Our First Anniversary!

Squiggle is seriously growing fast!  I have started a 365 project via Instagram (username Marizabeth) that I use every day, often chronicling my growing belly!  This is the view I often have of my feet...



Squiggle pushes hard to my left, so I frequently notice a bulge to that side.  It's a little strange!

We went to Williamsburg, VA for our one year anniversary/ babymoon.  It was so fun, even though it was only a weekend!  Patchie & her Boy happened to book the same weekend in the same place.  Her Boy's grandmother had a timeshare & gave us a unit for the weekend, so we didn't even have to stay at a hotel!  We cancelled our original reservations & were incredibly grateful for the monetary savings!  Not to mention, it was awesome to spend the weekend with some of our favorite people!



We love the historic shopping area.  This time, we found this adorable bookstore, Mermaid Books.  It was the most amazing place; full of vintage literature, valentines, & items.  If you are ever in the area, I strongly suggest checking them out!  Particularly if you are a bibliophile & vintage fanatic such as myself.





Bear was a sucker for the Cheese Shop.  We stopped by there every day.







I am not a cheese connoisseur, so stinky cheeses were not very exciting for me!  That makes the place doubly interesting to Bear, who rarely gets to indulge in fancy cheese when this keen pregnant nose is about!

I loved shopping the Colonial inspired shoppes, looking for the perfect nursery items for Squiggle.  I found a few gems!





I nearly bought "Goodnight, iPad" because... when was "Moon" replaced by "iPad"?!?!  It was too bizarre not to snap a quick photo of.

We all went to brunch our last day in Williamsburg at the Blue Talon Bistro.  Everyone had mimosas or bloody mary's, while I enjoyed my daily allotted single cup of coffee, grapefruit juice, & "nearly famous Historical tap water".  Squiggle has driven me to vegetarianism for the most part, so I made a meal of a delicious carrot cake muffin & huge fresh fruit platter!  Thanks, preggo cravings!  Mmmmm... wonderful fresh fruits!








They had such a wonderful ambiance, too.  Patchie & I kept finding semi-hidden, not-intended Doctor Who references!  Alons-y!





Of course, I did not grab a shot of the references (fail).  But the ceiling was gorgeous!

We had a wonderful time in my favorite place in the world.  I can't wait to bring Squiggle there when he/she is older!

Hope your New Year is going well!

xoxo

College Friends

So, last Sunday I drove out to a state park I had never been to before to meet up with my friends Elise & Colleen from college.  Elise has a husband & two adorable little girls now, so we met up for a photoshoot for the kiddos.



It was an overcast day, but not too terrible.  It rained a very little, but mostly the clouds acted as one giant diffuser... perfect for portraiture!




Meet Sofie.  She was our leader on the shoot, which was really a follow-the-leader & occasionally stop & smile at the strange lady with the camera day.




She's big sister to little Rosie, who spent almost the entire time sleeping.  I got a few cute photos of the two of them, & a couple adorable ones of Rosie by herself as well, but I got a TON of fun shots of Sofie as an adventurer.  I think my niche is kids.





We adventured ourselves to exhaustion.  Then we drove a town over to have lunch at Ledo's.  It was a ton of fun hanging out with Elise & Colleen again... I haven't seen them in forever!  Colleen since college... Elise since Sofie was a newborn!

See?  They grow up so fast!  We're working on a plan to hang out again in October & go to a pumpkin patch!  I can't wait!

xo

Our Wedding: The Reception

Phew!  I think this is the last of the wedding posts, although later I plan to do a post about where and how I display the photos (but that will be quite a while off) and another of the photobooth when I get all those images.  We were fortunate in the decor department, because the art in the gallery was wonderful and we only really needed to focus on the tables and other small things.  My mom and her Cricut as a team made most of the cute paper goods, from place cards to gift boxes, and my mother-in-law wrapped stacks of heirloom books in beautifully matching ribbon as centerpieces.  The library I work at gave us library cards that I used to create seating cards in a card catalog at the entrance just to amp up the book theme.  Both our families wrapped up strips of paper at Thanksgiving to fill the glass ornaments; our nod to when Bear proposed Christmas 2010 and the recent holiday.  With the lights out in the grounds and the gigantic toy exhibit, the gallery was truly magical!!!










THE CAKE.  My brother's best friend and my good friend from high school's mom made the cake.  It was amazing.  The bottom tier was chocolate, the middle tier was Funfetti, and the top was Red Velvet!  I loved how she incorporated our themes in it so well, and some guests even thought it was part of the art exhibit!  The cake topper was carved by my dad, and I LOVE it!







Every table was named after a place in a book that either Bear or myself or both of us loved.  I am pretty detail oriented, so I wanted all the little pieces to make a big picture that told everyone "this is us and this is our great love".  Yup.  I am THAT girl.  We are pretty lucky in terms of vendors, too.  We tried to keep everyone involved in our friends and family status.  Our photographer was my aunt, our photobooth photographer a friend of ours from MDRF, our DJ a friend of ours, the caterer became like a friend, the videographer a friend from the college I work at, our cake master a family friend, our brilliant wedding planner a friend, our officiant a friend... we really wanted to keep everything authentic and wonderful and as down-to-earth as possible.  I think we managed to do that.  Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves and each other, so I consider that Mission: Accomplished.  We did follow a bit of a traditional formula with the evening, but added in our own ideas too.  We had the father/daughter and mother/son dances, and we tossed in a mother-in-law/son-in-law and father-in-law/daughter-in-law dance too.  We wanted to honor all of our parents (after all, we are lucky enough to have wonderful parents who are still married, which seems to me to be something to honor).  We weren't messy with the cake like we originally planned, because I was still so nervous I was afraid I would throw up.  We had karaoke and hilarious dancing, toasts and dinner.  I am not listing this in order, but in all honesty the day felt like it was all over the place for me!  Anyway, here are a ton more photos!






















My Grandma and Pop were the last dancers on the floor for the Anniversary dance, and we presented them with ornaments.  My Oma and Opa share the same Anniversary year and were also presented with ornaments!
















Heather!  Our wonderful wedding planner!




















All of that was the "Dollar Dance".  Every time I saw Bear, he was dancing with another man!  And usually in a pretty hilarious manner.  I didn't want to be rude to my own dancing companions, but it was hard not to laugh... frequently.















My mom, brother, and I sang The Beach Boys "Wouldn't It Be Nice".  I look silly when I sing!



And then it was time to turn into pumpkins... in a RAVE.









And that's it!  Thanks for accepting the photographic RSVP to our wedding!  xo