We're Engaged!!!

It's official! On Monday morning, Logan surprised me (seriously!) with the most beautiful ring I've ever seen! Since we've all known this was coming soon, he wasn't sure how he was going to actually catch me off guard and surprise me. His idea was that since I'd worked the day before, he'd come wake me up early the next morning, which under normal circumstances would annoy me, and then he'd propose. Well, for the first time in my life I woke up in a good mood! (I know - who would have thought it was possible, right?) At about 7:15 he came in, woke me up and started talking to me. I was in a surprisingly pleasant mood, so he went into the other room and waited about 30 minutes for me to doze back off so he could try again. Once again, he started up a conversation, and I chatted right back. Unsure why I wasn't my usual gloom-and-doom morning self, he left again for about 30 more minutes, and I went back to sleep. Finally, about 8:15 he actually got in the bed with me and didn't say anything. I woke up and turned over to look at him and he had this big goofy grin on his face. He then pulled the ring out from under the covers, to which I immediately woke right up and asked "What are you doing with that???" He said really sweet things, told me he loved me, and asked me to marry him! I have to admit, he really did surprise me. I NEVER thought I'd be proposed to when I had morning breath! (Hey, the guy really must love me.)

Knowing how much I love flowers, he had some waiting in the dining room. The whole condo smells SO good right now.

Next, he said he wanted just the two of us to go to brunch. Thinking it really was just the two of us, I took my sweet time getting ready. He caught me several times getting distracted by the GORGEOUS rock on my finger and had to re-direct me back into the getting ready mode. We went to our favorite mexican restaurant, Cyclone Anaya's, and when I walked in, I saw all of our family there waiting to celebrate with us! My parents, Ross and Jessica, Mr. and Mrs. Lowry and Leah, and Mamaw and Papaw were all able to come. (Lacie and Lyndsie were out of town.) We had the best time, and great food! Our favorite waitor Raphael did a fantastic job too - as always. And of course, I loved showing off the new bling. :)
When Logan took my parents to dinner to ask their blessing, my dad had the idea of taking a picture of Logan "begging" him to let him marry his daughter. My parents framed it and gave it to us at the engagement lunch. As you can clearly see, my dad was loving this. :)
After lunch we went over to our friends Chris and Leslie Thomas's house to visit with them and see baby Taite - who is precious. Next, we went to a Memorial Day pool party at Jason and Laura Seymore's house. All the girls and I talked wedding stuff (love it!) while the boys played basketball in the pool. It ended up turning into a "who can make a basket from over the roof" game, but boys will be boys. After the pool party, Logan and I went out to dinner to celebrate with Mike and Leanne, two of our most favorite people in the world. We re-introduced them to BJ's since they'd only been there once, and I think they're fans now too.

So since I've been doing all this not-so-secret pre-planning for the past 8 months, I'm excited to finally get to go and SEE all these fantastic places I've been reading about. Tuesday I went with Leah and Marissa to check out Marc Events and The Old Red Courthouse, both of which are front runners. Friday I'm going to see the Magnolia Hotel, Belo Mansion, The Empire Room, and The Stoneleigh Hotel. After just going to the first two places on Tuesday I realize just how fortunate we are to have our friend Marissa's expertise with all the planning. She's been doing interior design and event planning for a while now, but has recently started her own company. (Check out http://www.intrigueinteriorsandevents.com/) She's everything we'd ever want in a wedding coordinator: she's a sweet and honest person, and when I saw her in action on Tuesday I realized that she's not gonna mess around! (Plus, she has great taste.)

It's been an exciting few days, that's for sure! I feel so incredibly blessed to have found Logan. Until I met him, I didn't think it was possible to find everything I'd ever been looking for in one person. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him. And with Len, Lynn, Logan, Lacie, Lyndsie and Leah, I think Lucy and I will fit right in with the Lowry family. :)

And now for the girls, a few more pictures of this ring! :)

Gotta Love that Lucy...

