Curtis was a school-age friend of my little brother that carried over to adulthood.  His parents grew up in the same small country community as ours.  Little did we know, Ariel, my little sister, held a secret crush for the family’s favorite friend.  Ariel and Curtis started dating around the same time as Billy and I {Summer 2009}.  Because of how crazy they were about each other, no one was shocked {or upset} when he proposed.

They both glowed with happiness and excitement on their wedding day.  I’m so incredibly happy for them both.  I pray for happiness, communication, dedication and compromise in their relationship forever.

Welcome to round three of the wedding photos.  Today, I’m sharing photos of the whole wedding party {minus the flower girl}. I’ve just thrown a few of my favorites together, here, for you to look through.

Be sure to keep a close watch on the blog.  I cannot wait to share the photos of the couple together.  There’s so many, I might just have to break it up into two more parts.  You might even want to subscribe by email just to make sure you don’t miss out on these babies.

Happy Monday, darlin’!  Hope you’re week starts wonderfully.

I’m just checking in from our trip to drop off a few more photos from the wedding.  This batch will be of the groom and his party.  Curtis is definitely one of the best guys I have ever met.  I am so incredibly happy for my sister to have such a good man to call her husband.  We are thrilled to have him officially part of the family.

This last one is one of my favorites from the whole set.

See?  These guys were fun and easy to photograph.  They were so full of personality and fun. Check back in a day or two for another round of photos! We still have the wedding party, couple and maybe even some from the reception to look forward to.

In case you’re just joining us, my little sister recently got married.  After being so pleased with her prom photos {done by me}, she gave me the choice of being in the wedding or photographing it.  For the experience and as a gift {that would save her tons} I chose the photography.  The hair and makeup were a given.

For those of you who have been hanging around fo a while, I’m sure you’ve started wondering whether or not I’m going to share these wedding photos at all.  I decided to use them to keep you company while I’m out of town visiting family in Nebraska.  Lilie Jo and I will be gone for a whole week.  I’m sure Billy will be a bit relieved to clear out some of the estrogen in the house.

For today, I’m going to share photos from the bride’s side of the wedding.  Then next week, the fellas, the whole party and the couple.  That’s four days of posting, so I’ll start today, just to keep from making you wait any longer.

What do you think?!  Isn’t she gorgeous?!  Now, keep in mind: this was my first time photographing a wedding.  It was definitely a bigger job than I expected.

To see more of the wedding, check out the Facebook page.

My weekend was busy, nonstop and lightening speed.  My baby sister isn’t that annoying little tattle-tale following me and my cousin around, anymore.  She’s a confident, beautiful, happy, young woman.  Her wedding day was perfect and dream-like–everything she dreamed, I hope.  I’m so happy for her and incredibly ecstatic about this brother-in-law that already felt like a brother.

I just have these two photos, from the wedding, to share for now, but I can’t wait to show you more.  I’m still recuperating.  Wedding photography is more physical than I realized.  Don’t judge me for complaining about how sore I am from running, kneeling, standing, climbing and swimming.  It was more than worth it, though.

How was your weekend?

{photo by Billy Jarboe}

Happy Friday, friends!

What. A. Week.  ’TGIF’ has never meant so much.  My baby girl comes back home, today.  I can’t wait to have her perfect little body wrapped around mine.  Oh, I’ve missed her so.

This weekend promises to be nothing less than exciting, too.  My little sister’s wedding has finally come.  I’m responsible for the hair, makeup, the flower girl, a groomsman and photography.  Possibly even a little decor, too? *shew wee* I imagine if there’s an after party, I won’t be at it.  I hope to use the rehearsal, tonight, to do my own little rehearsal shoot.

Hope your weekend is nothing short of amazing! Plans??

This past weekend, my Grandmother and I threw my little sister’s wedding shower.  I think its actually the first shower I’ve ever had to plan.  She gets married in June and I am in charge of the hair, makeup and photography.  That will most definitely be a busy day for me.

I didn’t plan anything too fancy.  Her colors are blue and black.  I pretty much decorated the party with my bare hands.  The only thing we purchased were the groceries and eating ware.

You can only imagine how please I was when my sister gave the thumbs up on brownies instead of cake.  Brownies are most definitely above cake, on my list.

