Justin and Jocelynn's Wedding, July 2009

Here are some pictures of the first wedding I did last week.  It was a beautiful and intimate backyard wedding, with a big, gorgeous reception afterwards.  As you can see, pink was the color of the night!  It was a pleasure to work on and I loved how everything turned out.

A view of the reception.

The head table.  

They rented all of my large cylinder inventory for this wedding, so there was lots and lots of candlelight.  It was a very romantic look.

I loved this candy table that they created.  Definitely all the rage right now in receptions.  It was very detailed and just beautiful.  It was hard for me not to sample it while I was working!

The family of the groom.  We go to church with them, but I had never met the groom and only talked to his beautiful bride over the phone.  It was fun to finally meet them!  

Grandfather's bout. and Grandmother's corsage.

Father's bout. and Mother's corsage.

Groomsmen's bouts and Groom's bout.

Bridesmaid's bouquet.

We chose lavender as the dominant color for the girls, as they were wearing all pink.

Bridal bouquet.

Jocelynn wanted a very colorful bouquet.  

I usually prefer an all-white bridal bouquet, but I  really did like this when it was all done.  

And as always, whatever the bride wants, she gets :)  

Because the wedding was in the backyard, overlooking a lake, we didn't need much.  Jocelynn wanted a very simple touch, so I wired white cherry blossoms to the arch.  

Simple greens for the aisle.  They also spread pink rose petals down the sides.  

Such a gorgeous look!

Hard to call that a backyard, huh?  

It was really quite breathtaking.

The bouquets and bags of rose petals.

I loved the bouquets with the bridesmaids' dresses.

I did 8 large arrangements like this one to scatter throughout the ballroom.

It's always important to have some height in a large room for balance and variety.

It was a perfect summer night.

The happy couple!  

Congratulations Justin and Jocelynn!

A Sigh of Relief...

Well, where to begin??? I can't imagine how long this post could potentially turn out to be! I'm not even sure how to recap the last few days because they have been packed to the limit with constant activity. I suppose I will start with today and work backwards.

However, before I get to that and in case you are interested, the weddings both went extremely well. I was so happy with how everything turned out, but let me tell you, it was soooooo much work! My Mom and I worked from 8:00-5:00, 9-9:30, and 9-4:30 on Wednesday-Friday. We are both so exhausted, but it was honestly quite fun spending all that time together! We laughed until we cried, ran all over town and crawled into our beds at night. It was seriously crazy! I also had a team of helpers working with me, which was wonderful, but even still, we worked ourselves to the bone. Travis' Mom was a lifesaver and basically became Ava's full-time nanny for three days :) They had some good one-on-one time and I was able to work without worrying about Ava. It was wonderful. I will do an individual post about each wedding, with tons of pictures, as soon as I can.  There are so many pictures, if I tacked them on here, you would fall asleep at your keyboard! 

So instead, here is what we did this weekend after all the wedding maddness...

With so many grandparents in town, we had to celebrate by going out to eat!  

Ava told us she'd just love to eat at Maggiano's, so that's where we went :) It has been so unseasonably cool here, that we even chose to eat outside on a picture-perfect night. 

Here she is, just minutes after arriving at the restaurant, in her second change of clothes.  We've now decided that the following formula is in place; 

 tiny, little ava + eating at a restaurant= immediate blowout x epic proportions.  

Result?  1 frazzled mom, 1 poop-stained outfit, and 1 brand new change of clothes.  

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Anyway, after our bathroom incident, we walked over to a beautiful park nearby and enjoyed  a perfect, Minnesota summer night.

The 4 of us played 9 holes of miniature golf, on an incredibly tough course, and were defeated soundly by Travis and his increasingly odd putting stance! (I can say that because he never reads my blog and therefore will never know I said that!)

Ava stayed behind to hang with her new best friends...

Her Grandmas!  They fed her, watched the paddle boats go by and waited for the golf excursion to get over.

Then we passed this little girl from person to person :) 

First Aunt Jennie...

Then Grandpa :) 

It was a fun night.

Today was also a very special day and the reason all of our family came to town.  This morning we dedicated Ava in church.  It was a sweet day and one we had been anticipating for awhile.   

Ava's Texie was there to help me get her dressed this morning.  Isn't that dress so darling?  One of my Mom's friends bought it for her.  We loved it!  

She did a wonderful job during the service.  She remained stunned by the crowd and the lights with big eyes most of the time :) She did cry just a little bit, while our family and friends were praying over us, but only so we could hear her voice I'm sure!  She was so darn cute, we were very proud!

With my parents.

With aunt Jennie.  

(We also took a picture with Trav's Mom, but somehow that didn't end up on my camera.  I'll have to get it from Jennie or Pam)

4 Generations of Page's in my family.

Robyn Page, Steven Page, Emily Page and now Ava Page.  

