The Wedding Watched Around the World

I am not the tiniest bit ashamed to say that I cried for almost the entire wedding of Prince William and his bride, Kate Middleton- heretofore, Her Royal Highness, Princess Catherine Elizabeth, The Duchess of Cambridge. I know everyone looks in love when they get married, but don't they really look in love? 

Fun Fact: When Harry looked back to get a sneak peak at Kate walking down the aisle, he told William "Wait until you see her."  When he finally saw his bride, William told her "You look absolutely beautiful."  (It is English tradition to look straight ahead and not look at the bride walking down the aisle because the groom is supposed to be the very last person to see the bride.)

The Dress:  Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen.  There is a blue ribbon sewn into on the inside for her "something blue." It is made with Chantilly lace and satin. The "something old" was the traditional Carrickmacross craftsmanship used in sewing the lace.

 

 I think this is the cutest face William is making!  He looks genuinely happy and in love.

Fun Fact:  Just like Diana, Kate refused to say the traditional "Obey"in her vows

Pippa Middleton, age 27, also had her dress designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen

Kate's Nail Polish for the wedding: Bourjois no 28 Rose Lounge and Essie 423 Allure

Makeup:  Kate used Bobbi Brown products and she did her own makeup for the wedding after a few lessons from makeup artist Arrabella Preston

Perfume:  White Gardenia Petals by Illuminum.  This perfume is now back ordered everywhere until July, so if you want it, you need to place your orders asap, as the waiting time gets longer every day!

Bouquet Flowers:  Sweet William blooms, lily-of-the-valley, hyacinth and myrtle- which came from the myrtle that Queen Victoria planted in 1845.

William Wore: The uniform of Irish Guards, a scarlet jacket and blue sash

Most Outrageous Hat(s)/Fascinator(s):  Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie (The daughters of Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson and Prince Andrew)

Princess Beatrice's and Eugenie's hats, or as the Brits call them- fascinators, are from hat designer, aka a milliner, Philip Treacy.  (The cheapest fascinator and hat that he makes is over $1000.)

Craziest Hats/Fascinators Runners-Up:  Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Jacqui Ainsley

Fun Fact:  William and Kate wrote the prayer said by the Archbishop: God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage. “In the business of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.  Strengthened by our union, help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Music walking down the aisle:  "I Was Glad" by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

The sermon by the Archbishop of London: Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.‘Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future. ‘A spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this; the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.
‘It is of course very hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness. And people can dream of doing such a thing but the hope should be fulfilled it is necessary a solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love.

‘You have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.


‘We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely a power that has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the earth and for one another.


‘Marriage should transform, as husband and wife make one another their work of art. It is possible to transform as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must give the other space and freedom. Chaucer, the London poet, sums it up in a pithy phrase:  ‘“Whan maistrie comth, the God of Love anon, Beteth his wynges, and farewell, he is gon.”*

‘As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive, we need mutual forgiveness, to thrive.


‘As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This leads to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the next generation can practise and exchange those gifts which can overcome fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose fruits are love and joy and peace.

‘I pray that all of us present and the many millions watching this ceremony and sharing in your joy today, will do everything in our power to support and uphold you in your new life. And I pray that God will bless you in the way of life that you have chosen, that way which is expressed in the prayer that you have composed together in preparation for this day.'

* The Geoffrey Chaucer quote is from the Canterbury Tales, specifically The Franklin Tale.

Fun Fact:  William's new title is His Royal Highness Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, Baron Carrickfergus, Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Master of Arts.  Now that is a mouthful and a half, especially when you consider that his last name is Mountbatten-Windsor!

The Kiss- Before going in for their second kiss, he said to Kate "Let’s give them another one. l love you. One more kiss, one more kiss, okay."

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge rode in a vintage 1969 Aston Martin back to the  Clarence House, where they got ready for the evening festivities.

Princess Catherine changed her dress for the private and more intimate dinner and dancing evening reception given by Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.  Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen also designed this gown.  You can't tell in these photos, but it's strapless!

The First Dance:  The Duke and Duchess danced their first dance to Ellie Goulding singing a cover of Elton John's Your Song.

Pippa Middleton's dress for the evening reception is designed Temperley, London.

 

Closeup Learning Curve

Last week Spencer and I went to the Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina to visit her great-grandparents for a few days.  It was the perfect time to go because the flowers were at their peak and everything was blooming and gorgeous.  I took the opportunity to get in some practice with my new macro lens. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the learning curve is a little bit more steep than I thought it was going to be.  It took me awhile, and a few hundred pictures, before I started to get anything that I actually liked.  I still have a lot to learn, but here are some of my favorites.  I would love to hear any tips from those of you love macro photography!

The second picture is a closeup of the flower in the first one.  See that yellow stuff?  It's pollen!  Just looking at it makes my nose start to itch!

