And she danced....And only in Taylor County....

We had a family wedding this past weekend, which is Naomi's first non-baby wedding. The last one we attended she was not even a year old yet and had just learned how to walk so this was the first one that she really could participate in all of the festivities...the singing in church, dinner at the hall, and the dancing...oh the dancing!

 

We had to wait for daddy to finish getting ready (no, he doesn't take longer than me to get ready, he just had a later start :) ) so we were keeping cool in the breeze outside and I snapped a few shots of her in her wedding finery. What a ham!

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, I had been getting Naomi geared up for the day by telling her all about the “princess” that she would be seeing later that day. We were nervous if she was going to be able to sit through the ceremony without causing too major of a ruckus. She is used to me toting my camera along with me everywhere and so she now has to have her camera with, which she calls her pictures. So of course we had to take her little camera into the church with us. She was so cute, holding the camera up to her eye and “taking” pictures, mainly of the pew in front of us but hey you have to start somewhere. She did wonderfully during the ceremony...only getting a little squirrely a few times but hey she's 2 and I really don't think anyone minded. The service was beautiful and the couple looked radiant.

We then went to Uncle Justin and Auntie Amber's to wait for the reception to begin, she loved to wander around their yard and they have a rose garden with a covered trellis in the middle that she kept calling her house.

 

She invited all of us over to her “house”...so six adults went to stand inside this little trellis thing under the direction of a 2 year old...she is quite the little leader already!

We then moved on to the reception and we walked in to the sounds of a bluegrass band – Ryan and I are both big fans of bluegrass so we were really excited...as was Naomi!  Gotta love this little girls boots with her dress!

 

There were a bunch of little girls already dancing in front of the band and we encouraged Nay to go join in.



She was a bit skittish at first so she needed some borrowed courage from Grandma and Mommy.

 

It was the sweetest thing to watch and all of the other little girls were so kind inviting her to join them dancing. It was so fun to see how Naomi interacted with kids she doesn't know all that well, she can be so brave and act so much older than what she is but still needs comfort to move into new situations.

Next came dinner time, there were fun champagne (plastic) flutes on the tables so of course she wanted to use that instead of her sippy cup...oh such fun! :)

 

A bit of a mess but oh well...all in the spirit of the day! She of course had to sit next to Boppa at dinner

 

and wanted to give everyone at the table eskimo (skimo) kisses...Rubbing noses with Auntie Jillie.

 

While the tables were being cleared and the dance floor readied we went to play at the park nearby which had a super fast slide but she didn't care and was so brave!

 

She also had a ton of giggles on the rocking horse.

The music started to play and we went back into the hall for dancing and we started with just the girls, Mommy, Grandma, Auntie Amber and Nay.

 

But that wasn't enough, evidently she didn't think our little dancing troupe was complete so she went running into the bar and brought out Daddy, Uncle Justin and Boppa.! Evidently Boppa dancing doesn't happen very often but everyone was in good spirits about it and we had a blast. Once we were all out on the dance floor with her she had no problem dancing, jumping and twirling...so she danced :) THEN after about 5 songs, she was D.O.N.E...she looked at me and said HOUSE. So, we said our goodbyes and went home and tucked away our little princess for the night.

Sunday brought on an early Father's Day celebration with my side of the family out at my dad's farm. My dad has a renter using the barn now so there are cows and kittens galore which all of the grand kids loved...then my brother Monte had a fun idea of taking a hayride to the park with all of the kiddos...only in Taylor County would you load up 10 kids, 10 adults and take a Sunday afternoon hay ride – love it!

 

Super fun.

All of the kiddos LOVED the hayride and playing at the park. I love, love, love watching all of the cousins playing together, some branching out on their own, others showing the younger kids how things work and others just running and giggling together.

 

It was a great celebration of our family and I don't think my dad could have smiled more. I love to see the look of happiness he has on his face when he watches all of the kiddos running around.

I love that we got to spend time with both sides of our families this weekend, it truly is a blessing to have those that we love so close.