My cousin, Laney, is getting married this June up in the mountains and we are excited for another family wedding. (Read: I'm pumped, and even moreso that I am not quite as involved as in my sister's, because that thing nearly killed me....) Elizabeth and I are both bridesmaids and we are all looking forward to all of the fun that's in store!
A few weekends ago I was terribly honored to get to take her bridal portrait pictures up in Linville at Grandfather Mountain, which is where the wedding will be. I, of course, cannot show off anything that shows the dress. However, everyone has seen/can see her gorgeous ring, and I LOVE this picture. And would like to thank my parents, AGAIN, for the lens that allows me to get such neat shots. How beautiful is her ring???
Let me tell you, she looked phenomenal. After June I will show off more. :) The afternoon was perfect for pictures. The day started off with a crystal blue sky, not a cloud in sight, and sunshine everywhere. A great day, but no good for a photographer. But then the clouds rolled in and it was go time. We got her dressed, ran around the golf course and bridges and to find the prettiest flowers on the grounds, and I was in hog heaven, just snapping away. And I'm telling you what, not 10 minutes (literally) after we finished and got her inside and out of her dress, THE. HEAVENS. OPENED. I'm not talking it started to sprinkle and then picked up. I mean the bottom totally fell out and we had just missed an absolutely torrential downpour. I don't even want to THINK what mess we could have been in had we gotten caught out in that... But anyway. :)
Laney is 2.5 years older than me, 5.5 years older than Elizabeth. She has one older brother, Grayson, and then we all have 3 older cousins - William, Brian and Tom. We came in order from 3 sisters - none of them overlapped in having kids. And all the boys came first and then the girls. Hello, textbook. We were raised more like siblings, if you ask me. Family trips and sleepovers and everything in between, we could often be found in all sorts of combinations in Lenoir and elsewhere, all through the years.
(Circa, oh, I don't know - 1987? I'm probably in trouble for putting this out there, but it's at one of Nanny & GanGan's famous Christmas parties, so I might be off the hook. Man, those were the days...)
We still love getting together when we can, even though we have managed to end up in different cities/states all over the place. Our biggest similarity was, obviously, our grandparents, who doted on us all. the. time. And we miss them both dearly. I think - I know - that they'd be awfully proud of us that we all love to be together as much as we do. They, along with all of our parents, really fostered our relationships with each other growing up, and for that, I think all 7 of us will be forever grateful. To them and to our moms and dads.
(2008 at Wrightsville for the "Beach Beach Trip". We totally all make fun of Flamingo Laney in this picture!)
Here's to cousins! Here's to family!
Emmy. You are 6 months old. You are the cutest thing on the planet. I could spend every waking moment with you and never be bored. These are all facts.
I can't believe you are already halfway to a year. I feel like you were just born and your dad just called me the second I got to work on November 5th to tell me you were here. I will remember ducking into a conference room at my office to hear all about you forever. I will remember your mom calling me just before leaving for the hospital the night before - she sounded scared to death but tried not to act like it, but I know her better than that.
I will remember forever walking into the hospital room in Charlotte to see you for the very first time, perched on your mom's shoulder after eating. You were the tiniest, pinkest little thing, and I was, of course, sobbing. Your mom makes fun of me because I told her the night before that I had laid out my outfit for your birthday, so I would be all set to go to come see you. But it was a big deal! I was so excited that I could hardly stand it. I remember going to a luncheon that day and telling everyone - EVERYONE - there that you had arrived, and proudly showing off pictures from Aunt Laura on my phone.
The night that I met you was one of my favorite nights. When I first took you from your mom your eyes were wide open, and as I rocked you and talked to you I felt like you were really listening, trying to figure out who I was. You had LOTS of visitors that day, and I had come later on and could only imagine how tired your sweet parents were. After I had been there for a while, I decided it was time to let everyone get some rest. Your dad was headed in to take a shower when I got up to leave, looked at me and said "I don't know where you think you're going." So I stayed. I chatted with your dear mother and stared at you the whole time.
You are so loved. Loved FIERCELY. You make everyone smile - how could you not!? Your parents are so easily natural with you - sometimes I feel like they have had you forever. I knew from the moment that you were on your way that you would be a girl. Your dad is a girl's daddy. He needed a girl first, so everyone knew that one was on the way. Don't you love him?!
