Single ladies of the world are crying little tears...

Well heck...it appears I have completely forgotten to tell the internet about my brother's wedding!

But first, there was some discussion a long while back about what I should call my brother's wife here on the world wide web, considering the fact that her name is exceptionally searchable and I used to get concerning searches for her all the time on the old blog. We've established that I hate the idea of just using her initial because that's just annoying SO, I've decided that from here on out she will be known as Laverne!

If she ever reads this she's going to think I hate her and therefore want to assign her a horrible name but I don't hate her at all! It's just that she's an "L" and when I thought of "L" I immediately thought of Laverne on Laverne and Shirley because Laverne always wore an "L" on her sweaters.

So there.

ANYWAY, my brother married LAVERNE on New Year's Day and, if you're keeping track, I was at a wedding in Sacramento the night before. I woke up at a decent hour (considering I'd been up until 4AM with the thug hallway drama) and hightailed it out of there because I was HELL BENT on stopping in Tracy so I could get a diet lime aid at Sonic.

HELL BENT.

We don't have a Sonic 'round these parts so driving within 50 miles of one is very exciting...especially when you have a mild hangover from all that celebratory champagne the night before.

So I went to Sonic, got my diet lime aid (and a coconut cream pie milkshake for good measure) and made it home in time to shower and beautify. Except that my Sonic detour took longer than I thought and we had a handsome and adorable baby on our hands and everyone else needed to shower and beautify too so it took me longer to get myself together (HOW DO PARENTS DO THIS EVERY DAY??) and I ended up with rushed hair, which led to an evening full of really bad hair pictures. Sigh.

Here's a makeup-free me with my precious baby nephew:



This is me with hair that was not allowed to dry correctly before taking pictures with my date. The hair was okay-ish at this point but it went downhill almost immediately:



Baby had a tiny little baby three piece suit!



We didn't change him into it until we got to the wedding venue, which was handy for two reasons:

1. He was SLIPPERY in that thing. He'd slide almost right out of your hands unless you had a good grip on him.

2. He was SWEATY in that thing. Poor Baby. All that polyester could not have been comfortable. PLUS we put a base onesie on him because we didn't want the crunchy shirt directly against his precious baby skin. I think Laverne was unhappy about it, but we caved and changed him into pajamas after a few hours because he was STEAMY.

I don't think he liked it:



My camera sucks, by the way. I kept getting rear-view pictures of people as they walked down the aisle because it took 75 years to adjust itself.

My parents' backs:



Laverne and her dad:



Vows from afar:



Vows up close:



Baby is currently in the OMG LOOK AT THIS FUN TRICK! LISTEN TO ME SHRIEK AND SCREAM AND USE MY VOICE! stage. He took the opportunity to add his two cents:



Sarah (my other brother's wife) and Sophie the Giraffe kept him pretty quiet:



That's one of my favorite pictures, by the way. One day when he's 6'5" I'm gonna show him that once upon a time, he fit perfectly on tiny little Aunt Sarah's hip.

And then they were married:



And then I took a crappy camera phone picture of the bridal party:



And then I caught the bouquet:



And then there were DELICIOUS cupcakes:



And then Laverne hugged her baby goodbye before we took him home with us for the night:



We've already covered the less-than-awesome night I spent trying desperately to keep him asleep, but I would just like to say that I love him more than I can even tell you and I'd donate another night of sleep to him in a heartbeat, but OH MY GOD I AM NEVER EVER EVER EVER HAVING CHILDREN!

Important Notes

1. With the exception of that last one (which doesn't really even count because you can't see her face), Laverne is actually much, much prettier than these pictures would have you believe.

2. I was 100% out of the loop on anything related to this wedding and I never quite realized that there would be people I knew there. I mean, my brother's friends and their wives, sure, but WHOA!

Cousins!

Family friends!

People who changed my diaper!

I ran into one of my mom's friends a couple days later and told her how discombobulating it all was and she said that my other brother mentioned the same thing.

ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO I KNOW! HOW SURPRISING! HOW STRANGE! HOW AWESOME!

No duh, I totally know, but still -- for some reason I didn't put two and two together until people started showing up.

3. I know that catching the bouquet means you're the next one to get married, oh ha ha, okay, whatever, but Laverne's family I think REALLY believes it. People kept coming up and congratulating me the whole rest of the night and were all SO EXCITED for me. It's a lovely thought but if it's true then I feel bad for all the other single ladies in attendance because this train aint leaving the station for a VERY VERY LONG TIME.

4. Baby was SO GOOD.

5. I'd note that if you ever plan to dress your baby in a tiny baby-sized black suit with tiny baby-sized black shoes, you should remember to pack black socks too.

6. Everything was REALLY PRETTY.