A party, a concert and a rehearsal.

Ahhhhhh.......  The weekend is over.  Wow.  What a wonderful (and busy!) few months we have had leading up to this weekend.  

The wedding turned out perfect.  We cried.  We laughed.  We danced.  We drank champagne from the bottle.  It couldn't have been better.  But it deserves its own post.  

I want to back up and share a few things that I haven't had time to share before I get to the wedding. 

A couple of weeks ago me and a few of my friends hosted a couples shower party for Sarah and CJ at my house.  We wanted to do something that would involve CJ a little more than you average "wedding shower".  Our theme was "Brats, Beer and Months of the Year".  I assigned each couple a month and they were to bring a gift that correlated.  My thought was that people would be able to get gifts geared more towards CJ with that theme than just something off their registry that, let's all be honest, most men don't really care that much about.

Sarah and CJ

We cooked a few different types of brats and had lots of toppings for them.  I made sauerkraut and we had a few other side items (potato salad, baked beans, etc).  You know, manly food!  Ha!  We had a few tubs of different types of beer (always a hit) and I made some cider.  It was a great time and the gifts were so cute!  Lonnie and I had April so we got them a picnic basket and filled it with wine, personalized wine glasses and a water proof picnic blanket.  

Katie and Tommy

This theme was perfect for a "non-traditional" shower.  They got things like a turkey fryer for November, a heavy duty ice chest for July, tailgating stuff for September and champagne flutes for January.  I think my favorite gifts were a jar full of money for March and the August gift my friend Jenny put together.  She looked up all of the days in August that were "national" days.  For example, she got them stuff to make s'mores for Natio.nal S'mor.es Day, a picture of all of us for Nati.onal Frie.ndship Day, matching socks for wiggle your toes day and her favorite board game for Nat.ional Just Bec.ause Day.  There more more but how cute and original is that?   

Jenny and Matt

Then we played a version of the newlywed game and, as you can imagine, it was pretty hilarious!  

Mark and Casey

It was a great night celebrating a great couple.  I actually think we should do this more often!  Although Lonnie may kill me if I plan any more parties at our house in the near future...Ha!  And would you believe I didn't get a picture of the two of us.  Sigh....

All the girls...

Moving on.  A few days after the party some of us girls went to see Mr. Timberlake in concert.

The concert was in Memphis (about 3ish hours away) and since he is from there they declared it Nation.al JT day.  

We dressed up and even made our own little bow ties!  The concert was great and he put on a great show for his hometown.  

This past Friday night we had the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.  

Lonnie was on call and ended up having a TERRIBLE day Friday so he couldn't make it to the actual rehearsal but was going to meet us at dinner.  It was just me and B.  Let me just set the scene for you.  It is dinner time and she's starving.  We are outside and it is cold.  The wedding was on a ridge (also known as a cliff...) and it was dark out.  I was wearing 5 inch heels.  So here we go practicing our entrance.  The plan was for me to walk down some steps (about 15) with Blakely and Kyndal holding my hand.  Then when we got to the bottom I would walk down the aisle and they would follow me.  So we start walking down the steps.  B immediately screams NO HELP!  NO HELP MOMMY!  She wants to do it herself.  Then when we finally make it to the "altar" (it seemed like an hour) she bolts right to the cliff.  I am running around chasing her in soft grass with heels on while she screams ME SWING NOW (there was a swing set)!  I mean.  It was stressful.  I told Sarah there was no way the girls could walk down the stairs so we made another plan.  That plan was much better.  But you can imagine my stress about the ACTUAL wedding when Blakely was such a tornado at the rehearsal.

But, honestly, these two could scream the whole time and still be adorable, right?!