Wedding Pictures

Everyone that was there on the Bride's side. The entire Barrus Family! The Bridal Party. Everyone is family, brothers, sisters, and in-laws. Bridesmaids.

All of the Barrus side siblings.

I just think that this is so funny. :)

Such a cute couple.

Tiffany's dress was gorgeous!

We took this picture to show Gavin's outfit off a little better. He wore it to church on Sunday and just about every person commented on how cute he looked.

Where have we been?

Well, I will tell you. We have been in Idaho. Certainly not for the last month, that I haven't posted, but we were gone for 9 days. Because we were able to see a super cute couple sealed for time and all eternity. Zac's youngest sister Tiffany is now Tiffany Barrus Riggs and I cannot believe it. Tiffany and Kellan met shortly after we moved last year and were engaged a few days before Christmas. We are so excited for them and their journey as they start their lives together.

It has been so long since we have had a wedding on either side of the family(well, since we were married 2 1/2 years ago), so we were really excited. I think that everyone was dying to see us, just so that they could see Gavin and how much he has grown. I really wish that we were closer to family as Gavin is changing so much all the time, but that's ok. Gavin loved Grandma and Grandpa's house, and I can tell that he misses everyone. The day after we got home, he woke up from his nap and the first words he said were, Bo-Bo. Zac's family dog is named Bo, and that was the first word that he learned, when he got there. He now calls every single dog that we see Bo-Bo. Which is really funny, but confusing to everyone else. Anyway each morning he would wake up and we would ask him if he wanted to find Bo-Bo and he was so excited to get out of bed. So it was really cute that he missed Bo that much. I don't know how long we are going to be able to go without a dog, but I still say we need a house first. :)

The week was filled with fun, as we enjoyed time together with Zac's family. On friday we set up for the reception and family arrived. The girls went out to lunch and gave Tiffany gifts and then we had dinner at the house of yummy sweet pork tacos. After dinner we had a party celebrating Tiffany. We had about 20 family members including siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We played a few games, including this really fun one. Amanda has the pictures, so I will post some when I get them. After games we had dessert, and everyone shared a memory or story about Tiffany.

Manicures and pedicures. Wow, that was interesting experience. :) More else, interesting conversations with the asians doing our nails.

On our way to lunch at Olive Garden. I told Tiffany to sit in the front seat, but she said it felt more like a limo in the back, haha, silly girl. In front are Holly and Heather to two cousins closest in age to Amanda and Tiffany on the Warner side.

Opening our gifts. I am not sure that Amanda is quite ready to lose her sister to Kellan. It is definitely a change when your siblings get married, especially when you are as close as these two. Holly and Heather gave a "How NOT to get pregnant kit!" Haha, SOOOO funny. Included things like cheetos, a can of beans, jerky, etc. All things that make you less, ummm....desireable?, to your spouse. :)

Saturday was the big day, and it was such a wonderful experience to be in that sealing room. I loved remembering the day Zac and I were sealed, and listening to those promises again. I am so grateful for the gospel and the opportunity that I have to be sealed to Zac for eternity! He definitely makes my life complete, and I cannot imagine life without him.

Here is my cute boy in his suspenders and bow tie. This was the end of the reception, so don't judge the untucked shirt and lack of shoes. He was definitely the cutest little boy in the wedding, he was also the only child on either side, so that helped. I didn't get any pictures on my camera of how beautiful Tiffany looked in her dress. I was too busy with the video camera and Gavin so I will have to put some up when I get access to them. Her dress was truly gorgeous!

Tiffany and Kellan looked so happy and in love, just they way it should be. Welcome to the family Kellan, it is a great one to be a part of!

That is Bailey, Zac's cousin's daughter. She is SO cute and was the biggest help with Gavin while she was there. We appreciate her so much. She would chase Gavin around and play with him all the time. Gavin was entertained with pounding on the coolers for a good 10 minutes. You can also see his "YAY" that he frequently does whenever he is excited or proud of himself.

The Much Awaited and Anticipated!

