Weddings, 1st Birthday, New Baby and New School Room

This weekend was a busy one! Saturday my cousin, Sara, got married in Denton. Well, since we were making the trek to the Dallas area what a perfect time to fit in a trip to IKEA, my new best friend! =D Since we were there why not fit in a trip to PF Chang's too since we (Cullen, Clara, and I) could not eat the wedding food. It looked great but it was BBQ.

The wedding was very nice. They got married in the cutest little chapel that was made of rock and just looked like a fairy tale chapel. The only decoration needed was the beautiful candle light. Candy took pics of the ceremony so I might steal some later and show you guys. After the ceremony we took a lot of pics outside the chapel. I will also steal some of those from Candy later. Here are a couple of the kids outside the chapel. Love it!

We finally have an updated family pic with all of us. I will try to work on editing them later. Thank you Candy for taking the pics. Isn't this a great pic of the boys! Thank you Candy!Here is a pic of my youngest brother, Matt with GG, our grandmother. GG is my Dad's mom. Thanks again, Candy!Then it was off to the reception. We had a really nice time seeing family we had not seen in a while and chatting with everyone. It was fantastic getting to share in such a special occasion for Sara and Brandon.

Sara and Brandon's first dance. Her dress was very pretty.

The married couple.

Sara dancing with her Dad, Tim. It was so sweet to watch these two together.

Sara dancing with her step-dad, Byron. There were no tears here, just goofin' around. The couple cutting the cake.

Here is a pic Candy took of the groom's cake. It was too cute. It was decorated in the style of the Star's Hockey team.

This is a shot of my cousin Laura, Sara's sister. She looks fabulous. She has lost a lot of weight and she just looked GREAT!

Two sisters very happy and beautiful! I actually have some shots with me in them this time. Cullen is starting to show interest in photography. So we both were picture happy. The photos in this post are only a SMALL amount of the 257 photos we took this weekend. LOL!! When I saw this pic I could not believe how much older Christian is getting. He is my young man. I am so proud of him. Isn't he incredibly handsome if I do say so myself!

Christian brought in his Ipod Touch and it came in quite handy. He had spent his own money and bought a couple of Sesame Street videos, which Clara loves Sesame Street, particularly Elmo. So we enjoyed goofing around with it. After the wedding we ran by PF Chang's with Matt & Candy. It was a nice dinner. We were re-thinking this decision when we figured out what time we would get home. We pulled in our driveway about 2:30 a.m. and still had to unload the truck from the trip to IKEA.

We drove up to Dallas early and went to Frisco to IKEA. This place is absolutely a God-send for someone that wants to be organized and stylish but does not have a clue how to go about it....that person would be ME!! You could spend an entire weekend in that place. Clay and I have already decided that we are going to focus on one room at a time and IKEA-fy our house....like my new word?? I know, I am a dork! This trip was to focus on our new school room I had planned in my head after seeing pics of it on Shannon's blog. Thank you Shannon! I always love it when God provides and lets you see the answer you need. We had a somewhat functional schoolroom before but it was so chaotic in there I wanted to scream. I knew I wanted it to be organized but just was at a loss. I have bought drawers, baskets, etc. and it would just solve a small problem but not the large one. Well, here are shots of the progress of my finally functional, organized schoolroom!!

The boys had the assigment of assembling their chairs. Christian would not let me take a pic of him as he was frustrated at the moment. They both did very well assembling them and it was a great learning lesson.

Clay had the hard job of assembling all the shelves and desks. While he was putting it all together I was clearing out the schoolroom. Here is Daddy and Clara bolting it to the wall. Clara was a great helper, can't you tell? =)

And the finished school room!!!!! A place for everything and everything in it's place!

The shelving unit is called Expedit. I just love it. I have a place for everything. Everything is in sight so it will get used and not forgotten about. I still have some work to do but for the most part it is finished. The shelving lets me keep things up high so Clara cannot get what she does not need to be into. I am just thrilled with my new space and have such a peace of mind about our space. I had to share it with you.Before we undertook the schoolroom project on Sunday we had more important things to do. We had to go celebrate Pierce David's first birthday party! Here are some shots from the day. KK cut the birthday cookie for everyone. Look how many kids there are. It is so neat to have so many great kiddoes in one family!

Since we don't eat dairy or meat products any more I wanted to make sure that the kids had some cake to eat too for Pierce's birthday. They had to miss out on it at Sara's wedding. So I woke up early Sunday and whipped up this wonderful Layered Chocolate Cream cake I found here. It was absolutely easy and wonderful. I stole this pic from her website but mine looked just like it. After trying out this recipe I immediately bought her cookebook, The Everyday Vegan. I cannot wait for it to get here. You won't believe what the ingredients are. No one knew what was in it until after they ate it. I think everyone liked it. It was ALL GONE!! =DClara and Ashley playing on the piano. I love this pic of Clara. I was trying to get the light from the window on her but she did not coopeate very well. I do like her little profile in this and her concentration amazes me. She is brilliant if I do say so myself!Here is a shot of Kathy (Taffy) and Jampa, Kathy's Dad. Jampa's name is Pierce and he has a lot of namesakes. He has Cullen Pierce, Pierce David, and now Judson Pierce! Judson was born to Dustin (Clay's cousin) and Kristin who was born Friday, September 18th.

Isn't he tiny? When I saw him I could not help but think Clara was even smaller. Time just flies by so fast! He is absolutely adorable and I think at this point he looks more like Kristin than Dustin. Any way he goes he will continue to be a cutie!

Believe it or not I actually have a TON more pics but I have to get off this computer and actually get some work done! =D