Ethan And Kassie's Open House

Ethan and Kassie are coming! And Kassie's parents are coming! Holy smack, we gotta clean this house. What if they find out that we aren't especially great at cleaning our bathrooms. 

It's definitely too late to repaint the basement. I had good intentions!

But the flowers are gorgeous, the photos are lovely in their thrifted frames, the plates and cutie-pie caramel corn cone holders arrived just in time. 

Mark is smoking the butts!

4 almond bundt cakes and 7 Chocolate Lovers are ready for display and slicing.

The spread is set! I love the weathered wood with the silver frames and pink roses. Makes my heart happy. 

We set out the tables and I prayed that the shade would move into place.

People started to arrive and Ethan got to introduce his sweet bride to the people he loves. It was so fun to hear him say, "This is my wife, Kassie!"

It took us about 10 minutes of watching people cook in the sun before we knew that we would need to go to the shade. It was not going to come to us. Kyle, Janelle, JD and Katie jumped in to get everything shifted over. 

Sooooo much better. 

We settled in to greeting everyone and introducing our friends to Kassie's parents. It was a beautiful day. Julia and Sara kept the food full and the forecasted rain did not arrive. 

The garden was sparce but manicured. But the new fence looked so nice and the lawn was green and pretty. 

The Asiatic Lilies did me a massive favor and chose this very moment to bloom. The only last a few days, so this is nothing short of a wedding miracle. 

Dad's roses were not as flashy, but just as beautiful. I need to plant more of them.  

We had a lovely time chatting, letting kids play in the swings and holding Audree's new baby boy. 

And just like that...it was over. Folks went home, we froze the ridiculous amount of leftover food (why can't I learn to cook a normal amount??), delivered extra cakes to the deserving and breathed a sigh of relief!

All that is left is to hang around, convince Kassie that Winnie isn't scary (she is totally scary) and get to know our new in-laws!

Sweet Benevolent Universe, it didn't rain!

Yin and Yang

 Me and my wedding nails missed this garden.

Wedding Weekend

We did it! We got everyone up and out the door at 3 am. Mark didn't even feel tired! The kids were feeling perky enough to take out a couple giant airport cinnamon rolls. The sugar helps ease the shock of mom saying yes to buying....anything. 

These three lucked out and got to sit next to each other. 

One of the best parts of traveling with grown kids is the legitamately cool photos they take. Check out this window-seat shots!

No time for chit chat. We hit the ground running. Shopping for luncheon supplies and getting 6 crock pots churning out the pork barbacoa. Through an unfortunate lapse in judgement combined with my complete and utter inability to think for myself when I'm around my big sisters, I started the meat at approximately 7 pm....dooming me to a sleepless night of waking up every 30-45 minutes to check the tenderness of the meat, moving finished batches to the garage to cool and monitoring the temperature in the garage so as not to cause every single person at the luncheon to get food poisoning because I didn't bring the main course to proper temperatures. Also, worrying that a stray dog would wander in the open garage door and eat all the meat because an open door was the only way to get it cold enough in there. 

I also forgot that Heidi was receiving alerts on her phone from the cameras installed in Mom's garage. So that's a fun all-night show!

In truth, I was kinda glad someone knew in detail how I sacrifice for this family!

 

The day before the wedding was a flurring of last minute preparations. Getting my nails done by the very  talented Kaira. I've never felt more girly!

Repackaging the heavenly cilantro dressing into smaller containers. More fun than as a team!

Megan and Mark made 150 tortillas

Not everyone was feeling the same levels of wedding related stress. 

And finally the day was here! I woke up first thing to check the weather. It looked like we weren't going to be taking photos in the rain after all

When Kaira and Jordan walked in about 30 minutes before go-time, I was in the kitchen making corn salsa in my PJs. Kaira said, "uh-oh" and before I knew it, she was juicing a lime....

And Jordan was ironing my dress

We sent our adult kids off to the reception center to drop off the luncheon food and plug in all the crock pots. I commenced praying for them to make it to the temple in time...

I don't have many photo yet, since I decided to let the photographer do her job and just be in the moment. I soaked it all up. All the love and all the joy and all the family. 

The kids made it. Frantic phone calls were placed. Photos were taken and we were off to the reception center! It was beautiful!

Mathew MC'd the wedding shoe game and it was so adorable! He did a great job.

We took a break after the luncheon, frantically packing away the ridiculous amount of leftovers and running them over to the fridges and freezers in Kaira and Jordan's temporary apartments. In a blink of an eye, we were putting our shoes back on, touching up makeup and back to the reception center. 

Ethan and I danced to the acoustic version of 'Take On Me' by a-ha. That moment will forever live in the happy places of my heart. 

Cutting the cake!

A room full of love and happiness!

Some of my favorite guests of the night. Sam, Kylie and Miranda.  Love these kids like they are my own!

Like I said, these are just the few photos that we snapped throughout the day. I will add the professional ones later! But, oh my heart, what a day. The memory will bring me happy tears forever.