Mr. and Mrs.

What an amazing day it was yesterday!
I had the honor of taking part in such a gorgeous wedding!
Now, I am no wedding photographer, that's for sure!
I realized how difficult that job would be as I was sobbing during the wedding ceremony while trying to snap pictures. Wow, it was not easy...good thing they hired a professional wedding photographer!
I was able to take all of the "getting ready" pictures and also snap a few (451...ahem) throughout the morning, the ceremony and the reception.
I also did Amanda, her mother and sister's hair.
It's always so fun to be a part of the excitement and anticipation in the morning before the wedding.

I know all you want to do is look at pictures, so here it goes...

Heading to meet the "real" photographer for pictures!
:)

Relaxing just before the ceremony...

Seriously...how cute are these 2!!!

The ceremony was gorgeous.
The weather was MORE than perfect.
It may have been the most beautiful wedding I have ever been to.

Amanda and her mom...

I have SO MANY more gorgeous pictures from the day...don't know if I'll be able to keep myself from posting some more.

Thank you Seth and Amanda for letting us be a part of such a beautiful day in your lives!
Congratulations!!!

the sunset in Colo tonight

This one just screams "IOWA" to me for some reason...

Tate in costume

Oh boy, he LOVES being Buzz Lightyear!
I got countless smiles from him for pictures which just makes me snap a million!
He's a pretty adorable Buzz if you ask me. :)

A bit of a fake smile here...

Shooting me with his laser...

Great Grandma Oetker

We stopped in Marshalltown on the way to Colo this afternoon and visited Tate's Great Grandma Oetker. It was nice to see her and chat for a bit and Tate actually smiled for a couple of pictures with her! Knowing Tate's love of getting his picture taken, this was a miracle!

Heading out...

We are leaving in the morning for Des Moines. We will be staying at Sean's parents tomorrow night and then heading down to Des Moines for a wedding that I am doing hair for and then attending the wedding and reception that evening. Tate will be staying in Colo with Pat and Linda and they will take him trick-or-treating. He will be Buzz Lightyear...shocker I know. :) Don't know if I'll get any pictures in his costume or not...maybe I'll make him try it on tomorrow so I can take some pictures.

Then on Sunday, we will head to Muscatine for the afternoon/evening to spend time with family since Brenda, Bode and Boone are in town. Can't wait for some baby snuggles from Boone!!! I was able to see them all for a few minutes tonight when I picked them up at the airport, but they headed right to Des Moines so I didn't get any snuggle time in. Plus, it was late and Booner was in his car seat and could hardly keep his eyes open!

Signing off for a few days...I promise to have lots of pictures upon my return next week!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Tate's writing skills

Tate has been obsessed with letters for a long time.
He has now become obsessed with how you spell everything.
He asks me, "how do you spell ______?"
I then tell him how to spell that word or name and he writes it on his chalk board.
He struggles with certain letters, but actually does pretty well!

As you can see in the pictures that say "Sean" and "Nana", the letter "A" was something he needed to work on. We worked on it and as you can see, in the last picture, he's got it down now. :)
He really LOVES writing the letters and numbers and would stand at the chalk board and do it ALL DAY LONG if I let him!

Here, he wrote Jennie...Sean...

Starting to write Nana...

Nana...

This time he asked me to write Chris because he said that he needed to see it because "R" is really hard for him. He did a pretty good job though...

Ava...

It's so fun to watch him write these things, it just makes me feel like he is growing up so much!

On another note:
I said to Tate today...
"Tate, we need to pick up the house"
To which he responded...
"We can't mommy, the house is REEEEAAAALLLLY HEAVY!"
Too funny.

We stayed in our jammies all day...

We do that more often than I care to admit.
We like being cozy.
:)

Halloween Cupcakes

We baked cupcakes today.
Tate was in 7th Heaven!
We made these...

And then we made some other ones that I forgot to take a picture of.
They had spiders and "EEK!" on the top of them and they got delivered to The Peakins and The DeCooks.

Sean got to bring the ones pictures above to work with him.
I love the little fence wraps around them...so cute!
They were a gift from my mom...thanks Mom!!!

Menu Mondays!

