Sparky & Natasha - 4/18/2014

I've mentioned a couple times that I got to play photographer-for-a-day at my brother-in-law's wedding. His brave then-fiance-now-wife asked me to do it and I agreed...and then panic set it. I am not a photographer. I am a mom with a cute kid who enjoys pictures of her cute kid. What do I know about wedding photography? The answer to that, folks, is: nothing. BUT that's what pinterest is for, right?

Below you'll find a few of the 1100 pictures I took that weekend. I was a nervous wreck but hopefully people couldn't tell. Considering I've never done anything like this before, I'm pretty happy with how everything looked. And it was fun. The wedding was great, the bride looked gorgeous, the groom looked handsome, they were both so happy and I hope they really like the pictures :)

From the pictures we did with just the bride:

From the pictures we did with the bridesmaids:

With the groom and his guys (taking pictures of these guys cracked me up!):

From their "first look":

Bride's boots, garter, and bouquet:

The ceremony (held in a cow pasture on the farm):

Here comes the bride in the truck!

The two most adorable bell ringers making a run for the aisle!

Post ceremony pictures:

Not only was the cake gorgeous but it tasted GREAT!

Making a photo op out of the showers :)

This was a totally lucky shot!

This one was really just for me. Grant loves music and dancing
and watching him try to line dance with everyone was cracking
me up with how cute it was :)

That's really not nearly the amount I wanted to share here but I'd have ended up posting at least 100 pictures...so I really limited myself. And thank you so much to Sparky & Natasha for asking me to document and share in their day, I really had a lot of fun!

High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Lauren and Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) Saturday evening we took Grant to the ER with stomach pains he'd had on and off since around noon. While this initially wouldn't have made my list of "favorites" for the week, ruling out appendicitis and skipping emergency surgery definitely is a favorite. It was a very long evening - including a 20-30 minute ultrasound - and Grant was so incredibly patient and well behaved the whole time. After the ultrasound they decided to try giving him oral fluids instead of starting out with an IV and he drank like a champ. So they sent us home around 2 a.m. telling us it must have been a "bug". We all spent the next day recuperating.

The ER staff kept Grant happily entertained!

2) One night this week (Tuesday maybe? I can't remember.) we made a fort in the living room. I haven't done this in a while and we had so much fun pretending to camp. We pretended to gather wood for our fire, roast marshmallows, hot dogs, and burgers (Grant kept stealing my pretend stick!), and we tried to pretend to sleep but there were monsters to watch out for. It made me want to get a tent so we can camp in the backyard!

3) I finally finished editing the wedding pictures for my brother-in-law & sister-in-law and mailed out a package to them this week! I'll probably share some here in the next few days.

4) One of Grant's teachers will text me pictures every once in a while. Yesterday was "water day" at school and she sent me a picture of Grant having some fun. I love it when I get surprise pictures of him during the day!

5) A few weeks ago I found out that my sister & I won a giveaway from a website I'm a big fan of called Pick Your Plum. I've ordered some great stuff from them and randomly enter some of the giveaways they do on facebook. You tag a friend in the comments and if you win, you both win. And my sister and I won one!! My box came yesterday filled with three fun scarves, a bracelet & earring set, plates, cups, baking cups, treat bags, serving trays, and table runners! I can't wait to use it all!!

Happy Friday!
Have a great weekend!

High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Lauren and Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) On Friday, my brother-in-law & new sister-in-law got married! It was such a fun & busy day. They asked me to be their photographer so I had a lot of fun with that. Plus, Husband and Grant were in the wedding (Grant's first!) so they looked super handsome. Grant was so excited to be going to the farm again and he had so much fun playing with my sister-in-law's nephew. It was a great couple of days!

Me pretending to be a photographer for a day :)

Newlyweds! Congrats to Sparky & Natasha!

All handsome and what-not :) (PS he loved this outfit!)

Grant gettin' down on the dance floor!

2) The morning after the wedding, Grant and I finally got to take advantage of the hotel pool. One of Grant's favorite parts of a road trip is all the swimming we usually do so I was very glad we were able to make time for it.

3) EASTER! With the wedding that weekend too, all of our Eastery things happened on Saturday. Egg coloring, planting the "magic jelly beans" my sister sent, cooking for Easter lunch...everything. Grant got to open his package from Aunt Shauna too and then see what the Easter bunny brought the next morning!

Opening his basket from Auntie Shauna

Coloring eggs!

4) So random, but I brought home a large box from work and one night this week we made an airplane out of it. Last year I made him a jeep out of a box and he thought it was the best thing ever. Apparently a box airplane is awesome too because he was immediately enthralled with it. Last night "the engine broke" and I found Grant on the floor with his play tools "working on it".

5) Thursday we had to take care of my car title so I got to have a lunch date with Husband! We don't do that often so it's always nice. This time we tried a place we'd never been (Jason's Deli - if you're interested) AND they have free ice cream there! That made it a doubly nice lunch, ice cream being my favorite dessert and all :)

Happy Friday!
Have a great weekend!

Sparky & Natasha

Last weekend when we went to the farm, I also had the bride-to-be show me some of the places where she wants her wedding pictures taken. We decided to do some pictures just because. Also to help me get over some of my awkwardness...I like taking pictures and playing around with my camera but I am not a photographer. And usually my subject is a semi-bribable 3 year old (although I'm told that on wedding day, if I bring beef jerky I could possibly get Sparky to do what ever Natasha and I want him to). But anyway, a few pictures from our "see if I can look like I know what I'm doing and lets hope the pictures don't suck" trial :)

My brother-in-law likes to make "awww" noises
mocking what we're doing.

With their dirty dog Mack

Pretty ring!

One of my favorites! I wish I knew could
remember what got that smile out of him!