Wedding Dress Rehearsal

The evening of the dress rehearsal was fairly chaotic. The person in charge was extremely disorganized so suffice it to say I was not a happy camper. But somehow, it all came together (for the most part) for the ceremony the next day.

 

 

Christina and Josh

 

 

Chaos at its finest.

PaPa and Kayla

 



 

Following the dress rehearsal and dinner, it was time to get to work. Mom was in charge and when she gets in teacher mode, she can be fairly intimidating. She gave each one of us a job we needed to execute in a timely manner.

 

Hope and Lara were smart enough to leave before the work started. They put their sweat in that day with the food preparation. :)

 



Cousin Megan was assigned the important job of untangling the lights.

Brian was in charge of place settings.

 

 

Cherish had the job of ironing the table cloths.

 

Laura and Rhyan after a hard night's work. 



Pre-Wedding Bliss

Since I'm a month behind on Christina's wedding, I thought I would continue describing the event that was the Shirley-Owens wedding which took place on Saturday, January 19. On Thursday, January 17, our cousin Elinda started making the wedding cake. She did an amazing job and the end result was both beautiful and delicious!

 

 

 

We devoted our Friday to prepping the food for Saturday evening. Mom just told us where to go and what to cut, and we were a well-oiled machine in no time. Is it ironic that Rhyan was in charge of the chicken and she doesn't eat much meat?

 

 

 

 

 

Gary (Lara's dad and my adopted father) and Christina were in charge of chopping celery and apples. Dad was apparently in charge of entertaining Gary while he worked.

 

 

Mom measured and dumped the ingredients for the chicken salad while Donna (Lara's mom and my adopted mother) stirred.

 

Lara was in charge of eating - correction "packaging" - the chicken salad in containers.

 



 

Everyone was rewarded for their hard work with a delicious lunch consisting of sandwiches and soup.

 

 

Lara, Shannon, Hope, Christina, Rhyan

 

Gary, Donna, Mom, Dad

 



 

Baby Wicker (9 weeks) & Baby Cahan (13 weeks) 

Another possibility is that we both enjoyed lunch a little too much!

Proud Big Sis

I absolutely ADORE my baby sister Rhyan. Our relationship has always been fun-loving and full of joy. We keep in touch quite a bit -courtesy of modern-day technology- even though she lives in Tennessee ! Yesterday morning, I left my phone at my house when I came to work. When I got home yesterday, the first thing I did was locate my phone so I could see what missed calls and texts I had. To my surprise I had FOUR missed calls from Rhyan. I immediately called her assuming something was wrong. To my relief nothing was wrong at all. She had called to tell me a song she co-wrote with Colton Dixon called "You Are" is now #1 on the Christian singles chart!!! She was so excited, but amidst her elation had commented to someone she works with that she doesn't want to be a one hit wonder. He told her that's impossible with the amount of talent and writing ability she has. I am so excited for her and all the doors God is openning for her in Tennessee. On my way to work this morning, "You Are" started playing on the radio. I teared up and thought, "my sister wrote this song".

Mom and Rhonda - AKA Decorators Extraordinaire

My mother and her sister took a blank backdrop of a church gym and over the time period of two weeks turned it into a winter wonderland. They dug through a pile of dead limbs in the back of the church, added winter flocking to them, and voila - you have a winter tree.

 

 

Add hundreds of yards of white satin and twinkle lights to the back wall of the gym and voila - you get a back drop for the wedding party tables and wedding cake.

 

 

 

It truly was a beautiful wedding!!

 



                                     

The unity candle in the sanctuary.

 



 

Floral arrangement in the front foyer.

 

 

 My favorite part of the wedding was the food of course!

 

Pregnancy Progress

Well, it's official. We are out of the danger zone as far as being in the first trimester since we are now at 12 weeks. We've had our first doctor's appointment and Dr. Sarver said our sweet baby's heartbeat sounded good. Our next appointment is a week away from today. It probably won't be too exciting since we still won't know the sex of the baby, but I'm still excited about it.

I'm starting to get in flip out mode thinking about all there is to do in the next six months. I know most normal humans think that six months is a lot of time, but since I work six days a week and will be working at the daycare again this summer, I won't have a whole lot of extra time to get things done. I know it will all be fine and with lots of patience and prayer, we'll get things ready in time. Our largest challenge is going to be the guest room/nursery. How do you make those two spaces work together without feeling like its too cramped or it doesn't look awkward with a full size bed and baby crib in the same room? I guess that's where my good friend and running partner, Sarah, will come in to play. She can work her interior decorating magic and everything will be okay.

Here are my belly pictures thus far. The first one was taken about a week after we found out (4 weeks). The second picture was taken about six weeks later (10 weeks).

 

Snow Day - Part Two

 

Kayla woke up around 7:30 and was so excited to see all of the snow.

 

 

However, she wasn't ready to go outside and play in the snow until after she swept up Peter's (the bird) mess. I PROMISE we don't ask her to do this! It's completely voluntary.

 

 

Here is her and Papa's first glimpse of the snow.

 

We're both getting ready to lick the snow off of the Honda. Her horse is going to try it was well.

 

 

Our first attempt at sledding wasn't very successful since we tried using a barbie box for the sled. And, we didn't really have a good hill, but just used the street in front of Mom's house.

 

 



The second attempt...the definition of success! We borrowed a REAL sled from a neighbor, used a huge hill, laughed all the way down, got to the bottom and Kayla looked up at me with her snow covered face and asked, "Can we do it again!?"

 

 

 

 

 She had to go down with NeNe as well.

 

 

The next item on our snow day agenda was making snow ice cream. I found a Paula Deen recipe online. Josh grabbed us our clean snow from the front porch.

 

 

I had to do a taste test and make sure it wasn't poisonous.

 

 

Kayla approved. It's amazing what vanilla extract and sweetened condensed milk can do to four cups of snow!

Dressing in layers is the Shirley way. I had to get this picture of Rhyan with her big bum. I think she's wearing four or five pairs of pants.

 



 

Shirley snow attire check list: multiple layers - check, Walmart sacks - check, creepy ski masks - check...the crew is now ready to go sledding!

 



 

Christina and Rhyan attempted to go together. Rhyan ended up being the only one to make it down to the bottom.

 

 

Mom and Kayla going for round two.

 

 

 

Once we had our fill of sledding, it was time to make snow angels. I'm surprised Mom weighed enough to make a dent in the snow.

 

 

 

I tried to knock Rhyan down, but she ended up pushing me instead. That girl has got some major ninja moves!

 

 

 

It really was a perfect day.