Mr and Mrs Shields

Friday the 21st of November was the big day for Becc and Brise. Becc looked absolutely beautiful. Her dress was so beautiful and it looked like it was just the perfect dress for Becc. Brise hadn't seen the dress yet so it was a lovely surprise for him.

Maddi was quite excited by the event and was anxiously waiting for her Auntie Becc to come out of the temple. She was the first one to greet Auntie Becc when she came out, and ran up to her and gave her a big cuddle and showed her, her beautiful flowers.

Ness and Gina were great bridesmaids. Ness was very good at working under pressure and made sure everything was alright and did a great job Maddi's hair. Gina is so talented. She decorated the wedding cake and did all the photography and did an amazing job.

'Little Alex' is getting more and more personality every day. He does this cute little facial expression where he screws his nose up and smiles when he is happy and excited. I managed to capture it in this photo.


Damien chauffeured them to their reception.

Off to the reception
The arrival of the Bridal car at the reception


Their reception was held at a restaurant in Toorak named Quaff. The room where the reception was held was called the White Room and was surrounded by mirrors and full of lots of light.

The cake made by Liz and decorated by Georgina. One layer was Chocolate Mud Cake and the other layer was fruit cake.

At the reception we had a three course meal. For entree I had smoked Salmon with caviar. It was my first taste of caviar. For mains I had some chicken with a potato stack and for desert I had a profiterole. It was all so tasty with lots of flavour.

Maddi was a gorgeous flower girl if I do say myself. She was very outgoing and friendly. She loved looking at herself in the mirrors, and loved greeting people directly with a hello. The White Room was on the second storey of the restaurant and had a great big open window that looked onto Toorak Road. Maddi was quite excited every time a tram came and would announce to everyone "A tram's coming!". Then she would ask people "What does a tram say?" And before they got the chance to answer she would say "ding, ding".

Georgina and Damien did an awesome job at taking photos. Click here to see some photos from Georgina's blog. Georgina and Damien have been very busy with a lot of weddings on this year. They left that evening to go home as they had Damien's sister's wedding the next day.

After the reception it was pouring with rain, so it was great that the rain held off for the day. It was such a great day. Becc and Brise looked so happy and they are just perfect for each other. It was so great to see them so happy as they had made a lot of sacrifices to get to this point. It was so good that they waited for each other while Brise was on his mission, and it lead to an eternal marriage.

Girls Night

On the eve of Becc and Brise's wedding day we all went to Knox and went out to tea to Hogs Breath Cafe. After tea the girls got together Becc, Gina, Ness, Liz, Nana and myself and did a bit of late night shopping and went and got ourselves a simultaneous manicure each. I had never had a professional manicure and really enjoyed the experience. My hands were so relaxed during it all, so much that I almost fell asleep.

While this was going on the boys went to Timezone and played some games. I might add that Maddi was there with the boys. So it was a boys and kids activity time. They visited Krispy Kreme's. Maddi got a special hat there. She also scored some prizes from Timezone that the boys had won. The manicure seemed to go for ages, about an hour and a half by the time we were all finished. We all got French nails done, and they looked great. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of my lovely nails and now they're all chipped.

I Love To See The Temple

The highlight of the trip was the temple. The last time we visited the temple was for Perry and Loretta's sealing last year, so it had been awhile and I didn't realise how much I missed the temple until we were there.

We made a special trip to the temple to show the kids. Maddi was excited to walk around the temple grounds and was excited to touch the temple. She knows what a special place it is.



Maddi sang I Love to See the Temple all the way back to the hotel.

Off to Melbourne

On Tuesday we headed off to Melbourne from Hobart. It was so great for us all to go on the same flight and sit near each other on the plane. Maddi was really, reallly excited about it all. It was a task to get us all there with our baggage as we had so much stuff between us all! Maddi sat on the window seat and Alex pointed things out to her on the way. As we were heading near Bass Straight Alex pointed out to Maddi that her house was down there somewhere, and Kelsea's house was close by as well. Maddi waved and said " Bye Kelsea... bye Maddi's house."

Maddi with her soon to be Uncle Brise



It was such a great experience for Maddi as she was only 10 months old last time she went on a plane. It was an experience for her to see a big city as well. She would often say funny things. When we went passed the city and she saw all the sky scrappers, Maddi yells out " Lots and lots of temples!" Whenever we would drive through a tunnel Maddi would whisper and say " We're hiding."