As many of you know, I am a big fan of the blog world! I tend to "lurk" on many people's blogs who I do not even know and many of whom I'm not even sure how I came across. I have learned so many things and been inspired so much by so many blogs. I pray for these people and laugh at their stories and often times get lots of great ideas from their blogs. Sometimes I get crafting ideas, cooking ideas, blog post ideas, organization ideas (I need more of these!!!) and so on.

One of the blogs I lurk on (Hi Meredith, I am a lurker no longer!) recently started Menu Mondays where you post what your menu for the week will be. I loved this idea because I can link up and check out what other people are eating and get recipe ideas! So I'm joining in! I will try and be good about doing this every Monday...we'll see how it goes!

I know it's Tuesday, but I forgot to post this Monday (shocker, I know!), so I will just try and do Menu Monday next week on the actual day it is to be posted on...MONDAY! I'm not making any promises though. Ha. :)

So here's our menu for the week...

Monday: Grilled Cheese w/ Tomato Soup
Tuesday: Chicken and Broccoli Spaghetti Alfredo (because I don't have fettuccine)
Wednesday: Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes and green beans
Thursday: Homemade Pizza
Friday: We'll be out of town staying with Sean's parents so we don't know yet! :)

Do you like mushrooms???

If you do, take A Peakin To My Recipe Book and see a new recipe for Mushroom Canopes that is SUPER EASY and SUPER YUMMY!

Lani and her friends

Lani had her "friend" birthday party this afternoon.
We did hair, makeup and fingernails and then had a photo shoot.
These girls were EATING IT UP!
They LOVED it!

They are such gorgeous girls!!!

It was so much fun photographing them.
Following our little photo shoot, Cassie took them out to have appetizers.
We had the pictures developed in time for them to be ready when they were done with their appetizers. The girls got to bring several of the pictures home with them.
It was fun!

Lani's Birthday Photo Shoot

This was prior to the makeup.
We did Lani's hair and took her outside for some pictures to celebrate her turning 7!
She is so gorgeous, I can hardly stand it!

And I could learn a lot from Lani's mommy.
She and Paul have done the most amazing job with all 3 of their kids...they are truly some of the most well behaved, sweetest kids in the world.

She should be as proud of a mommy as she looks in this picture!

Ayla's Glamour Shots :)

We did makeup, hair and manicures on Lani and all her girlfriends for her birthday party.
Then we had a little photo shoot (those pics to come soon!).
We didn't want to leave beautiful Ayla out so we did her up and photographed her as well!
Oh my goodness, she is a DOLL!!!

LOVE this one of her spinning!

She was such a little poser!!!

Well that didn't last long...

A couple of days ago I posted that I was going to try and go to be earlier. That night, I made it to bed at 12:15, which (believe it or not) is at least an hour earlier than usual. I tossed and turned and the last time I looked at the clock it was 1:35. However, Tate slept until 9am, so I did too! I actually felt good yesterday after that night of sleep. I again had a productive day. :) Then last night came. Ugh. I didn't go to bed until 1am and I was WIDE awake. I tossed and turned and the last time I looked at the clock, it was 2:57am! I think I had to have been up for at least 15 minutes after that. I don't know what my deal is! I have been avoiding caffeine after supper and everything! So today I have been tired! It has taken everything I have not to doze off on the couch, but I'd like to be tired tonight so I can go to bed at a decent time so I've just been lazy instead which isn't much better! Ugh.

A delicious evening...

We had Spaghetti Pie tonight for supper and YUM I never get sick of Spaghetti Pie!!! It is one of my favorites. While it was baking, Sean said, "did you get the mail yet?" to which I responded, "nope". I promptly went to get the mail and was PLEASANTLY surprised to find a box propped up against our front door. A package!!! YAY, I love packages! I knew immediately what it was, though I had forgotten it was coming! More deliciousness! Not long ago, I ordered some homemade bread from a friend baking bread to raise money for March of Dimes...that's what is was! I ordered Lemon Poppy Seed Bread and Pumpkin Bread. We broke into the Pumpkin Bread after dinner and OH.MY.GOODNESS. it was amazing! I'm not even kidding, the loaf is half gone and it was a big loaf! Tate went crazy for it and would have probably finished the loaf off if we let him. :) Thanks, Corrine...you have a crazy good Pumpkin Bread recipe!!! Can't wait to try the Lemon Poppy Seed Bread next!

