Unexcused Absence

It's been a while...and for many reasons (want to know why?!), but I'm back. I'll need to do some backtracking because this is my journal after all. And then life will be perfect, my house will be clean, all the children will be well behaved, the dog will stop nipping my head, and William will gift me with a boudoir photo shoot of himself. Sike. But seriously let the backtracking begin children!

If you are a mom, read this book.

For my first unofficial mother's day this year, my mom gave me a book.  I was saving it for when I wouldn't be working in my final months of pregnancy, but she kept asking me if I had read it and I felt the pressure.  

So last week I started the book.  I read the first few chapters on DAY 1.  On DAY 2 of reading, I started about 9:00pm and couldn't put the book down until midnight.  And not because I was tired, but because I felt bad for poor William who was trying to sleep with the lights on and had work the next day.  At 3am I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about this book.  At 5am when I realized I wasn't going back to bed I went downstairs and finished the book at 10am.  

This book changed my life.  I can't stop thinking about it.  It is a must read for any mothers and wives out there.  Here is a youtube clip I found that doesn't even come close to telling you what it is about, but gives you a little teaser.  

I couldn't download the video, but here is the link:

Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ZsvJ8bq2I

An ode to my crush that does not rhyme

If you have called, texted, or tried to communicate with me in any way you most likely didn't get a response.  (Which may or may not be expected behavior.)

My head has not been in the clouds.  In fact, my head has been shoved into an extra large clear glass vase that once held beautiful flowers from my babe.  Now it is the holder of half digested nutrients.  In other words, puke.  See:

I'm actually a little depressed today, because my vase that had become my best friend and worst enemy has shattered today.  A burial will take place tonight.  (As soon as William gets home to do it)

I chose that picture because it looked the prettiest out of all of them.  My friend Adrienne said it looked like an Orange Julius.  The bean and cheese burritos just looked plain nasty.

Weird to think that 3 months ago this happened:

  

My intentions for this little post really is just to acknowledge the fact that I am in freaking love with William.  Seriously he has been the best husband wife I could have ever hoped for during this magical experience.

I come home and he has already cleaned up all my messes.  I want food (now) and he makes it.  Then he cleans the dishes.  I want to sleep at 8pm and he goes to bed with me.  He has done all of our laundry the whole time.  I throw up he cleans it up (every single time I promise!)  I have gas, he smells it-like a man...well he can improve on the complaining of the rancid stench ;)  Who is this man and where did he come from?  AND why the heck did he marry me?!?!  Still in shock.

You would think with all that he does he would be ugly or something, but no, he is so handsome!   

Ladies and gentleman take a look at my dream man: 

And in just 2 weeks we will find out if this,

is a

or a

!!!!!

This is my ode to William.  Let it be said, let it be written.

  

The News...

Well a lot of you thought we were going to announce a baby.  That would make you an idiot.  JK you aren't an idiot, you are our friend...we think.  Considering this is an online public journal you very well could be an idiot, who knows?!

Moving on to the news portion of this announcement.  We are really excited to be the proud owners of Olivia Wares Boutique.  

It has been a dream of mine since I was little, and William has made it possible for me/us.  And because he is so good to me, I will move out of my beautiful home state of California willingly, and excitedly (which is quite the turn around to where I was before). But I/we are looking forward to being closer to his kids, our families and to get this business a storefront!      

We have already opened Olivia Wares Boutique online (www.oliviawares.com), and as soon as we get settled in our new place, we will open up a storefront there.  But that might be a year or two away.  

Olivia Wares Boutique is an online women's clothing and accessory store with plans to expand to a children's and men's line as well.  

We would love and appreciate your support.  Here are some ways that would really help:

Check us out at www.oliviawares.com and send us feedback.

Follow Olivia Wares Blog at www.oliviawares.blogspot.com

Friend us on facebook, and follow us on pinterest (search Olivia Wares)

Spread the word.

If you want to get involved in any way now is the time!  Whether its modeling, marketing, photography etc. send us an email to info@oliviawares.com

Thank you for all your love and support.  We hope we can give back as much as we have received.

Oh, and we actually are pregnant.  Ooops.  The first paragraph was written before we knew.

Seattle and the Michael

This might be a little (lot) late, but this time it wasn't my fault!  My blogger thing stopped uploading pics and this one got lost in the confustion.  But I was recently going through my "journal" and I found our trip to Seattle and I wanted to share it mainly just because we miss Michael. 

.  William was born and raised in Seattle and he likes to remind me of that on a daily basis.  Thank you.

It was a bitter sweet trip.  We were so glad to see one of William's best friends from when they were wee boys, but unfortunately it wasn't the happiest of circumstances as we were visiting Michael during a hard time.  William (and I) were very grateful to see Kent, and in a way say our goodbyes.

Now for the good, endorphin releasing happy time: 

Michael picked us up from the airport and it began.  

Tour de Seatlee

Please make sure to read that in your head with the appropriate accent.

Since this was pretty much my first real time in Seattle the boys took me around all the touristy parts.  Pike's Place, the first Starbucks, blah blah blah :)  Then we loaded up on the BEST seafood I have ever had.  And I HATE thought I hated seafood!

Then walked around some water place, but I can't keep track of all the names...ooops.

We ended the day at a comedy show.  

The next day Michael took us out on his fancy boat.  We cruised all over the lake.  It was so beautiful (and we had ourselves a lil picnic which was quite scrumptious).  