In the evening we went to a restaurant at the Crown called The Conservatory. Alex and I had been there a few years ago when we were living in Melbourne for the summer. I really enjoyed it more this time because back then I was pregnant with Maddi and felt sick because of eating way too much. There was so much variety and lots of small portions so you could try lots of different things. The seafood was delicious. Alex did some great work on his 'front muscle' by eating 7 plates, 4 mains and 3 dinner plates of dessert! Little Alex seems to be just like his Dad in his way of loving food so much. I must say that he loves the good foods though. Poppy kept letting him try sweet desserts but he would reject them with preference of fruit.


Afterwards we had a wander around Southbank. Little Alex loved looking at all the city lights and Maddi loved the fairy lights and broke out in song singing Twinkle Twinkle. The kids did so well to travel. They slept on the way back to the hotel (or 'Hometell' as Maddi calls it) and were quite happy to go to sleep in different beds. Maddi loved the novelty of having a bed at the hotel and having Brise stay in our apartment. She would chat and chat away to Brise all the time.

Pre-Wedding Breakfast

Saturday the 15th of November was the day of Becc and Brise's pre-wedding breakfast celebration held at the Cascades Function Centre. We got up fairly early to be ready for the 9.30am breakfast.

These two munchkins having a play before getting all dressed up.

Auntie Ness (or Nessie as Maddi likes to call her) giving Maddi a hair do.

The Love Birds

The surroundings the function centre were beautiful. I spent a brief time outside. It was forecasted to snow on the day, so it was quite cold. The rain held off and no snow came fortunately!

Mugsy and Diana were there so it was great to catch up with them and others.

The food was absolutely delicious. There were Danishes, eggs and bacon, hash browns, croissaints, fruit juice and of course Cascade Apple Isle for the toasts! Brise and Big Bryce (Brise's Father) gave lovely heartfelt speeches. Ness put together a great slide show of Becc and Brise. They were such cute little kids. Maddi's dress was beautiful. Becc made a quilt out of the material while Brise was on his mission and Liz used the leftover material to make Maddi her beautiful dress. Becc's dress was also made by Liz and looked lovely.

Pre-wedding Breakfast preparation

Thursday week we headed down to Hobart to help Becc and Brise prepare for their pre-wedding breakfast. On Friday morning we helped where we could at getting everything ready. Liz was busy in the kitchen making cupcakes all morning. Maddi was a great help at separating the patty pan cases. Liz and I struggled at pulling the cases apart, but Maddi simply took them apart, and was a great help.


Putting the boxes together for the cupcakes. Alex's Nana was the chief worker at this.


Icing and decorating the cupcakes under the direction of Georgina.


We had a great time working together on the cupcake production line. Many hands did make light work. Manny came along to help as well as Fran and Andrew, who originally popped in for a visit and ended up staying until the work was done. The people icing the cupcakes got very competitive on the presentation on the cupcakes. They were in competition of which ones were worthy of making the cupcake stands.

Then there were cupcakes to be boxed and ribbon to be tied.

9 days away

We're home after being away from home for the last 9 days. It's been a busy but wonderful time. We arrived at the Hobart 9.30pm last night, and then headed home straight away. It was 1.30am by the time we got home. It was so good to be back in our own beds. The next few days I will be catching up on what we've been up to by blogging it.

A play date

Yesterday I met up with Ev and her two kids. Dave is working up this way over the summer for his work experience. So I am sure this was the first of many play dates. It has been so long since I have seen Harmony and Jet and they have grown up so much. Harmony is a little girl and is 3 now and Jet is almost 18 months old now.

Jet


Harmony





Since Dave is Alex's first cousin it makes Maddi and Alex second cousins with Harmony and Jet. Maddi and Harmony got on really well, and Maddi kept addressing them as 'kids' until she could remember their names.

Alex is so heavy and big that he already weighs more than Jet who is 8 months older. I just had him weighed the other day and he is weighing in at 10.1kgs at 10 months old. It's not until he is around other children that I realise how big he really is! We have nicknamed him 'Baby Bruiser' as he is such a Bruiser. Even some doctors have called him a Bruiser. He's so strong that when he doesn't want to go to bed he arches his back and it's a challenge to get him to lie down. It's the same when he doesn't want to sit down. He will straighten his legs so straight that you end up laying him on his tummy as we are defeated by him.

Our 'Baby Bruiser'.

I thought this was so cute. Maddi and Harmony decided to hold hands as we left.