Blubbering mess.....

I think everything is starting to get to me. I started secretly wigging out last night because FI is having a bachelor party and I dont' know why I was getting so upset. I totally trust him, I know he won't do anything stupid, I totally know that and believe that. We both said in the beginning that we didn't want one, and now his Best Man is giving him one, which is totally fine. I guess all my old insecurities just got the best of me. I've been griping at him lately about stupid crap and I feel horrible about it, it's not his fault. The other day I apologized to him about it, but he understands, he knows I am busy and I don't mean it, cause I don't. I don't realize that I'm doing when I do, but later on I realize that I am, and I feel just horrible. I hate that. I don't want to be like that towards him especially with this being that last few days that we are an engaged couple.

I'm totally over it now. Totally done and over being upset about his bachelor party and all this other crap too. And this sounds soo dumb, but I was looking at this amazing wedding photographers blog, http://www.nicolechathamphotography.com/ and just looking at the pics of her weddings and the couples and crying my friggin eyes out, just made me realize, this other crap doesn't matter. Who cares that he's going out, we are going to be married and that's all that matters. Who cares that my mom is stressing me out more than the actual wedding is. Who cares that we have soo many programs to make and I don't feel like doing it, and that everyday my mom keeps adding more and more shit onto her list. I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!!!!!

The only thing I care about is being Brandon's wife. I am in love with an amazing man, and I don't deserve him. He gives me more love than I could ever ask for and he's the bestest friend that I've ever had and ever will have. I can't wait to begin our lives together. I cannot absolutely wait to have a family with him and hopefully our children will have his beautiful blue eyes and wonderful laugh and thick hair =) I think I am just over come with soo much joy and thankfulness right now. Next week is the beginning of our wonderful life together. I am just soo ready and have been sooo ready for this journey to begin. It's going to be magical, it's going to fun, it'll be a rollercoaster, but we will be on it together, side by side, as one.

T-minus 10 days....and counting

Sooooo the wedding is 10 day, 10 DAYS AWAYS!!!! All the big stuff has been done. The last bridesmaids dress was purchased last night, HALLELUJAH!!! We are now finishing up the programs (150 done, 40 more to go!) and our aisle runner needs to be done and gifts need to be bought and bagged and thats pretty much it!!! I'm getting soo excited even though my mother is stressing me out. I love her to death but good lord she knows how to stress me out waaaay to much!!! I can't wait for this all to be over with and everything goes back to normal!!!

I still do need to get a card for Brandon for the wedding (i'm contemplating making him one, or going with a hallmark one, he loves it when I make him stuff, so I may just do that!). I also need to get a card for my parents and for my aunt and uncle who are doing our rehearsal dinner!!

I'm really nervous about the rehearsal. I hope that everyone pays attention and listens to what we want to have done. We ahve soo many people in our wedding party (mainly kids) but luckily their parents will be there, so hoepfully they will control their children, hehehehe :)

I still need to see if I can get brandons grandma to fix my petticoat. when I Had my bridals done a few weeks ago, I noticed that the hem was unravelling and it was all a hot mess!!! Soo that needs to be tended to, not that anyone would see it, but I would just feel better about it.

I feel bad lately cause I've been feeling like I've been griping at Brandon non stop, and I don't mean anything by it, I think I'm just stressed, and I'm gonna try to pay more attention to what I say to him. I don't want him to end up hating me after all this!!! hehe Not that he would. He does understand that I'm stressed out, thank goodness. He's such a great guy!!! I honestly feel like the luckiest gal in the world!!! I can't believe that I found someone that loves me as much as I love them and wants to be with me for the rest of our lives!!!!! It still amazes me everyday, and I just feel soo utterly blessed that we found each other, and are going to spend the rest of our lives together. We cannot wait!!!

Much needed update.....PICS

OY!! I have been soo busy, living, breathing, eating WEDDING!!! Accckk!!! It's almost here (12 days) and we absolutely cannot wait!!! WOOHOO!!! Just to let you in on some progress we have made, i'm posting pics. That's pretty much what this whole post will be!! ENJOY!!

