Road trip: Jonathan and Allison's wedding weekend (PART 2)

On July 29th, Lavella and Jonah dressed up in formal wear and walked down the aisle as Flower Girl and Ring Bearer.

Here's all of the adorable little wedding attendants: 

Jonah's first reaction to seeing himself in his tux: "I'm sexy and I know it, OH YEAH!!"  I know.  It's disturbing.  I could not even make this stuff up if I tried.

Still haven't seen enough?  More in the Flickr set here!  :-)

Road trip: Jonathan and Allison's wedding weekend (PART 1)

The weekend of July 29th, we were very excited to be part of my brother Jonathan's wedding to Allison in the beautiful Thousand Islands region of upstate NY.  I was still not feeling up to anything strenuous or much walking at that point (that surgery really takes FOREVER to recover from!!), so I played lazy-lifeguard at the pool while my siblings and parents helped set up the reception, etc.

(That man-sized person is my "little" 19-year-old brother Christopher)

Greg took our children on a boat/castle tour of the islands in Alexandria Bay, and showed them the first house we lived in (up until Elijah was 2 months old, and we moved from New York to Georgia).

...and more pics in the Flickr set here.

Road trip: NY

This Thursday, I will be 12 weeks post-op.  I am doing well, and the children have been helping a lot -- much more than expected, actually.  The underlying muscles that were pulled back together are still sore, but I'm no longer on any pain medication, and feeling much more like myself.  I will eventually blog about the whole ordeal, but for now: photos from our summer road trip!

Each summer we get about 2-1/2 weeks to drive back East and visit family.  It's a two-day ordeal to get there (12 hours of actual driving time each day, not counting bathroom breaks, gas, food), and very stressful, but each year the children are a little better at traveling -- thank goodness!









On this trip, we started out by driving to my parents' house in upstate NY, and helped prepare food for my brother Jonathan's wedding.



My parents' raise Golden Retrievers as a side business, so there was a fresh batch of 2-week-old puppies.  So cute!

2 weeks old


3 weeks


I was there to help them eat their second "solid" food meal -- there was a lot of whimpering and walking through the dishes, but a few of them realized it was food.


We had many small adventures together with my parents and siblings, but most of all, it was wonderful to spend time with the family that I almost never get to see.

Grace, Rachel and children






My nephew:


Grace, Joy and I prepared a song for Jonathan's wedding....


OK, for serious, here's what we actually ended up with:

Of course, more pics in the Flickr set here.

Next up: Jonathan's wedding weekend!

Where I am

Thirteen days ago, I underwent major surgery and had an abdominoplasty done to reconstruct my midsection and restore my muscles now that I am oficially (surgically) done having children.  I have experienced so many emotions and the journey to where I am right now in my view of myself and my body has been so complex that I have struggled to even write about it.  I have been slowly constructing a blog post to encapsulate it all, but between the painkillers, frequent naps and deep boredom of just lying here recovering, the writing is hard to complete.  Instead, I'd rather window-shop online for shoes and dream of all of the summer outfits I can put together on my newly cinched-up body once I can stand up for more than 10 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a nap.  Oh how sexy it feels to be exhausted by just standing around being useless.  Oh my.

Wedges and strappy shoes for summer by flashbangfibers featuring flip flop sandals

Beachy Style by flashbangfibers featuring a beach cover up

Seeing Hearts

Ever since I saw this DIY on A Beautiful Mess, I've been wanting to make some too.  After scoring a pair of skinny jeans at the consignment store ($5!!!), I picked up some acrylic paint and textil medium (to combine with the acrylic and turn it into fabric paint).  Instead of contact paper, I used freezer paper to make stencils.  I ironed them into position (shiny side down), and slipped a square of cardboard inside each leg behind the stencils to make sure the paint didn't bleed through.



I sponged the red on in layers, allowing it to dry for anywhere from 10minutes to 1 hour in-between, until it was bright enough for what I had in mind -- this took from the afternoon until the evening.  (I had the jeans slung over my ironing board near the kitchen, so as I went about doing whatever else needed to be done, I kept going back to it to apply another coat of color whenever I'd think of it.)

This morning, the paint was completely dry, so I peeled off the stencils and used a fine-tipped brush to add a white running stitch (going over them twice to make them really pop against the red).  Because let's be real -- stitches make an already cute project just that much cuter.


A few minutes later, and I was playing dress-up in my new favorite pair of jeans.

Mixing plaid and stripes and hearts -- so wrong, but so right.  Or just so wrong.  Depending.  AND I LOVE IT!


As you can see, I chose to paint the hearts on the thighs instead of knee-patches, because I was worried about decreasing the flexibility of the jeans and would hate it if the hearts stuck out awkwardly or cracked after wearing for an hour or two.

Now that I think about it, I definitely should have painted a pair of Lavella's jeans too, because that's what she's going to ask for as soon as she sees these.

Flannel shirt and striped cami: Old Navy, skinny jeans: consignment find, wedge sneakers: Target