Show us your life - Wedding Party and Flowers

This week's edition of Show us your life is all about your wedding party and flowers!

We had our church wedding in December so I kept everything simple. Black, white and red were my new best friends! If it would have been spring I may have been more creative, if there wasn't a time crunch in planning I may have been more creative, if there wasn't a 14 hour difference between us and our wedding party for the months prior to our wedding I may have been more creative. But now looking back I am still in love with the dresses, tuxes and flowers!

We got married in Old Christ Church. I remember walking past this church with Jon while we were dating and telling him I was going to get married in that church or that I was going to marry him in that church something along those lines. I loved getting married in this old historic church!

My matron of honor and bridesmaid all had black dresses with a sweetheart neckline that mirrored my dress with a white ribbon around the waist which is hard to explain but in no way did the ribbon tie! The groomsman all had black tuxes with white vests and ties. Don't my sister-in-law and my brother make the cutest couple??

I had three flower girls and no ring bearer! Sophia, Anna and Ava wore dresses that I believe came from a department store that went with the black, white and red theme. Their Mom did a great job. Her choice played out exactly what I had in mind in my head. Sophia's dress was long but matched her two younger sister's dresses which were shorter with tulle (is that how you spell it) underneath. I can't believe how big these girls have gotten! I babysat Sophia when she was just a baby!! TEAR!

I guess I can include our Sword Arch in our wedding party. We were truly blessed to have some young marine flight studs (short for students) that volunteered to come and provide us with a sword arch. They were so much fun! I hope some of them have now been lucky in love or at least possibly have their "wings of gold" by now! And hopefully they have forgiven us for the missing keg that the caterer forgot to bring!!

For flowers I had red roses and white daises. The flower combination that Jon bought me on many occasions and my favorite! My bridesmaid all had a bouquet of red roses that later went on our wedding party table. The groomsman had single red roses along with our Dad's and the rest of the men folk in our family there. Yes, even our Mom's had red roses. I did red roses and it was affordable some how! Maybe because I saved money because the one rule of the church was that the flower girls couldn't throw flowers down the aisle so Anna instead had fake flowers in her basket!

I loved my bouquet but since it was most likely going to be heading to a dumpster a few short hours after our reception since drying flowers and trying to preserve them for years to come and moving every 2.5 years didn't sound feasible I gave them to the lovely girl pictured below working at the McDonald's drive-thru after our reception. I couldn't think of a better thing to do with my bouquet then to give it away. After all we did get free bottles of water and my McFlurry for free courtesy of the car in front of us so I had to keep the kindness going!

"A new favorite" He exclaimed!

My husband has been home now from his last deployment to Australia for a few days now so I have been cooking!! It's so terribly hard to cook for yourself and only yourself for days on end so I neglect cooking or trying new recipes all together. I found this recipe on a blog hop and wish I knew who to give credit to but I didn't write that down!

Jon ate this leftover the next day for lunch since he had missed dinner due to a night flight. He said all he wanted was whatever I was going to have for lunch which would have most likely been a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but after one bite he waved his hand and said "new favorite." I guess it's even better leftover!!

Hawaiian Chicken

approx. 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 packet Lipton onion soup mix
1 bottle French salad dressing
2 small cans mandarin oranges drained
2 tablespoons Dijon style mustard

Combine all ingredients in crock pot is what the recipe said but I mixed everything but the cranberry sauce and chicken in a bowl. Then I poured some of the mixture on the bottom, places the chicken on top, poured the rest over the chicken and then added the cranberry sauce on top. Cook on low approximately 4 hours until chicken is done. Serve over rice.

11 months old!

Jacob is 11 months old today!! When did this happen and how do I make it stop? He is growing up way too quickly! He has changed so much in just the last month it is unbelievable. I can't believe in a month he will be smashing a cake or a cupcake just the way I smashed cake in his Daddy's face at our wedding!! Time to plan Jacob's big day now!!

What to do on a H-O-T day!

It sure seems like each day it gets hotter and hotter here. It is like someone has left the gas stove on at 425 degrees for days and days now. I believe it is the humidity that makes it so hot here since the temperature has only been in the upper 80's and lower 90's. I sure can't wait for some rain to come in a few days and cool things off!

We were outside a few days ago to clean out my car and bring some items upstairs that I have been meaning to bring up for weeks. We came inside after 5 minuets because poor Jacob had sweat running down his little face. He was even in the shade outside!

This is how Jacob likes to cool off. I can't say I blame him. Jacob has discovered the refrigerator and loves to sit in front of it and cool off after being outside as well as pulling out all of the water bottles.

Show us your life - Wedding Dress

Show us where you live has changed to show us your life over at Kelly's blog.

Our first wedding took place in Okinawa. Our second wedding took place in Pensacola, Florida which we refer to as our church wedding. I get two anniversaries!! I'm totally blessed. I'm still waiting for our third wedding since Jon told me he would marry me three times if that was what it took! But, with two anniversaries I am guaranteed to hopefully celebrate at least one in between deployment cycles.

Our church wedding was crazy. I planned it in less than a month. I was only home for a month before I had to head back to Okinawa again. Planning a wedding in less than a month is not recommended! But, if I had to do it all over again I probably would do it because it turned out exactly the way I wanted it! Except for the skank photographer we ended up having. He was wonderful at the wedding but here it is almost two years later and my Dad just finished picking up the last of our package yesterday! Hence why I don't have a lot of good quality photos and most are cropped from proof pages of our wedding album.

I loved my dress! It came from Renee's Bridal. I love Renee and her store! I've always been happy with any dress I have purchased there for Marine Corps birthday balls so she was the first place I went to try on dresses. My dress was white and had a lot of bead work on the front which was mirrored on the cap sleeves, at the hem line, and along the short train. I really bought the dress for the back which i unfortunately do not have a picture of but it tied all the way down my back. I'm a sucker for a good back on a dress! I loved the cap sleeves until I realized I couldn't move my arms above my head and so those were cut off before our reception started!

Photos!!

He loves talking to his "da-da-da-da"

Reading to himself in his crib. This is what he does while I bring up the groceries!

Standing at his crib undoing his bumper pads

Total Solar Eclipse

This morning I am sitting on the computer adding photo after photo from our shutterfly account to the shopping cart so I can finally get caught up on pictures. I noticed outside getting darker and darker and really didn't give it a second thought. It rains here a lot since it's a subtropical island so I figured it was just a storm passing us by. I totally forgot that this morning starting at about 9:30 until noon or so there was going to be a total solar eclipse happening right outside! The last one happened here 46 years ago on July 21, 1963 and the next one isn't suppose to occur for another 26 years on September 9, 2035!!!