These are our hershey miniatures wrappers that I designed. We printed them on the paper that we used for our Save the Dates. It was kinda tedious, but we really like them!! I couldn't get a good shot of it, but on the other side where the ends of paper meet, it says "Est. 2-28-09"

Our "I DO" letters obviously. These were pretty easy. I painted the sides chocolate brown and then painted the tops our red color. FI went back over them and dry brushed them with the brown. I love how they turned out and I'm kinda thinking about adding some of the pearls we used from our cake topper, but not sure. We'll see! Our invites. These babies certainly were a labor of love, but we've gotten soo many compliments on them!! I did print them one at a time, because I was worried about something happening. It probably took longer than usual, but oh well. The hardest part was printing out the address labels. I don't know if it was our

printer or what, but they were giving me soo much trouble!! But overall, I love how they came out and loved our invites!!

Our napkins!!! At first we weren't going to do the personalized napkins, but then they kept going on sale, so we gave in! We only ordered 100, and we are going to get brown napkins and mix them together. These will be for the two cake tables. Our bell ringer bell (old school teacher bell)
Flower Girl baskets! Got these for a steal at Hobby Lobby during their infamous 50% off wedding stuff sale!! We have 4 flower girls, so we got lucky finding 4 that match! These are the bags that will be for our kids table at the reception!! We just got regulary brown plain gift bags. I designed a lable to go on them. We are putting in the bag: pb&J sammy (cut into a heart), goldfish, gummy snak things, crayons, a personalized coloring book and a little toy.

Our Programs!! These turned out to be pretty easy to design, the only tedious task of it was putting them together!! I just downloaded a skinny program template from www.gartnerstudios.com and used it to help me format my program. We ordered Stardream Metallic Paper in Mars from Anchor Paper (100 sheets for $25, and they send you the scraps with too which we are going to use for another project). My dad fixed our hole punch to do two holes close to each other. My mom cut out the individual pages and then I went back and trimmed them. Then we did the bow type thing (not an actual bow tie). We really like how they turned out and how they incorporate all of our colors.
Ceremony page

Wedding Party Page

House Party Page

Our Thank Yous!

Bags I got for my BM's and also for all the people helping us out too!!! They were cheap, came in quick and I really like them!!! Ebay seller, trotter06. They will also have in the bags, their pearl necklace, bracelet and earrings for the wedding, a manicure set, a heart shaped keychain, and personalized notepad and pen,

and some bath and body stuff! I hope they like it!

Our candy buffet containers. Just a mix of stuff, I didn't care what they looked like, we need one more though!!

Our bags for the candy buffet!! I love our stickers!! =) Our Cake toppers!!! We ordered our cake toppers from Crafty Eddy and we got the "S" in 5 in. and the "M" and "B" in 3 in. We painted them in pearl ivory (which you can't really see the pearl anyways, lol) and then we used flat back off white pearls (3mm, http://www.dreamtimecreations.com/) and then 3mm crystals and glued each and every single one on there. This has been the most tedious task, i think more so than the invites, but we did them and we love them!!!

Our 160 packets of bird seed. This didn't take us long to do, i just dread getting smacked in the face with tons of sunflower seeds and having to pick that crap outta my hair for weeks on end. This was FI's idea, and I swear if I hear him complain about it, he's gonna get it!!! hehe =)

Our glass cake cutter. It's a Dur-X fruit and cake knife. These were made between the 1920-1940's. People used them mainly to cut acidic fruits, and the acids from the fruits wouldn't stain the knife. My mom is nervous about this being glass and that it'll get broke or something but I just have to reassure her that thats not going to happen!!!
Our wedding mess at my parents house!!!! I know my mom is sick of seeing all of this crap!! hehe

Good Lord....

I want to apologize severly on my lack of blogginess (i just made that up! hehe) I have been soo darn busy the past two months, I've barely have had time to breathe!!! AAACCCKK!! Anyways, sooo I'll try to give ya'll a quick run down of what all has been going on!!

1. The week after Thanksgiving I got a second job at Macys, to which as of right now I am still working, but trying to quit, but no one will answer the damn phone!!! =) That is seriously what has taken up my precious time and energy, but the weekly pocket change pay checks are always nice! =)

2. Brandon and I got a apartment!!! Well duplex really!! It is super cute and I will absolutely post pics!!! I moved in the week of New Years, and we just love it. He officially moves in after we are married, but of course he has his WWII museum all fixed and everything!

