Gracie's 10th Birthday

Sorry the pictures are so blurry! I forgot to bring our nice camera along, but thankfully Sammy had brought the little old junky Sony along, so we got a few pictures. :-/ That poor camera has been dropped so many times that I think the motion stabilizer has gone quacky. Poor little Sony...

Grace's birthday was on Wednesday the 24th, but since there was church we waited to celebrate till the next evening.

The Martins lent us a very funny book called Cheaper by the Dozen (which, I'm sure you've heard of). We brought it along, but Ry got ahold of it, transporting himself into his own world. :)

Wow, 10 years old already! It seems like yesterday that Grace was born. 

Ben had the honor of holding the cake while we sang. The singing sounded bad, of course. That's half the fun of singing happy birthday, to see how bad it sounds! :) JK :)

Here's a cellphone video of the last part of our singing. I hope it works. This is the first time I've tried uploading a cellphone video.

We had confetti cake with pink frosting, vanilla and birthday cake ice cream. Good choice, Gracie!

Grace had just one present to open- from us.

A Farm Science Kit and coin purse...

...pencil, mints, candy necklace, and a growing horse.

The pile.

Enjoying a good book and ice cream in great company... What could be better?

The little people came running in saying that there were some really neat clouds that we had to see! So I grabbed that poor excuse of a camera and snapped a few blurry, but serviceable shots. 

Riding bike by the highway.

 It prob'ly wasn't very safe to let them ride bikes by the highway with a big storm moving in. I guess it's different in the country, safer somehow. 

Of course, throwing road dust.

It started to rain, so we headed back shortly after this picture.

Last shot before heading in. It rained good and hard for awhile, but not quite enough to give the ground a good drink.

I just wanted to tack this picture onto the end of this post. I had entered a picture of Sam, that Abi took, into the yearly Our Iowa photo contest. The contest has four categories, Corn Fed Kids, Iowa People, Iowa Humor and Iowa Scenery. I entered Sam's picture into the Corn Fed Kids category. Well, Sammy's picture got picked out of 200 other pictures by the Our Iowa staff! Wow! You can see his picture among the others, but we think his is the cutest! :)

Here's the picture I entered. I love the missing front teeth!

Josiah & Joanna's Wedding

Here is a photo journal of our weekend spent out in Holdrege, NE for Joe and Joanna's wedding on July 20th.

They asked us to serve the rehearsal dinner, so we left early Friday morning around 7:30. Our minivan doesn't have A/C, so it was a hot ride out. Somehow, we managed to have some fun, though! :)

Photo credits go to: T..J., Abi, Sam and I. 

Mom surprised each of us with our favorite snacks. The three of us were stuck in the back for basically the whole trip. :)

The two stooges.

All of us

Dad with his sun chips and Mom with her double stuffed Oreos.

Dad put a bid in Trip Advisor for a $60 hotel room. Ramada Inn accepted the bid, so we got to stay in a $150 hotel room for really cheap!

We had been planning on just stuffing in one room, but Dad surprised us when we got there by having two rooms!

It was a very interesting hotel. Each second story room has a private balcony that overlooks a pool and, we think it was a bar area, or something.

The boys loved the pool!

Josh found a soft stuffed ball out on the one balcony that someone had left. The boys had a grand time of playing catch in the pool with it.

After getting changed, we had a pillow fight before leaving for the church.

Of course, it was everyone against Josh. :)

You know those colored throw things that hotels put on the end of beds? I tied KK's legs up with one. He didn't realize it till he went to get up. :)

Bats in the belfry!

At the church, we started to prepare the rehearsal dinner when somebody spotted a bat clutching onto a divider curtain right above the food table. After Daddy took care of it, we found another bat up there. You can almost see it in between the two big folds of curtain.

See the chair behind the table? That's where the bats were.

Guest book table.

Their Love Story

Here we are, back in the hot kitchen.

Reception food table in the gym.

Kiley's famous iced coffee. My, was it good!  

Dad, mixing a salad

Chopping veggies

The Smith singers (plus Ry), practicing "One hand, One Heart" for the ceremony. 

