Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

OK--so I'm going to make a serious effort to update the blog.  A LOT has happened in the past 2.5 months!  Just a few  things--we got Married, went on a honeymoon, had a reception, worked on our house...etc.  I will try to post a few updates this week to catch up on everything I've neglected posting.

Other things I've been neglecting...thank you notes.  I HATE that I have not gotten them out yet...and I feel like a horrible, ungrateful person.  If you are reading this and you are still waiting on a thank you note...Trust me...You WILL get it :-). Soon...hopefully.  I'm very sorry for the delay. 

Enjoy the forthcoming updates! :-) 

4 days away!! and a HUGE WHOOPS!!

So we're only 4 days away from the big day...so exciting, yet SO much to do. We've been working on the house a lot (pictures coming soon), so some of the wedding details are creeping up on us at the last minute.  Things still seem to be going smoothly though, so all is well :-).  We're also excited that the current weather forecast for Evansville this weekend is 70 degrees, sunny, and 0% chance of rain.  Many hopes & prayers go out that that forecast comes true :-).  

So the "HUGE WHOOPS!!"...is that somehow in the course of printing all of the wedding stationary, I (Amy) managed to use MY zipcode (46254) instead of my parents' zipcode (46158).  Arg. In my defense we were in the process of buying a house, and I had a couple of big projects going on simultaneously at work...and I printed most of the stationary in the middle of the night.  How I did not notice that (since I'm a pretty detail oriented person) blows my mind.  So frustrated and Angry with myself.

If your RSVP card happened to bounce back--please let me know (by either a comment on this post, or an email).  I'm sorry for the inconvenience it might have caused anyone.  

We're really excited to celebrate our special day with everyone!!

~Amy

31 Days to Go!

Things are moving along pretty well—we can’t believe the wedding is only in 31 days! Exciting! The “Wedding To Do” list is narrowing as we continue to check things off of it. My dress is hanging in a closet, and we’re picking out Jason’s suit this weekend [hopefully]. The one major thing left “undone” is the subject of flowers—which since Mom and I [read: mainly Mom :-)] are doing the flowers, and I can’t order the bulk daffodils until a little closer to the date, it has to remain an empty checkbox for now.

I have also had a couple of lovely bridal showers in the past week-- 1 hosted by Jason’s amazing family that was in Evansville, and 1 hosted by one of my best friends (and a Maid of Honor) at her home in Indy. Hopefully I will snag some pictures from these soon and will be able to post them. I truly appreciate all of the hard work that went into the showers, and the people that took time out of their busy schedules to be able to attend.

We mailed the invitations for both the ceremony and the reception this week…so that was fun to be able to check off the list. It will also be nice to be able to reclaim my dining room table as something other than a printing/crafting/assembling stationary station. :-) But I guess that means it now will transition to a “packing platform” to get ready for the move. I’ll just surrender to the fact that I can’t have anyone over for dinner until we’re in the new house…

Speaking of the move—we close on our house next Monday. We’re SO EXCITED. It will be so nice to have our own yard [that will eventually be fenced], a garage, a Real/Usable Kitchen…and A Lot more space than we are currently used to having with both of our apartments. It is going to be fun watching the dogs wear themselves out on the stairs for the first couple of days. It’s also conveniently located to family and the commute won’t be bad. Although in retrospect, simultaneously buying a house while coming to the end stages of wedding planning might not have been the smartest idea—but I’m sure we’ll be grateful for it in the end. :-)

The only major wedding drama we have encountered thus far is that the 2nd week of February (approximately 60 days before the wedding), I got a refund notice and very abrupt email from the wedding coordination/chapel company saying “Effective immediately we will not be doing any more ceremonies this year. Click here for your refund.” So after recovering from the initial shock and anger associated with receiving such an email, Jason did some quick scrambling for us and called the camp where the chapel is located to verify we can still use the chapel for our wedding, and we asked a Huge Favor from his brother…and he is now serving as the officiant for our ceremony. This should be a fun adventure. :-)

In the end, even after all of the stress and drama, we think everything worked out for the best.:-)

We have a lot of exciting things going on….and a lot to do in 31 Days. :-)

Pizza, Pizza!