3. Christmas was an absolute blur!! It was a fantastic one though!!! Santa brought me the most beautiful Empire Red Kitchenaid Mixer I have ever seen!! I really cried when I saw and screamed too!! I named her Rita after Rita Hayworth!!

4. FI and I purchased our first firearm. He went to a gunshow and bought a .45 calibur. It's quite HUGE for a pistol, but that is what he wanted, and so now we have protection for us, you just never know what could happen. And no we don't live in a ghetto or anything, hehe. I'm wanting to get this cute little .38 something or other that is silver and has pink pearl hand grips. Of course, I only want it cause it's precious, but whatever =)

5. The wedding is coming around!! The invites were sent out The second week of January I think? lol and of course we still have some stragglers that we are getting out. We have so far invited 408!!! OMG!! WTH!! But alot are out of town, so who knows, we shall see.

6. I had my bridal shower this past weekend!! It was absolutely wonderful!!! My hostesses were amazing and put everything together soo nicely for me!! I loved it!! There were a few things that could've gone better, i.e. the grooms mother and sister could've stayed longer than 25, minutes, but other than that it was great!!! We got soo much stuff!! I'll post pics of that too in a bit!

7. My dress is finally getting there. I took it to have a corset put in and bustle and have her add my moms veil to mine for my blusher. I absolutely LOVE IT!!!! It's still at the alterations place cause she had to take some boning out of the bodice because it was sticking up, but other than that it's perfect!!!

8. Brandon and I took our e-pics back in December. We took them on the Battleship Texas!! We had a blast doing it and we love our pics!! Lol Will also post those in a bit too!!

9. My wedding check list is finally dwindling. I have made soo many checks it's not even funny!! I guess I need to regroup and come up with a new list! My mom's friend Debbie has been staying at my parents house every monday night so she doesn't have to drive over an hour to go to work the next day and she has been helping us out tremendously!!! I'm wanting to get as much done now so that the last week I can relax and not worry about a thing!!!

Well I think that is all for now for my recap. I'll repost again with some pics of stuff for everyone to see!!!!

Corsets, bustles, nutcrackers and more!

Ohh my this weekend was pretty darn fun!!! We didn't do a whole lot WR but what we did that was WR, I feel like are big things to me!! =)

Friday night, FI and I just relaxed and chilled out. The week at work had been a hard one for me and I was just exhausted. (My co-worker was out all week so I was doing both of our jobs and I was TOTALLY stressed out. I had gotten my performance review and it was a VERY good one. My boss told me that most people don't score as high as I did after just a year!! YAY ME!!! )

Friday night we just relaxed, watch a movie and ate some wonderful beef stew that FI's dad had made. I was good though and didn't eat any cornbread!! =) OH, I also spoke with my photog about when to do Bridals and e-pics. They said we still haev PLENTY of time for both, which was a totally relief to me. The place that FI and I originally wanted to do e-pics had been damaged severely during the hurricane, but they are making progress as to getting it back on it's feet. They are hoping to re-open in a few weeks. My photog really wants to do our pics down there, so I just need to call and see when they are going to be back up and running and we'll go from there!! =) We'll just do my bridals whenever hopefully the weather is still good, hopefully before the end of december, january weather down here is nasty.

Saturday my mom and I were going to the alterations lady in Houston. I have unfortunately gained some weight and decided that I needed to put a corset in my dress so that I would be able to fit ok into my dress on the day of. My mom was pissed at first at this decision, well mainly because I had gained weight but whatever. So mom and I went. I put my dress on and I tried it on with a petticoat I had ordered that had 3 hoops in it (i had gotten it because I wanted my skirt to be really full) well it ended up being WAY to full and so we took it off. I'm just going to stick with my original one I had gotten when we got the dress.

