My sister's wedding!

My little sister, Valerie, got married last weekend! We have looked forward to that day for a long time and it has now come... and also gone! Sometimes it's hard to believe we are both grown and now married. But exciting all the same. Its the beginning of a new chapter of her life and I couldn't be happier for her! I love Drew, her now husband, like a brother and know without a doubt that he is the right one for her. He really is a wonderful guy and I'm glad that he is now a part of our family (even though I've considered him that for a long time even before it became "official").

Kelsie was the flower girl in the wedding and did a great job! She started to have a little meltdown right before it was time to walk down and wanted a snack. I could tell she was hungry and thirsty so I gave her the only thing I had that she could eat without enzymes - puffs (because there was no time to fix her enzymes) and I filled up her cup with tea. But when we tried to take the bowl of puffs or the tea away from her, she had a fit. So she didn't carry her basket of flower petals...instead opted for her sippy cup of sweet tea (a true southern girl!). She hesitated at first but then kept walking down the aisle by herself and when she got close enough to see me she started laughing and then ran toward me. I held her on my hip while we watched Valerie walk down the aisle then I sat her up on the stage as we all walked up behind the bride and groom. Kelsie then sat quietly beside me and read a book until she got bored with that (oh about 3 minutes maybe!) and then proceeded to walk around the stage. She stopped in front of Valerie and Drew as they were exchanging vows, tried to play on the steps, ate a few puffs, and just looked around. I had to move her back from the steps a couple of times so we wouldn't have a catastrophe complete with a screaming child and a broken arm...but eventually my father in law stepped up and took her down to sit with them. (I was relieved). But up until that point, she did really well. She never cried or screamed or made a scene so I was thankful for that!

The reception was just beautiful and so fitting for Valerie and Drew. Valerie did a great job along side my aunt who helped her with the lovely decor and the organization as well my mom and dad who arranged the food as well as all the other little things its takes to bring it all together. All of the food (bbq pork, chicken, green beans, and potatoes) was home grown by my parents! And my dad even grew the wildflowers and cut and treated the wood for the table centerpieces. My mom and mother of the groom made homemade jam in mini jelly jars to give away as favors. Valerie used old windows for both a picture and menu display.  Those are just a few of the details but it was all so beautiful and came together very nicely! I am very proud of how well everything went. And and happy for my sister that she had such a lovely wedding!

Dad feeling a little solemn

 

Us girls took a little dance class as part of the bachelorette party and we performed the dance when we came in. So much fun!

Father daughter dance! And they surprised me and pulled me in too. Very special and sweet moment. :)

 

 

 

Disney World!

So I never finished this post that I started on our way home from Orlando...so here it is. Pretty detailed, but Nathan was sick and slept on the flight home, so I wrote about our trip to occupy my time! :) 

For our anniversary, Nathan surprised me with a trip to Orlando! On the agenda: Disney World, Discovery Cove where we will get to swim with the dolphins, and Sea World! I was so excited but also had a hard time leaving Kelsie! This is the first time I have left her overnight since she was born! I knew we needed this getaway but also knew it would be hard being away from my sweet girl that long and it definitely was. Every time I saw another little girl around her age, I couldn't help but well up with tears, thinking how much I missed her and wished she were there with us! Of course, Disney World is a kid's dream so everything we saw, we talked about what Kelsie would/wouldn't like, could/couldn't do etc. I can't count how many times we said "Kelsie would love this!" and then guessed what her facial expression would be. I just can't wait to finally be home and see her and give her all the souvenirs we brought home for her! (We are actually on the plane right now!)