Joshie was crying over the onions he had to cut, which happened to be particularly strong ones. :)

Working hard

One of the tables

Josiah

Joanna

Watching and waiting

Abi was dishing out the mushroom sauce for the spaghetti, when she exclaimed, "Aha! I thought I'd seen a rubber band in there!" 

Awhile later, I was looking for a dish in the cabinet above the sauce. I tipped a little saucer over to look at it and a bunch of little wooden pegs fell down into the sauce and on the counter. Uho. I fished around for awhile and thought I'd found all of them, but Abi found a couple more later. :) Whoops! When we told Sheila about it, she responded with a chuckle, "no wonder it tasted so good!"

We wrapped the garlic bread in foil to warm it in the gas stove. Somehow, one of them got a hole in its foil, so the melted butter dripped out onto the bottom of the stove. It almost caught fire, causing a lot of smoke. We couldn't find an exhaust fan, so quickly opened a door and started waving lunch trays around to blow the smoke out. Never a dull moment, huh? :) 

Drink station with water, lemonade, and coffee.

Last minute set up before the crowd comes!

Sheila had made ahead of time, plain and fish lasagna, and the mushroom sauce for spaghetti. There was also garlic bread, salad with all the toppings, fruit salad and chocolate cake.

The sunset on the way home was gorgeous!

The night before the wedding, the brides mother asked Dad if he could help with the reception food. He said yes, of course. So, we ended up missing nearly the entire wedding doing food set up.

Cashews and wedding mints

The cake was just decorated styrofoam. :)

Coffee table and punch fountain

Decorations (edited) :)

Bridal table

Lunch before the wedding, that most of us kitchen people never got...

The special couple

Aw... Sweetness... 

Kater and Bird wore white dresses. They were so cute!

Chocolate dipped strawberries

Those totes on the left held the real cake for the reception.

On Friday, a bunch of people assembled fruit kabobs. Before the wedding, we stuck them in pineapples that had been screwed onto a piece of OSB and a tray for stability. They turned out really pretty! 

Bride and Groom cake

The altar

They took pictures before the wedding. I was looking for Sam, and discovered him standing next to the photographer, taking pictures. :)

Ok, it's getting close! We've got the table all laid out...

...the punch fountain going...

... and the coffee full.

Josh and KK putting the centerpieces on the bridal table. 

There were three choices of cake- white, lemon, and strawberry. Wow, it was so yummy! I've never had cake that moist and fluffy. My mouth is watering as I write this... :)

The punch was lime flavored.

Lemon water and iced coffee

Yes, I actually got to hold Sweeter... but only when all the Smiths got busy with their various parts of the wedding. :)

This is just after she walked down the aisle.

Pastor Tom married them.

I thought this picture was really neat. All of these ceremony pictures were taken through the little glass slits in the sanctuary doors.

Back in the kitchen, getting ready for the rush!

The cake left overs on the bottom of the trays were extra yummy. :)

Bridal table all dished up.

Fruit trays, chocolate dipped strawberries, fruit kabobs and cake completed the menu.

Decor

I really like how they put the bridal table in the middle of the room. It didn't seem as showy then.

These candles had to be carried from the sanctuary and relit before the bridal party entered.

Enter: Bride and Groom

Cutting their cake

:)

I like how this picture focused on them, but blurred the crowd out.

Bridal table... again...

Instead of greeting people as they dismissed, they just walked around after they were done eating and talked to people.

Tammy and Addison Strong helped us take down the food afterwards.

These ladies were from that church. They were a big help to us!

Take down

Folding up those fluffy ties that they used on the chairs was a headache!

It all went really fast with everybody helping.

Kels and Katerbug

Visiting

The boys got out the basket ball and started playing after they cleared the floor.

Chloe is amazing! She just gets right in there and seems to be able to squeak out of all injuries.

We left Holdrege around 7:30 pm and got home around 12:30 am. Dad and Josh bought an A/C recharger and recharged the A/C in the van, making our trip home not quite so miserable.

We got home with very sore feet and very tired bodies. :) But all in all, it was a great weekend!