activities last week at the Mullins United Methodist Funny Bones Festival where Autumn had her first cotton candy:


We also celebrated in our kids aikido classes by wearing costumes and playing themed games.


Friday we had a Halloween party that will make a great story. :P Those of you who haven't heard will have to wait to hear. Mike and I dressed up as pirates!


And he actually had a good time! Look! Photo evidence:


Tonight, we went out to Ridgeway's Fall Festival and had a really good time. They had an incredible turnout. Autumn played games--she especially looooooved playing their version of Plinko.


We also got to meet a few neighbors later that night when we took Autumn trick or treating to the houses with lights on around us. Afterward, she sorted her haul into piles...it was pretty funny seeing her ask what something was and then decide where she was going to stack it.


:D All in all, this might have been the best halloween ever. Or at least the best one I can remember for a long time! More pics to come!

Warning: Cuteness ahead

It's been a whirlwind week!! I've got a bzillion photos to post so I'm finally getting this wedding posting wound down so I can move along to things like anniversary surprises and train parties. :D

The wedding day was, as all wedding days are, crazy. I had to make an emergency run to Hobby Lobby, the church wouldn't let the catering people (Lainey&co) in until after 10am (for a 1pm wedding!!), and so on. Even Autumn wasn't without her accidents. Literally. she must have been nervous because she hadn't had a potty accident in ages. But, we got there on time and my mom's friend Jacqui did her hair. I even put a little blush on Autumn. And, tell me if that is a Mike face if you ever saw one.


Autumn's been on this kick where she seriously wants to be Cinderella for Halloween. She did want to be a cat but then she got this foofy dress and I talked her into a princess so the dress gets plenty of use. Yes. I know. People keep telling me it seems out of character to encourage the princess thing cause I'm all kick butt or whatever but you can fight and be girly. Or at least I can.


As part of this princess thing, though, she's determined that Mike will be a prince and I will be Belle. :P She was pretty tickled by all the dresses and tuxes. It was like a princess show.


We've been calling Autumn "Little Lindsay" lately because they look a lot alike sometimes. :) Not so much in this picture but how cute are they?


Took me long enough but here's the blushing bride!!


With the maid of honor, her sister Michelle. You guys might remember her wedding just a few weeks back!.


This is kind of fun. Here are the ladies of the bride.


And the ladies of the groom (minus Valerie and Roxie who came in later).


After the wedding, we did family shots outside. It was pretty warm for October, I thought, Autumn agreed. She wandered around like a whiny Christmas doll going, "it's hooooot." You see boppa there in the background? He was looking sharp in his tux as an usher!


So done with it all. :)


So, in case you didn't see earlier, my mom was adorable. Seriously. I have the cutest mom. I'm excited about this because maybe it means that I'll look something like this when I'm 50. Sweet!


Oh, one really cool thing at the wedding was...dippin dots!! Did you know that you can order dippin dots for a party?? That was the one thing that Liz really wanted and it was a huge hit! I managed to grab some and get it for her before she headed out. She said she'd been trying to work her way there but never made it through all the people.


I didn't take many pictures at the reception. And for some reason I have none of me, Mike and Autumn. And the only one of Autumn and me together is terrible. Now that I think about it, I don't have any of Donnie and Liz. :P While I'm complaining, haha, I also wish I got some of them leaving with all the bubbles and stuff but this will have to do. I took a picture of this because I'm proud of myself for mounting the pictures I stole from the photographer's website. Haha. All this non-photo taking means the photographer is probably going to make entirely too much money off of us.


Autumn ended up being a good barometer for the end of the reception. By the time she was wilting (clutching the flowers I gave her off the cake server), things were winding down.


And all that was left were goodbyes and cleanup! The End. Or, rather, The Beginning. :)

Wedding Part 1: The Rehearsal

I drank some of Mike's coffee at 9pm and now I can't sleep. But that's good news for anyone who was wanting to see wedding pictures! The weekend ended up going really well, especially considering how quickly everything was put together.

First of all, I would love to thank Lainey, Papa D, Nanny and Boppa. We all know that I totally love my inlaws and that I think they are incredibly amazing but this weekend...man. Truly, there is no way I can thank them except by promising to do for others the way they have done for me and my family. I'll tell you more about what everyone did in Part 2: The Wedding. Lainey and Papa D let me host the rehearsal dinner at their house because I wanted something more intimate than a restaurant and, well, I have no living room furniture so my house wasn't going to work. :P I was thinking it'd be something simple and nice but...yeah. I forgot that Lainey doesn't do anything by half.

The rehearsal was fun. I got to go to part of it. Long enough to get a picture of Autumn dancing down the aisle!


