Three.

Mother's Day 2015 // *personal photo*

We have a two-year-old now.

She's so smart- smarter than us, even, at times.  And she's so goofy- she might have my smile, but when she wrinkles up her nose and does a silly voice, she's 100% your daughter.  And she's so loving and affectionate- she'll wave at strangers and hug her best friend at the end of the day and kiss pictures of puppies on the computer screen.  And she's so, so beautiful.  This will all be a lethal combination when she's a teenager, I'm sure.  Let's not think about that.

This year was fun.  I've lost track of how many zoos and aquariums we've been to as a family now, each more exciting than the last, and the countless hours we've spent talking about fish and turtles.  And we've watched her learn how to walk and then immediately start running around the house, around the playground, around the grocery store.  We've ridden on airplanes, looked at spaceships, built block towers taller than she was, and watched all the Disney animated classics- with all the excitement and enthusiasm as if we were experiencing them for the first time, because it was her first time.

This year was hard, too.  We had to make difficult decisions.  We've each had to put the family before our individual selves.  We've had to put some dreams on hold.  We've had to bust our respective butts, and we've gotten very little sleep- and not because of the toddler.

But when I look back on this year, what I remember most is the fun.

When I look back on this year, I notice something else, too.

I got really good at being a mom this year, but I didn't necessarily get any better at being a wife.  You've been amazing at both parenthood and marriage this year- you've handled public meltdowns like a champ, you've sat through countless hours of Elmo, you continue to buy me flowers for no reason, you do an unfairly large share of the housework, and you drop whatever it is that you're doing to let me vent to you when I've had an awful day at work (which is all the time).

So here's the deal: for year 4, I promise to step up my game.  Remember how we used to gross out my sisters with the hand-holding and forehead-kissing and sitting-in-laps?  Let's go back to that.  And I should shut up every now and then and let you vent about your day (or, you know, play some Halo as that helps you unwind better than talking about your feelings). And maybe- just maybe- I'll do the dishes more often, too.  I mean, I'm not a miracle worker, so that last one might be pushing it, but I sure can try.

Here's to another super fun year.  I'm sure there will be hard times, we'll probably have to survive more tantrums (the 2-year-old might even be responsible for some), but if you hold my hand the whole time, we can keep laughing through it.

I love you, I love being married to you, I love being a parent with you.  Let's keep learning and growing and getting better at this, together.

photo via One Photo Gallery

Two.

photo by One Photo Gallery

Two years.

It's hardly any time at all, and yet it feels like we've been married forever.  It feels so easy, so right, to wake up next to you each morning, to go about my day knowing that you'll be there when I get home each night.  Our life is not easy, but it's our life- not my life separate from your life, but our life, experienced together, side by side, hand in hand.

You're a different person from the boy who got down on one knee in the parking lot after taking me to the ballet.  I'm a different person from the girl who was too excited to even say the word yes.  And we should be different people- we've grown and changed together, constantly challenging one another to become better people and better spouses.

And we've become parents!  We've learned how to grow a baby, how to give birth to a baby, how to care for that baby, how to parent that baby.  We were ready to be parents because we were ready to be married- we were mature enough to put the needs of another person before our own, to no longer think of ourselves as individuals, but as "us."  That doesn't mean we were prepared for parenthood- we didn't know there would be a third person to devote ourselves to so soon.  But we learned together- we're still learning together.  And I think we're pretty good at it.

family Halloween costumes // *personal photo*

And I'm having a lot of fun, being a parent with you.

Being married to you.

Today is truly a celebration of us- today is the second anniversary of our marriage, and our daughter's first birthday.  We'll eat chocolate cupcakes (and she'll eat a chocolate cupcake, and make a mess, and it will be adorable), we'll have a fancy little home-cooked dinner, we'll open presents and put on our jammies and cuddle up together and watch a movie.  Today we celebrate this life that is so very different from the one we were living two years ago.

It's different, but I think it's even better.

photo by One Photo Gallery

Here's to forever, Love- a forever that looks different every day, but feels as natural and exciting as the day it first began.

