Wedding Party!

This past weekend my wife's sister got married. All three kids played a huge role in the wedding. Juliette did a great job as the flower girl. Leading up to the wedding we were a bit worried that the scratches and mosquito bites on her face wouldn't heel in time for the wedding, and that her 5-year old tomboy life style would be immortalized for years to come by official hang-on-your-wall wedding photos, but by Friday, the scab on her nose had fallen off to reveal flawless little girl skin. We also delayed cutting her hair so that she could have a suitably formal up do. She looked very pretty the day of, in a beautiful white dress decorated with rose buds and streamers. Nicholas did a pretty good job as the ring bearer. He wore a rented tux with a silver tie and vest. The boy was a 10 on the cute scale and he ended up steeling the show from his big sister. Of course wouldn’t you know it, the poor boy had developed a case of pink eye the day before the wedding. But with a few wet compresses all you could see was that skin around one eye was slightly redder and puffier than the other. Sophie's role was to be the crying child during the ceremony. I'm happy to say that she failed miserably at this role and slept through the momentous occasion. She wore a beautiful little dress with a red/pink flower print. I didn't get to see much of her because every time I picked her up there was someone asking/demanding that they get a turn holding her, most of the time I didn’t have a clue who they were. I had my hands full making sure the flower girl and ring bearer stayed relatively clean and accident free so I didn't mind. The day started at 7 AM for the kids. Because curling Juliette's hair took longer than we thought the kids were dressed and out of the house in record time. Juliette spent the morning with her aunts and the bride while Nicholas played with two older girls (8 and 10). He had so much fun with the girls that he kept on asking where they were for the rest of the day. Sophie slept through almost everything after her mom almost dropped just before the traditional tea ceremony (in front of the entire family). Luckily she caught her before she hit the floor or it would have been a disastrous start to the event (I did ask her if she this was her first child considering her inability hold a squirming baby). After a traditional Chinese/Cambodian feast with stuff like BBQ pig, duck, chicken, spicy papaya salad, fried rice, fried noodles, salad with fish sauce dressing and Chinese desserts (dessert is one meal the Chinese are not very good at, that would probably explain why they're so thin), I took Juliette and Nicholas with me to the wedding ceremony location for pictures with the wedding party. Because we were there so early we spent most of the time playing Frisbee, walking around trees with sticks in our hands, exploring the building complex attached to the wedding hall and making sure Nicholas didn't pee in his tux with multiple trips to the washroom. By the time the big moment arrived Nicholas was an hour and a half past his nap time. The poor boy was one grouchy smurf. It took a lot of bribery (I think I promised him candy and gave him a penny) before he agreed to do his walking down the aisle thing. Juliette (with a shy smile) and Nicholas (with a grumpy frown) looked amazing walking down the aisle, throwing rose petals as they went. Everyone at the wedding thought they were so adorable that they laughed hilariously and crowded into the aisles to get a picture of them. Juliette later asked me why they were all laughing at her. I assured her that they weren’t laughing at her but instead at how cute Nicholas looked with a grumpy face throwing flower petals. Before I brought them home for a nap we took one quick family portrait with the bride and groom. My wife stayed behind and left me to drive home with all 3 kids! Luckily I had my mom with me to help out. When we got home Nicholas slept soundly in bed, Sophie fell asleep in my mom's arms and Juliette cried hysterically in her room for a good hour. She claimed she wanted her mommy but really she was just an over-tired little girl who was so worked up that you just had to let her cry her self to sleep. After the kids (and the mom) woke up, we rushed to the restaurant for a traditional Chinese wedding feast. The dishes were amazing and consisted of a cold plate (pork, duck, chicken and jelly fish), scallops with vegetables, steamed fish, abalone ($$$) with sea cucumber, shark fin soup ($$), lobster, crab claws, fried rice, noodles and more Chinese dessert. There was wedding cake as well but I didn't see it at my table. The kids ate and then spent the night fooling around on the dance floor. Nicholas found another older girl to play with and spent the dinner chasing her around the restaurant. When I asked him to leave her alone I was told by the girl's mother that she was actually enjoying the chase so we let them be. Juliette played with my wife's cousin and other little girls as they danced to the dinner music. Sophie did her usual thing of sleeping while she was being passed around from family member to family member all night long. As the night wore on, all the kids either fell asleep or left. All except one that is, Nicholas was the only person under 16 who was going strong on the dance floor. By this time the music was blasting, the bass was pumping and Nicholas was just a dancing machine. By the time we got them home and to bed it was extremely late and I barely had enough energy to change them in to PJs before I passed out. It was a wonderful day for everyone involved.