For our drink, we made up something new.  We brewed regular black tea {like making sweet iced tea} plus one bag of Tazo Vanilla Rooibos tea.  We then added Granny Smith apples, strawberries, mangos and fresh spearmint leaves.  Yum.  Writing that recipe down in the book.

The crowd wasn’t huge, which made for a more relaxed and personal setting.  We played a few fun games and some lucky ladies won a fabulous facial scrub I made.  I’ll most definitely  have to share that with you sometime.  Its truly amazing.

And then was the flower girl.  She is definitely my child. Haha I can’t wait to watch her perform her duties, next month.  This should be interesting.  Stay tuned, friends.

Happy hump day, loves!  Friday is just around the corner!

My Friday will be spent addressing invitations for my little sister’s bridal shower.  I’ve been appointed head chief of the mission, and Grandma has been recruited as my assistant.  She’s a great partner, so I have no doubt it will be a success.

Since I’m throwing this shindig, I’m obviously head of decision-making.  Therefore, when the question of invitations came up, I already had an answer.  I created this lovely little design to lightly reflect the style/theme of the wedding.  Blue and black are her colors and big eye catching daisies are her flower of choice.

Well, what do you think?  Do you love it?  Assuming you do, I’m happy to inform you that the design can most definitely be customized to fit your needs right over here.

Later, Gater!

What a great week it has been, here, in Omaha.  We’ve been here visiting my Dad and not-so-wicked Stepmom since Monday and today is our last.  Yep.  They’re so happy we’re leaving, they’re throwing a party just for us tonight.

haha.

What an eventful year it has been, for this little family.  Recap with me?

We started the year off with lots of changes.  We started our year in a new home, in a new town, and with a completely new routine.  Lilie started full time daycare, Billy changed schools, I started college {again}, and moved salons {of course}.  I started this blog in February.

Are you still with me? That was just the first third of the year.

When school let out for the summer, I quit my job, took Lilie Jo out of daycare and babysat for a close friend {land of little girls?}, while Billy worked.  I tried my hand at herb gardening.  Unfortunately, I made my decision to a little too late and had little success.  However, my commitment to self improvement and consistently writing about it all Summer was a success.

Billy and I also got engaged, this past summer.

This Fall, Billy and I were still in school and Lilie has started a new one.  We surprised our friends and family {ish} with planned runaway wedding in Charleston.  After that, life kind of gave us a break so we could just focus on family and school. Things have definitely seemed less eventful for the past couple months.

I think my favorite part of the whole year, though, was probably the warm, simple, happy times of the summer.  This past summer was a great one.  Life was just so simple and full of happiness and life.

Tomorrow, I want to publish my New Year resolutions.  I want to put them out into the world in hopes of better hippy juju energy.  And in hopes that you might help hold me accountable.  So, be thinking of yours so you can share!

What was your favorite moment of 2011?

I hope you’ll share in the comments.

Another glorious Friday is upon us once more!  I love Fridays.  Its generally been a good week, but I am still pretty overjoyed about it being over.  I really don’t have much work I need to do on here, so I think I will spend my weekend with my family, reading and working on a few drawings for school.

Like I said, its been a generally good week.  And now that I have to chance to sit down and upload some photos, I figure I’ll go can go ahead and do a smiles-of-the-week post.

My smiles started Monday night with Halloween.  At the last minute, Lilie changed her mind about a costume for the…fourth of fifth time within the month.  This last time was from Batgirl to a zombie princess.  We dressed up together and scoured the neighborhood for candy.  It was a great night and full of fun.  I love our neighborhood.

Also, we received a gorgeous wedding gift {candle stick holders} from my Mamaw.  I am just in love with these little beauties.

Lilie and I made a trip to the book store.  I love those trips.  Her love for books warms my heart.  We used to go on a weekly basis in the summer.  I hate it that we haven’t been able to go as much since school started.

I’ve started crocheting, again, this past week.  I love the scarves the feel of a thick home made scarf.

This is a photo I woke up to this morning.  This is Snowball, my childhood pet, who lives in Omaha with my Dad and Stepmom.  He’s get old and slow in his day.  At one time, he was up with the alarm cat every day with my parents.  Now days he occasionally chooses to sleep in ignore everyone.  He’s getting so old.  My stepmom said he had decided to take a sick day instead of getting up this morning.

And that’s that!  That’s all I really caught on my phone this week.  I can’t help but share a couple more from Halloween, though.

How was your Halloween?  Do any dressing up?