Michael was the captain, William was the first mate, and I of course was the Princess.  :)

William was the only one "brave" enough to jump in.  In so doing, he became Sideshow Bob.  he he

Our Wedding Part 2

MR AND MRS BARNARD...OHHHH YEAAAAAAAH!!!

Let us first start with the decor.  Apparently I have a beer taste with a beer budget.  When I was showing Diana all the pictures of the flowers that I wanted, she let me know that I liked weeds.  Which happen to be way cheaper than flowers.  Pretty awesome right?!  Those are some good looking weeds :)

Then we had the issue of the head table.  I couldn't find anything I liked on google or pinterest...I guess I should have tried bing ;).  Then I thought well, we can incorporate the paper flowers into the head table.  All my paper flower ladies basically said hell no.  (I guess 700 paper flowers was more than enough for them...)  But then I saw this beautiful sequin table cloth in a pic and was instantly inspired.

I forgot about our toasting glasses until the night before the wedding.  So I went to target and purchased a silver pearl Christmas Tree garland thingy and some champagne glasses and started hot gluing.  Diana had the idea to use her awesome real candle sticks!  And take a look at that arrangement.  I am not sure who mastered that one, but I know Andrea was doing A LOT of arrangements so I'll just give her the credit.

Next stop is the FLOWER WALL!  I am seeing this everywhere now, but originally I had seen it on a clip of a Chanel fashion show.  When I told everyone my idea they looked at me like I was crazy.  (Not William though, what a babe!)  But eventually they came around and actually took my idea to a whole new level.  I have to thank Diana, Grandma and Grandpa Murphy, William, Diana's cousin and everyone else who made the flower walls possible.  700 paper flowers were designed, folded and hot glued.  I was the only victim to nerve ending loss in the finger due to the hot glue thank goodness.

And then there was the cake and cupcakes.  Gabby and Jacky Flores made the cake and cupcakes.  As well as a few cake tastings (William's favorite part about planning the wedding)  Not only did they look good, they were "scrum dittily umptious"

And now for the festivities...

My Dad toasting :) If you know my Dad than you know a microphone is a dangerous thing.

I think this pic was taken during William's Dad's toast. 

And the Father/Daughter Dance.  I love my Dad.  He raised me to pick the PERFECT MAN.  

And the Mother/Son Dance

William picked her up and spun her at the end.  It was so precious!

Our first dance

Anytime I tell anyone that William doesn't like to dance he gets mad and says that he does.  But he doesn't.  And the following pictures are proof.

And for the send off/bouquet toss.  The vision I had stuck in my head was that I would toss the bouquet as we ran to the car.  For some reason it just seemed really romantic to me.  My mom wanted the whole traditional line up the single ladies and throw the bouquet.  But that isn't even real.  I know a lot of people who caught the bouquet that are as single as a dollar bill.  Anyway, I won the argument and my romantic scene was about to begin.  And we are running to the car and I look back right before I toss the bouquet and I throw it.....and it lands right in the middle of the bushes.  Pretty lame.  Anyway I think Brother Glen ended up with it the last I saw :)

(Oh and I just had to shout out this picture of my twinster Brooke, she is a rockstar!)

I will upload pictures more picture of all you party animals at the reception, but I will have to upload it on a separate blog entry so I can delete it in a couple months (I always run out of memory space on this dang blog!)

And if you made it this far, you are a true friend and should know that we have something big coming soon...you think you know what it is, but you have no idea...this is the blog of william and rachel (said like the interlude of the real world)

Our Wedding Part 1

We loved our wedding.  It was a lot of work, it was extremely stressful, but it was the beginning of Him & I, and I could not be more grateful for all of the wonderful people in our lives that helped get "us" started!  

Besides the fact that 3 out of 3 of my parent's cars broke down coming to our wedding, everything else went very smoothly as far as I know, or remember :)

I started the day at Murrieta Day Spa, and had my hair and make up done by Monique and Dani.  My dress was custom made by the lovely Kelly.

It was freezing and extremely windy, but no rain which was greatly appreciated.

Not everyone from William's family were able to make it, but here are half of them :)

 This was probably one of my favorite pictures of the day!  (William and his dad cracking up)

You can see where William gets his good looks. 

And here are my parents.  The photographer told me to kiss my mom, but my mom must have heard something else because when I turned my head I don't know what she was doing, but we almost did a real kiss!  (Like a gross one...ewww! lol)  

 This was before William and I saw each other for the first time.  They put us back to back, so that we could see each other at the same time.  Previous to our wedding, I kept telling him a bunch of lies about what my dress was going to look like so I think he was nervous.    

I wanted to add something to the back of my dress, and Kelly came up with the heart design.  I absolutely loved it!  And she made it so it still covered my G's!!!

This picture is funny to me because when I look at William I feel like I come up to his nose, so when I see this I get a reality check.  

Schyler, second from the right (top), lives in Utah, but he was in Florida right before the wedding.  He had his return flight fly into Vegas, and his wife drove their two toddlers from Utah to Vegas, pick him up and make it in time for the wedding.  Matt and Cary came all the way from Seattle.  So thankful for all of those groomsmen.

Yes I had 11 bridesmaids!  I love them all so very much.  And Amanda (far left) was 9 months pregnant at the time!  She even went out dancing with us for my bridal shower and showed us her moves!

Can't wait to show you all the pictures from the reception!  But until the next post here is a teaser.  This is William uncomfortable on the dance floor bahahahaha.