Alison & Nick's Wedding -- A Beautiful Night

Hello!
Last weekend Rourke's cousin Alison (Ali) got married to Nick. Isn't she a beautiful bride??? Such a pefect & gorgeous dress (a Vera Wang!)...and I loved that she wore cowboy boots under it all. (Of course I didn't get a picture of that.) Malia was a flower girl, and at the rehearsal dinner Alex was added in as a "flower boy". He was so excited! It was his first wedding. This was Malia's 3rd time being a flower girl, and told everyone she had been in "lots" of weddings. Basically that she could nail it - not to worry.

I'm sharing quite a few pictures from the night. Enjoy~

Ali & her Dad (Uncle Bill) - getting ready to walk down the aisle.

The Bride & her girls - a group hug before the wedding starts.

Cousin Billy singing during the ceremony.

It's official!!! Nick & Ali are married!!

It was a beautiful wedding, very touching and heartfelt. Cousin Billy sang & played the guitar during the ceremony - a beautiful Dave Matthew's song. We all had a fun and fabulous time. The kids wanted to dance-dance-dance all night. It was held at Ali's Mom & Dad's home (Rourke's Aunt & Uncle).

Me and the kids.

Alex, Yaya & Malia.

Yaya, her brother Tom & Aunt Sandy.










The band.....photo taken by Malia.

It was a wonderful day. Best wishes to Nick & Ali!

The End.

Happy Birthday Kandi & John!

Okay, It's still July 17th.............so it's not over yet!!

Sorry this post is so late.

First of all, it's my good friend Kandi's birthday today. Apparently I don't have any recent digital pictures of her, so here is a picture from our 1988 prom (getting ready in my bathroom). I had scanned this in for some reason quite awhile back. If you want to see her today, check our her blog: http://www.teojax.blogspot.com/

:)

Next on the birthday list is my Father-in Law John. Here he is hanging out:

Tonight we were at a wedding rehearsal for Rourke's cousin Alison. Found out it's future "cousin-in-law" Rachel's birthday today too!! (she's dating Cousin Billy, she's not the one marrying Alison ;O). ) July 17th is a popular day!!

And just for fun, here is the full picture from "Pre-Prom 1988":

Yes, I still have the dress. Kandi, do you???

Have a great night. Malia is the flower girl in the wedding tomorrow, I'm going to sew a little slip in her dress.

~Linda

An Enchanted Fairy Party-Layout

Hola Amigos!
Hope you are having a great week. The weather is heating up again, and I think I'm getting old. I used to love the heat - now I don't like it above 85 degrees. :)













Here is another layout I finished up the other night. Pictures are from September 2007.
I used a really old kit from Close to My Heart called "Between Friends". This was a level 1 kit, so the page on the right was pre-printed with the squares. I loved just adding pictures, some notes, and the flowers. DONE! I need to start using the level 1 kits more often.



Close up of Left side:
























Close up of right side:
























Close up of flowers:



















That's all I have the energy for tonight.
Hasta la vista.
~Linda

2 "Emporium" Layouts

Hello~
I have really been trying to do more scrapbooking (like I mentioned awhile back). I would love to get caught up and scrapbook **recent** events, rather than things from years ago. I realize how many little details, funny things the kids said and did are so easily forgotten over time. So, my eventual goal is to scrap current things, and JOURNAL about the important stuff to really make the pictures extra special.

Here are 2 layouts I have recently completed, both using Close to my Heart's "EMPORIUM" paper pack. I really love this set of papers and the color combos. :)

Left Side:

Right side:

Here is the 2nd (2 page) layout:

Left side:

Right Side:

Close up of bling:

Okay, that's all I've got for tonight. I can hear the kids. Alex thinks he's going to "peep", which means sleep on Malia's floor. Time to go kill the fun. :)

And..........The Bachelorette is on! Don't hate me. I am a faithful watcher. :)

