a busy time

It has been a busy couple of weeks. June turned 9 months old and is very active, crawling all over the place and really into exploring her environment. This stage is so much fun, but also much more intense for me. And this is where I have to wonder if maybe I should have done this whole child thing 10 years ago. I feel like I'm in pretty good shape now, having just now lost all of my pregnancy weight (it really is 9 months to put on, 9 to take it off), but I just don't bounce back like I used to.

I just turned in the last of the stories I was assigned in March for a total of 7 articles I wrote this month. They're all features on Latin artists for BMI, the musician's rights organization. I am really enjoying this new work and it makes me feel productive and like it *is* possible to work from home and be a mom. I hope I can keep it up.

On the wedding front, we went out to the site last weekend which is the home of our friends Salem and Judy who are still settling into their new house in the country. There is a lot to do there, but things are coming together. We ate a meal with our caterer Kindy and tasted some of the items than will be on our menu. We were happy with everything. To go with it, we tried a nice Italian white wine provided by our friend Will at Woodland Wine Merchant. We have been 'forced' try others all week and think we have settled on a crowd-pleasing and light sangiovese from Tuscany for red, and a crisp and light blend from the Veneto for the white. How could we not go with Italian wines?

And I have been busy making these table cards to let people know where they'll be sitting for dinner at the reception. We aren't going to tell them where to sit, just which table. I think we came up with a fun alternative to the usual table numbers. I bought the cards at Michael's and glued pieces of old wrapping paper to them to give them some color.

I found these cool prints on etsy of all different types of bicycles to go with our theme, some with owls on them -- another element from our invitation. We're told by Salem that lots of owls live on the property, plus I just happen to like owls.

We will put the larger prints on each table pinned to the burlap table runners my friend Ellen is making. We shrunk down the bicycle images to fit on the card with the colored paper on it which will also have the person's name and will lead them to the table with the same image. It will be a lot of cutting and pasting when it's all done, but I think they will be cute.

And I am on the hunt for shoes to go with my dress. Who would have thought I would have so much trouble finding an awesome pair of shoes? It's so not like me! But the challenge is finding something dressy, yet fun, yet comfortable enough to wear all night and appropriate for the outdoors.

These are the ones I thought I would buy for sure--they would have been perfect--except for that kitten heel that would go straight into the grass and leave me stuck all night long.

So now I am looking at wedges and espadrilles, which luckily are in style right now and are everywhere. I bought these last weekend and tried them on with the dress and they were not quite right, which is too bad because I'm in love with them:

These are my next attempt:

Oh, did I mention my dress is pink? It is being made by a local designer named Jessica Maros who also makes a line of really cool jewelry that is getting picked up by boutiques all over the country called Sleeveless. She is really talented and sweet and I am so lucky she has time to work on my little dress. It is a combination of lace from my mom's 1966 tea-length wedding dress and a blush pink silk vintage dress I found in a local second hand shop. I think it will be unique and different and my mom would have loved the idea of using her dress in this way. I am also going to wear her veil in my hair, which Jessica hand dyed to match the lace on the dress.

Of course, June has her dress all ready to go. She is going to look like a princess in this ivory linen sundress with a tulle underskirt that I found at this cool new baby store in town called Tweed.

I will pin a pretty pink flower on the waist to match the color of my dress and find her some little pink shoes to go with it. Maybe these:

It's all coming together and we are less than a month away! I am so excited and nervous and just a little bit overwhelmed all at once.

So to relax a little after June had gone to bed last night, I made these little chocolate ganache cupcakes. They were so delicious and Daniel loves anything chocolate. I think he ate 3 in a row. I'm responsible for the half-eaten one here, the result of getting up at 2:00am, unable to sleep with all the excitement.