Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage. --Finnish Proverb--

And finally the last part of our trip, which was actually the first! :) The wedding! Although I'll have to start before the wedding first.

A few days before we left to go down to Arkansas, Auntie Annie flew in and Auntie Monie, Kady, and Kellen drove down! It was so wonderful to have them here and I'm SO super happy that Annie came too! We didn't spend a horrible amount of time together but any time with Annie is great :) I miss her so much! I of course miss Monie too but I see her more than I get to see Annie and, of course, we all know Annie is my favorite ;) Love you Monie! :) And of course I love Mellisa and Emily too :) Anyway...so we spent a few days in MO with everybody...took some ADORABLE pics of the grand daughters for a project for Grammy....which I will post on my photography blog after I'm done with this one so check that out here! (I also have some new pics up of the Leonard Family which are FABULOUS so check those out too! And anyone who has facebook needs to go "like" my new ForEversAfter page here! I only have 13 fans so far so help me out! :)

Anywho...the day before the wedding we all drove down to Arkansas and met up with the fam down there for a little pre-wedding dinner and then went us girls went to our now family-of-a-sort/don't know what we'd be called-related (they were my new-grandma's daughter/son-in-law) house, which was on the lake and it was SO gorgeous! Such a beautiful location, beautiful house, beautiful drive (long but gorgeous!)...I just wanted to stop and take pics but couldn't :( We did get to swim at the lake the morning of the wedding...the girls had so much fun!

This is the view from their back porch...GORGEOUS right??

After the lake we packed up, went back to town, did a little shopping, went to our hotel room, got ready, and headed to the wedding! The wedding was at the Country Club and it was SO nice! Very simple/elegant/pretty and there were some great little details! Like on a couple of tables there was this sign...



and on the chairs were some goodie bags for the kids to keep them entertained during the ceremony! Such a great idea. The girls were pretty good during the ceremony and afterwards ate and then did this for the rest of the night...


...couldn't get them to stop! Pretty cute/funny though.


So, the ceremony was simple/short/and so cute! They were adorable up there and so happy! I'm so happy my Gramps found someone to be with...they are such a funny little couple, totally acting like teenagers/lovey dovey/cute. :) (Just fyi for those who don't know....my Grandpa married a lady named Fern, who's husband passed away quite a few years ago...she and her husband have pretty much been lifelong friends with my Grandma and Grandpa so both families know each other super well and get along and such...so my Grandpa went down to Arkansas last spring...his bro/some fam/Fern and some of her fam live there...to get a little change of pace/find a woman! :) so he started dating Fern, they got engaged, took awhile to pick a date and now are married! there you go :)

Anyway.......so after the ceremony there was a yummy dinner followed by a couple toasts and then some DELICIOUS cake....seriously so good! Then there was lots of visiting/chatting/congratulating/etc. and then it was all over!





The next day Evelyn and I said good-bye to the fam and headed off to Alabama! I was kinda sad to miss the after-wedding breakfast, which was held at this Mill near our new fam's awesome house and it was SO awesome/gorgeous! It was one of the places I wanted to stop and take pics...it's next to this river and there's a one lane wood bridge over it and then the mill is right there and it's just so picturesque! Here's a pic I found online...


So yeah...that's pretty much all that went on in Arkansas! It was a great little trip, loved being with the fam, totally gorgeous area...even driving across on my way to Alabama was GORGEOUS! Such a pretty state!

anywho... :) Have a great weekend! This weekend is Evelyn's birthday so we got a fun little party planned and lots of fun stuff to blog about so keep posted!

"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend."

(Ok so I've had this post written for WEEKS and posted some pics on it and then after these it wouldn't let me post any more! So I've tried and tried and now I'm giving up....so here it is finally!)

The next part of our trip was Mississippi! My bestie Gwyn moved back a week or so before I got there (she was supposed to be earlier so don't think me too horrible for visiting a week after moving in!). Her husband got home sometime in August and they just got back to Mississippi awhile ago, which so jealous her hubby is home but also so happy! She had a little boy in January (her husband left before that but was able to come visit after he was born) so I'm so glad they are all together again :)

Anyway...so we got to Mississippi on Thursday and stayed an entire week and it was fabulous! We had so much fun with them and I'm so glad we were able to visit! Evelyn loves Gwyn's kids, especially Langston and Veronika (the baby, Rhett...well Everett...isn't as exciting at the big kids yet....although he IS a big boy!!! He's one of the biggest babies I've seen/held...and boy is he heavy! I don't know how Gwyn does it! He's SO cute though!). Luckily they all get along pretty well...there were a couple instances but all kids have their moments.


I'm super glad they get along though because...awesome news here!...Gwyn and her hubby got orders to go to Camp Lejuene in North Carolina which is where we are going too!!!! We were so super duper excited when her husband found out while I was there! I was hoping so bad that they would and it's happening! It's pretty funny though...her husband and Mark both entered into the Navy at the same time..went to OCS together, were roommates for a bit, then we all went to CECOS in CA together, got stationed in Mississippi together (although different battalions), and now we are going to be stationed in NC together! So super happy!!!!

Anyway...back to the trip :) We didn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff but still had fun....we went to the beach once (gorgeous weather but a bit hot!), went to a splash pad twice (way fun! I wish more places had those!), played outside A LOT, went to the park A LOT, and hung out a lot! :) It was a great! Evelyn loved it, loved being in a bigger house and sleeping on an actual bed...although she did have a bit of a hard time with naps and wasn't too happy with me when I put her in bed and shut the door, can't do that here in MO! :) She lived though and took a nap which is what she needed so oh well!

at the splash pad! So fun!

And of course the beach is always fun! Evelyn adores Langston, followed him around everywhere!!!