But as hard as it was to leave Kelsie, the trip was wonderful! It wasn't exactly relaxing but thats because it was so packed full of fun! We went to Disney World on Saturday. This was such a fun and magical day but also long and exhausting! We wanted to hit a few of our chosen highlights from each of the 4 parks but we had a few logistical issues with our transportation plan, so we ended up wasting 2 hours which meant we had to drop something off our list! So for this trip, we decided to skip Epcot. We started out at Animal Kingdom where we rode an awesome roller coaster, Expedition Everest, and went on a really cool safari ride where we saw alot if animals right outside our vehicle. We then journeyed over to Hollywood Studios where we were planning to ride Tower of Tower and Rockin Roller Coaster. Well Rockin Roller Coaster was closed and our Fast Pass for Tower of Terror wasn't for 3 more hours. Plus we realized we hadn't thought about how we were going to get back to Animal Kingdom to get our car at the end of the day. We were (mistakenly) told that the buses to AK would stop running once that park closed (8 pm) which was the earliest of all the parks. We knew we wanted to end at Magic Kingdom which stayed open the latest, so we decided to go ahead and ride the bus BACK to Animal Kingdom, get our car and drive to Magic Kingdom, spend some time there and then go BACK to Hollywood, and then BACK to Magic Kingdom for the nighttime fireworks show at the castle (which I am glad we did because it was absolutely amazing!!) A lot of back tracking I know! So needless to say, we spent a lot of our time on transportation! But...you live and learn! Next time we will know! Bus rides, tram rides, monorail rides into Magic Kingdom, a little bit if driving and ALOT of walking! Which reminds me, I am so thankful God decided to let me keep my legs after my accident because I really need them for trips like that! So anyway... all our little blips in transportation just gave us some experience on what to do and what not to do for trips in the future! We ended up seeing Animal Kingdom once, Hollywood Studios twice, and Magic Kingdom twice. And we pretty much did mostly everything we had on our list plus some! A couple of really nice employees saw us wearing our "Happy Anniversary" buttons (that they gave us when we got to Disney) and approached us after we entered Hollywood Studios asking if we wanted to ride Toy Story Mania, a super fun and popular ride! We said of course, and they gave us 2 fast passes giving us entry anytime within the next hour. We were stoked because the wait time for this ride was over an hour and we wouldn't have been able (nor would we have wanted to) wait that long! I think God was helping us out on that one, making up for the time we lost moving our car! We were also able to ride tower of terror and Rockin roller coaster, take the Backlot tour and eat at a very neat restaurant, the Sci-fi Dine in theatre where had our dinner while sitting in pretend cars watching old movie reels. It was pretty cool. We then made it back to Magic Kingdom (after what became a at least a 30 min trip via bus and then monorail) in time for the nighttime show and Wishes fireworks display, which I must say was truly one of the most beautiful and spectacular things I have ever seen!!!

Sunday we went to Discovery Cove and wow, it was just such an awesome experience!!! We had our "dolphin encounter" first thing at 9:30.

We Went to the saltwater pool and went snorkeling where we saw lots of very cool fish and stingray! It took me a while to get up the nerve to pet a stingray but eventually I had no choice because they were literally swimming all around us!

There was also several very nice freshwater pools where we could float through the lazy river, through the aviary, swim up to the otter exhibit and just relax amongst the beautiful scenery. The aviary was cool too, birds would just land on you and eat out of your hand! It was such a fun day!! The place closed at 5pm so we went straight from there over to SeaWorld, had dinner at the Shark Underwater Grill, saw 2 whale shows, and road a crazy rollercoaster!

We went back to Sea World for our last day (the Discovery Cove passes included entry to SeaWorld so we thought we should get the most out of money and try to see what we could of SeaWorld too). We did a few fun things here as well - Turtle Trek which was a nice 3D 360 degree show about sea turtles journey from the shore to the ocean and back again. We ate lunch, rode a couple more rides, and then made our way back to the airport. Exhausted by that point and ready to get home but also full of memories from our adventure packed getaway. So thankful for my hubby and for the chance to have this little 2nd honeymoon. It was so much fun and something we will never forget!

(I had to stop adding pictures because the blog has been distorting the colors when I load them on here  - but I will try to add more later!)

My dear kelsie

My dearest Kelsie,

I am holding you here in my arms thinking how amazing you are. God made you this perfect little person and He made you for me and your daddy. God could not have blessed me with anything greater! I feel bad every night that I have to get you out of bed to do chest pt. And then after that's over, I have to put on your hip brace. I sometimes think, this is only just the beginning of what you are going to have to go through in life. I know there are going to be challenges ahead, there will be limitations and pain, sunshine and rain. But as you re getting older, I am seeing more and more of your personality come out and I am feeling even more confident that you will be just fine. You are already very strong willed and determined to do what you have set your mind to do! You are so tough and when you fall, you just get right back up, brush it off off and keep going. You don't let obstacles stand in your way, you just figure out how to get around them! You independently seek out new challenges and figure out problems on your own. You already have great sense of humor and it's obvious you purposefully try to make us laugh! You are very outgoing and make friends with strangers everywhere we go. And you give the sweetest affection that just melts my heart every time. I love you more than anything and will spend the rest of my life trying to be the best mother to you that I can possibly be.

Mmmmmm corn!!!

Kelsie LOVES corn on the cob! We have to hide it until she has eaten her other food first, otherwise that's all she'll eat!

I think I've had too much. I'm gonna be sick.

What is she trying to say?

Kelsie has so much to say lately! I just wish we knew what she was talking about half the time! These sounds really makes us laugh..."a good good good good"