One thing that rocked was that the lady was actually able to zip me up in my dress!! I was sooo excited!!!! My mom hadn't been able to earlier in the week ( i think she was being to careful) but the lady (dana) didn't ahve any problems!!! THis made me happy. Well I was glad that she was able to do that BUT the bodice didn't lay flat, it was kinda bunched up in the back and the front was kinda wrinkly. So she gave me two options, either she can let it out OR she can put the corset which she'll also have to take the bodice in too. We decided to go with her putting the corset in and taking the bodice in. I figured this would be the safest thing to. The corset cost $95 and taking the bodice in cost $85.

We also are getting her to do my bustle. My train is FOREVER long and it's going to take 10-12 pickups for her to bustle my train, but it looks OH SOO PRETTY!!! =) I LOVE IT!! And she does the color coding ribbons which will be soo easy to do!!!

This isn't my dress, but (I THINK) this is what my bustle is going to look like!!!

She will also be taking a piece from my mothers veil and adding it to my veil so that it will be my blusher. I'm really excited about this and it means soo much to me. I talked to FI and he wants to lift my veil, so that is settled to!! I think it's cool that the same veil that my dad lifted over my mom will be the same way FI will lift over me!! =)

After the alterations lady, we headed to Sams. We wanted to check out prices of candy for our candy buffet. They had some really good prices for the bulk stuff and I know we will be getting some of the candy from there for sure!! We also looked at cheesecakes which we will be having at our RD. We decided to get 3 plain and then have different kinds of toppings that you can put on it (blueberry, strawberry, cherry, chocolate) mmm it will be good!!!

After Sams, FI met us and picked me up and we headed to the nutcracker market at Reliant. OMG, I was in Christmas decoration HEAVEN!!!! Soooo many many things, that I had a hard time containing myself. Christmas is my most fav time of year, I LOVE decorating, I LOVE the smells, I LOVE christmas trees and just the whole ambiance of it, just makes me sooo happy!!! Well this place ahd everything. Booths were EVERYWHERE!!! We didn't get to see nearly everything we wanted but we did get a few things. I've become very big on personalized stuff for us so we got a Christmas plate that you can write on with a dry erase marker and you can whatever you want to on it. We got a cheese plate thats christmasy that has an S on it. We got a white cup towel with and embroidered S on it. We also got some other things like a sign to hang that says "Keep Christ in Christmas" and a big metal christmas tree that you put a pillar candle at the bottom of. They had this company there called Paul Michael and they had some fantastic prices on stuff. I sooo could've bought more but the wallet didn't allow that. But thats ok, I believe we are set for christmas when we finally get to have it at our OWN place!!! =)

After the nutcracker market we went and had mexican food, then went home and watched National Treasure 2!

Sunday, FI and I went to church. They had the little toddler kids sing a song and they were precious!! i wish I had taken my camera because they were just too cute!!! This couple that sat next to us had their new born baby in church with them, and they were just holding her and loving on her. It's moments like that when I get teary eyed and makes me want to have kids NOW!! =)

After church we went to Kohls and registered. I was pretty impressed with the selection of stuff there. It only took us an hour, I think becuase we weren't debating everything this time like we had before and we just kinda went nutz with the scanner!! OH well, it was fuN!!! =) But now I've gotta go and take some stuff off our other registry because we liked some stuff better at Kohls that at BBB.

After Kohls, we went to Conns too look at some furniture and a tv. The furniture that we had seen in the ad and online did NOT look anything like what was pictured. It was cheap looking which bummed us out. OH well. We did find a table and chairs that we REALLY REALLY like and it's only $300, so that's a possibility. We also found a tv that we like and may get, it will be our christmas and wedding gift to ourselves if we do get it, cause it's pretty expensive. It's a 50" plasma HDTV. It's soooo nice and somethign I never would've thought of us getting, but of course we do need a tv and why not??!!! but we shall see if we get it or not. Of course FI is like yeah lets get it and i'm like a nervous wreck like OMG thats alot of money. We are hoping that the day after thanksgiving they will have a HUGE sale and maybe we could get it then =)

Well that was our weekend in a nutshell. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!! =)

Can't sleep

I couldn't sleep last night for the life of me!! I kept thinking of all this stuff for the wedding I've got to do, then I started thinking about little stuff about the wedding that was worrying me. Like I was thinking about when we are leaving the church and getting into our little get away car, is there any lighting out there for people to see us?? Our Ceremony is at 4 and that will be like 20-25 minutes and then take pictures, reception is up stairs at church, that will be like an hour-an hour and a half, and then we'll be leaving like 630ish or so?? not sure, but It will probably be dark by then, cause the time will still be like it is now, and it's getting darker at 530ish or so.

