catching up

Rowan has slept until almost 7am the last 2 days, and taken 2+ hour naps. Clearly she was lacking in sleep after our fun weekend! Here she is watching one of her shows. Think she is relaxed?

23 weeks

Again, another uneventful week! Perhaps something I should be happy for. Doctor visit in 2 weeks! Going to tour St. Elizabeth Hospital this week!

wedding ad-ons

Here are the boys at their best for the rehearsal dinner. The look on Dusty's face on the bottom right was classic!

 And our photobooth fun...

cutest flower girl, ever...

So Aunt Julie's big day begins...

We joined the ladies in the Presidential Suite for hair and makeup!

Here is Rowan's first 'up-do', although it wasn't up, but it was definitely done! Thankfully it was a laid back environment in Aunt Julie's Suite, so her impatience was allowed! But overall she did very well!

 Here is the final touches, make-up, dress and all! Super cute!

 We got to ride in the limo bus to the church with the groomsmen and grandparents! Rowan loved it. She was looking out the window waving to people. And was interested in her Daddy's flask as well!

 And Tada...she even made it down the aisle! No tears! Or bribery! But we only made it through about 5 minutes of the ceremony before she saw her Daddy up on the altar and was whining for him. Then we made our exit! So I did miss out on most of the ceremony. We did come back in and sat in the back eventually but we were in and out in order to keep the ceremony quiet!

 We got a few pictures after the wedding, but not many. It was difficult to get good pictures in the church without a flash. But I think we have at least one good one! Excited to see the photographers pictures!

 Between the ceremony and dinner/reception, there was a significant amount of time, so we went back to the hotel and changed out of our dresses and managed to get about an hour nap in. Also got to visit with some family and friends that were there, and then it was time to get back into our dresses for cocktail hour and dinner. But really, Rowan only cared about the dancing!

It was difficult to entertain the kids during the dinner and speeches, because like most weddings, it gets long and drawn out. So they ended up running around the dance floor. But she made it through. And actually went strong until about 10pm when she finally fell asleep on my shoulder while dancing. She was a dancing machine. She was going up to people she didn't know and grabbing their legs and dancing with them. I have never gotten so many compliments on how cute she was and well behaved! In my mind she wasn't the best behaved but given the circumstances, she did pretty well.

A few highlights from the day:
I didn't do a good job of photographing many of the little things. But they didn't have a cake, they had a Cold Stone Creamery Sundae Bar! That was an awesome idea! Rowan was too busy to even partake!

They also had a photobooth that Rowan was mesmerized by, even though half the time she didn't smile because she was too busy looking at the screen counting down!

To my knowledge the day went off without any issues! Julie looked beautiful! This was the first wedding Rowan has ever attended, and man am I exhausted! Didn't help that Ed was in the wedding too, so he wasn't always available to help with her either. But we did all survive! And I hope we didn't interupt too many things throughout the weekend! We all had lots of fun and are so happy to have Julie officially a part of the family!

to chicago we go

Today we headed to Chicago to start the Wedding Celebrating for Dusty and Julie. We left home about 1115am, and met Karen and Doug in Wauwatosa to drop Gizmo with them for the weekend as we continued our travels to Illinois! We managed to arrive at The Westin around 230pm! Had some time to visit with family and friends before getting ready for the rehearsal at the church and then the rehearsal dinner.

Rehearsal at the church went fine, the kids walked down the aisle, which was hopefully a sign they will succeed for the actual wedding as well! Ed and Blayne made quite an appearance at the church, although I am lacking the pictures to prove it. For Blayne and Molly's rehearsal (which was cowboy themed) Dusty came as a gay cowboy dressed in daisy duke jean shorts. For our rehearsal (hawaiian themed) Dusty came shirtless and in a bold hawaiian pants outfit, therefore Ed and Blayne owed him an appearance. The original plan was to come in Dumb and Dumber like suits, but that didn't work out. So they went for a rough tattooed look complete with chains and spikes and piercings, etc. I hope to get some more pictures from Molly of the ensembles! Everyone else was dressed up at the rehearsal, so needless to say, they stuck out a bit!

Rehearsal dinner took place at Haray Caray's across the street from The Westin, so that was convenient! Dinner was great and we were in the upper level so Rowan was able to run around a bit. She was totally into all of the Christmas trees that they had decorated! Rowan got her first American Doll piece for being in the wedding, A Bitty Baby! Super cool!

It was very helpful to have cousins and aunts and uncles around to help keep an eye on and entertain Rowan, she was quite spoiled! We managed to get her to bed just before 10pm, hoping for her to sleep in! But 6am is sleeping in for her!

spoiled girl, as usual

Grandma Pam was here today to watch Rowan this morning while I was on call, and once my call shift was done, us ladies headed to the mall. And despite Christmas being merely a month away, Rowan made a haul courtesy of Grandma Pam! She got a couple new outfits and some new Build A Bear outfits too. Oh, and a singing and dancing Frosty the Snowman! Here are the 2 new outfits on Moosey and Pink Bear! And Rowan being a good smiler!

tada...

The swingset mulch job is officially complete. Now we just get to look forward to a new coat of stain in the spring. Hopefully birthing a baby will get me out of this job, probably not though!