Beautiful wedding day

Warning, this is a fairly long post with lots of pictures. Only the brave dare go further.....
Well, my son was married this weekend to a darling girl. It was a beautiful wedding and we really had a lot of fun.
The night before was the rehearsal dinner at Maggiano's, an Italian restaurant that had food to die for! If you ever get the chance to eat there, I highly recommend it.
First, we have the happy couple....

then, my three children...

then my DH and me....

then all my children (one's not official, but we still claim him as one of our own)....

The wedding day dawned nice and rainy, though the monsoon didn't really hit until after the ceremony. It was raining so hard that no one wanted to decorate DS' truck, as they'd get soaked and it would wash right off. Worked for me, because we were picking the truck up at the hotel to bring it back to Raleigh and we'd be the ones cleaning it up. :)
Luckily for us - no outdoor wedding - and everything went off as planned. The bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome and the wedding party and singer (son-in-law) looked great, too.
Mom and son before the wedding....

father and son.....

groom having pics made beforehand....

Sisters...you gotta love 'em.... Kimberly was so sweet; she included them as bridesmaids...

Bride getting ready with her sister and mom's help.....

Immediately after the ceremony....look at those smiles!

And various pics from the reception...first dance, but definitely not the first kiss!



the in-law dance....

and the race to the getaway truck!
The deed was done, so we got together with my three brothers and SILs' and close friends from FL who came up and stayed with us. We crashed after the long ride home in the rain (well, not too long when you think of driving from FL to NC.) Everyone was gone by mid morning Sunday, which happened to be my BD. With all the excitement of the wedding, it was nice to reflect on all the blessings we've received in our family. We love both our DIL and SIL and couldn't be happier for our children. We've already told the youngest DD's BF, that he's in all the photos; he can't go anywhere. :) In celebration of my BD and that I've been blogging for a little more than a year, I'm going to join in the fun and host a giveaway. But this post has been long enough, so I'll give more info on that the next time. Thanks for looking at our family celebration!

Going to the chapel........#2

Going to the chapel and we're gonna get married.......


The wedding is this weekend and all is set; at least, I sure hope so. :) It's hard to believe in 23 short years my baby boy has gone from this....


to this....
Notice the peephole below his ear - almost looks like an earring. LOL We take off Fri. AM to start the festivities. They're both so excited - I'm a very sentimental person, so I'm not sure how I'm going to do at the wedding. Music is what normally gets me and the song they're having sung is one of my all time favorites from 1995-96, "If You Could See What I See" by Geoff Moore and the Distance. They were a contemporary Christian band back then. Our fairly new SIL is singing it and he has a beautiful voice. So I have a feeling there will be tears....

I was given the choice of the song for the mother-son dance. Mine's a little unorthodox as it's a really sweet love song, but I'm asking the DJ to preface it with why it was chosen. One of my most favorite memories is Matthew walking around the house at three years old singing Restless Heart's "I'll Still Be Loving You" all the time. Of course, his version included lubbin, instead of loving, and that's what was so cute. So I asked them to play this song. Hmmm...could be another tear jerker for me!

My office is closing it's doors March 31, so it's off to find a new job when I get back and I sincerely hope time to get back to some stitching! Until then, everyone take care and God bless.

Where Does Time Go?

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been almost two weeks since my last post. I've done very little stitching since then, alas. But I do have my heart finished for Cindy's piece in the Friendship RR.

My youngest DD, BF and two other friends came home last week for spring break. Always amazes me how they seem to change each time they go away and come back home. And changes are in the air. DS is getting married in 10 days and there are always a few last minute details to tend to. Here they are two weeks before the big day. And a pic of all my girls, too.









I waited a little longer to get a dress this time (take my advice; don't do this) and had a really hard time finding what I wanted. Finally did, but I still need to figure out the shoes. Guess I'd better get on the stick, huh?
I've bitten the bullet and ordered a HAED, Secret Garden 3. There's a lot of black background, so I opted to stitch it on black lugana. Aren't these the most beautiful colors? I just couldn't resist. If I ever finish this one, I'm going back for more with the Jane Wooster Scott prints. But that's way in the future!

