Rollins Weddings

Many moons ago we went to some fantastic weddings to celebrate new additions to the Rollins family. Because I slack and don't blog often, I'm just now getting around to uploading the pictures. Better late than never... And the quality of the pictures are horrible because I was holding a squirming baby while taking most of them.

Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel and Vanessa Rollins

We traveled up to Nashville to see Nathaniel and Vanessa get married. It was such a beautiful ceremony! We enjoyed seeing several aunts and uncles and lots of cousins.

Uncle Tim and Aunt Cindy


Andrew

James (This is the best shot I could get of him? Seriously need to work on my photog skills!)

Alex. He's a handsome little guy and by that smile, I'm going to guess he knows it :)

Chris

Nick & Hannah

Benjamin

Emily

All of them are members of the Tim & Cindy Rollins clan. (Their oldest, Tim and his family, could not be there because of his service in the military.) "Be fruitful and multiply!"

Naomi showing off in the parking lot of the church

Alex dancing with Charlotte. She hardly left the dance floor all night!

Naomi and Kristina (another Rollins cousin)



At the end of August we traveled up to Chicago to see the wedding of Jamie and Nate in her parent's back yard. It was a beautiful and very special ceremony. They were actually married a week before at Nate's parent's home so that his mom could be there to see them get married. She was battling pancreatic cancer and couldn't make the trip from her home in Indiana to Chicago. Thanks to Skype, though, she was able to see the second ceremony as well. She wasn't able to be there to celebrate the wedding with the rest of the family, but she is now part of the eternal celebration in Heaven. Praise the Lord!

The only picture I got of the bride and groom. I'm going to use the squirmy baby excuse again.


Naomi enjoying a snuggle with Uncle Bennie


Naomi flirting with Uncle John, who I'm pretty sure she thought was her Pop.


After the ceremony and a nap back at the hotel, we headed into downtown Chicago for a couple hours.


Orange and blue sunset. God is definitely a Gator fan.


How we set up the hotel room so the TV wouldn't bother Naomi while she slept


Naomi, on her first flight, doing a little light reading. She got a little fussy on one of the legs of the trip, but overall was a great traveler. (Because we'd have to pay for a ticket for Charlotte, she stayed back home with her Grammy and Grampy and had an absolute blast! This trip was the longest I had been away from her so I was more than anxious to have my big girl in my arms again!)

Gator Football 2010

We celebrated the first Gator game of the season with Dusty & Arin, Chad & Amber, and all the kids here at our house. The game was a little stressful, but we won and had a great time with the family.

Daddy and his girls!


Naomi, making a very important call


Charlotte, modeling the tutu I made her


Hanging out


Charlotte and Ella, dressing up and getting glam


Appropriate outdoor attire


The dads took the kids out back to catch some fish


Charlotte looked, but absolutely would not touch the fish!

Disney - Part II

Jared and Naomi showing off and looking cute



Charlotte couldn't fight the nap off any longer.


This little moment melted my heart. Daddy fixing his little girl's hair :) I guarantee the only reason he did this is because he knew I made those little ears for the girls and was hoping they'd wear them throughout the day. Such a wonderful father and husband!


This is the sky as we were leaving. I don't know if it was a spotlight thingamajig (according to spell-check, "thingamajig" is a word! Who knew?!) or clouds, but how neat does that sky look!


We bought weekday passes so we can get into all four of their parks Monday - Friday, with the exception of some block-out dates. The block-out dates are the times that school is out, so during the summer, two weeks at Christmas, and two weeks during the spring. It's so crowded during those times that we likely wouldn't go then anyway. I'm quite excited about it! I'm trying to decide when our next trip should be. Jared says he needs more than a week to recover. He's a Disney light-weight like that :)

Disney - Part I

We took a trip to Disney on Tuesday with Dusty & Arin & co. and had such a wonderful day! It was just a wee bit hot (in the 90s, as is typical for a Florida September) and it rained, but only for about 10 minutes. Then the skies cleared and we were off to ride some more rides and sweat a little more :)

Our sweet little family in front of the castle. This was right when we got there, which is why we aren't yet drenched in sweat.