Your mom was made for this. I've known that for as long as I have known her. I have learned so much from watching her with you, but have not been surprised by a second of it. She is calm and patient and loving and strong. All things that both of your parents will instill in you. And she gets funnier by the day, doesn't she!? We are all so proud of her for that. :)
I would walk through fire for you, sweet Emerson. I love you to the moon and back, and will be there for you forever and ever. And spoil you ROTTEN.
Love Forever,
Bella's trip was a planned one, my visit with Em was a total random (and short!) luck kind of thing. Yahoo for BOTH!
I love you both so much, my dear, sweet girls!
I have been missing these girls so badly that it HURTS. I certainly miss them all the time, but for some reason lately it's like I would do anything to have my front door fly open and one of them walk through (because we never knocked) and need to borrow a necklace or want to go to Target or on a walk or need to vent about the mailman or the weather or need help with something for work/school or need back-up on a mission to stalk a boy (TOTALLY used to do this). Or I'd love to fly through any of their old doors, but I don't know the people who live in their old places. So that would be weird. 
We are trying SO HARD to plan a trip for all of us. But I am in NC, Beth is in DC, Katie and Allison are both in Tennessee, Cath is in Georgia and Ash, for crying out loud, lives in Wyoming. So yeah, it's a little hard and it is making. me. sad. that it isn't any easier to get us all in one place. Spring is trying so hard to pop up and stick around here, and it makes me so badly want to sit out in the grass with these girls like we used to do and talk about nothing and everything all at once. 
Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, we can make something work soon. These girls are proof positive of God so very purposefully dropping 6 random people in one neighborhood and making forever friends out of them (that sounds like some mix of the "Real World" intro and a Hallmark card, doesn't it?) But it's the truth. I know that wherever we are the funny emails and occasional visits will always happen and always make us feel loved and leave us with happy hearts.
I love you girls. I will see you SOON one way or another!
When I was growing up I always wondered what it would have been like to have had an older brother. I think things like this are normal to think about - you wonder about a "what if" and wonder about things that didn't end up being your specific reality. What if I had been good at sports but not creative? What if we had lived in California and not NC? So, that same wondering happened regarding sibling life: I have one, younger sister, so I wondered what it would have been like to have an older brother. 
Lucky for me I have never believed that family strictly means blood-related. Because if you ask me, I pretty much got 3 big brothers out of these dear boys. They're all just enough older than me to be way protective of me but not too much older to not be some of my very favorite, very dearest, closest friends.
I love that they open doors for me and pull out chairs for me and know what to order me to drink if I'm late (which I never am, but you know, just in case). I can tell their moods from 2 words on the phone and from the second they walk in the door. I love that my parents treat them like sons and that they treat my mom and dad like another set of parents.
They have taught me how I deserve to be treated, and right after my dad, they are the reasons that I have such high standards for guys. They have allowed me to see with my own two eyes strong, honest, Godly men. I have seared into my memory a night that they were all at my apartment in college, and we sat in the floor of my bedroom while they told me how much they adored me and that they would never let someone who wasn't good enough pass by them to get to me. 
They would absolutely drop everything and come running for me if I needed them (and believe me, they have), and I would do the same for them without hesitation. We have laughed together in fun and cried together in pain. 
Emerson. You are about the cutest little peanut on the face of the earth. Seriously.
With 2 of my very favorite moms. :)
Sweet Bella sent me flowers at work after we got back. Melt me!
Molly, I am so darn proud of you that if I could crawl up on my roof and shout it without getting hurt I totally would. You are truly a hero. To Bella and to all of us. I love you big and huge and always. And Bella, Aunt Becca loves you something fierce. Forever.
It is also what I have jokingly said to my dear father who has come over every darn time it has snowed to dig me out of the bowl that I live in. I am not saying we live in Alaska, but NC hasn't seen 3 snows before Valentine's Day in I don't know how long...and we are currently getting more as I type. And oh now I MISS my Ford Explorer from high school and college, even if it did nearly ruin a Spring Break trip to DC one year because of a silly broken seatbelt (Katie Mulder do you still read this blog?). The Honda just can't hang in the snow and ice. 
The Vivster - loving it and oh-so-stylish at the same time.
This eager watching would make you think Nora couldn't wait to go out in it...
She HATED it. But what a precious little snow angel she was anyway - as long as someone was holding her and she wasn't "TUCK! (Stuck!)" in the snow!
Happy Snow Days!