The Most Memorable Part of the Potion Wedding Day

So this post was a little harder for me to write than the first After the Wedding post.  I guess maybe I didn't fully understand the prompt ;)  So I asked Mr. Potion for some help.

photo by One Photo Gallery

Initially, I was going to write about our cupcakes.  We had cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake- red velvet, carrot cake, and chocolate- and Mr. Potion and I shared a chocolate one for the traditional feed-each-other-cake bit of the reception.  Because we didn't have a top tier of the cake, and because it would have been a logistical nightmare to get any cake all the way back to Northern Virginia from our Alabama wedding, we didn't have any "wedding cake" to eat on our first anniversary.  We spent our first anniversary in the hospital, welcoming Baby Potion into the world, and that night, our moms picked up some grocery store cupcakes with chocolate frosting so we could have our little anniversary cake moment.  Since chocolate cupcakes are pretty easy to find no matter where you are, I figured we can celebrate every anniversary the same way.

*personal photo*

 "But maybe I shouldn't write about that," I said, as we discussed the topic of this post, "because that was just an arbitrary decision I made without asking you."

"Well, that perfectly encapsulates our relationship, then!"

Ha, Mr. Potion.  Very funny.

No, instead, I'd have to say that the most memorable part of our wedding day was a sort of inside joke between the two of us that happened when we said our vows.  As we were leaving the reception and driving off to the honeymoon, we were talking about how we'd each been a little nervous during the ceremony, and, as it turns out, we were both afraid of messing up the vows, even though we had chosen the "repeat after the priest"-style. 

Mr. Potion had joked that he was going to say, "I, Mr. Potion, take you, Miss Potion, for my awful wife,"- instead of lawful wife.  We didn't rehearse the actual vows at the rehearsal, so he never had a chance to pull his prank, but as we stood hand-in-hand, gazing into each other's eyes, the word awful dominated his subconscious.  He had every intention of reciting his vows properly, but now his joke was coming back to bite him and he was afraid he was actually going to say awful.  Thankfully, he managed to say the right words, and nobody had any inkling of his inner struggle.

photo by One Photo Gallery

He wasn't the only goofball in danger of screwing things up, though.

For some reason- I will never know why- as Father Ninja started feeding me my vows, my brain started saying, "DON'T SAY WIFE, DON'T SAY WIFE!"  Out of nowhere, I had this terrible fear that I was going to say, "I, Miss Potion, take you, Mr. Potion, for my lawful wife," instead of husband.  (I'm the wife, he's the husband!)  I don't know why I thought I was going to mess that up, but in those few seconds, as my subconscious chanted "DON'T SAY WIFE!  DON'T SAY WIFE!" all I could hear was the word wife rushing through my ears.  Much as Mr. Potion thought he was doomed to an awful marriage, I thought I was doomed to take a wife instead of a husband!  Fortunately, I managed to maintain full control over my tongue and properly vow to take Mr. Potion as my lawful husband, even as my heart hammered against my chest. 

Though we didn't know it until afterwards, we had both approached the altar to say our vows in a state of fear that we were going to mess it up.  We never lost sight of each other, however, and we escaped the wedding unscathed.

That's a bit of a dramatic way of putting it, but when you think of it that way, this moment really does encapsulate our relationship.  Though we may joke around, we both take our roles as wife and husband very seriously, and there are times when we both are afraid that we're in danger of screwing it up.  If we hold onto each other, and never lose sight of this love- this messy, imperfect, constant work-in-progress love- we're not going to screw up, we're going to succeed.

But those cupcakes really were delicious ;)

If you're interested in what else we've been up to since the wedding, follow along at Our Geeky Adventure!

Are the Potions Living Up to Their Vows?

Hello, Hive!  I'm so excited to be back and participating in the "After the Wedding" series!  Have you missed me?  I've missed you!

This November, Mr. Potion and I will celebrate our second anniversary.  Two years isn't very long- I mean, it's ages longer than the typical Hollywood marriage, but even in today's divorce-happy society, two years can still be considered no time at all.  But unlike most couples nowadays, we got pregnant just three months into our marriage...and babies bring plenty of opportunities to test your vows.  Let's see how well we've done.

photo by One Photo Gallery

Now, we're both Catholic- Mr. Potion is a convert and I'm a cradle-Catholic- so we had a traditional ceremony and recited traditional vows. 

