The Wedding-Our Date

My older step brother Steve got married last night to his girlfriend of 14 years...They FINALLY realized they should get married. They have been together through thick and thin literally. They probably lost 30-50 lbs maybe more prior to the wedding all due to walking, cutting out all drinks but water and changing how much they ate-AMAZING!

It was a very nice wedding and one I had been looking forward to for months. I had babysitters lined up to watch the kids, Paul and I got new clothes, I had my hair done and a facial all in prep for this wedding-more then what I had done for my own wedding! This was a big night out for Paul and I! We were gone from 12pm - 11pm thanks to my friends and family for helping us out we had FUN!!!



Here is a picture of my hair thanks to Brittney Smith and I found out there was 40 hair pins holding it all together.

Here we are in the car on the way to the wedding WITH NO KIDS!!!

(as you can tell I'm super stoked)

Here is some pictures of some of my family before the ceremony my brother, step mom, my dad's sister and her hubby(Aunt & Uncle), my Dad, Paul and I the groom (my step brother) and bride.

I totally hate when you take a picture and your neck fat is showing- I don't take good pictures.

Here is the cake, it had many different flavors I tried...well maybe tried isn't the right word how about divulged in two flavors and a total of 3 pieces. Chocolate very creamy and a white with lemon filling, fruit and poppy seed it was great too! This did not help my neck fat I am sure!












I have so many pictures of Paul and I...






Here is Kira during the ceremony. Her dress was very pretty!

Oh my heavens the food was so good I had two full plates, I know what a pig I was but hey it was about 40 bucks a plate and 109 guests you do the math! I didn't want the food to go to waste mainly :)

This is not my plate cause I started eating it and it didn't look pretty but this is what it looked like. Potatoes, veggies, salad, the best chicken ever, salmon and a roll and yes I had it twice! My plate was heaped much higher :)

As the food and cake came out so did the drinking and the goofiness as you can tell Paul can get pretty goofy.

* I wasn't really drinking I don't drink at all, these were all posed shots I swear but there were a few people who were drinking and being a tad ummm loopy!

Of course you couldn't tell until the dancing came out and oh how I LOVE TO DANCE!!!! This is what I had been waiting for all night! A live band and my man was smokin!!! Oh BABY!

My Step Mom had a great time :) ! There were so many DIFFERENT people from all walks of life I wish I could have taken pictures of all of them but we had babies, drunks, Mama's to be, mama's, and BIG mama's! Same sex couples-that was interesting, we had the old people the young people the single people and the happy married couples. It was Great fun!




This is Jack Ben's girlfriend Natalie's brand new 1 week and 2 days old baby (no he is not the father).



Finally it was over and I only say finally because my legs and feet hurt from dancing! They had the guests hold sparklers as they went to the limo and it was beautiful! What a night! As of right now they are in flight to Europe for a 5 week honeymoon my brother said they spent 30,000 on this wedding and all night Paul and I kept saying WOW oh well they deserve it.

A Trip to the Mall(s)

So my dear friend Deon called me up and said, "lets take the kids to the Mall to see the Easter Bunny."





Sooo we get to the Salem Center Mall and 6 of the 8 kids 7 years-8 months are all walking around some holding hands some running away others just skipping along as if we were at a park-yes that would be Maddie. I'm sure we looked like a bunch of crazy moms and it felt like we were a CIRCUS but the kids had so much fun looking at all the people (actually running into the people), watching the escalator go up and down, pushing the button for the elevator (more like who was going to push the button) and then...getting some balloons at the jewlery store. Well we soon realized the Easter Bunny was not at the Salem Center Mall but at the Lancaster Mall soo we loaded up the crew and headed off for the Lancaster mall.

Once there they got to see the Easter Bunny and oh how happy they were!!!

My chunk of the crew

Noah, Ben, Paige and Maddie

The whole gang -all 8 of them!!!

Cookie Monster -mE LikE cOoKiEs!!

As we introduce solids into Ben's diet he seems to gravitate towards the good stuff even though he really has never tasted it

but he KNOWS it's gotta be good and sure enough he is right!!!

YUMMY...me want COOKIE!

Who knew decorating Easter eggs was so entertaining???

So we decorated a few Easter eggs and what fun we had!

How pretty they look,

and the fun we had!

(Yes that is pumpkins you see I only had a halloween table cloth and it made it quit the festivest, for the rest of us)






The kids enjoyed themselves to the fullest!

Noah enjoyed it so much he started to eat his BEFORE it was out of the shell!

Ben saw what his brother was doing and...

said to himself what a great idea!!!







Even though Dad missed out THIS year we had a great time and all wished he could have been home for the poure fun of it all (mainly me)

-Thanks Katy (Auntie KK)

I could not have done this with out you (nor would I have attempted it)and the kids had a blast as you well know!!!!
Skinny man Noah, Me, Benito aka Ben, Maddie Brookes and Paigey