DALLAS

We took a road trip to Dallas well Mansfield this past weekend because my Uncle got married. My Granny, T-Ella, Olivia, my cousin DJ, and I all went up together for the special occasion. Olivia had a blast and enjoyed being away and staying in the Hotel we picked, she didn't want to leave. While we were in Dallas we went by to see my Papa's older sister. She is a fire cracker and soooo funny if you met her you would not believe she was 92. We really enjoyed the visit even though it was a short one. If you know T-Ella then you know we had to stop at the big Buc-ee's off of 45 to get some beaver nuggets and drinks. But on to the real reason we made the trip, the wedding!!!

Olivia was the flower girl, T-Ella was a bridesmaid, DJ was a groomsman, and my Granny was the mother of the groom. The picture on the bottom left is Olivia and the groom, Uncle Roderick. I may be a little biased but I think that she is the cutest flower girl ever!

In rehearsal I told her to drop the flowers as she walked down the aisle but I was not sure if she would do it because it would be so many people there. Sooooo for the wedding I put some candy in her basket before we put the rose petals in. Then I told Olivia that there was candy at the bottom and she had to empty out all the flowers as she walked down the aisle so that she could get to the candy. However the wedding planner just told her and the ring bearer to hold hands right before they walked down the aisle so she couldn't drop the petals. But I noticed that during the wedding as she was standing on the stairs she was looking around and slowly dropping the flowers out of her basket. I guess she had forgotten about the candy and as she was standing up there she remembered that it was under the flowers. It was so funny and all the bridesmaids noticed what she was doing, it was too funny.

Olivia's favorite part of the wedding was the reception, of course. We had a choice of foods and Olivia being herself wanted the messiest dish, spaghetti and meatballs. Never mind the fact that she had on an off white dress. So I took my napkin, my Granny's napkin and Olivia's napkin and did what I thought was a great job of covering her whole dress. But as any mother knows that just made it seem as if I were betting her that she couldn't get spaghetti sauce on the dress. And as she does in everything, she rose to the occasion. I must say that it really was not that bad, there was just a spot on the bottom half of her dress at the back and a little splatter on the top which I got out before we even left the wedding. But to this day I cannot figure out how she got the sauce on the back of her dress because that is the part she was sitting on, not to mention on the bottom because she was well covered and that whole part of her body was under the table. I guess it's not for me to know, but as you can see from the top middle pic she really enjoyed the meatballs. As you some of you may already know Olivia is allergic to eggs which means there are a lot of things she cannot eat, wedding cake being one of them. Thankfully they had chocolate covered strawberries so while we ate cake she had two strawberries so she didn't feel left out during dessert. You can tell from the above pic I was not taking any chances with the chocolate getting on the dress so I hand fed her the strawberries. After she ate, it was time to boogie! She did not want to leave the dance floor which normally would not be a problem for me but dancing the night away in 6in platform stilettos are no longer my feet’s idea of a good time. Nevertheless being the mother I am we did do our fair share of dancing even if I was dancing in my chair some of the time. Now with all the weddings I have been to in my life I have seen the couple’s first and last dance, father/daughter dance, and even the mother/son dance. However I have never in my life seen the groom/flower girl dance until this wedding. Everyone needed to clear the floor for Hollywood (what my uncle calls Olivia) and the Groom. They really cut a rug as you can see from the pictures. It was a beautiful wedding and  needless to say we all really enjoyed ourselves and we would like to congratulate the bride and groom.

Mr. & Mrs. Roderick & Tiffany Russell