The first stop: The Carousel! Both girls loved it.


Next on the agenda: Dumbo! Naomi was not so much a fan of this one. She had to be strapped in while sitting on my lap. She wanted to be held facing me, so that ride was not enjoyable for the two of us. But Charlotte loved it!


Then we met Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse! Charlotte was beyond excited! Her "fabrite" show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and she loves all things Mickey and Minnie. She walked right up and gave Minnie a hug. Naomi preferred slobbering on their noses and grabbing their ears. It was worth the trip down there to see the girls' reaction to them!





After that, we saw the princesses. Charlotte enjoyed meeting them, but I guess didn't feel the need to smile. The princesses did such a wonderful job greeting the kids. They totally play the part with the dainty movements and gestures, but don't hesitate to squat down to talk with them, calling the kids "little princesses and princes". It's so sweet.
Cinderella.

Jasmine. With her belly button and tummy looking like that, I'm going to guess she hasn't had kids :)

Aurora. This made me wonder when the last time I saw Sleeping Beauty was. It had to be at least 15 years ago.


Naomi looking super cute with her ears that I made her on (these didn't last very long into the day). She's also showing off the two tiny teeth she has coming in!


Naomi falling asleep...

Fighting it just a little...

Giving in to the exhaustion...

And she's out for the count!


Charlotte and Jared on the People Mover


Charlotte didn't want to pose for me to get a good shot of her with the castle in the background, so this is the best I got.


More pictures to come tomorrow. It's late and I'm tired.

What's Going On

With my infrequent postings, I tend to forget about all the happenings of our family, so I'll just look back through some pictures and give a recap on what's been going on around here.

1. Spending time together. Aww :) The girls both light up when their daddy gets home from work. It's adorable to watch.


2. I tried on a dress I bought on our honeymoon. It still fits...

Sort of...
I'm no good at taking pictures of myself, especially of my back, but that zipper made it about halfway up.

3. We've been to the pool a few more times. Naomi is super cute sporting Jared's shades. (This is definitely a posed shot. It lasted about 0.20837 seconds).


4. August was my month of weddings. I coordinated two, was assistant florist and reception coordinator at another, and was a guest at a fourth. And two of the weddings were on the same weekend! It was a lot of fun, but I'll enjoy a nice little break before the next wedding I'm coordinating (not till February). Here's a sample of what I did as assistant florist/reception coordinator (Amber, my sister-in-law, and her cousin, Sarah, have started Sweet Aroma, a floral business after doing the flowers for several weddings within the past year. They do amazing work and can do a lot within a small budget!)

And here is the only picture from the wedding I coordinated this past weekend.
Emily and Alan, two friends from our church, were married in a very personal and sweet ceremony. I was probably more nervous with this wedding than I have been with any others I've done before. There were four reasons for this: 1. Two friends were getting married and I wanted their day to be extra perfect. 2. More than half of the bridal party and probably half of the guests were friends of ours from church. This meant that if anything were to go wrong, every time they saw me (twice a week for some of them), they could say, "Hey, way to screw up their ceremony!" 3. It was the first time my church-folk saw me "in my element" and I didn't want to look incompetent. I don't mind looking incompetent as a mother or nursery coordinator, my usual elements, but looking incompetent as a coordinator would not be acceptable! 4. It was a crazy busy weekend with having to leave the reception early to catch a flight for another wedding (that post will come soon... you know, the "Brittany version of soon") so that just added to the nerves. But the ceremony turned out beautifully and what I saw of the reception was fantastic as well.

5. Naomi is almost 9 months and is at such a fun stage. She's crawling, pulling herself up and walking along furniture. This translates to getting into everything. She loves to play in Charlotte's room, which Charlotte is usually quite happy about. One day after waking up from a nap, Naomi crawled into Charlotte's room but didn't see her in there, so she started crying. It melts my heart to see how much they love each other! (I have no idea why the picture looks funky here. Technology hates me.)