shepherds, tuxes, tootsie rolls and life partners

jesse was in yet another wedding this past weekend. the last of his 3 freshman year roommates , stevo, married the gorgeous miss maggie smyth in atlanta on saturday. fun facts:

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the roomies at our house the night before the rehearsal (from left: kellen, stevo, lukas, jesse). at one point they had the dream of moving to new zealand and be shepherds after college. i crushed this dream by mercilessly besotting jesse's heart and stealing him away to marriage.

#1: the 4 roommates (jesse, kellen, lukas, stevo) got married in the same order that they were born in. all four of the roommates have been in all of each others' weddings over the past 3+ years and only one was in absentia.

#2: stevo and maggie met on the catwalk of the georgia dome rafters during the peach bowl while raining down parachuting chick-fil-a cows on the spectators. so cool!

#3: we ate breakfast with the couple (and met maggie for the first time) on 4/25, back when they were only BF/GF and before jesse and i even got to the car afterward we looked at each other and said, “he is totally going to marry her.” and then an hour later stevo proposed! with pieces of our shared meal still in his stomach (and judah still in mine).
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since we had the rehearsal dinner and the wedding to attend we decided to leave judah with the grandukes on friday and then take him to the wedding on saturday. this turned out to be dumb, yet fun. It was INCREDIBLY nerve-wracking during the ceremony because judah was falling into a nap right then and the little guy likes to give goodbye shouts/screeches/warbles to consciousness as he falls asleep. i am now officially a member of the back row mom’s club. at the slightest peep i ran out to the foyer (or is it called a vestibule?) and booty-tapped him into full submission. he was honestly great and didn't ruin a single vow despite my nervousness.

when we got the the reception the scary part was over and he could be as loud as he wanted. but, oops, the reception started at 7 which is his bedtime so we needed everyone else to be silent while he slept. unlikely. amazingly the little man was perfection again; being adorable for the first hour and flirting with everyone and then he passed out for the final 2 hours. here are some pics.

naturally, we lead things off with a picture of elliot and lena who judah may or may not know as "dad and mom" if he reads this blog at all. elliot is from hawaii and likes to give the hang loose signal as a tribute to his homeland...mmm, no. elliot is armenian/tennesseean (armenisseean?) and was letting judah teethe on his pinky. this is adorable. lena and elliot held him during all of dinner so jesse and i amazingly got to eat. don't think they were doing it to help us though, they are obsessed with judah and steal him from us at every opportunity.

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then judah hit the wall. luckily the dance floor was hopping by this point so there was constant loud noise and music which is faves for the bug to sleep in (for realsie). elliot held judah a good 30 minutes beyond the point that we figured out that judah had peed through his diaper, pants and elliot's shirt (and possibly necktie) what a snuggle trooper.

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when you have on a polo with a popped collar you can get away with overt friskiness such as this. judah had his hand down lena's dress for a good 45 minutes. he may or may not have actually been asleep.
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judah stayed peacefully asleep for many a lap-pass. yes that IS a purple tux jesse is rocking. and i bought a jewel-toned complement (<---lee vincent, notice!) of a dress. we're such gems!

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judah woke merrily from his slumber for a bit so we decided to put on his tux (bib) that our pastor's family had given us for a critical photo op before stuffing him in his jammies and heading home.
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formal fam



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with the happy couple. judah was in pj's (aka, rice costume) riding in my black "evening sling". he also took his first turn on the dance floor minutes later to the song, "tootsie roll" which he took as a request and promptly made one for us in his pants. you're right judah, it ain't a butterfly, its the tootsie roll. and my bangs gave up the greasy ghost and went up into my go-to pouf at this point.

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*somehow i don't have a picture to document it, but for both nights my date was kellen's beautiful wife, kaycee. as you may know, being the wife/GF of a wedding party member can be lonely. for the wedding she became my life partner and co-mommy of judah. she was AWESOME. she carried the diaper bag, made trips to retrieve things from the car, got us food, held the bug and pretty much kept me from becoming a big weeping puddle of stress and control-top lycra. we had really great not-awkward or stalky conversation (a new feature of my relationship with her) during our 3-4 hours of total commuting that somehow survived the moment when i realized that, despite kellen and jesse being only 3 months apart, kaycee is 5 years younger than me! she hasn't even had her wisdom teeth out! i have known her for 3 or 4 years i think and somehow never realized this until i was close enough to 30 to feel ancient by this fact. despite being damnably youthful she was my saving grace. thank you kaycee! if things don't work out with kellen and some GA legislation changes...