Professional Wedding Pics!

The last installment of Mari's wedding pics comes today, exactly two months after the wedding, in the form of AMAZING pictures from the professional photographer, Andrew Vick.

I mean seriously amazing.  It was so hard to narrow down favorites.  But one of them has to be, for very selfish reasons, our family picture.

As you'll soon see, this was the only picture Maya smiled for.  All day.

It is up on our wall, on my computer desk top, and everywhere.  You'll see it again, later in this post too. :)

So I combed through 1,000+ professional photos, narrowed them down to a little over 100, and combined them into 25 different collages.  Hopefully this post doesn't get too long, but I just couldn't cut it down any more.  Enjoy!

The photographer, Andrew, showed up about 11am to do some "getting ready" pictures.

Once Mari was ready, he took her to do some individual shots.  Beautiful.

Shortly after that, Mari and Josh got their "first look" at each other decked out in their wedding duds.

After the photo session of the soon-to-be-married couple, we did all of the family photos.

The photographer tried really hard to get Callie and Maya with the happy couple, but it took a couple of different trials.  As you can see, the first time he tried did NOT go well.  Thankfully he was able to catch them all a bit later.  And that picture of Callie?  MELT MY HEART.

He was nice enough to get individual family pictures of our little families too.

And then we got pictures of our extended families: the Hendersons and Ekeberg/Johnsons.

After the group pictures, we had a little time to relax (and sign the marriage certificate) and then the ceremony started!  Maya had no interest in doing her flower girl duty, so Callie and I walked down together, and she did great.

The ceremony was sweet, meaningful, personal, and beautiful.  Uncle Joe and Josh's dad, Kevin, presided.  Chris and Uncle Peter read passages.  And my mom played the flute with her ensemble from our church.

They DID IT!

After the ceremony, the wedding party took off in a stretch hummer to take wedding party pictures.

First up: pictures at Minnehaha Park and Minnehaha Falls.

And then we headed to The Guthrie/Gold Medal Park.

When we got to the reception site, there was an outdoor cocktail party going on.

The Town and Country Club was a beautiful venue for the reception, and Mari did a great job with personal touches.  There was also a memorial table that had pictures of my dad and our grandparents.

The wedding party entered the reception with a crazy grand march.  There was sports plays and dancing and even giant Mari and Josh heads.  And I had way too much fun pushing the best man, Peter, across the floor in his wheel chair.

Mari and Josh began the reception by doing their first dance.

There was a wonderful dinner and speeches.  I have gotten enough feedback from people who were there to say that my mom, Peter, and Laura and I all ROCKED our speeches.

The evening ended with so much dancing.

It was truly a magical day.

Photo Credit: Craig

Timehop Tuesday

It's Tuesday! Here we go.

Maya:

Callie:

Family of 3; Family of 4:

And toddlers:

Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend went by so quickly!  And it was lovely.  And that is what I need to focus on because if I look at the news I just want to cry.  But I'm working on gratitude and living in the moment, so here's our lovely weekend.

On Saturday morning we got bagels and coffee, walked to the library, and walked home with two book worms.

On Saturday afternoon the girls went to a beach and splash pad with G-ma and Pa, and Chris and I went mini-golfing and out to dinner!

This morning I had my 10K race.  It went about as I was expecting- slower than I wanted to at 1:06.  But that's what happens when you don't train as hard as you should. I finished and ran MOST of the way, so I'm proud of that.  Chris and the girls were a great little cheering section for me at the finish line.  And I got froyo, so that was awesome.

We went to lunch in the old neighborhood and happened upon Highland Fest, so the girls did some games and bouncy things and fed some animals.

Callie did the cliff jump.  She was so brave and just walked right up there and jumped off with no hesitation!

IMG_6936 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Later on, Chris and Callie ran some errands and ended up doing some golf practice at G-ma and Pa's house. There was also some nail painting going on.

Maya "read" to me after nap time, and as you can see, she has a large goose egg on her head from running into a wall/door frame.  You may recall that she happened to get a large goose egg on her head shortly before her 2nd birthday.  Seeing as it is about 6 days before her 3rd birthday, we apparently have a not-so-good tradition starting.

IMG_6948 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

But she is just SO DARN CUTE.

Have a great week!

A Picture Update: Summer, Week 5

We are at my mom's all day today, so I am phone blogging. Phlogging?

Anyway. 

We are finishing up week 5 of summer and I can't believe it is already the middle of July. This summer is flying by. 

We had another fun and busy week. On Monday we cleaned, went to Southdale, and had Popsicles before noon. Because...summer. Right?

On Tuesday we got a haircut for Callie after she decided to do a little chop chop of her own hair with scissors.

It's a cute summer bob, don't you agree? Then we played outside and watched the Lynx game.

Callie had day camp all day on Wednesday, so I had Miss Maya all to myself.

She took a serious nap that day (after not napping the day before). I love her bed head.

We went to a Summer Night Out sponsored by our local police department, where there was BBQ, games, and lots of officers walking around handing out free stuff. There was an awesome turnout, and it was nice to feel a part of the community event.

On Thursday we met some of my friends for tea cakes, then headed to the beach. It was cold and chilly most of the morning, but the sun broke through for a few minutes.

We went to Auntie Cat's for play time and lunch.

Last night I met other friends for ice cream (uffda...my jeans aren't fitting me as well thanks to all my summer treats...but so worth it!) and then got to go hold my friend's 3-day-old kittens. I'm not a cat person, but holy cute tiny creatures!

Callie slept over at Boom's house and had a blast, as usual.

This morning Maya got to have playtime with Caleb, has he and his parents stayed at our house last night before heading back home. The two toddlers were ridiculously adorable.

So today we have been at the condo and went to the library.

Before Maya and I got there, my mom texted this picture of what she found on a table in her room by this picture of my dad.

One of the hardest parts of losing my dad continues to be the fact the the girls are getting bigger and thinking how much he would love playing with them and how much they would love playing with him. 

After nap we wandered in the neighborhood.

And there were some pretty strong sunrays.

Tonight is another Lynx game and then a fairly chill weekend. I run a 10K on Sunday that I haven't trained that well for, so wish me luck. 😃