I decided to use a little bit of a warcraft theme for the rehearsal dinner. I wanted it to be something that Donnie and Liz would get but that other people who aren't geeky would just think, "hey, that's cute!" It ended up working out perfectly. Faith Long recommended Shannon Taylor to make the rehearsal dinner cake which was a replica of the Alliance banner, the faction we play in warcraft. Seriously, it was awesome:


I also made potion party favors which were just test tubes filled with red m&m's to go with the fall theme and to simulate health potions in game. Cheri, who did the flowers and general awesome set up for the wedding and rehearsal dinner brought me a treasure chest to put them in.


I took some photos of us in game and set up a little thing that plays on the idea of Best in Slot, which just means that a character has the best, like, weapon that he or she will ever get in the game. Playing with my friends (with a shot of the 4 of us being stupid as our WoW characters) + Playing with the one I love (with a shot of donnie and liz dressed up as a bride and groom in the game) = Best in Life (this shot was after we killed the big, bad guy at the end of the game).


The invites were along the same lines. Warcraft quest text and a Warcraft-style monogram but not super obvious to anyone who doesn't play.


The full theme cart:


Other than the WoW stuff and buying the food, I can't take credit for how amazing everything else was. Cheri turned Lainey's backyard into a romantic, candle-lit oasis and all I did was put things where she told me to and they continued the work while I was with Autumn at the rehearsal. Even Ryan pitched in by going to pick up the food for us.








I think everyone had a good time relaxing, eating and, later, sharing stories about Donnie and Liz.


Lainey even found this adorable plate that doubled as a gift and decor. :)


Another great thing about the wedding? Seeing old friends. Here are Kiley, Rachel, and Louis. Louis was the minister and Kiley shared a few words with and about Donnie and Liz. I don't think I have seen any of them in a long time although we keep up with each other via Facebook and the grapevine.


I liked this picture of Donnie. I took it while Liz's grandmother was telling a hilarious story about the time Donnie caught a fish and was amazed and terrified at her fish butchering ferocity.


Liz's eyes are totally shut here but Justin there in the back? I lol'd.


And, of course, since I was either panicking about something, taking pictures, or doing something, I wasn't in any photos so I asked Donnie to snap a few of me and Mike. It degenerated very quickly.


It just went super well, not without drama (like unexpected out of town guests, timeline issues, and forgotten items), but what about a wedding is without drama?? Haha. That ended up being the case with the day of the wedding, too. Hopefully I'll get wedding pics up soon! Here's a preview:


Seriously. How can you stand it?

This is it!

The big weekend has arrived! Donnie and Liz are getting married tomorrow! I thought I'd go ahead and get caught up on some photo posting because I'm sure I'll have a bunch of photos of the rehearsal dinner (warcraft themed! subtly!) and the wedding tomorrow (with mike as best man and autumn as flower girl!). The wedding countdown began last week with a work shower for liz at the home of one of her coworker who also happened to be an acquaintance of Mike's mom. Small world, huh? That morning, Autumn and I started out with some coloring.


And some dressup. All that day, Autumn addressed me as "Princess" and demanded to be addressed in the same manner. "Princess, are you ready for lunch? Princess, I need to go potty. Princess, I need to see my Lainey, princess."


Later, Mike and Autumn went out to eat with Donnie while my mom, Roxie, Valerie, and I went to the shower. Aren't they cute together? It's crazy how much Autumn and Roxie resemble each other. Except for their eyes and the fact that Autumn is like 10 shades darker (it's more obvious in person--Miss Roxie has lovely translucent skin and Autumn is totally the color that one would expect of a 1/4 filipina, 1/4 italian, hahaha), they definitely look related. How neat is that?


The shower was really quite nice. Linda, who hosted, really did things up with a black feather wreath and a flashy (literally!) ring...among other things.


I'm glad Liz got to have at least one fun shower where she got to open presents, have a ribbon bouquet and wear a fake veil. :D One of the sad things about the wedding happening so quickly is that I didn't have time to give a shower--but I got to do the rehearsal dinner (with Mike's mom's help because I don't have, you know, living room furniture yet >.> ) so I'm happy!!


These were awesome and I will be stealing the idea.


All the Williams ladies plus the almost one!


Oh, and check out these little guys. Seriously, they creeped me out almost as much as the coconut monkey in the last post.


They were way cute from the outside, though.


Apparently I'm just easily disturbed, haha.

And this is completely unrelated but for some reason when I saw this picture, I laughed.


Well, next time we meet, the wedding will be done! Wish us luck, send us all prayers for a drama-less event. :D