September the 22nd.

Welcome, welcome, to the 200th post at ...With Two Cats in the Yard. We are 4 years and 4 months into blogging our life. There is currently no end in sight. I might get all reflective and commemorative in a future post, but this post is dedicated to the wedding of Tim and Corey.

The wedding took place on, in my opinion, one of the best possible days to have a wedding, particularly in the fall: September 22nd. It was the first day of Fall 2012, for one thing, but more importantly, it was the anniversary of Bilbo and Frodo's birthday, and of the beginning of the Quest of the Ring! An excellent date for beginning new and important journeys.
 
 Then Thursday, September the 22nd, actually dawned. The sun got up, the clouds vanished, flags were unfurled and the fun began. -The Fellowship of the Ring

Adele was the flower girl!

I will probably have these two framed.

Can you see her personality coming into focus?

Adele was wheeled about in the wagon I decorated with my nemesis, the glue gun. Miles is dressed sweet and sharp for his role as the ring bearer, and Corey is the transcendently lovely bride pictured below:

(Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these details) But this dress is a family heirloom. It was worn first in 1934 by Corey's great grandmother, then by Corey's great aunt, then by her mother in the early 80s.

On a personal note, I would love it if I had a figure that could fit into my grandma's wedding dress!

Miles was able to spend some time with weekend with his beloved Tita. They're good old friends.

Here we make our entrance after the bridesmaids. Miles wanted very much to help Adele in some way, whether to pull her or to help her scatter petals. As it turned out, it was all he could do to keep the pillow upright and walk in the prescribed stately fashion. He still did a pretty nice job for a 3 year old ring bearer, waiting patiently for the best man to wrestle the rings out of the pillow.

Most people were pretty much just staring at her, though:

I don't know that I blame them.

They stared at the kids, at least, until Corey's entrance. There was no looking away from the radiance of a truly beautiful bride.

We did our best to keep the kids contained and quiet during the ceremony. Adele did a little bit of kvetching, but all remained fairly mellow and quiet in our pew until... the etch-a-sketch incident. Who knew how loud a dropped etch-a-sketch could really be??

The wedding party

Many people from other parts of the Shire were also asked; and there were even a few from outside the borders. (FOTR)

Grandpa's girl

When every guest had been welcomed and was finally inside the gate, there were songs, dances, music, games, and, of course, food and drink. (FOTR)

Also, Daddy's little girl. Practicing the father-daughter dance.

But there was also a generous distribution of squibs, crackers, backarappers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf-fountains, goblin-barkers and thunder-claps. They were all superb. (FOTR)

We all massively enjoyed the reception. Miles danced wildly, both by himself and in everyone's arms. Adele was all smiles, claps, and squeals at the light, sound, and happy faces.

Corey had a powerful throw of her bouquet!

Celebrating, very rightly and properly.

Many young hobbits were included, and present by parental permission; for hobbits were easy-going with their children in the matter of sitting up late, especially when there was a chance of getting them a free meal. (FOTR)

Tita and Marshall kept taking the kids on romps and leaving us to eat and dance unencumbered. Many cheers for Tita and Marshall! Here, Miles is an iphone junkie/narcoleptic.

Master Everard Took and Miss Melilot Brandybuck got on a table and with bells in their hands began to dance the Springle-ring: a pretty dance, but rather vigorous. (FOTR)

It's not a party without the Twist.

 

I will protest lest you think I am being ironic. I love the twist. I will do that dance at the apocalypse party and on from there.

Trying not to get trod on.

This was the last giddy photo of the evening, and it is evidence of Marshall's success in winning Adele back over. They were good friends back in December, but he had to re-introduce himself. All the family, it is safe to say, is re-acquainted now.

And welcome, Aunt Corey! And many happy wishes to a new family.

Practice

This weekend we were delighted to participate in the wedding of Jon's brother, Tim, to the beautiful Corey. We all had something to do, so it was important to go to the site the day before the Day and practice.

Do you not love this church?

A strange kind of modern gothic? We gazed at it for a while. Miles said, "Mum, this church touches the sky." He's right.

So... the rehearsal & dinner were Star Wars themed. I did my humble best to represent that with my little felt Ewok hoods.

Miles really wanted to be the one to pull Adele in her decorated wagon (lookit me, I'm crafty!) (LOL). But I had some instinct which told me not to get his hopes up, and as it turned out, I was right. He had enough trouble managing his ring pillow when the moment came.

