Reception

The hubs and I had a quickie ceremony on Friday July 16, 2010. (7-1=6, I like how it works out). 

We held a pool party at our apartments.

Our families were demanding that we have a party. We would have been fine with just the ceremony. But alas we must please everyone. 

As hubby and I didn't want a big thing the guest list was easy to create. My family. His family. Best friends. Sounds easy enough. Well, he comes from an awfully large family so just the family was over 50 people. 

Our reception site was easy. For free we used my parents home. They live on 10 acres of property in the country. Private and it had a view. In the planning stages I googled something like "backyard wedding, DIY" and came across my favorite blog that has pretty much inspires my life, Young House Love. Their backyard wedding inspired me to go with lemons and limes for center pieces in lieu of the traditional flowers. Plus they are Duck colors! Go ducks!

 Keg station! Best part of the day was my Paulaner Hefeweizen Keg. 

 In the front of the house we had another sitting station.

 There were so many good ideas for guest books I couldn't decide. On Etsy I found some thumb print wedding trees that all your guests thumb print and make a tree. Then I saw people using Polaroid cameras and having guests sign the polaroids. I opted to create a wedding scrapbook. I thought it would be a good activity for people to make a page with words of wisdom or whatever they liked. As polaroid are expensive and hard to come by I just placed a point and shoot for people to take pictures that I would later print out. 

 The Knot has some favor ideas, and I stumbled upon these on sale. They are plantable flowers so people can always remember your wedding with wildflowers. I thought it was nice. Hopefully the guests did too. This way its not something they don't feel like they can't use or have to keep to display when we come over or something. 

Bouquet toss from my perspective

Bouquet toss from below.

Our cake was from The Desert Tray. 

 Mambo got the first lick of the cake. It was hilarious. Normally I am very uptight I guess you could say so everyone was really worried to tell me that the cake had been "compromised". Well, you saw the keg above, and it was my reception day. I just laughed and surprised the masses.

As we didn't have the traditional walk down the aisle ceremony there was no need for a bridal party. Our niece and nephew were at the age where they wanted to be flower girl/ ring bearer so we gave them the title and bought them cute matching outfits. Luckily for them though, the title came with no responsibility but to be cute, which they are excellent at.

 Other activities we had set up were horse shoes and badminton. Hopefully nobody got bored.

The moms

Obligatory champagne twisty arm thing

I had one cousin come up from California and my other two cousins live in Portland. We stacked on the hammock. Rodriguez's in the front, cousins boyfriend in back. All enjoying none the less.

At the end of the night the "stragglers" decided to take a picture. There was a serious one but I much prefer the sillyness.

After the long day we sat down to open presents. Family friend's 8 year old daughter took pictures.  This was my favorite.

We asked my recent culinary school graduate, Cousin Ben to be our "chef" for the day. He recruited his brother and sister to help with the prep work. They used two of my parents neighbors ovens to cook the food for the day. He created the menu and executed the food nicely. My favorite part was blue cheese garlic mashed potatoes. yum.

It truly was a great party. Afterwards we drove off into the dark night to PDX to board our flight to Cancun. Delicious. I wish I was there now.

Dude's First Birthday

Is today!! This poor little odd mixture of breeds was brought into the world one year ago. He has experienced so many triumphs and struggles. He was 3 of 5 puppies to survive birth out of their tiny momma. After 3 months on IV and doctors visits Dude was the first of those surviving 3 who was adopted on their first day out. This is the little face in the back of the kennel that stole our hearts.

Mr. Dweet was apprehensive to meet his new brother but curious none the less.

He was so sleepy.

I imagine him saying something like "Aww mom, come on, enough pictures!"

 This one makes me tear up. How adorable is that little puppy??!?!?!

This big beauty is Mambo and the Golden is Cassie. They are my parents dogs aka. Dude's aunt and uncle. They love each other.

When dude was neutered I went to pick him up and the lady told me he was doing great. He hadn't been acting like anything was wrong. He seriously is such a good puppy.

Dude's besty is a blue heeler named Tessa. She taught him everything he knows. Most annoyingly to pick food up from his bowl and then go somewhere far away to eat it. She was bigger than him and now he is bigger than her. Hope she enjoyed his tiny-ness while it lasted.

Lets enter a series of Dude snuggling as it is his favorite activity.

Dude loves to be outdoors. He doesn't like boating due to his fear of water, but enjoys the wind in his ears.

 Dude love the beach. Its the feeling of the soft sand between his paw pads. (See Mambo in the right)

 Dude likes to dress up for holidays. For halloween and thanksgiving he was a pumpkin. 

 As Dude is low maintenance he just really likes to hang out.

 His ears do so many things. My favorite is when they are folded over. Husband was hoping for the German Shepherd in him for ears straight up and out. Usually they are pulled back or halfsies as seen below.

 Sometimes he poses like a smoker with a bone in his mouth.

 He like to keep his toy options open not settling down with one at a time.

 Most recently Dude and I took a walk to the washington county court house where Hubby and I were married and we snapped a shot where we said "I do". The grass was cold on his bottom.

Dude has been the best dog ever. He is so sweet and mellow. He only barks or growls when intimidated by other animals. He is loving and loyal. He is so intelligent and adorable.

He is enjoying his birthday so far because I gave him a can food. I don't know if he came up for air but he loves it.

Birthday Party Success!

Baby J had an excellent turn out for her first birthday. Plus she looked fabulous!

Here's the house all decorated for the occasion. We moved around the furniture to accommodate a circular discussion between the guests

 I printed out a bunch of photos of baby J and put them under our Ikea coffee table covered with glass. It worked out perfect. Even J loved it. She went around kissing all the pictures with the baby.

 As the theme was "Cute as a button" I made her the J with buttons on it. Inspiration from Pinterest of course.

 View from the other side of the room.

 J and Dude "fighting" over his toy. He isn't her biggest fan. Especially when she squeals.

If toy is left unattended J will grab!

One of the highlighting moments of the night was when hubby, his nephew O, brother, Dad and grandfather were found in the office watching him fly his helicopter. Oh my GAWD I couldn't stop laughing.

Birthday cupcake time!!

I think a good time was had by all. I am still in awe about the amount of people that fit into our tiny home. 30 or more were invited and just about all of them came. We had approximately 13 little children running around our house at once. It was INSANE.  Dude love it. Dweet hid as soon as he heard little O coming up the porch.