So many little petty things I keep thinking of. I need to do some DIY stuff so I can just be done with it!!! =) I started working on wording for the invites. I'm not wanting to do the typical stuff, I wanted like a cute little phrase before it and then go from there. but we'll see. I can't fit much on our invites, well according to our template I can't. OH well. I'll figure something out.

OH! The first weekend of November, I went BM dress shopping with 3 of the girls!!! SOoo excited cause they all tried on and picked out their dresses!! Two are being bought off the rack (put on lay away) and just one needs to be ordered!!! YAY!!! Here's the dresses they picked out:

This is FI's sisters dress

This is my SIL Ashley (bros wife) and FI's niece Ryan's dress.

Fi's niece Drew, this is her dress

These are my shoes!! Ordered them from Davids Bridal in Champagne, the style is Chloe which is awesome since that's FI's familys dog name!!! =)

Another thing that has happened, that I do not think I have written about is that my Aunt and Uncle have generously offered to pay for our Rehearsal Dinner!!! When they told us, I was THRILLED beyond belief!!! I couldn't believe it!!! So now we are planning that. We are just doing something simple. It will be catered and will be at the Community Center down the street from FI's house. It's a whole lot cheaper for us to do it this way than having it at a restaraunt in town. We found some really cute tableware and stuff to use, and we've already thought about what to do for the invites too!!! My mom even ordered some little party favor cars (they look like old time cars) and we are going to put candy in them!!

We will have italian food catered from an italian restaraunt in town, and they have the BEST food!! =) I just hope that everyone likes it!! I'll be nervous cause I'm pretty sure we are supposed to say something at the dinner. I may even be crying too, who knows!! =)

My aunt's sister does embroidery, so my mom is going to order some hankies offline and get her to do them for free!! Just have to buy the thread and that's all!!

I guess another thing I've been thinking about alot is Christmas. It is FAST approaching!!! I can't believe it!!! I'm trying to convince FI that for he and I, instead of buying individual gifts, for us to put our money together and get a flat screen tv. We are going to have to get something cause when they switch over to whatever it is in February, we wont' be able to use either TV we have, but hopefully we can get the box for those too.

This weekend I am hoping that FI and I can go finish registering (i'm thinking Sears and maybe Kohls or Macys). I may have to bribe him with Mexican food but that's fine. Just as long as we can get that done!!! =) I wish there was more than one Crate in Barrel in town(just in Houston), I love that store and I would register there, but since there isn't one that is located close to people, we will refrain =( I wish (and this sounds absolutely horrible and bratty of me) that we were having my shower or getting married before christmas, so that we could register for christmas decorating stuff!!! haha i'm kinda kidding about that =) I wouldn't though, and I doubt the FI would let me!!!

But I absolutley love christmas time and decorating for it!! i cannot wait!!! FI and I bought a whole BUNCH of stuff after new years last year, all christmas decorating stuff and I can't wait to put it out!! I just wish we had our own place to put it out at =( oh well, thats ok, it'll still be fun!!!

Sorry this post is bouncing around from subject to subject, that's just how my mind has been lately, blah!!!!! But I will leave you with some vintage inspired christmas decorations!!

Halloween Fun!!

Well I know this is a little late, but I just had to show off the jack-o-lanterns the FI and I made for Halloween this year!!! They turned out soo good!! We had a blast doing them and both agreed that we would do this every year! (YAY for traditions!!) In conclusion, here are our first ever jack-o-lanterns that we did together!!!

All of our pumpkins together: FSIL Ashleys, FI's and minePumpkins on the porch!

This is Fi's pumpkin!! The dog on the right he did to look like Chloe =)
This is my pumpkin, ol snaggle tooth, and yeah i did use the stencils, there is no way in this world that I could do this on my own!! =)
This is Fi and Chloe! We dressed her up for Halloween!! She didn't care to much for the witch hat, but we thought it looked soo cute on!!
This is how Chloe begs when she wants some food =)