I didn't get great shots of the rehearsal, but you see here the bride as Leia, one of the officiants as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The groom you will see below portraying Han Solo.

The father of of the bride: Darth Vader. When we were going around introducing ourselves, he actually enabled Vader breathing sounds and said "I am her father." It's good to know Tim is marrying into folks with intact senses of humor :-)

Wish I had gotten a picture of David and Cindy in their Jedi robes with light sabers, forming a tunnel under which the party could recess. It was a silly evening.

To follow: pictures of the ceremony & reception. Prepare for some cute and some gorgeous!

Ambushed by Joy (Or, Open House at Romp N' Roll)

So, I haven't posted in a while. It's been a bit of a struggle to keep our collective family head above water for the past few weeks. I won't get too much into the mundane hassles, but we've had issues with daycare transitions, finding childcare coverage, keeping up with grad work, preparing for travel, and recently, one of my co-workers was seriously injured in a car wreck which left us very short and me very frantic at work. In addition, Adele had a fairly distressing bout with roseola (that's the one with the crazy high fever for days, followed by spots on the torso) and has been getting teeth at a really unreasonable rate. And first Jon and then I have come down with the Evil Throat Cold that's been going around. I'm feeling the pressure, beyond a doubt, of having so much going on and, so it seems, so little flexibility to cope with it: I have 1.5 more days of family leave time left to use until January.

I have also had to confront an unpleasant reality in my own mental health lately. I had an episode a few weeks ago, and now I'm learning I may have long misunderstood my difficulties with breathing. I'm learning to face the fact that my greatest enemy may be is anxiety. The good news is that I am learning more about myself every week, and that I'm taking measures to help myself. And there's been progress, and hope.

So. There's that.

I have had some success lately with viewing overwhelming situations as opportunities to see my own relative powerlessness and paradoxically, simultaneously, to learn how strong I can be. This is a lesson that my birth experience reinforced. It's really about consciously giving God the opportunity to show me wonders that I don't have the audacity to imagine. Small, everyday wonders, like being okay at the end of the day, are still wonders. I'm also being inspired daily by sister Julian of Norwich. I'm more than halfway through her Revelations of Divine Love,  and the library may not see this book back for a while. I encourage you to read it in dark places. She is a prophet of light.

Another of the best treatments for anxiety and the accompanying gloom is to just let myself get caught up in my childrens' joy in new experiences. Just get unreasonably happy, happier than circumstances seem to warrant. Circumstances themselves may cower in fear in the face of joy!

So Romp N' Roll is this colorful indoor playground for tinies 6 & under. They have classes, similar to Gymboree (I'm given to understand; I have no real experience with Gymboree). Normally, since it's not free, it's not somewhere I'd spend my Saturday morning. But this past week they had a free open house session. So after Adele had an adequate morning nap (ok, I woke her up from it), we went over to check it out.

AUGH! Color! Lights! Sound! Music! Don't go if you have a migraine or have done hallucinogenic drugs! Otherwise, bring your small people and expect them to go completely wild. And expect to love it.

Everything is all padded so Adele got to try out some new physical feats. I wish I had a picture of the steep inclined plane she scaled. She was pursuing a stuffed dog and was SO pleased with herself when she caught up with it.

Miles was being all sleep-deficient and three-ish and was moaning about not wanting to go to the "indoor painground" (playground). Yeah, that changed within seconds of arrival. He just grinned at me and went "I LOVE it here!" and went dashing off to climb on something.

Adele climbed these. I'm sure she's been able to do stairs for some time now, but we don't have any. So I didn't know. She kept chirping and laughing at random.

Modeling the shirt that Melissa and Josh got her long ago!

Miles shows me how intrepid and independent he's become. Perhaps it's a result of preschool?
He's also much more imaginative than in months past. This cylinder was an airplane, btw, and he was riding it to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Sizing up the challenge...

And going for it!

Adele is gaining a sense of her own relative size.

Seriously, this was a morning of wild, unbridled joy for the kids, and for me. I'm so grateful for all such good gifts.

Next up: we're traveling to Maryland to witness and participate in Jon's brother Tim's wedding! Tim and Corey will be married this Saturday. So down the rainbow colored chute we go!

Forward! And, Allons-y!