Snow and Weddings and Baby Blessings

Yay! More snow! My friend Catie is getting married January 2nd so we are all praying for snow so she can have really pretty pics of her wedding day! Of course her pictures will be beautiful with or without snow but it would be a really nice touch. God are you listening???

James and I are coming up on our 2 year anniversary. It's December 23rd. We figured no one would have anything going on in the couple days before Christmas and we would get married then.... Actually it was more like we had gotten engaged, had no concrete plans for our wedding other than that I didn't want to go into ANY debt to get married. Then we started premarital counseling with our pastor. After our second meeting we looked at each other afterwards and said, let's just do this! So within two, yes 2 weeks, I had the entire wedding planned and 2 weeks after that we did it! Kind of crazy but it kind of goes with our life! And we did it with no debt!

Instead of a cake we had a cupcake tree! A friend from work made this for us as well as platters of yummy cookies!

Jessie, Rachel and Claire

Of course we had to do it smaller than we would have otherwise. We had about 50 close friends and immediate family at Cortese restaurant in Binghamton NY. Our ceremony was held at a church building in Endicott and it was our last meeting in that church. (We now meet in homes). After the ceremony we went to the mall (gasp!) to have pictures taken with Santa at the center court, only to find that Santa was on his lunch break :( . We didn't have time to wait so we just sat in his chair and took pictures with a pretty Christmas background.

Me and Jessie--she so little here!

Santa James!

Saying our vows. Couldn't get through this without crying!

My only disappointment was that it had snowed the week of the wedding but on the day of, it rained, so the snow was melting and we couldn't take pictures outside. It was a wonderful day anyway because I had married James. He is my special gift from God. Or maybe it's the other way around...

And here we are 2 years later with 2 little babies who keep me up until 2 or 3 am or later every night. Wow has our life changed since our wedding day! But that's how God designed it. How boring would it be to never have the sound of crying babies in your house, especially in the middle of the night??? To never have little toes to tickle, bellies to kiss, warm little bodies to hug (and diapers to change and barf to clean up...)? And later we'll have lots of giggles and messes and most of all LOVE. Isn't that the point? Lots of Love. We could fill our house up with all kinds of things that look pretty and smell good all the time and stay clean but if we don't have people to love, how empty all of that is! How very lonely and sad without little babies and children and (smelly) dogs and (annoying) cats and a strange little tortoise? Our life is certainly full now! When James gets annoyed because of things that pile up or interrupted sleep or other side effects of a full life I like to remind him of how empty and lonely he'd be if I hadn't come along and filled him up! He'd end up being the old cat guy without me and the kids! Now, he's a dog man and a dad and a hubby as well as all the things he was before (a super talented musician and actor, smart, funny, clever, good cook...) and I get to be a wife and baby mama and schedule coordinator and accountant (I prefer CFO) as well as a nurse practitioner and former party girl. I also get to sing and (sort of) play guitar! How cool is that?!?

My prayer today is that my friend Catie is blessed with an even fuller life after her wedding. That God fills her life with blessings and love. And a bit of snow on her wedding day would be really swell too!