I take you as my lawful spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

These vows don't promise any specific actions or attitudes- they don't say I promise to not snap at you when you're pissing me off or I promise to let you have the last Oreo in the package- they don't even say I promise not to cheat on you.  What they do say is I take you as my lawful spouse...until death do us part.  That's it.  You will be my spouse, and I will treat you as a spouse until death do us part, no matter what happens.  We vowed to be married and stay married no matter what challenges arise in our relationship, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how our emotions and feelings may change, because love is an action- a choice- not an emotion.  Love is a purposeful mindset, not something you fall into or out of accidentally.

Oh hey, wow, that got really heavy.

Thankfully, we haven't gone through any terribly trying moments in our almost-two years.  I wake up every morning and choose to be in love with Mr Potion, it's never been a difficult choice to make.

Our better looks like this:

personal photo

Our worse looks like a sink overflowing with dirty dishes, a fridge stocked with only breast milk, and stupid arguments fueled by sleep deprivation.

Our richer looks like going out or ordering in every night of the week when I'm 9 months pregnant and feel like I could eat for 10 but don't want to cook for even 2 and we haven't yet factored diapers into our budget.

Our poorer looks like discussions of no longer eating out at all and efforts to vastly reduce our grocery budget.

Neither pregnancy nor childbirth count as sickness, but if you've read my birth story (which is not for the faint of heart), you know that Mr. Potion went above and beyond the call of duty as a husband during labor and in the days after our daughter was born.  And he's done more than just stay by my side- he's continued to see me as a husband sees his wife when I was 9 million pounds at the end of the pregnancy and months later in my new, squishy, stretch-marked body.

So yes, I think we've lived up to our vows.  Though we haven't even been married for two years yet, we have faced some difficult times together- though we know that even more difficult times are yet to come- and we have continued to have and hold each other, no matter what.

photo by One Photo Gallery

Curious to know more about our life since the wedding?  Come visit me at Our Geeky Adventure!

Ta-Ta for Now!

Traditionally, you save the top layer of your wedding cake, freeze it, and enjoy it on your first anniversary as a reminder of the joy of your big day.  We didn't have a wedding cake, so we didn't have a top layer- we did cupcakes.

photo by One Photo Gallery

We had big plans for our first anniversary.  We wanted to go to New Orleans at the beginning of November to attend the Voodoo Music Experience Halloween weekend and then spend some time enjoying the sights and tastes of the French Quarter, making sure to find some chocolate cupcakes to commemorate our big day.

It's funny how plans change.

We stayed here in Northern Virginia this November.  In fact, we celebrated our anniversary with some grocery store cupcakes...in the hospital.

photo by my mom

 Yup, early in the morning on our anniversary (6:50AM on Sunday November 10) we received the best anniversary present we could ask for- a 7lb 12oz sweet baby girl!

photo by Mr. Potion

We did not plan to have a baby this early in our marriage; we like to say that she is evidence of God's sense of humor because when people would ask (and of course they immediately started asking the moment we got back from the honeymoon!) we would say that we were going to start trying for a baby at the one year mark.  Well- we got a baby at the one year mark!

If this first year is any indication, we're in for a pretty amazing rest of our lives. 

So, this brings me to the end of my journey here on Weddingbee.  It was really fun sharing the details with you as we planned our epic wedding, and then to come back and show the results (even if I was a little late with the recaps.  Okay- a LOT late).  I hope that maybe I inspired one of you to check out a vintage shop while looking for your dress, or replace flowers with personal touches, or try your hand at sewing something small.  Or maybe you just had some fun watching this whole thing take shape, even if none of it was your style.

This isn't goodbye forever; I'll continue to hang around these parts if you ever want to chat, and I'm sure I'll pop in with a post or two in the future just so you don't forget me ;)  In the meantime, if you'd like to see what we're up to in the Potion household, come check out Our Geeky Adventure where I blog about our life, our style, and, well, whatever the hell I feel like :)

How did you celebrate your first anniversary?

Love Potion #20: Paper Planes

As the reception wound down, I didn't notice that my sisters and other members of our wedding party snuck away to decorate my car.

these are our initials, not a dirty joke.  my youngest sister didn't understand why Mr. Potion found this so funny

Mickey & Minnie, since we were about to go visit them!

Meanwhile, I went to change into my getaway dress, and supplies were distributed to the guests to help with the "closing ceremonies."

