jami and james.

this past saturday, phil had the honor of being a groomsman in james and jami's wedding.  we were doing a little calculating on the drive over and figured that james and phil were roommates for a little over six years during college and beyond.  they've lived together for almost as long as phil and i have!  so yeah, they go way back.

anyway, the bridal party was asked to be there four hours before the ceremony so that the pictures could be taken beforehand.  and thanks to some very good friends of ours who agreed to watch our kiddos for pretty much an entire saturday,  i was able to go early too (which was okay with james and jami).  it was really fun for me to watch the wedding photogs in action.  and while being careful to stay out of their shots, i got to snap away for fun (which was also okay with j and j).

it's still amazing, and somewhat unfair to me, how guys can get dressed

and ready to go in under ten minutes.  allie was excited to see her daddy

all dressed up and declared he was a prince who was ready for the ball.

giving the handsome prince a kiss.  the only prince

she'll be smooching for the next twenty years.

meanwhile, this one thought she'd

better break in daddy's shoes for him.

still not sure why they're not fitting quite right.

we made it to the church and waited for the others to arrive.

the good-lookin' dudes.

then jami made her appearance.  she's lovely, inside and out.  :)

they had jami come up behind james...

right behind him... 

he gave her a big ol' hug as soon as he finally got to see her.  so cute.

a little last minute adjusting.  also so cute.

peek-a-boo!

aww, look how happy james is!  :)

the entire bridal party.  phil threw me a quick face shot

before snapping back to attention.  what a guy.  :)

seriously, i've never seen james so animated and smiling (or BEAMING) so much.

very cool to see them both so happy on their big day.

my phil sure cleans up nice, doesn't he?  :)

the bride slipping away while james posed in front of the church.

ex-roommates who lived to tell the tale...

close-up of phil's boutonniere.  he said at least he could munch on the

wheatgrass during the ceremony if he got hungry.  guys and flowers...

i know i keep saying this, but they were so CUTE together!  :)

the lovely, but cold, bridesmaids looking on...

another shot of the beautiful bride.

in the midst of the photo shoot, phil got a call regarding one of his

recent interviews.  this is when we got the first bit of semi-good

news in his job-hunt.  semi-good is better than no good, i say!

a big rainstorm was forecasted for that day and there were quite

a few anxious glances up at the sky throughout the photo session.

from the bride and groom, too!  but thankfully, the Lord held off

the rain for the whole outdoor photo session.  and then it all came

pouring down just as they went inside the church.  unluckily for me,

i had slipped out to the car and got caught right as it started pouring.

yay, me.  and my awesome wet-dog hair.  : p

lots and lots of name cards.  i took a picture of ours so that we could

easily find it again later.  ok, i didn't really.  but i did move ours to the

outside corner so we could easily find it later.  but don't tell anyone.

the long, long aisle inside the church. 

loved the simple pillar candles lining the way.

it was a beautiful church with stained glass windows everywhere.

a glimpse of my stoic-looking husband.  i knew i could

get a better shot of the groomsmen if i sat on the bride's

side, but phil said i should sit on the groom's side.  so this

is the only pic i got of him.  aw well, the rest of 'em woulda

been of the back of his head, anyway.

jami and her dad about to make their entrance.

exchanging vows.

on goes the ring!

you may now... 

the newly minted mr. and mrs. lee!  :)

ok, so phil and i didn't get any pictures together cuz of my wet-dog hairdo

and cuz i always much prefer to be behind the camera instead of in front of

it, but here we are in the photo booth!

no reception pictures because i was ALL BUSINESS once it was time to eat.  ha.

congratulations, james and jami!  may the Lord richly bless your new life together.

we love you guys!  :)

budding artists.

i let mikey and allie choose what class they wanted to do this winter.  i thought maybe dance again for allie and some kind of sport for mikey.  but they ended up both choosing an art class.  i readily agreed since they both could be in the same class which meant i'd only have to get them to one class once a week.  i'm all over that option any day.

though it also meant that lauren and i had to hang out on one side of the room for an hour while mikey and allie happily painted and cut and glued.  though unfortunately for me, lauren wasn't quite happy just sitting with me and wanted to do what her siblings were doing.  since she's a big girl now, after all.  except that you have to be three to five years old to be in that class.  she just couldn't understand why i wouldn't let her go no matter how many times she howled about it.  oh, the injustice!  so each week, i had to bring along quite a few snacks to keep her occupied and distracted during the class.  and when those ran out, we had to scoot outside and walk around to further distract her from the injustice of being seventeen months too young.

all this to say that most weeks, i wasn't able to really watch what allie and mikey were doing and see them creating their little works of art.  until last week.  it worked out that phil was post-call that day and agreed to keep lauren at home.  so i finally got a chance to see them in action.  with my camera, of course.

for the first half of the class, the kids are free to choose between three

tables set up with different activities, or they can go paint at the easels.

allie chose to start with some chalk drawing.

"hmm, what to draw...  what to draw..."

mikey took a little longer to decide what to do. 

but eventually decided to give this string painting a try.

allie wanted to try it too.  i found it interesting that mikey made all

straight lines with his string while allie took a more abstract approach.

before long though, they made it over to the easels,

which is both their favorite activity in art class.

"look mommy!  i made purple!"

intently focused.

"hey mommy, what are you doing up there?"

mikey's masterpiece.  (he asked me to take a picture of it).

mikey's second masterpiece.

when allie's sleepy or deep in concentration, she kinda

sucks on the inside of her lip.  she's done this since she

was a baby and you can kind of see her doing that here.

i love when she does that.

she woulda stayed here and painted all day if she could.  she loves it.

but soon it was story time!  allie's hand shot up when the teacher asked if they liked to draw.

the focus this week was on drawing using a variety of different colored pencils,

markers, crayons, and oil pastels.  allie started off with her trademark happy face

with two pigtails.  in what else but pink.  :)

soon though she said it was her jumping on her bed.  mikey asked where he was.

so she drew the bunk bed above her with mikey (in blue) at the top.

mikey preferred to try out the different tools in scribbles.

and wanted to be done in thirty seconds.

so that he could have time to go to the play dough table before class ended.

allie enjoys this table, too.

check out those little fingers working hard to squeeeeeze out the noodles.

and that, my friends, is a typical day in art class with mikey and allie.  when i'm not stuffing cheerios into lauren's mouth or trying to keep her away from the fun kid tables or keeping her busy outside.  it was quite enjoyable spending a little time with the older two and getting to hear their thoughts while they painted and drew and played with dough.  fun stuff.