The Wedding

John's brother, Harry, got married this weekend in Gibsonville, NC. We traveled down on Friday to celebrate the big day. We stayed with John's brother and sister-in-law, Dave and Bhakti. We had a really great time, and the kids just loved spending time with their aunts and uncles.

The wedding went really well. All were in attendence, and the kids provided some great entertainment. At the part where Bailey said, "I will", Jonathan dramatically drew a hand accross his brow and said, "Whew!!!". As if he weren't sure she was going to agree. Juli was a little over zealous as the flower girl. She had so much fun walking down the aisle, she decided to go back and she met Bailey on the way in. I'm so glad that Bailey and Harry appreciated it for the entertainment that it was. All that aside though, the wedding was beautiful, and the reception was lots of fun. The wedding cake was really unique - a black and white paisley, and we had strawberries dipped in chocolate. John gave the toast (my husband just doesn't know how to be shy)... and it was sweet and funny. Bailey's aunt also gave a toast and called the couple Harry and Barry... to much hilarity.

After the wedding, we hung out with the happy couple awhile, and the kids got their "rewards" for being good at the wedding. In fact, as we were leaving the chapel, Jonathan announced, "Mommy, you ARE proud of me". He's a psychic. Who knew? Anyway, Juli got a new Bride and Groom barbie set, and Jonathan got the Shrek 3 Wii game. After, we had dinner with Dave and Bhakti, and John and I felt very sage as we gave advice about strollers and baby swings (Dave and Bhakti are 14 weeks pregnant, and the kids are so excited to have a little cousin on the way!). We then met back up with Harry and Bailey to play some Rock Band. We really had such a great day.

On Sunday, we had brunch with John's parents, Katie, Dave and Bhakti. Katie and Juli were joined at the hip again, and we looked at some family pictures before heading back.

Here are some pictures of our trip, and my beautiful babies, all dressed in their wedding finery.

Here are Uncle Dave and Aunt Bhakti. You can *almost* tell she's pregnant.

Jonathan's just taking a little breather.

And here's our flower girl. This picture was taken by Uncle Dave, who claims it happened only by divine intervention.

Belated Birthday Update

So, Jonathan's party was a couple of weeks ago, but I still wanted to update you. The party went well. I was rushed as always. My dear friend Amber made the cake, and it was really, really awesome. Here are some pics from the party:

Don't these look amazing? They tasted even better!

Jonathan and Carter have apparently missed each other.

It's a miracle!! My parents actually agreed to be in a picture!

The kiddie table ( I was sitting there too)

I just think this is a hilarious picture for some reason. They almost look like a group of super heroes.

The Lemmons boys eat cake!

Nathan: Our prize winner for being the first not to cheat!

Okay, that's all for now, but more to come!

One Last Request

Hey new people, please leave comments!

Getting Serious About Blogging

So, I'm going to get serious about blogging now, and I'm going to try to do it more often. I'm even going to invite some new people. We've had an eventful couple of weeks. Easter went well. The kids enjoyed their baskets, and we even got a night off from church to relax.

Jonathan and Juli woke up early to see what the easter basket brought them! Here they are looking all bleary eyed!

Here they are at church. Juli has a Tinkerbell-ish kind of dress on, but you can't tell because she insisted on buttoning her sweater all of the way up. Jonathan found the blue stuffed monkey on the easter egg hunt. He called it an electric fighting machine. We just smiled and nodded. He definitely has an active imagination!

So, we spent our easter evening napping and eating chocolate.


This weekend we had visitors from out of town: John's parents. We've not seen them in almost two years, so this was a very stressful event. Things went really well, so I'm glad about that, and we also got to see John's cousin Katie (she calls us aunt and uncle, which is cool). We had a great visit with her, and Juli especially loved spending time with another girl.




This is pretty much the way these two were all weekend. They just loved each other!

Katie and Jonathan got along pretty well, but she was pretty confused by his "all boy" behavior.

Okay, I hate having pictures taken of me, much less posting them, but this was such a rare event (the two of us actually being willing to have our picture taken), that I couldn't resist.

Here are me and my girls. Juli and I are really going to miss Katie.

This is a picture of my husband's parents with all of the children.

So, after our work week this week, we have Jonathan's birthday party on Saturday, and we'll hopefully have some guests this weekend as well.

More to come!!

Just for You

Dear Reader,

You know who you are.

I am posting this blog specifically by your request.

Sorry it's been so long, everybody (wink, wink), but sickness still prevails in the Bristol branch of the Paul family. We currently are all in recovery and/or not sick mode, so things are looking up.

Bring on the Spring!!!!

In other news, the new house is not working out quite as well as we'd hoped. Our landlady is fruit-loops. Yes, I said it: She's totally bonkers. So, it looks like we are on countdown to our next move, if you can believe it. We've got about 8 months until our lease is out, and we fully expect her to refuse to renew the lease (again, due to the fact that she's about 2 fries short of a Happy Meal). Pray for us, please... we want to stay in one place for more than a couple of months, especially now that the kids are in school.

Also, please pray for our landlady's safe removal from society and into a mental ward. That sounds bad, I know, but she's seriously whacked.

As for the remaining portion of our lives, it's kids, kids, kids. Kids at home and kids at church. That may sound like a complaint, but it really isn't. I never knew just how invested I could be in the lives of 30 + kids in just under a year. I can't tell you how much I want to be a stay-at-home mom -- not just for my kids, but for our teenagers, and for those children that are meant to be ours that we just haven't gotten to meet yet. Here's hoping that we can make that happen.

I"ll leave you with some pics of our recent escapades.

Jonathan lost his first tooth!!!!

Juli's showing off her new dress (which was covered in Fruit Punch within just a few seconds).

Tagged

Amber tagged me!

The rules...

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).

2. Open to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the fifth sentence on your blog.

5. Tag 5 people.

Okay, the nearest book to me is actually Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.

The fifth sentence says "Love at First Sight?"

This is actually interesting because it a conversation between Jacob and Belle, and everyone knows I'm seriously a Jacob gal.

Well, the tagging part is hard because the only people who read my blog are Amber, who tagged me, and maybe Joy, who tagged Amber.

I have no one to tag ;-(

Well, we survived the move, Christmas, and the New Year.. but just barely. We've gotten everything pretty much set at the new house, and it is wonderful!! We were sick all through Christmas, so that was unfortunate. But, we had visitors for New Year's, and it was much better. Anyway, I thought I'd post some Pics, and I'll blog longer later.

Here are Jonathan and Juli as their favorite Teen Titans characters, Robin and Raven.

Here, they are watching themselves on TV.

Christmas Morning

Juli got a Bride Barbie for Christmas, and here's her impression. In case you're wondering, that "veil" is actually a hooded towel.

I hope everyone has had a lovely New Year!!