Jason & I got the privilege of babysitting my adorable niece Gabby this weekend. We decided it would be fun to make pizzas with her as a fun activity. If you've never let a 2.5-year-old play with pizza dough--go grab some...it's HILARIOUS. (as a side note, the pre-made pizza dough at Trader Joe's is excellent). She did a really great job, & seemed to have a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun getting to play with Gabby, and loved the opportunity...

Now to show the events of the evening :-)....
 
 

Gabby was not happy that I interrupted her hard work to make her pose for a picture...

We talked about different shapes the dough could turn into as we patted it out...

A few of the pizza dough shapes we ended up with :-)...

Gabby licking her "sauce schmearing" spoon...AFTER we were done schmearing sauce...

Gabby made both of these pizzas from scratch...

Gabby & Uncle Jason watching the pizzas bake & puff up...

She kept saying "Pizza done?"

Finished product :-)...and it was yummy...

Jason had to read the book we brought Gabby about 35 times...I'm pretty sure he has "Dance with Brobee" memorized now...

So normally I would have baked...but the mini dark chocolate cupcakes at Trader Joes looked too good. :-P

Gabby didn't seem to mind that they were store-bought...

Nope...didn't mind at all :-)...

Thanks for letting us come over & play Gabby!!! :-) You were a perfect angel as usual :-).

A Very Merry, Belated, Christmas!!

So this is our Christmas update...since I'm so delayed getting this on the web...I'm going to keep it short & sweet. Overall, we had a lot of fun hanging out and celebrating the holidays with our families. We spent Christmas Eve with my parents, and then got up [really] early to be down to Evansville in time for breakfast & gift-opening with Jason's family. Much apologies to Jason's family though--because I apparently didn't get any photos down there. I will have to steal some from Amber. We did get a lot of video though--but I can't put that on the web currently because the camcorder is over at Jas's place...so I'll try to get it up soon. For now it will just have to be photo evidence that we celebrated the holidays with photos from my family...

Enjoy :-). We got a lot of things we really wanted (including the GPS pictured below)...and had a lot of laughs with our family. Merry Belated Christmas Everyone!!

Mom made Adorable Gingerbread People...

My niece Gabby proved her well-rounded nature, by dressing up in a Cinderella dress & playing with tools (and a tractor)

"I look pretty" ~Gabby

She cracks me up...

Dad watching Gabbers play with her tools...

Driving home from Evansville, we were stuck on I-70 for over an hour.  Originally we were supossed to get home at around 3:30--note the time on the GPS...and our speed.

The line of cars behind us on the interstate...they were as far as we could see in both directions.

PS---Only 75 days until the Wedding!!! :-)

"Our Christmas"

Starting the first holiday season we were dating (2006), Jason & I have celebrated "Our Christmas." It started as the weekend day that we exchanged gifts & made a special dinner to celebrate the holiday, before we would each go to our own families for the holiday. It was an excellent tradition to start, and it is one we still continue, even though we spend the actual holiday together now (we spend half of it with my family & half with his...making the exciting trek between Indy & Evansville early on Christmas morning). This past weekend we celebrated "Our Christmas."

First of all--Jason got his main Christmas present from me early...I took him to see "Star Wars in Concert" at Conseco Fieldhouse on 12/12. "Star Wars in Concert" is a live-orchestra playing of a lot of the music from Star Wars, with scenes from the movie flashing in the background.  The music was great--it was great people watching--and we got to see lots of neat props from the movies. 

Apparently the force is not strong with this one...

Ewoks! I want an ewok!...these were behind glass though

A very shiney C3P0...I still can't believe the actor fit inside of this costume...so skinny

This year, "Our Christmas" started with our gift exchange...this would best be demonstrated in photos....