Some couples run to the honeymoon under a shower of birdseed; others dart through a crowd of sparklers.

We're geeks, remember?

We left through a salute of paper airplanes.

(Disclaimer: this was not an original idea.  At the beginning of our wedding planning adventure, I saw a wedding somewhere on the internet where the guests threw paper airplanes as the couple left the reception, but I didn't bookmark the link!  So while I can't claim credit for the idea, our guests sure thought it was creative.)

Everyone lined up outside with their aerodynamic creations:

And then we came running out to the car!  We told everyone the idea was to toss the airplanes over us, but of course some jokesters threw them at us...

 

 

 

 

Funny story- we were almost out of town when my phone rang- it was my dad.  Oh, great, last minute words of advice?  Or maybe he was going to ask us to come to the after party at my parents' house instead of making the drive to our halfway point in Georgia?

"I've got something here you might want," he said.

"Uh oh, what did we forget?" I asked, making a mental checklist of things we needed for the honeymoon.  I had loaded the car that morning in the flurry of getting ready, so of course I had forgotten something.

"Your camera!"

Yikes!  For some reason, I brought our camera into the reception, thinking I'd take my own pictures, or something.  Ha.  So I turned around and headed back to Spring House, where people were getting ready to leave and change into more comfortable clothes for the after party.  We said our goodbyes again with some quick hugs and kisses, then hopped in the car for a second grand exit.

"Guess what you left..."

How did you make your grand exit?

*all photos by One Photo Gallery*

Miss a Potion recap?

Love Potion #0.5: Uh…Who is This Chick?
Love Potion #1: Dress Rehearsal
Love Potion #2: Gettin’ Our Hairs Did
Love Potion #3: Last Minute Details
Love Potion #4: Corsages for the Generations
Love Potion #5: The Boys Get Spiffy
Love Potion #6: “Formal” Portraits
Love Potion #7: Goin’ to the Chapel…
Love Potion #8: Proceeding with the Ceremony
Love Potion #9: Leaving Our Families to Cling to Each Other
Love Potion #10: And Then We Got Married 
Love Potion #11: Our First Meal as a Married Couple 
Love Potion #12: Boys Just Don't Smile
Love Potion #13: Formal Portraits that are Formal: Family Edition
Love Potion #14: Formal Portraits that are Formal: Bridesmaid Edition 
Love Potion #14.5: We Didn't Have a DOC
Love Potion #15: Why Dance When You Can Watch Football?
Love Potion #16: The Sweetest Part 
Love Potion #17: More Pictures! Because Wedding. 
Love Potion #18: Toasting the Potions

Love Potion #19: Lots of Kissing

Love Potion #19: Lots of Kissing

I'm afraid so, Fred Savage // image via Giphy

This post could also be titled "All of My Favorite Pictures".  And if a picture is worth 1000 words, there's gonna be an awful lot of words in this post without my writing anything.  I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves, then ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mean seriously.  Beautiful!!!  I kind of just wanted to sit in that window for the rest of the day, kissin' on my new husband while our photographer captured the cuteness.

What were your favorite photos from your wedding day?

*all photos by One Photo Gallery*

Miss a Potion recap?

Love Potion #0.5: Uh…Who is This Chick?
Love Potion #1: Dress Rehearsal
Love Potion #2: Gettin’ Our Hairs Did
Love Potion #3: Last Minute Details
Love Potion #4: Corsages for the Generations
Love Potion #5: The Boys Get Spiffy
Love Potion #6: “Formal” Portraits
Love Potion #7: Goin’ to the Chapel…
Love Potion #8: Proceeding with the Ceremony
Love Potion #9: Leaving Our Families to Cling to Each Other
Love Potion #10: And Then We Got Married 
Love Potion #11: Our First Meal as a Married Couple 
Love Potion #12: Boys Just Don't Smile
Love Potion #13: Formal Portraits that are Formal: Family Edition
Love Potion #14: Formal Portraits that are Formal: Bridesmaid Edition 
Love Potion #14.5: We Didn't Have a DOC
Love Potion #15: Why Dance When You Can Watch Football?
Love Potion #16: The Sweetest Part 
Love Potion #17: More Pictures! Because Wedding. 
Love Potion #18: Toasting the Potions