The Wedding Day

Today was the big day.  Addison Marie was going to be the flower girl in my cousin Whitney's wedding.  We had found the dress and the shoes and had been reading the "How to be a Flowergirl" book for weeks and this was the day.

Before we headed over to the wedding I thought I would try curling Addison's hair to see what it would do and if it got messed up in the car we could touch it up.  I tell you curling her hair was like trying to braid the hair of a cat.  She kept moving all over the place and I was scared to death that she would get burnt, but luckily she did very well and looked soooo cute.

As we were getting ready to leave we had asked Addison to sit in the rocking chair until we were ready to load her in the truck.  When we came back we found her asleep.

We got her hair touched back up and Whitney got her some really cute hair clips to put in.  She found her cousin friend Aubrey and she was set.

She couldn't wait to show her daddy how cute she looked as well now that she had her basket.

And of course she searched all over the place to find Uncle Casey who was one of the groomsmen.

We went from just a family of 5 to now a family of 10 and now we can use words like aunties, uncles, cousins, neice, nephews, grandma, grandpa, brother-in-law and more.  Mom and Dad you did good!

Finally got all the kids to pose together and they all look so adorable.  Still working on Harry to walk like the other two, but you can feel the love between these three amigos.

Our entire Schafbuch family...does Jordan really know what he's getting himself into?  No, we are such a close family and we just keep getting bigger...27 strong and Grandpa is still always with us no matter what.  Whitney and Jordan got married at a Jack Nicholas designed golf course right in the heart of Iowa and it was absolutely beautiful.  Funny enough when you worry about it being too hot for an outdoor wedding in July, it happened to set a record low temperature that day.

The wedding party with the cutest little flower girl and ring bearer who was a little boy Whitney used to babysit.  I was really worried about Addison paying attention during the pictures because I have had the toughest time getting her to pose but something clicked in her and she turned it on and was perfect.  She smiled and looked at the camera and stood still for the first time in her life.

Addie quickly befriended little Jordan and kept encouraging him that he could walk down the aisle too.  All before the ceremony the two of them played with a fun little sticker book and Addie's last words out the door were, "Come on, you can do it, walk with me."

Addison did so well with her petal dropping.  I walked along behind her with the ring bearer's mom to make sure she knew where to go.  She gently dropped a petal at a time and then at the steps she grabbed a handful and it happened to be the entire basket full and dropped them.  As she started to walk down the little steps she realized that she didn't have any petals left so she went back to pick them up and they were blowing away.  I quickly helped her grab some more and put them in her basket and coax her back down the aisle and she made it all the way down smiling all the way.  Even when she got to the front she stood up front with the girls for the longest time and I think she would have stayed the whole time but she followed the ring bearer when he was tired of standing.  I tried keeping her warm since it was a bit chilly and she was in a sleeveless dress but the cold didn't seem to bother her, but you could see all the flower girls just shivering and their teeth chattering.  Everyone must have thought she made a valiant effort because the pastor even made reference before he started that he had never seen a flower girl do such a good job.

After the ceremony while Addison was still glowing about her role in the wedding I latched onto my little boy to give him a little lovin' since I've been attending the flower girl all day.

As soon as Addison got inside the reception, she started cutting a rug.  First with Grandpa Jeff and then with me, then some other little girls who were done eating and then she worked to get anyone who stepped on the dance floor to dance with her...all night long.  She was having an absolute blast and never slowed down and she got pretty upset when we had to go home.  Granted it was 10:30 at night and we had over an hour drives home back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

It was an absolutely beautiful wedding and one of the coolest ceremonies I've been at.  The pastor had the Whitney and Jordan write letters to each other and the message was based on Ephesians 5 where it talks about husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and women are to submit to their husbands.  Whitney you were a beautiful bride and Jordan you are a pretty cool dude...welcome to the family!