Weekend Shenanigans: Graduation, 1st Anniversary and Mother's Day ... oh my!

What up weekend with so many life events at the exact same time! We got to start off the weekend by watching my baby sister graduate from high school.

And then I left there extremely jealous of all the fun times that she is about to embark on. I loved college and everything it had to offer. I even loved going to the library (nerd alert!). She has decided she wants to go through Rush and I'm even jealous of that (I can say that now that I'm 4 years removed from Rush). I really just miss living in the same place as all of my friends. Oh, and naps. I really really miss naps.

Saturday night Pat and I ate where we had our Rehearsal Dinner for our nice anniversary dinner. I might still be full. It was that good. You don't like French food? This picture will change your mind-

That right there is my biggest weakness. Mousse au chocolat ... I meeeean, I could kiss the person who came up with that recipe so long ago. 

Sunday was spent celebrating one year and our mommas. I love that we got to attend church where we got married exactly one year before and got to enjoy a wonderful lunch with both of our moms and the rest of my family.

One year later and back at the church. And I need to cut my hair. Moving right along...

Pat and his mom

Three generations: Moi, my mom and my grandmother

And then the moment we had all been waiting for. A whole years worth of waiting for the most magnificent cake in all of the land...

Bam! Look at how beautiful she looked even a whole year later!

And to continue on with this picture dump of a post here are a bunch of pictures of us with the cake. You get to look at all of these because they are approximately 1000x better than the cake cutting pictures of us on our actual wedding day.

Pat isn't even looking and this picture is STILL better than the ones on our wedding day

Awkward squatting and it is still better than our wedding day pictures.

Freakish face and ... well, you get it. Basically my mom should have been our wedding photographer.

Was it still good, you ask? Well, I believe this picture says it all...

Yes, it was still fantastic!

And just so I can prove that I did indeed get my own piece this year...

Noms.

What did you do to celebrate your 1st anniversary? 

I hope you all had amazing weekends! For all the mommas out there, I hope you enjoyed a wonderful Mother's Day and got pampered like you deserved!

Five on Friday

Lordy, lordy- there's a lot I'm loving this week. I don't know how I'm going to keep it to five, but I'm sure going to try!

ONE- My baby sister is graduating high school on Saturday

It's hard for me to believe that she is already old enough to be graduating from high school and getting ready to go off to college. I'm slightly jealous of her and the adventure she is about to embark on. I sometimes feel like I'm annoying her by telling her how fast college goes by. 

TWO- Celebrating our Mommas 

We went to the same college and were in the same sorority

I'm so so excited for Mother's Day this year. We are so lucky that we get to celebrate the day with both of our moms at the same place. Our first anniversary happens to fall on Mother's Day this year so the celebration of our first year of marriage is going to be that much sweeter. We were both blessed with two incredibly strong mommas who could easily take over the world if they wanted to.

THREE- Celebrating one freaking year of marriage! 

I've said this a million times but there is just no way it's been a year already. Also, who made the rule that you can only wear your wedding dress once?? I don't like them. At all. One thing I learned from our wedding- I'm extremely proud of my heritage (I knew that part before) and I will try and find ways to show off my family tartan. ie- Pat's tie was his family's tartan and my bouquet was wrapped in the family tartan from my mom's side.

FOUR- Going to eat here to celebrate one whole year of marriage

This is where our rehearsal dinner was and I am salivating just thinking about the food already. I love all things French (duuuh, right?!) and French food is just one of God's bajillion gifts to man kind. Go get you some. Right now.

FIVE- I get to eat the most amazing cake ever this weekend

This is where I get to brag about one of our BFFs. We are so blessed with some of the most amazingly talented friends and one of those friends just so happens to be an amazing baker. She went to the Culinary Institute of America and currently works for the Food Network. So, guess who made our wedding cake?? She so graciously flew home from NYC and made our cake for us. Y'all, I do NOT like wedding cake. Boring pound cake and overly sugary icing?? No thank you! Well, little Miss Sarah totally changed my view on that. You see that cake up there? Say hello to the World's Best Wedding Cake. Yes, it's official. I have the documents to prove it. That little cake was a Yellow cake with a key lime curd and graham cracker strudel with a butter cream icing. AKA Key Lime Pie in cake form. It was so good that we still get e-mails asking who made our cake. I'm just excited to get more than one bite this time. Pat managed to hijack my piece when I turned around to give Sarah mad props for her skills. It's a good thing I love that boy!

So, here is where I ask all wifeys if y'all saved your cake topper and if it was any good? I have high hopes for ours. I will be devastated if they are crushed.

I hope each and every one of you has an amazing weekend. To any Mommas out there reading this, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Darci, April, Christina, Natasha

Throwback Thursday: Ohmygosh it's been (almost) a year since our wedding edition

I am oh so sorry for this picture dump. I'm having too much fun looking back at everything right now. I promise I cut it down big time.

1) Ummmm, what?! It's been almost a YEAR since our wedding. That's not possible.
2) It's only been a year??

But seriously. I really can't believe it's been a year since our wedding and at the same time I can't believe it's only been a year. It's funny that time can work out that way, huh?

Around this time last year I was doing this...