Okay, so I think these pictures are hilarious. On the way to my parent's house the other day, I opened the sunroof for the rest of the drive after I exited the highway - like I always do. And like she always does, Lucy poked her head out of the sunroof to give the air a good sniff. This time though, I decided to stick my camera out of the sunroof and take a couple of pictures of her. Safe to do while driving? Probably not. Totally worth it once I saw how ridiculous Lucy looks? Absolutely! How can you not just love my dog??

Happy Birthday Logan, Lacie and Lyndsie!

Yep, it's that time of year again! Logan and I celebrated his birthday at Trulucks for dinner and had a fantastic meal. As usual, Logan got the King Crab and a couple of dirty martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives (which are pretty good!). I got the best tasting steak I've ever had, plus mashed potatoes and asparagus.

Here's Logan "enjoying" the blue cheese olives. And me loving my wine. A few days later we went to Logan's parents house to celebrate ALL of the April birthdays. Logan and his sister Lacie were both born on the 28th, (While yes, they look like they could be twins, they were actually born 4 years apart.) and Lyndsie was born on the 23rd. Here's a shot of the birthday Lowrys.

And then we had Leah jump in to get a picture of all the Lowry kids.

I love when we get to hang out with his whole family. I always have such a great time - and Logan's mom is a phenomenal cook! This time we grilled steak and some really good turkey sausage stuffed with cheese. It was yummy.

Happy Birthday Logan, Lacie and Lyndsie!

Its Spring Time, My Favorite Time!

Ahhh, it's finally here!! I LOVE spring. It's not to hot, not too cold, and the best part is there are flowers everywhere. I love stopping at the little flower selling tents that are by my house. A couple of weeks ago I decided to spruce up the front and back porch and buy some pretty flowers. I don't have the greenest of thumbs... in fact, I usually kill plants. I keep trying though, and someday I'll get a plant to live. Anyway, I bought these gorgeous flowers for the front porch, and apparently they need a pretty good amount of sunlight to thrive. No problem. The front porch gets plenty of afternoon light, right? Oh wait, it's been cloudy and raining every single day for the last two and a half weeks! Needless to say, my front porch flowers are dead. At least this time its not my fault. Anyway, here they are in all their glory the day I brought them home. Its too depressing to take an "after" picture of them now, but just picture a limp, wilted, non-floral version of this.

On the other hand, the hanging basket on my back porch is thriving! This type of plant needs to be in the shade, so the bad weather has actually probably helped this guy. The picture is also from the day I brought it home, and now there are even more pink blooms all over it.
Once the rain decides to leave, I'm planning on going back to the flower stand and picking out some new flowers for the front. Meanwhile I'm hoping that all my TLC will bring what I've got back to life. Wish me luck!

Leanne's Bachelorette Party

Last weekend we had Leanne's bachelorette party! We met up at her Maid of Honor's house for a Lingere shower and drinks first, then headed to Joe T's for dinner and margaritas. Leanne wasn't so sure about wearing the boa and bachelorette sash, but I think she worked it alright!

Leanne decided to model all of her lingere for us - on top of her clothes. :) Because I'm a good friend, you don't get to see those pictures. But here are a few that I loved her face in.

Haha, I love this one. She looks so scared! Leanne and me at Joe T's.

And... a little later...

My camera battery died, so that was the last picture I got. At the end of the night when we went back to her house, she couldn't find her keys so we were locked out. We had to call Mike and have him leave his boy's night to come let us in. While we waited, we decided to run up to the convenience store to see what they had to drink. We picked up our supplies, and came back to their front porch and drank Mimosas while we waited for Mike.

I had a great time going out with Leanne's girls, and I know Mike is going to love all the lingere she got!

They're Official - Introducing Mr. and Mrs. LaPrade

Now for this blog post you're gonna want to sit back, relax, and get comfortable. My little brother only gets married once, and I was instructed by my mother to take as many pictures as humanly possible - and I did.

The day before the wedding a bridal luncheon was held for Jessica. The weather didn't quite cooperate - it was stormy all day, but the luncheon was still a lot of fun, with a lot of fantastic food!