Nurse Katie

When I was young(er), I had all answers to all the questions. Job?  Lawyer.  Specialty?  Constitutional Law.  Firm?  No firm, the Solicitor General's Office.  Marriage?  Yes.  Who?  The boyfriend I've dated since age 13.  When?  Age 24, the summer after my second year of law school.  Children?  Yes.  How many?  Four- two boys and two girls.  Names?  Madison Grace, Jocelyn Anne, James Matthew, and Chase Prescott.**  Location?  Work in DC, live in Leesburg, VA.    Main goal in life?  To leave the world a better place than when I entered it.

**(please note, this was circa year 2000, many years before Madison became the trendiest name on the planet. I also will not be naming any potential future child any of these names.)

And then I went to college. As it would turn out, my feelings on things started to change and all of a sudden I wasn't quite sure I liked all the answers to my questions. All of a sudden, there were all of these questions swirling around in my head- ones I'd never thought about, or didn't want to think about, before, and I had no answer to them. I wanted to go to Africa and work for a legal non-profit dedicated to helping women and children. About ten million people named their kid Madison, my boyfriend did not like my new ideas on things, my parents did not like my new ideas on things, and I had no concrete answers for anything except that I wanted to leave the world a better place than when I entered it.  How I was going to accomplish that was a little bit murkier.

Well, you all know the rest of the story- law school, pregnant, quit law school, had baby, no idea what I was going to do with my life. My eyes were opened when I was pregnant with Spencer, but it was like a blind fold being removed in the brightest light- I could see, but it took awhile for my eyes to adjust before anything was clear. I won't go into the whole story now- you can read about it here, but I became passionate about health care, especially in regards to unethical health insurance companies. (Briefly, my health insurance denied payment of all prenatal expenses and because I had health insurance, I was ineligible for any state or federally funded health care. I had to pay $500 dollars at every doctor's appointment, plus extra for all tests, ultrasounds, etc., and that's not even getting into the five day hospital stay we had.)

After a lot of thought and wishy washy-ness, I decided that I wanted to go back to school and become a nurse. I was paving the road for the day when I could combine my government degree with the one in nursing and use them together to work on realistic and sustainable healthcare reform. One thing stood in the way- I was a GOVERNMENT major! Do you think I took any science in college? Nope- I exempted everything in high school. So, about two years ago I started on this journey of going back to school and taking all of the required prerequisites. It's a long story filled with obstacles- you can read about it here- but, I finally finished everything and the only thing left to do was apply and get it.

Two weeks after the acceptances letters were supposed to arrive, I started preparing myself that I didn't get in. Every trip to the mailbox was filled with anxiety and then the sinking feeling in my stomach took over on every empty handed walk back to the house. And then, last week, it came- a tiny, thin, impossibly flat envelope that looked nothing like the acceptance packages I'd received from colleges. I didn't want to open it to be honest with you. I thought about tucking it away and pretending like it never came, that way I could still hold out some hope. After a few minutes of staring at it, I shut my eyes and began opening it. When the letter was out, I squinted one eye, peeking to see if the first letter of the opening paragraph started with an I or a C. (Denials always start with I'm Sorry to inform, and the acceptances always start with Congratulations) I saw a C.

I opened both eyes and read the first word: it said Congratulations. I didn't read one more word, I couldn't have read another word even if I'd wanted to, because I started crying, like really crying. And then I cried for about ten minutes straight. I didn't even think to call or tell anyone, it was a moment that was just about me.

There will never again come a day when I'll have all the answers to questions. If this life has taught me anything, it's that anyone can answer a question, but that certainly doesn't mean they're correct. Right now, I'm just so grateful that I have the chance to pursue something I really love, something that will allow me to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. So how does Nurse Katie sound to you?

Mother's Day Gift Guide

Did you know Mother's Day is just one month away? If you need a few ideas about what to get for you Mom, or what you want, here are a few suggestions to help you out!

Mother's Day Gift Guide

I like personalized gifts for Mother's Day and I love both of these necklaces from The Vintage Pearl! I think the The Key would be a great gift for a mom with only one child and the The Mama's Nest would be perfect for the mom with a larger family.  But they have so many different pieces of jewelry, so if you don't like these two, don't  worry, because there are a lot to choose from.

I got a Mom Agenda day planner for Christmas and I LOVE it!  You can get them personalized with your name and they have a lot of different colors and designs to choose from.  Mom Agenda also has a lot of other products (all can be personalized), like a School Years folio that keeps all of your child's memorabilia from pre-school through high school, chores pads, and grocery list pads, plus much more.  Also, everything is very reasonably priced and they have amazing sales!

How great are these plates?  You can get your very own custom silhouette plate- all you have to do is take a profile picture of your child, send it in along with his/her name, and voila!  I think this would be such a great gift; I just might go buy one myself, ha!