The pictures of the quiet books. Sorry the quality isn't that great, I did the best with what I had, so hopefully you enjoy the pictures. I have posted the links at the bottom of the post of all the sites I used as templates. I am SO grateful to all those who are willing to share their work online and make it free for the rest of us to use! There are some really cute quiet books on Etsy, but I didn't want to pay for a pattern so I used what I could find. there are still many more pages I want to do, but I think I am going to take my time working on those. :) Remember that I did two sets of these, which is why it took so long, but I am sure it was worth it as my cute nephews are probably putting it to good use.

My pages were made with Muslin and then a cotton layer to make the pages thicker. You could always go with Cotton or even Felt. The Muslin wrinkles really easily, but it is much cheaper than the others. I also chose to do a simple cover with just a one button closure. My pages are sewn with three button holes and held together with binder rings found at Office Max. This was the cheapest way that I found to bind the book but still be able to trade pages out, or when we have more kids hand a few pages to each child to play with.

Simple Button Closure and Three Ring Binding

Button The Flowers

Alphabet (Velcro)

Time For Church

Match The Shapes (Snaps)

Puzzles Three different puzzles stored on the opposite page

Noah's Ark I bought Noah at the $1 Store and then a package of Dinosaurs. I searched for some cheap animals but couldn't find them anywhere, so there were dinosaurs on the Ark.

Warm your Hand

Tic Tac Toe

Look in the Tent with a teddy bear inside (Zipper)

Pick the Apples (Snaps)

Who's in the Barn? Chicken, Pig, Cow Finger Puppets

Counting (Velcro)

Write a Letter

Mail a Letter

3...2....1..... Blast OFF!

Make a Phone Call (Gavin LOVES this page) Traffic Light

Lace the Football (Shoelace) Weave the Tower

Each book has this on the inside cover. :)

I was trying to make the books as cheaply as possible but still good quality. With that said, basically all my pages are done with felt, aside from the muslin base. Many of the examples I found were very intricate and beautiful, but I just didn't feel that I needed to spend that much money on extra fabric to make them that way. I also did not have a ton of scraps on hand when I started this project, which probably would help with the extra details.

I hand-stitched all of the titles on each page. This idea came from Homemade by Jill, link below, I really thought it was a great touch, as I am not a big fan of writing the titles on (just my preference). I just wrote the titles in pencil and then stitched over them. The writing isn't perfect, but I really like that detail. WARNING: this is very time consuming I think it took me about an hour to handstitch each page, which is about 30 hours of just stitching, not including everything else.

Sites used: (I used different pages from all the sites, but there quite a few to choose from on each one.)

Homemade by Jill

You can also click on quietbooks on her side bar and see many amazing pages from her book. She has 14 different quietbook posts. I used the Rocket, Barn, and Mailbox templates. Her pages are truly amazing.

Oopsey Daisy

At the bottom of her post there is a link to print off 9 templates. I only used her template for Noah's Ark, but she has a McDonald's Hamburger, Mr. Potato Head, Phone, Gumball Machine, Ice Cream Cone, Chick a Chick a Boom Boom and Stop Light. SO Cute! I definitely want to make some of these later.

How to Make a Quiet Book

Tons of pages to use, with links to many other sites where you can see examples and find templates. I used the numbers page, and used to the apple tree, ABC's and flower page as an example for my own. The Picnic basket and Mail pages are also really cute!

How to Make an LDS Quiet Book

Quiet Book Instructions

I used the traffic light, football, mitten, clock, phone, and shapes pages from here.

Modest Maven

This the blog from the link above, you can see her completed pages here, her choice of fabric is great!

Serving Pink Lemonade

I did not use this site because I did not find it until after. But there are some really cute ideas. I also like the playmats, I want to make some for Gavin. She also has photos for an ABC reverent book that would be great to use during the sacrament and SO cheap just to print the photos a Wal-Mart or something.

Just want to give a Shout Out to my sister-in-law Amanda who helped me tons when she was here in November and also to my Mom who helped me when she was here for Christmas, I could not have finished these without you!

And a SUPER Shout Out to Zac for all of the late nights sewing and the many hours spent sitting at the table while you took care of Gavin. I LOVE YOU!

And just because we need an updated picture of my boys. :)

Super Fly! I took this picture and thought, "Where did my baby go?"

These two are the Best Buds!

Whew! That took MUCH longer than expected!