Getting manis and pedis with my girls. AKA the last time I got a mani and pedi. I should do that again soon. That was fun...

And then being a good Bride who was oh so concerned with how she was going to look in her wedding gown at the Bridesmaids Luncheon, Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner. Can you sense the sarcasm there? Pretty sure I ate my way through the day before the wedding. Great. Smart idea, B. Your dress isn't forming fitting at all.

Dear sorority sisters who I miss so much

My French BFF who is always styling

Sister, sister

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd for the one of the first times in over a decade my dad's whole side of the family showed up at a family event. Twas a miracle!

Hellooooo demon eyed Schirra family!

The eight grandkiddos together foreva... uhhh, or not until someone else decides to get married. (I'm looking at you Cassie & Brooke)

No Rehearsal Dinner is complete without a great photobomb by your mom and little brother, amirite?!

And here's the part where I tear up again because this is all the stuff that made me cry that night. You can join if you'd like. I have kleenex to share.

My amazing French family is first up. My French parents don't speak any English at all. So what do they do for their only American daughter's wedding?! They take English classes and then give a speech at my Rehearsal Dinner. Yep, you would have bawled too. All of my makeup .. just gone.

And then finally getting to sit with your BFF of 22 years. Y'all, you know there's going to be tears. She's getting married next year and we're just going to bawl again then. You will be a stunning bride, my dear!

Bright red and make up gone. I was a stunning bride-to-be. What can I say...

And then Carrie. Oh my beautiful cousin Carrie. She's gifted y'all. A wonderfully talented singer. You throw in Carrie, my guitar playing Uncle Joe and an emotional me ... Well, of course I'm going to bawl through out their entire version of "The Wedding Song (There is Love)" Blogger won't let me upload their version of the song, but here it is sung by the people who made it famous, Peter, Paul and Mary

Do you have anything from your Rehearsal Dinner that still makes you tear up or am I just a sap??

Happy Thursday, y'all! We are almost to the weekend :)

Wedding Wednesday: Scripture

I haven't talked a whole lot about our wedding on here, but I wanted to talk about one part of our ceremony that I spent a long time working on: Scripture.

The ceremony was the most important part of the day for us. I spent hours pouring over the scripture and listening to different hymns that were presented to us by my family's church.

Today I wanted to focus on the scripture that we used in our ceremony. We had two different scripture pieces, one Psalm and one Gospel piece read during our ceremony.

Not included in those 4 pieces was a piece of scripture printed on the front our programs that we want to be the foundation of our marriage.

A three-fold cord is not easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12

We always want to have God at the center of our marriage. This scripture represents when you have God at the center of the relationship and you both are pursuing Him that it will not be easy to break apart your marriage. All things are possible through Him. Now that is my take on that scripture, and it may not be what everyone believes it to mean.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
    as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
    jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
    the very flame of the Lord.
 Many waters cannot quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
    all the wealth of his house,
    he would be utterly despised.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early
    and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
    for he gives to his beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
    the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
    are the children of one's youth.
Blessed is the man
    who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
    when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127

This Psalm spoke so deeply to us. God is the center of our marriage and we need to make sure our home is built according to His will. This is something that we are constantly working on, and I believe that it will always be something that we will have to work on. I love the reminder that children are a gift form the Lord. They are the greatest gift (besides the gift of Christ and his sacrifice) that we will ever receive. Whenever the day comes for us to have our own children (adopted or biological) we hope to bring them up in the ways of the Lord. We pray that they see the Lord working in our marriage and our lives. We pray that they will crave to have a relationship with the Lord all the days of their lives.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:12-17

This scripture is one that really spoke to my heart as I was surrounded by such a wonderful group of believers who were constantly pushing me to be a better version of myself and to become more Christ-like in college. It took on a whole new meaning as Pat and I were preparing ourselves for marriage. Marriage is really really hard, y'all. You have to be constantly prayerful in reminding yourself that your spouse is imperfect just as you are. I pray constantly that Pat continues to grow more in Christ and become more Christ-like. This also means that I pray that Pat sees Christ in me and my actions. That means forgiving him for a wrong even when my pride is telling me no and showing him love on his darkest days.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,  for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.”

Matthew 7:21, 24-29

I tried to tie all of our scripture together so it would give a strong message to all of those in the church that day. We both felt strongly (and still do!) about the foundation of our marriage being built on Christ and his love. By building our marriage on Christ we will always have someone to look to in all the hard times and know that a hard time is a teaching moment. A hard time is not a moment for our marriage covenant to fall apart, it is a time for us to grow stronger as a couple and to grow closer to Christ. Now I'm not saying that will be easy or that we will not want to buck the system (so to speak) from time-to-time, but it is so wonderful knowing that we will always have Christ and that he is always on our side. 

We both strongly believed in starting our marriage by taking part in Communion. Communion is a symbol of Christ's sacrifice for us when he died on the cross. It is such a beautiful picture and it meant a lot to us to start our marriage by taking part in Communion with our families and friends.

What scripture did you/do you want to use in your own ceremony? Picking out scripture and putting our ceremony together was such a fun time for us. We really hope that people walked away from our ceremony seeing Christ in every aspect and perhaps drawing closer to him.