There's no place like Gingerbread Homes

Tonight we made gingerbread houses with Adam's siblings, Bryan and Aubry. I've been wanting to do this all season so tonight was really fun. Everyone was so creative! And a fun part was that now they make gingerbread graham crackers! All the better to build with! (but let's face it, all anybody really builds gingerbread houses for is all the candy.... yum!!)

Adam's Family Christmas tree

We had dinner with Adam's family tonight and they hadn't put their Christmas tree up yet so we got to help them. The tree is awesome. It's gigantic! And like most fake trees there are certain branches assigned to each level but these are designated by little colors of paint that have all but rub off (on the branch and stump). Not only that, but the colors are close together-- light green and dark green, light blue and dark blue, pink, salmon, orange and red (which are all about the same to me), and more. It was like a game in a game. Fun!

My favorite part of the night was when Adam and his siblings rediscovered their favorite ornament and had a Rock-Paper-Scissors competition to see who got to put it on the tree. I've never seen them all get so excited about something (except for the jello eating contest they had me participate in the first time I had dinner at their house). They are such a fun bunch of siblings, I really love all of them (L-R: Michelle, Adam, Bryan, Aubry).

The oh so coveted ornament was this little nut that opened up to reveal a nativity scene carved inside-- or Nativity in a Nutshell.

Since they had a lot more interest in hanging all their childhood ornaments, I took the job of bending paper clips into hooks for any straggler ornaments with nothing to hang them. They did let me hang one special ornament-- a glass New York ball with the statue of liberty inside (since I really love New York)!

Ta-dum! the final product (and I wasn't kidding when I said the tree was big-- we could barely walk around it :). Adam's mom told us about one Christmas when she was a little bored so she decided to really deck out the tree with lights. She ended up buying a strand of lights for each branch (and weaved them carefully in between each sprig). Needless to say, she blew the power when she tried to plug it in. Ah, I really love her!!

After all that hard work we rewarded ourselves by playing Pirates of the Carribbean Life (and for the record I had the Black Pearl right at the very end and would've won if Captain Barbosa aka Adam hadn't stole him at the last play! ARRRRR! Such is the pirate's life...)

And they lived happily ever after...

Hello!!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post the wedding pictures. Oops. I've really meant to get on and update sooner but it's been a crazy month trying to get moved in and settled and we finally got our internet up and working so now the blog and I can be friends again. Hooray!

Our wedding day was so perfect. We honestly wouldn't change a single thing. It was so great to have our families and friends and so many people we love there all day to celebrate with us. Adam and I felt that the temple was by far our favorite part of the day. We had such a wonderful sacred experience there that we wouldn't have even noticed if everything the rest of the day went wrong. It was incredible. That is definitely the right way to get married.

We were so happy and on such a high that we just relaxed and had fun with people the rest of the day. I loved it and I was so glad we weren't stressed and that we could just be ourselves and enjoy the day. The curls in my hair kept getting looser and looser as the day went on and I never did reapply the makeup before the reception but suprisingly I didn't care at all. Se la vi, right?

All of our pictures are posted online at: http://clients.lindsayjanephotography.com/. Click on the album "Adam and Stephanie" and then put in your email (no worries, they don't send anything) and then you can see all our pictures if you wanted to see them.

I'm posting some of my favorites below as well as my thoughts about the day (a little story if you will) so enjoy!

This was right as we walked out of the temple. We're officially husband and wife! I think our happiness meter is going off the charts.

We were so humbled to have so many friends and family there outside the temple with us. What incredible people they all are! We're so blessed.

This was a really fun picture with both sets of our parents but for some reason Adam and I could not stop laughing. I'm amazed our photographer got one. Part of the reason we chose to be married in the Salt Lake Temple was because both our parents were married here. They also both had their receptions at the Lion House which is where we had our luncheon (but Adam's mom will have to tell you about the little "disruption" they had on Temple Square that night).

How could you get married here and not take the traditional pictures in front of these gorgeous historic doors? All my life I'd come here and I never went to the top of the stairs or stood in the alcove cause it felt like that's just the bride and groom place to stand. It's a little surreal that this was our wedding day and our turn to be the bride and groom.

I just want to give a little shout out to my florist, Sherry Perry. I really wanted my flowers to look "Fall-ish" and I think she did such a great job of capturing the colors of the season and even adding the dried fall leaves to the bouquet to give it the right effect. Ah, I loved it! Well done, Sherry, well done!