Right after the luncheon, my mom, cousin Kay and I went to El Chico to start getting the party room set up for the rehearsal dinner later that night. After almost four hours of lots of blood, sweat and tears (okay, maybe no blood) we'd completely transformed the room. I'll admit, I was a little skeptical at first about how a rehearsal dinner at El Chico would turn out, but in the end I think everything looked really good. The food was amazing, too. Mr. Collins, the owner and good family friend, really went above and beyond to make sure everyting was perfect.
Here's a close up of the super cute napkins we made. I love them!

Here's what the tables looked like when everything was all said and done. Kay made cute bows for all the vases, and my mom put together the hot pink gerbera daisy boquets while I wrapped the silverware. My mom and me after we were finally finished!After El Chico was all set up we ran home to change clothes and hurry up to the church for the rehearsal. Ross is obviously excited to get the show on the road! Everybody got all lined up and ready to practice walking the aisle. KC, the maid of honor, tried to entertain her kiddos Kinley and Chance who are the flower girl and ring bearer. It wasn't easy containing all of the twins' energy! Jessica is all ready to go! Now that rehearsal is all done, its time to eat!The bride and groom-to-be. (Plus my mother about to enjoy a bite of food! Sorry mom.)Logan and me during dinner. I had a fantastic time getting to visit with Dr. Jeff and his wonderful wife, Stacy. Now on to the big day! Jessica got all of the bridesmaids a cute (and very comfy) wrap for us to get ready in, and they're each monogrammed with our names. For those of you who've ever seen me getting ready in the past, you'll be glad to know my old, ragged, faded purple "kimono", as it is lovingly called, will finally get to retire. :) Miss Kinley did NOT want to put on her flower girl's dress... ...but she was easily distracted by getting to eat raisins, and decided to let it go... mostly. :) My job was to dress Mr. Chance. That was easier said than done since every time I'd finally get his pants up they'd fall right back down as soon as I turned around! After pinning his pants to his diaper, we finally got him completely dressed. So handsome! The boquets were so bright and beautiful! While Jessica was getting everything ready to get dressed, the rest of us headed to the sanctuary to take pictures. Here's my sweet family. My hot mamma!!My dad and Mamaw. Isn't she so sweet??And my big hunk of a man! SO handsome! And now its time to dress the bride! Her cute hot pink shoes and her Mrs. LaPrade robe.Getting all laced up.And of course, what super-hero, comic book loving groom would think his wedding was complete without a Batman Garter?? Now, Jessica might kill me for putting this up here, but I just thought it was so cute! Jessica was making one last trip to the potty before the ceremony, and I caught her flashing her "something blue". :) I obviously don't have any pictures from during the ceremony since I was standing up there with them, but I'll be sure to post the link to their photographer's website for the professional pictures when it's available.

So on to the reception! Here's a sweet picture of Ross and me when we first arrived at the reception.

Ross and Jessica cutting the bride's cake. The top part of the cake slid off right before the reception started, and as you can see in the picture, Jessica was nervous about keeping the rest of the cake intact!Awww

And of course, there HAD to be a Batman cake for Ross! (The black icing turned everyone's mouths black!)

In addition to the yummy cake there was also a candy bar.Jessica's dad, Shelby, made a funny toast about Ross and Jessica. I love their faces in this one.

Sweet father-daughter dance.

Mother-son dance.

My mom's side of the family all got to come too, and it was so great getting to see them all! And I HAVE to post this one as proof that Ross actually DID dance at his wedding. :)

My brother and me with the newest member of the LaPrade family!And a great picture of my mom and me.And now for the boquet toss! (Yep, that's me on the right.) Even with my complete lack of atheletic ability, I still caught that boquet! You can wipe that smug look off your face, Lowry! ;) (He knows he's in trouble - I've caught the boquet at the last two weddings we've been to.)Ross sees the Batman garter for the first time!Three of the most important men in my life. Now this is quite possibly my favorite picture of the day. I just LOVE my sweet Mamaw and Papaw. And they're off! Ross and Jessica went on a Caribbean cruise for their honeymoon. They don't get home until this Saturday, and I can't wait to see all their gorgeous honeymoon pictures! Welcome to the family, Jess!