I got to see some of my other friends while I was there too, which was great, and got to go on a couple "dates" with my other bestie, Chelsea! She stayed in MS and recently had a baby, Avery, SOOO cute! I took a few pics of her but also not done editing those...half way! :) Anyway, Chelsea and I went to dinner one night and then too a movie and had so much fun! She's taking classes right now and then just had the baby so she doesn't get out much so I was more than willing to be that excuse for her! She's so awesome and I'm excited to go back and be a bad friend and distract her from her studies :)

Let's see....there's not too much else to embellish on except talk about a yummy, yum dinner Gwyn and I made! I got this yummy baked potato soup recipe from "Our Best Bites" which we made and then I made some YUMMY pretzel rolls, which I've been wanting to make for awhile and they were so worth it! Oh my gosh yummy...seriously a must have.



So yeah! There's my awesome trip! Well except the Arkansas part but that's still being edited too....I have a LOT of pics to edit right now! So here's some more from MS!

Art project time!

"No matter what happens, travel gives you a story to tell."

Evelyn and I are finally back from our trip! It went by pretty quick but we had a lot of fun and I'm so glad we went! I'm not gonna go in order cuz I don't have all the wedding pics touched up so here's the second part of my trip...visiting fam in Alabama! We left the day after the wedding and drove ALL day to get there, which was a looong drive but didn't go too bad! Evelyn did very well, thank goodness! But we were very glad to get there :)

Evelyn was SO excited to see her cousins and had so much fun playing with them while we were there. She and Jacob really hit it off and played a lot together, which was so cute to see! Isabella loved showing off her fun toys and Evelyn is now officially into Princesses....better that than Dora! :) She also loved spending time with her Auntie Jessie and Uncle Michael (although she did call him daddy a couple times...whoops!). We also got to meet little Charlotte...who is a cute, chubby, little doll! So cute!!! Evelyn loved the baby too, although she was too big for her to hold and Evelyn wasn't too happy about that!

It was a pretty chill trip...hung out a lot, did a little shopping, played with the kids, spent time with Michael and Jessica...pretty awesome! I went to Jessica's new little gourmet lunch place (which if you are ever in Huntsville you need to go try...SO YUMMY!). She just opened up this summer and serves sandwiches, soups, salads, and yummy desserts...although my absolute favorite fav thing was their pretzel rolls!!! SO delicious!!! If you've never had them before you should try!

Here's some pics from our time there!

Whoa Evelyn! Need to get her NOT to kiss on the mouth every time :)

So cute though!

Evelyn Loves being around the big kids!

Sweet, cute little Charlotte!!!

Playing Wii!

"... to be a child, to be a child! To have the roads and the days all stretching out forward and upward and away."

Here's yet another update post on Evelyn! There's really not a whole lot to say except talk about how utterly cute she is. :) Anyway...but really...this is mostly to talk about some of her cute new sayings and such cuz that's most of what she's been changing lately. Although I guess I should probably put this off for a couple weeks cuz she's gonna be TWO in 2 1/2 weeks!!! Ah! Isn't that crazy!!! But I won't cuz I feel like doing this now... :)

Before our trip Evelyn started to notice that people called me something other than "Momma" so she started calling me Tara after she'd hear someone say that, and the way she'd say it was so cute! She says "Tee-ruh" in her cute little way of talking. :) Of course I correct her and try to get her back to Momma but sometimes it takes awhile. :) She hasn't done that for a couple days though so that's good...

Whenever Evelyn is doing something/finishes something she says, "I did it, Momma!" or "I got it, Momma!" sometimes ending with a cute little, "woo-hoo!" which is pretty funny. She gets pretty proud of herself when she accomplishes something. Then when she can't do something she's started to say, "I didn't do it". Like while we were in Mississippi the kids were playing with this air rocket...so you jump on the pump thing and it shoots the rocket up...she got it a couple times but then for awhile kept missing the pump and would put her hands up and say all innocent and sweet, "I didn't do it". So cute!

Lately while she's playing she's been humming/singing which is super adorable! Another thing she's done lately is add "me" to a lot of her sentences, mostly when she's asking for something...like, "blanket me", "apple juice me", "mommy, car me". very funny. She's also started to narrate a little bit of what she's doing...like today there was some music on and she started dancing and kept saying, "I dancing, Momma! I dancing!" Then lately she's loved to say that people are "funny" or "I funny, Momma". She puts a funny little stress on the word funny too which is so cute! (UGH! I wish I could put a video on this stupid blog to show you guys!!! I have a lot of video and NONE of them will load, no matter how short/small they are too! Blargh!)

One of my favorite things is the way she says "yes", which was a big hit on our trip, everyone thought it was so cute! Which it is. It's hard to show you just in words but it's a very definitive, solid "yes" with a little extra "s" on it. So cute! Then for awhile she started saying "no way" instead of "no" which was also cute.

Another thing...let's see....she loves saying please/thank you/welcome...and lately when she says "thank you" to me she keeps saying it til I say "you're welcome!" Silly girl....She's also getting a bit bossier...she likes to tell people to "be quiet" and whenever she's on the potty (we've had some success with that but still working on it...nothing to consistent but some is better than none! and at least she's interested :) she tells me to "go away!" Guess she likes her privacy. :)

So that's all I can think of for her talking and the only other thing I can think of is her new love of pockets. She recently discovered her pants sometimes have pockets so whenever she has them she puts both her hands and walks around like that...so adorable! At least I can show a pic of this to you!


Another one of my favorite moments....my friend's son had a batman cape/mask which Evelyn LOVEd for some reason so I got her to go, "I'm batman!" which is what she's saying right here. I got it on video too but....yeah...argh! The pic is still cute though! And guess who's getting their own cape soon? :)

So there you have it for now! I have a couple posts started about our trip but haven't finished so stay tuned!