These are all of mine and Adam's siblings (minus my brother Ryan who's on his mission and Natalie's husband Bob). We LOVE these people so much! They really are our best friends on the planet.

We both really love the actual building of the temple (especially Adam) and were glad our photographer kept getting fun angles and capturing the artisticness of the building.

This was our favorite moment of all the pictures. She put us on this bench and then walked to the other side and left us there. We started out posed how she wanted us but then we got talking and totally forgot we were being photographed or that there was anyone else around us or anything. It was this beautiful moment where we were just in our own little world basking in the joy of our wedding day.

We like this picture the best from the day (even though the temple looks a little fake :). We want to print it large and frame it for our house (as is kind of the tradition when you get married, to print one and hang it in your home... c'mon steph, does it really need to be said? obviously....)

Some last fun ones from Temple Square. At the luncheon my sister Natalie took a little video of us which you can watch at this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7544793234507546453&hl=en

This is our cake. Yum!

We picked the Old Meeting House for our reception because we loved how spacious and elegant it is. There is so much room to park, to mingle, to sit, to eat, it's great! And it's got such a stately classic look with the crown molding and historic windows and arched doorways. We really loved it.

This is Adam's family, the Hocks (L-R: Bryan, Aubry, David, Jeanette, Cody & Michelle)

This is my family, the Browns. My brother Ryan is still on his mission and wasn't there (hence the signs so he could still be included-- but good news! He get's home in three and half weeks!!). From L-R: Julie, baby Mallory, Natalie, nephew Tyler, Peter, Debbie, Tim, nephew Cameron, Greg and Kelly.

To quote Little Women, "I could never love anyone as I love my sisters!" Which all of these beautiful girls are. I love them (clearly.. you can see every tooth I have in the picture above)

This picture made me laugh so hard. While all might seem harmless and fun-- me and the bridesmaids-- I think the camera caught the proof that Leslie's rapidly moving hand was trying for a quick snatch of the flowers (look at her mischievous grin)!! Listen, lady, your day has passed!

These are our three nieces and nephews (all my sister Natalie's kids). Tyler and Cameron got tired as the reception went on and untucked their white shirts and tried to play with Adam and I while we talked to people (and hide under my dress). Boys will be boys!

We had so much fun talking to people at our reception. People told us we'd be so exhausted and not even remember who came but we felt quite the opposite. Every time we saw who was next we felt this huge burst of love for them and our only regret was that we couldn't visit longer. It's kind of a cruel trick to show you all these people you love so much (and some that you haven't seen in a LONG time) and then give you only like 30 seconds to catch up with them. But we were so grateful to everyone who tooked the time (or traveled far) to be there. We have the best friends in the whole world.

So we cut the cake and let picture number 2 (or Exhibit A as the court would call it) show for the record the nice delicate slice I placed in my husband's mouth and the humongous mountain of a piece he shoved into mine. And we're not talking a playful little "oops, honey, got cake on your cheeks" shove-- Adam full on rammed it into my face so much that a signifigant plug of cake went up my nose! Beautiful. I think this face says it all:

It reminds me of the scene on Dumb & Dumber where Harry and Mary go on a date and she playfully throws snow on him. So to retaliate he makes a snowball and nails her in the face. Some boys are so suave.

A beautiful capstone of the evening was when my brother Peter performed our song ("Stolen" by Dashboard Confessionals) for us on his guitar. He sounded so great and we loved hearing it there in that setting. Now when we listen to it we have this great image of sitting together as bride and groom hearing this song and feeling so happy and in love on our wedding day. Peter you're amazing!

And lastly there was the bouquet toss. Apparently I threw it pretty high up (based on where everyone's looking and they're shocked faces). The funniest part though was my sister Kelly. She didn't jump or move or anything, she just opened her hand and the bouquet kind of magnetically zoomed right there. How did she get her magical powers?! No one even had a chance!

Whew! What a post! So there it is. Now you've lived the entire wedding day over with us again. It was so beautiful and perfect and I feel like the luckiest wife in the world to have married such a perfect man. Adam and I are having so much fun setting up our house and figuring life out. We just laugh a lot. But when you're with your best friend all the time what else would you do? Life's perfect. I'll try to get on again soon and post some pictures of Boston from our honeymoon and what we've been up to since then. THANK YOU again to EVERYONE who made our wedding so wonderful. We really love you all!!!