Wendy and Cindy have started a HAED SAL blog, which is a blast. Be sure to check out all the fantastic stitching. I've not been familiar with the company before, not having ever ordered from them. Let me tell you it was an absolute pleasure to deal with them & I highly recommend their service.
I am dying to get started and include some of my other WIPs in a rotation. However, times being what they are at the moment, I'll settle for after the wedding. I also joined the Monopoly SAL and need to work on the travel sampler, too. I hope I can stitch a long, very long time. :)

Wendy also gave me an award. Thank you so much, Wendy! I must say that it does make my heart smile when I read the comments and encouragement you all give and your own blog posts. But it seems like everyone has been given an award recently, so I think I will wait a little while and then name the 10 blogs. I don't want to duplicate too much. :)

Another pic of our "three month old baby". I actually have a question - how long are dogs flexible enough to lie down this way??? It concerns me some, sort of weird-looking. I think we have half dog, half frog. Hope that's not an omen for my stitching.....
Forgot to ask the vet about it - probably still flabbergasted at the thought that our sweet little puppy will be "at least 90 pounds" more than likely when grown......cough, sputter. Our last retriever was 70-75 - what in the world happened? She mentioned that a purebred retriever came in and weighed 173 pounds. I'd expect that from a known larger breed, but a retriever? Strange. The vet said that when the dog left, she looked at the staff and said - ok, now, I don't do ponies! LOL This vet was soooo funny talking about neutering dogs and men's reactions to the piece of news that their dog was now eligible. Love to be a fly on the wall and watch their faces. :) with an evil grin......

Oklahoma! and the Rest of the Weekend

Happy dance for me! I finished Ebb Tide and stitched my heart and some of the border, then sent off my sampler for the Friendship RR. I'm really looking forward to this.




This past weekend was such a blast. I flew to Tulsa, OK, for a quick visit with my brother and family. Here they are at the Aquarium.

It was awesome - so much so that I posted some of the cool pics.










On the way in from the airport, we stopped off at The Silver Needle. I can't say enough good things about this LNS. We all have our home LNS that we love, but it's so exciting to go out to different LNS' and see what's around and look at all the models. SN is absolutely packed with them.
I walked in, introduced myself as a fan from NC, and they gave me the tour of the place, front and back. It is massive and they have a huge ONS business. I was so impressed with their set-up and friendliness. There were models everywhere. They must have had every Mill House pillow, etc., in existence stitched.
I was good, however, and only bought two. Mainly because we had three children in the store with us who were dying of boredom and we couldn't stay but so long. I could have spent hours there, for sure, but I was there to spend time with family, not shop! Probably saved me some money - LOL.

Isn't if fun to get mail (not bills), especially stitching mail? The mailbox was overflowing this week, and so fun. First I received my Monopoly pattern from Shelley with the Monopoly SAL group. Then I received my order from 123 Stitch, which was a gift from Rhonda in ILCS for winning bingo, and of course I added another chart. LOL Then the first RR came in and it's beautiful! Can't wait to stitch on it this weekend.
So here's a pic from SN and the mail.....


A big thank you to all who have encouraged me with comments about my mom. She's doing much better and her "good" eye is just super dry, which has been causing the problem. Nothing else has happened there, so we are counting ourselves blessed.

And lastly, I leave you with pictures of the winter that hopefully will soon be gone, even though we don't get snow very often. I can truthfully say that Montana thoroughly enjoyed it. But it's supposed to be 79 here this weekend. Come on in, Spring!

I know, I know, I'm like a new mother......but seriously, isn't he adorable????
Glad someone could enjoy the cold weather!

Award

Carolyn gave me this award - thank you so much! I consider it an honor. I'd like to share this award with the following wonderful bloggers.

Sharon
Nancy
Shari
Joy
Lizzy
Sherry