This is one of my all time favorite scents- Amazing Grace by philosophy.  It's light, fresh, and clean and smells, well, Amazing!  This gift set with lotion, perfume, and bath gel would make any mom very happy on Mother's Day.

Stranger Danger

  Image Source

Last week was my Mema's birthday and as per usual, Spencer, my mom, and I went to the cemetery to put flowers on her grave.  Because Spencer had ballet lessons that evening, we were meeting my mom there afterwards. En route to the cemetery, we're sitting at a stoplight when I glance up at the rear view mirror to see that Spencer is waving at someone and then she started saying "Hi, my name is Spencer."  I turn my head in that direction and see she is "conversing" with a middle aged Hispanic man in a construction van.  

I really hate stereotyping and it's something I find completely unacceptable in others, but in that moment, I thought the very worst about this middle aged construction worker man in his van.  Why was he trying to talk to my three year old daughter?  Why was he motioning for her to roll down the window?  Was he just being friendly to my overly gregarious daughter or was there something more sinister going on?  I plastered a smile on my face and through clenched teeth told Spencer not to talk to the man because he was a stranger. (This has to be the longest stoplight in the history of the world)  And that's when she said something that sent shivers down my spine:  "He's not a stranger, Mama, his face looks too happy to be a stranger!"

Maybe it was one too many episodes of Dateline, but when she told me that I about had a heart attack.  It was at this point the light changed and we drove off, only for this man to keeping driving beside us, all the while still waving to Spencer.  This went on for the next mile!  I'm pretty sure that's when my mom's uber-paranoiac voice entered my head and told me to keep driving straight, and not go towards my destination, until the van turned off the road we were on. (She's definitely seen one hundred Datelines too many)  So that's what I did and a few minutes later he turned.  Relief surged through my body.

I turned around and drove back towards the cemetery and I started replaying what had just happened.  A small part of me told myself that I had completely overreacted and another, larger, part was saying you can never be too careful.  I again tried to tell Spencer that we don't talk to strangers, only for her to keep telling me that "strangers aren't happy people and the man was such a happy person."

It can be difficult for a parent to admit they've made a serious parenting mistake.  I don't have any problem admitting that my parental skills are lacking in the eat-all-the food-on-your-plate, no running inside, sharp 8pm bedtime, and no jumping off the sofa departments.  It's easy to own up to those parental shortcomings because they're fairly insignificant in the big scheme of things.  No parent wants to think they've done, or not done, something that could result in real, actual harm to their child.  But in those few moments, I realized I had made one of those big huge mistakes and I needed to fix it, pronto.  I completely dropped the ball on teaching Spencer about Stranger Danger.

When I was a child, my mom was so totally, completely over the top about me and strangers.  On the extremely rare occasions that she'd let me out of her sight for more than a few seconds, she'd always make me repeat all of the Stranger Danger rules, plus a few of her own.  (and by child, I mean from ages 3-12!  Each year she'd add a few more.)  These were rules like don't trust someone who tells you they're a police officer if they don't have on a uniform, never tell a stranger your name or where you live, don't get in or go near a stranger's car, if someone grabs you and tells you not to say a word- start screaming "Help! Stranger!" as loudly as you can, never take candy, money or gifts from a stranger, and if a stranger asks for your help to find their lost dog, tell them no and then find the closest person you can trust. And I was always reminded that these were people who looked very nice, like they could be trusted.
 
We had code words for any potential situation that might require me to trust someone who was a stranger to me, ie., if a person I didn't know tried to pick me up from school because there was an emergency- that person had to know the right code word.  (This was in the day before schools had super strict rules about that.)  Before we would go out shopping, she'd always remind me that if we got separated, I should immediately find someone who worked at the store and if I couldn't find an employee, look for a mother with kids. 

Honestly, that's just the tip of the ice berg of my mom's safety rules.  From the ages of three to five, I was very scared of any person I didn't know and would tell anyone who tried to talk to me that I couldn't because they were a stranger- even those at my church.  After all, wasn't the danger in "nice" people?  I frequently had bad dreams about being taken away from my parents and I was always very nervous when one of them wasn't with me.  I guess the fact that I'm still here is some testament to her methodology, but at the time, it really bothered me.

Since I was never in a situation where I actually had to use any of the rules, aside from the two years of telling everyone they were a stranger, I don't know whether or not I would have in a situation that necessitated it.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I would done what she'd taught me if I felt threatened or afraid, but not if I hadn't.  After I started kindergarten, I realized that none of my friends had all of these rules and I started to think my mom was wrong.  She saw danger lurking on every corner, and as I got older, I saw the opposite.  I "yes Mom"ed everything she'd tell me, but I thought she was just being crazy over protective.

