What a relief...

...that I'll never have to do this again! :) I was flattered that Jon and Jess wanted me to do their wedding, but I think I'll stick to kiddos from now on. My brother Jon was married to Jess on Friday June 12th in Michigan City, IN. It was absolutely gorgeous. I have way too many pictures to show them, but I've tried to give them a good edited selection here. Here's a play-by-play!

First the preparation:









Jess' dress had amazing details.













And then...they meet!



And exchange gifts...

















Warning: the remaining pictures may be a little heavy on the mini-Willhelms!





Jess' beautiful niece Lily:




Jess' cutie pie nephew Sam


I think we all wanted to do this!


My kids haven't learned proper dress up etiquette! As a sidenote, Evie wouldn't wear the cute shoes I bought for her. She insisted on wearing her cupcake sandals! :)


Evie's face is cracking me up. I don't know why she looks so sad!


From one extreme to the other!




The Ceremony! There really were guests there. They just sat in the front ;)







Graham wouldn't walk up the aisle unless Greg gave him our hotel room key. I'm still laughing at this. You can see it in his left hand.






Such an emotional ceremony! Even the photographer was crying.














Jess' Aunt Jean, Aunt Susan, and cousin Cristen arranged all of the flowers and did a great job!






My parents look very excited to get their "specs on the beach" cocktails! (Jon and Jess are both optometrists, so they had specs on the beach and eyeball highballs to drink)










Ring bearing is hard work!


The next morning at the crack of dawn!


Get a room!

Forgetful in my old age

I'll admit that I'm spacey. I lock my keys in my car a lot. I forget people's birthdays. I stood up a friend for dinner once. This Father's Day I forgot to call my dad. I got him a card a few days before, but then I forgot to send it. I was really worried about giving Greg a good Father's Day, and apparently my mind can only handle one task at a time, and I forgot that I actually have a dad. But the truth is, I have a great dad. He deserved a call, but he still said it was no big deal when I called him this morning. My mom accidentally left her mother's day cards at our house last month. One of them was from my dad, and I knew whatever it said must've been pretty good since he got a kiss afterwards! So seeing that she left it, after she was gone I opened it! (She knows this so it's not a big deal). It wasn't a major invasion of privacy. It said, "The best gift a father can give his children is to love their mother"...then on the inside it said, "and I do with all my heart." I thought that was just the sweetest thing. So dad, you might be forgetful like me sometimes, but you're just a really good guy, a great husband, and a wonderful Father.

just one

for jon & jess...more to come but I'm really tired and behind on my regular work :) I was thrilled to see that we actually got one good shot when the sun was poking through. Sooo worth getting out there bright and early! I hope you are having a good time on your honeymoon, and hopefully I'll have a new niece or nephew in the next year ;) just kidding! although evie has really been wanting a baby around!

tattooed tap dancing diva

Each time we go to the grocery store, Evie always wants something, so I tell her before we go that she can have one thing. Today all she could talk about was the candy she would get at the checkout. Well when we got to the checkout she switched gears and wanted tattoos instead. So I agreed that would be ok. She did check with me to make sure no needles were involve before we bought them. I told her since she's in my brother's wedding on Friday we would have to put it on her thigh since her dress is sleeveless and I wasn't sure it would come off easily. We did later put one on her arm, but she still wanted her pants off so she could look at it whenever she wanted. Later I was laughing as I saw her in this get-up doing some tap dancing. For the record, I am not one to put my 3 year old in dance lessons--she's self taught ;) Greg wanted me to grab the video camera but the battery was dead. So I settled for old faithful, and then I moved the table to get some "footage". :)

and just because the camera hasn't been put away yet...

I'm getting ready to take the kids to get some bubbles, so I threw Evie's hair in a ponytail. After I got my shoes on, I thought you look so gorgeous! I asked her if I could take her picture again and she smiled and nodded her head. She let me take it only if I let her make a mad face first. Then I told her under no circumstances could she look into my camera. That works a lot with her!

the most difficult kids to photograph!

I'm sure a lot of photographers feel the same--the hardest kids to photograph are your own. I don't know why, but my kids go nuts when I turn on the camera. I hardly get it out when I'm at home anymore, so maybe that's why they get so excited when I do pull it out. They have the same reaction after they eat fruit snacks, so maybe my camera emits some sort of sugar or red dye #5. Either way, I was laughing so hard (after I decided getting mad wasn't helping!) at their crazy antics. These were not at all what I had in mind for this, but oh well. Still blogable.


I'm really tired of seeing this bridge in my pictures, but for some reason we keep ending up there.





(crazy antics that made me laugh)