Good night!
~Linda

Two Accomplishments

Happy Sunday~
Hope you all are having a great weekend. We went to the zoo last night to have a picnic dinner, but didn't realize there was a concert going on that wasn't included with our zoo membership (some concerts are included, some not).......anyway, no big deal. We just wanted to see a few animals, have a picnic and tire out the kids! Well, I finally asked someone what concert it was, and they said TEARS FOR FEARS. Hmmm. Cool. Music from our high school days. Rourke decided that he wasn't leaving until after he saw them sing at least one song, and kept saying "once you're in, you're in"...as in we could easily watch the concert. Unfortunately, it wasn't so simple. They had a 2nd checkpoint farther down in the zoo, for which we had no tickets. Plan B was to loiter in the zoo until past closing time to at least hear some music. That failed too. Plan C was to open the windows as we were driving out of the zoo to hear music in the distance.....again, failure. So....we had a fun night at the zoo, just eating our picnic dinner. :)

Another funny (well, funny now) story....as we got back to our Jeep in the parking lot, we couldn't get it to unlock. We had Rourke's keys, and in the past he has had problems with his automatic opener on the keychain, which we thought were happening again. So, we tried the key in the door. Again, no luck. I couldn't figure out why the KEY wouldn't unlock it. My keys were of course safely inside the car (hidden), so I didn't have to carry them in the zoo. So, we called AAA to rescue us. As I was on the phone, Malia (who is really into checking out license plate tags - you know, with the month you need to renew w/DEQ), says "this isn't our car". She knew our plates didn't expire in the 7th month (she's 5). Then Rourke says, our car's over there. So, I am totally embarrassed as I tell the AAA lady to cancel our emergency. We had the wrong car. Geesh. Who would have thought the ALMOST IDENTICAL Jeep would be parked 1 row and 1 spot over???

Okay, so, this post was suppose to be to share 2 big things happening in our house right now.

The first is this:

Malia is training wheel free! She actually took them off about a month ago, and in 2 days she had pretty much mastered it. We went back to her little bike for the first couple of weeks, now she's back up to her big bike. She hasn't fallen yet, and is really doing a great job.

The second is this:

Ella is walking! She started taking a few little steps 3-4 weeks ago. She is now pretty steady and likes to do laps around our kitchen island. She is so proud of herself...and we are too.

Okay, that's all for today.

Bye!
Linda

Trying to Catch Up

Okay, so this isn't that great. I don't love it. I think it still needs something....not sure what. But...I am trying to get back into scrapbooking. Trying not to obsess about the perfect scrapbook pages and just "getter done". I am so, so far behind on my pictures.

Here is a close up of the right side:

And the left side:

Pictures are from May 2008. I used Close to My Heart's "Animal Cookies" paper.

Okay, that's all for today.

:) Linda

Happy Birthday YAYA aka Peggy!

Today is Rourke's Mom's birthday....known as YAYA to the kiddos.

We hope you are having a wonderful day and we are thinking of you. :O)

XO from all of us!

Pool Fun

A quick Sunday Night Hello~
Today we spent the afternoon at my Mom's pool. The weather is starting to cool off a bit, but it was still warm and the water was perfect after being heated by the sun for the past few days.

Here are a couple of pictures from the pool.

Bye!

~Linda

Happy Birthday AMERICA!

I hope everyone had a safe & fun 4th of July! We had a great day that started off by going to the Hillsboro parade. A big THANK YOU to my sister and niece Kelli who went early and saved a big section that was shady (and stayed shady) for the entire parade! It was near the end of the parade route, so candy tossing was a little slim. I think quite a few "floats" ran out. We did end up scoring big on candy on the walk back to the car - which was near where the "floats" ended up. Some must have had quite a bit of candy left, because they just tossed handfulls right at US while we were walking. Yippeee!! Me loves me some candy!

We BBQ-ed in the evening, invited my Mom over, did some sparklers, and other fireworks. We also could see about 3 other big firework displays up in the sky from our street. It was great! Ella was sleeping in her crib, kids out in their pjs, and no big drive home. LOVE IT!! I thought for sure they would sleep in after staying up until 11pm, but no. They were up at 7:30 this morning. I guess that might be a little later than normal. But not the 3 or so hours I was hoping for. :) Hoping for an early bed time tonight. I am really in the mood to do some scrapbooking!

I'm hoping the weather is a bit cooler today. It's been in the 90s for the past few days, we do NOT have A/C....so over 90 is a little too hot for me. What can I say, I think I'm getting old.

I think we are going swimming this afternoon. The kids should be tired, but aren't. I AM!

Enjoy the pictures and Happy Sunday.

~Linda