Somewhere along the line I decided that when the time came, I would do things differently when I had children.  All of those rules had just scared me and given me nightmares and I wasn't going to do that to my kid.  It's not that I haven't told Spencer about strangers, she knows she's not supposed to talk to them, I just haven't made it a real emphasis. Part of that is because I thought she was too young to really understand what it meant and part of it was that I didn't want her to be nervous and fearful the way I was, only to do a complete flop and become trusting of everyone.  I wanted to be able to teach her in a way that she'd always have a healthy respect for strangers. 

But this whole experience has taught me a lesson and it's that I can't be too careful where Spencer's safety is concerned.  I can't worry about her not being wary of strangers when she's seven because I made her too afraid of them when she was three.  Not that I now plan on making her overly fearful of strangers, but I can't let the possibility of that happening then, stop me from making sure she knows what to do to stay safe, now.  And one of the first lessons were doing is that a person can look happy, and have a happy face, but they are still a stranger.

I'd really love to know some of the different ways you all have taught your younger children about stranger safety.  Any ideas or suggestions for me?

Without Words

Well, maybe just a few...  Now that the weather is nice, Spencer has started riding her bicycle that she got for Christmas.  Let me rephrase that- she's started riding her bicycle outside.  She thinks she's pretty cool.

A Terrifed Parent

Last night, before I went to sleep, I went over to Spencer to give her a kiss, when I saw that her face was covered in chocolate.  I turned on light to look at my sleeping beauty- why was she covered in chocolate?  Only it wasn't chocolate; it was blood, and it was everywhere.

I'd like to tell you that I was completely calm and didn't overreact, but that's exactly what I did.  I started ripping off all her clothes to see where it was coming from and shaking her to wake wake up.  In my state of complete panic, I didn't think about how my reaction to this was going to scare her, and of course, she woke up scared. As she started to cry, her nose started to bleed (again), which was how I realized what I was actually dealing with was a bloody nose and not lethal wound of some sort.

Now that it's morning I'm able to be calm about all of this, but last night, the bloody nose scared the life out of me.  She has never had a nose bleed and then all of a sudden she has a major one while she's sleeping- what is that?  The next hour was not the most pleasant, as I had to stop the bleeding and Spencer didn't want her nose touched.  Then there was the clean up...

This entire experience has taught me a few lessons, well, more than a few.  I've never had a bloody nose in my life and this was Spencer's first, so I had no idea what was I doing.  Realizing that my reaction completely terrified Spencer, I felt so bad that I made an already scary situation worse.  It took awhile for her to calm down and go back to sleep and by that time I was wide awake, so I decided to look online for some answers.  I wanted to know why this happened and what I should do if/when she has a bloody nose the next time. 

1.  Bloody noses at nighttime are generally happen during allergy season and when the air is very dry.  You can fix this by having a humidifier in the room and putting some Vaseline inside of the nose.  (I can't imagine a world in which Spencer lets me put Vaseline in her nose, so I'm not sure what to do about that.) 

2.  Contrary to popular norms, you should not have them tilt their head backwards and pinch the bridge of their nose.  You need to have your child lean forwards and pinch the base of their nose-this will stop any gushing prevent, blood from going down their throat, and it will clot much more quickly. 

3.  Don't panic!  The good thing to remember is that bloody noses are almost never cause for concern.  The main reasons kids have them is because they pick their noses.  Their nasal passages don't have the thickest of skin yet and the blood vessels are closer to the surface.  So when they pick their noses, they sometimes scratch the surface without realizing it and then something as benign as a sneeze will start the nose bleed. 

4.  Sporadic nose bleeds are normal in small children, but if this is happening frequently, go to the doctor.  You should also go to the doctor if you can't stop the bleeding after ten minutes. 

5.  Don't panic!  I know I'm writing this again, but it's very important.  Something like this is really scary for kid and if they see that their parent is scared, it will make it all the more frightening for them.  Trust me, I know.  As difficult as it may be to not freak out when you see your baby with a bloody nose, remember it's a fairly normal thing.
aining calm will

Spencer is 100% perfectly fine today.  She did ask me if her nose was going to bleed again, but that's all she's said about it.  I'm trying not to be a hovering helicopter, but it's that's hard for me- I'm naturally a worry wart who can't let things go.  But I'm trying!  And if this ever happens again, I feel better knowing what I should and shouldn't do.

RamNation Spencer

Some of you might know that Richmond's hometown VCU was in the Final Four this past weekend.  Nothing like that has ever happened here, so it was a BIG deal!  VCU was an 11th seed and they got a lot of flack for even being included in the NCAA tournament.  I have lived here my whole entire life, minus the four years I was at W&M, and I've never experienced anything like it- VCU brought this city together like nothing before ever has. Yes, we lost, but we're still so proud of the Rams!  Even little Miss Spencer got on the bandwagon.  So here she is, RamFan Spencer:

 

 

(She was practicing her ballet moves)