A Wedding and a Family Visit

My parents came back mid-June for a week-long visit and family wedding.

 

First up: the wedding.

It was my cousin Heather's wedding. Heather was the closest thing I had to a sister growing up as we are only 3 months apart and grew up in the same little town. She was my maid-of-honor for my wedding and was kind enough to ask me to be in her wedding this summer. Heather is also Ellie's godmother so she also asked Ellie to be junior bridesmaid. Ellie was thrilled! This makes her fourth wedding thus far and she's only 10 years old!

 

The wedding was at a neat little winery near Janesville and Mankato and the reception was at Heather's parents' house near Wells. Having learned our lesson the hard way last fall when bringing all the munchkins to a wedding and having to keep track of all of them, we left Ava, Carter, and Hannah with Jake's parents. At 10, Ellie is more or less able take care of her self and knows many of my younger cousins and cousins' children well enough to run off and play around with them. We also brought Sophia so my extended family could meet her and because she does not yet go running off. I knew she wouldn't be hard to keep track of and she spent much of the evening in a couple of my cousins' arms. While I missed the middle three, especially when we took a big grandchild picture (only missing about 4 of 25!) and a grandchild/great-grandchild picture (only missing a few greats, including those 3), it was nice to not have to keep an eye out for little people all night. All three of us had a good time and I'm assuming Sophia didn't mind being snuggled much either!

Ellie and Katherine (flower girl), 2nd cousins

Sophia got lots of snuggle time in with Grammy and Grampy.

 

The other kiddos snuck in snuggle time too. They loved having Grammy read them stories before bed. She let each kid pick 3 stories to read, so it took her almost an hour every night to finish up!

Grampy and Grammy also helped finish up all the household projects for the downstairs. They put in the new trim downstairs, which was a very timely project, and installed a storm door so we don't have another bird fly into the house when Jake decides to open the front door for fresh air. We appreciate their hard work so much and will have no projects next time they come!!

 

We also hired a man to replace the tile around the fireplace as we had a heck of a time trying to get the old tile off ourselves. The new tile looks so much better than that dark, old school blue that was up. I still have to touch up the walls from when the guys did the floor, paint the half-bath (painting it the same color as the entire downstairs -minus the gray wall Jake won't let me paint over), put a fresh coat of paint on the white trim, and reinstall and paint the mantle. My goal is to have all those projects done by the end of July and then I will post photos of the refreshed downstairs! We also found a parent of a preschool buddy of the twinks that does painting and will paint our stairwell for us. Whenever we have another rainy day, he will get that project done. We are so excited to finally get some of these household projects fully completed and to have things in the house the way we want them versus what was already done! If only we could magically add another 1000 square feet to our house. Then we would be able to stay here indefinitely as we'd have enough room for all the little bodies.