My Grandma Ferguson (the original Evelyn Page) would have LOVED this picture!  

Ava and her look-alike, Grandpa :) It's uncanny how often we think she looks just like my Dad!

After church, we had lunch with all my cousins and somehow I forgot to get my camera out.  Oh well.  After all the commotion, this little girl was happy to get home, in comfy clothes and stretch out a little bit :) And yes, as her shirt says, no one com-pears to her!!

Is there anything cuter than watching your parents play with your child??

My parents and sister left this afternoon and tomorrow Travis' mom heads home too.  It's been a wonderful week and weekend, but now it's back to reality :)

Dinner is calling and so is the laundry. 

Happy Sunday!

T-I-R-E-D

I've been meaning to hop on here and tell you a little about our crazy week.  Of all the things we have going on this summer, this week is the most stressful for me...with a little twinge of super fun too!  I only have a couple of minutes to be on here, so bullet list it is...

-In order to pull this week off, we've brought in the "big guns"...the grandmas!  Travis' mom is here and so is my Mom.  Ava has so much attention, we may never recover :) 

-On Sunday, Ava is being dedicated at Church!  If that is an unfamiliar term to you, it's a lot like being baptized, except that we (ava's parents) are standing before our church, with other parents and our children, to publicly commit to raising them in homes that love the Lord.  Homes that have a Mom and Dad who love the Lord, who love each other, who will teach her God's word and guide her in her spiritual walk.  We will pray for her, love her and pray that one day she will make her own decision to trust the Lord as her Savior and make her own public declaration by being baptized.  It's a sweet day for Travis and I and it will be so fun to have our families here too.  Lots of pictures to come after this weekend I'm sure :) 

-Today, my Mom and I spent all day working on 1 of 2 weddings I have this week.  Yes, you read that right.  I booked 2 weddings this week, one on Thursday night and one on Friday night.  I am crazy and they are both big.  But, I have a slew of wonderful helpers and I've been working on them both for months, so we are now in the days of implementing all those plans.  Tomorrow is going to be a long, stressful day as both weddings overlap in several ways, but it's also really fun for me to see the fruit of all this labor and to put everything together.  However, now you know where I'll be and why I won't be blogging for a couple of days!  As always, stay tuned for pictures and commentary.  I know you can hardly stand it. 

I've got to run and spend some time with my baby girl, who I haven't seen all day.  Yes, she already looks bigger to me after a 10 hour day!  Plus, my mother-in-law cooked dinner tonight and I'm practically drooling on my keyboard.  I'm sooooo thankful both of our Moms are here!!

Happy Wednesday!

Minnesota Summer

I don't know if you've seen the national news or not, but this past week in Minnesota has been FREEZING to say the least!  As far as "summer" is concerned anyway.  I myself do not like hot, hot weather, but I do appreciate a great summer day with a blazing sun and heat to go with it.  However, this year in Minnesota, we seem to have escaped any trace of summer.  It was 60 degrees and cloudy SEVERAL times this past week.  It honestly felt more like a fall day that a mid-July day.  Don't get me wrong, 60 degrees is downright heavenly, but NOT in the middle of July, NOT when you'd like to go swimming every now and then!  It's really been ok I suppose because I wanted to keep Ava out of the sun as much as possible this year (so far, so good) but I did hope that I could get a little sun here and there.  It's almost funny to me, to see how little sun I've gotten and how pale I've become.  Almost funny, but not quite.  I think I'm starting to warm up to the idea of moving south again!!  Anyway, because of our severe lack of summer this year, we found ourselves jumping at the chance to get some pool time in this afternoon and to enjoy the hot sun while we had it!  We met Jason (high school pastor at our church) and his wife Greta, with their kids, at the community center pool for a little swim this afternoon.  It was just what we needed!  

Ava (and her wild hair) got right in with no problem :) 

She even got to swim with her friend Julia!

Julia and Ava are 4 months apart, but as you can see, we have some catching up to do in size!

It was so fun to see Trav and Jason playing with all the kiddos :) 

Of all the kids/students in their lives, these 4 are the most important! 

After the big kids left, we went outside to the splash pad to let Ava "play" and to get some sun. 

I found the matching hat to her swimsuit on clearance last night, so today was our big debut!  Is she the sweetest little strawberry or what??

Me and my girl :) 

Testing the water with Daddy.

My two favorite people!

Check out those little strong legs!  The girl does not want to "sit" on anything or anywhere.  She'd rather stand, thank you very much!

Oh to know what's going on in that mind....

Walking around with Dad...

...and loving every minute!

After 2 hours of pool time, this little girl was ready to call it quits.  

It was fun while it lasted though!