Wednesday Randoms

First of all, I am devastated. I had yet to find something at Aldi that I was unhappy with. That is until today. I unwrapped my Aldi toilet paper that I was trying for the first time. It is terrible, terrible I tell you! SO disappointing! :( And now I have 4 rolls of scratchy, 1 ply toilet paper that I am tempted to trash, but I won't. I am going to be miserable for the next couple of weeks until it is gone! Ugh. Moral of the story...don't buy toilet paper at Aldi, just don't do it.

Tate got a Barbie for his birthday from The Knutsons. To make a long story short...he played with the Ken dolls when we were in Florida with them and so kind of as a joke (but not really because he really liked playing with Ken) they got him "Fashionista Ken" for his birthday. It is honestly one of his favorite toys. Anyway, he has named his Ken doll, Kendall. Sean kind of started it, but now Tate will say, "where's Kendall?" or "look at Kendall wipe out mommy!". It's pretty funny. Anyway, tonight when I put Tate to bed he said, "Mommy, can I have another Kendall for Christmas?". Oh geez. Sean will not be happy to hear this and may just blame it on the Knutsons! Ha.

And I MUST share with you my recent family photo shoot. I did some family photos for my brother and sister-in-law's family. Love the images I captured...love this family. Check HERE for more from their shoot.

I had a super productive day today. I think I learned the secret to that. Sleep. Yup, I was asleep by 9pm last night and didn't wake up until 8am this morning. It was glorious and I felt amazing when I woke up. I know that this is not rocket science people. I can't help it though...I'm just a total night owl! So I am going to try and get to sleep much earlier tonight and going forward. We will see how this goes. :)

Tate is nearly impossible to buy tennis shoes for. I'm telling you, this child has some WIDE feet! It's an issue. Plus, he HATES trying shoes on, but he isn't the type of child I can just buy shoes for and assume they'll fit. Nope, he needs to try them on. So today, I was ecstatic that I managed to find him 2 pairs of tennis shoes that fit him! Thank you Von Maur No Interest charge card! :) Finding shoes for him is so hard that no matter the cost, if I find some that work, they are going to be purchased! The reason I bought 2 pair? Well, I found a great pair that were a bit large, but know they'll fit him in a month or 2 and as I was going to purchase them, out of the corner of my eye I saw the sale rack. :) I found a pair a half size smaller and a PERFECT fit right now that were $16 (originally $50)!!! Score! To top it off, they are black and gold! He calls them his Hawkeye shoes. :)

It was Taco Night at our house and boy did those tacos hit the spot! Yummy! Tate ate about a cup of salsa and when his food was gone, he picked up the rest of his little salsa bowl and said, "can I drink this?". Ya, he likes salsa.

I have a few new recipes I plan to try in the next month that may make an appearance on A Peakin To My Recipe Book. It's been a long time since I've posted on there and it's due for some new recipes! :) I'll be sure to let you know when I've posted some one there.

Buzz Lightyear

Tate loves his new Buzz towel...he looks pretty cute in it too.

Interesting exchange...

Me (noticing Tate was holding himself): Tate, do you have to go potty?

Tate: No, I'm just playing with my balls.

And he said it very matter of fact. I honestly don't know where he comes up with this stuff.

A trip to the Rainbow Bridge

Sean and I took Tate and Ayla to the Sky Bridge (aka Rainbow Bridge) tonight.
The kids loved it!

I snapped 3 pictures right in a row of Ayla as the lights went over her head.
She is so cute and Cassie is missing her while in Colorado so I wanted to post some pics for her!

Ayla LOVES Sean and hasn't been feeling 100% as she's been ill, so she was pretty attached to him at the bridge...

There's a little outdoor area at the end of the bridge that we went to to look outside...it was CHILLY tonight so we didn't stay out there long!

And a little Stink Eye action...

Tate was sprinting up and down the bridge and having a blast.
He needed a rest...

It's amazing how different the pictures look in the rainbow bridge when you have a flash on...

It was a great time and the kids had a blast!
It might be Tate's favorite place to go in the Quad Cities!
The kids got home, got baths and are sound asleep in bed!