We woke up to a "White Christmas" with a new 1.5 inches of snow...

Our beautiful tree...loaded with presents...

Bentley kept trying to stick his nose into all of the presents as they were being unwrapped...

Jason holding up his Vader ornament--representing his main Christmas present of the concert

The dogs finally realized they weren't getting presents...so started playing with one of their old toys...

So is it cheating that I bought Jason's "stocking stuffers" from our wedding registry? He needed this chisel so he can break into some geodes he found hiking/kayaking awhile back...Here he is breaking into Bentley...

Check out that bedhead...gotta love it...but also gotta love chocolate oranges :-P

I got a grown-up jewelry box for Christmas :-) It's HUGE...and I love it :-)  I've wanted a grown-up jewelry box for a long time--maybe now I'll stop leaving my necklaces/earrings in every room...eh...probably not... :-P

Isn't it beautiful? He did a great job picking it out. 

After our gift exchange we made brunch--and then went to go see Avatar in 3D. We both really enjoyed the movie. Unfortunately, we didn't appropriately plan for how long the movie was going to be...so we ended up having to go get dinner out Saturday night. We made our "Our Christmas" dinner on Sunday night instead. So really, we got to celebrate all weekend long :-). This year I made a fairly simple dinner of a baked ham, country style green beans, cornbread, & individual potatoes au gratin. It all ended up being quite yummy, if I can just brag a little :-P. Jason made a delicious blackberry cobbler for dessert.

Oh...and I guess this is pretty obvious in the photos above...but I now have glasses. I'm planning on wearing contacts about 75% of the time and my glasses the rest of the time...but honestly, enjoy rocking the glasses on occasion. What do you think? :-P... too scary?  Gotta love the eyesight getting bad as I'm getting "old"...

Scary?...yes. :-P

Happy Holidays everyone!!!  I wish everyone safe travels!  ~Amy

A "Big Fail" for my blogging skills...

If I was being graded on my blogging skills-- I would apparently get a big fat "F" for the end of the semester in Blogging 101. I've been wrapped up getting things ready for Christmas, and trying to survive the cold of winter. Is it too early to be wishing for spring? (and especially wishing for the wedding date in spring to be here? :-) ).

Thanksgiving went really well for both sides of our family...we had a great time with family, had a lot of laughs, and had a lot of good food (too much good food in fact). Here's photo evidence-- for some reason YEARS ago my dad started a tradition of having pictures of the meal taken before we can eat. So here is the turkey lunch spread from my side of the family...

Wedding planning has been sporadic--it's kind of at standstill until after the first of the year, then some stuff will kick into high gear. Other than an occasional Goodwill trip for a few decorating things for the reception (yes...I like eclectic reception...what better place to get the reception-site decor than goodwill? :-p). Today we made a big breakthrough decision: instead of my original uber-thrifty idea of making our own cupcakes/cake for the wedding reception--we are going to cave & go with really cute cupcakes & top tier concept from a local bakery, Sugar Mamas. I've had a couple of pieces of cake from here at different events & they were great.

I'll save the details about the cake for another post after we have set everything up [and made sure it's possible]....but the final product will be similar to this, but with totally different bakery products in style, design & color.

I ordered the stand today from Save-on-crafts.com. I can't wait until it gets here so I can start getting hands-on with how the stand will be decorated... I'm really excited that we decided to go ahead & buy the baked goods. This will save us A LOT of stress in the 48 hour time-period before the reception...and I'll be honest...my icing piping skills are reallllly rusty. :-P I think my mom was relieved too.. PLUS---now Jason & I get to go on a cake tasting...how could that possibly be bad?

That's all for now--I have a couple of holiday-themed posts in the works. Hopefully they'll be up by Christmas :-). At this rate though, no promises...
 
I'll leave you with a question though-- what do you think of this as a cake topper? ;-) (joking....maybe...)