celebrating: a nephew & a wedding

Today is cold and drizzly. If it were just a bit cooler, I think the snow that fell on the western and northern parts of Texas would have reached us. Instead, the slow rain has made for a grey day. It's perfect, since I'll be inside all day. The administration at our school decided to implement a winter break this school year. I'm on day four of an extended weekend, which has been long enough to be somewhat productive, but mostly lazy. I've read, played a mindless game on my phone and spent time with friends and family. Heavenly and glorious are the words to describe these days.

Over the past month, we've welcomed an amazing sister-in-law, Brooke, (from my side) and a sweet nephew, Ethan, (from Husby's side). Celebrating family and life has made our hearts warm. Even though, in the Christian life, joy should shine in all circumstances, it is nice when happiness is a result of that joy.

Our nephew is the second baby born to Husby's brother and his wife. The first baby was born into the arms of Jesus. We held his little body for a bit, and whispered promises to hold him again in heaven. After nine months of anxiously awaiting the birth of this baby, Ethan made an appearance a day earlier than the doctor's had scheduled. The tiny bundle of a baby is just over a week old. He is a joy. (But he is a no-facebook baby, which I'm taking to mean that his mama and daddy don't want his picture on the blog.)

About 3 weeks ago, Paul and Brooke had the most enchanting wedding. (Read Christine's delightful post here.) The day was perfect. In Texas, winter isn't predictable. Last year, we had a week of ice. This year, in January, the weather warmed on the weekend of their wedding, for the second weekend in a row. Although there was a nip in the air, Brooke had the foresight to provide afghans and  blankets to her guests. The ceremony was perfect: meaningful vows, scripture, poetry, and music of voices, guitar and a harmonica. My guess is that all was done in about 12 minutes; sadly, no one kept the time. Paul's goal was to beat the time of our 14 minute ceremony. We are slightly competitive, so I'm going to call it a tie unless someone provides the exact time. :)

Paul & Brooke

Brooke is so very creative. The vision she had for a vintage-y, quaint wedding day was carried out perfectly in the details. Brooke scoured all of First Monday to find vintage handkerchiefs with the intent of screen printing the order of ceremony on each. Only she discovered--after buying dozens--that handkerchiefs would be too thin for the screen-printing process. Back to First Monday, she spent hours bent over boxes, pulling out the more sturdy vintage napkins. 

vintage napkin program

photo by Christine

Although I am proud of only using flowers for bouquets and boutonnieres, Brooke avoided this cost altogether and made each of these from antique buttons. Just perfect!

button bouquets

photo by Allen Arrick

We moved from the outdoor chapel with chandeliers hanging from the trees to a rustic wedding barn. Earlier in the day, Brooke and her sweet friends and family decorated each table with antique buttons, lace, burlap, pearls, glittered branches, rounds cut from a tree, rosemary and lavender. I was also in attendance during said decorating, but these girls were fast. I provided the mimosas, which were just as important. Right? And when not all the champagne was gone before we left? I drank it. Straight out of the bottle. It reminds me of my wedding day. 

The reception was warm, comfortable and inviting. The sounds in the air were joyous: laughter, chatter, exclamation over the food and drink, convincing others to dance. It was a perfect night.

I'm proud to say that they use our photographer, Allen Arrick, who captured these fabulous images. [Here's the link to our wedding. I love my images even more. I mean, it was my wedding.]

  

the wagon, loaded with blankets for guests

table decor

the cake: ruffles with vintage buttons

a suitcase for cards

favors: handmade soap

I've shared with Brooke that her wedding was the vision I had, but couldn't figure out how to execute it. I loved every bit of it. She recommended that renewing our vows or throwing a party. The vows will stick for forever. But there's always an occasion to celebrate. A party it will be. With direction from a sister-in-law who has great vision.

An Oops and a Goal

I may have committed the biggest faux pas in the history of weddings. I know what you're thinking, and yes, my wedding was over a year ago. That means this faux pas has been a year in the making. And I didn't even know it. We celebrated our anniversary about two weeks ago. Around that time, I decided to look through a box of wedding things just for fun (extra invites and ribbon, to do lists, and credit card-sized agendas). I couldn't bear to part with these things so soon after the wedding, and since Husby moved his things into our house and needed to be unpacked ASAP, I thought it was one box that could be set aside. I wanted to enjoy looking at these things one more time before I parted with them. As I dug through the box, I happened upon them. Thank you notes--written, sealed, and addressed, but never sent. Oh. my. word. The horror! I could not believe it. I acutally enjoyed the process of writing thank you notes (all 23843 of them!).

This afternoon, I added these labels to the back of 40 thank you notes:

Then I put stamps on them and sent them to the people who showered us with love before our wedding. Talk about swallowing some pride. I still cannot believe that I'm sending thank you notes a year late! (Did I mention that all the others went out within a week of receiving the gifts?!)

So, I had so much fun organizing our under-the-stairs cloest this weekend that I've kind of been on an organizing kick. I just love it when things have a place; life is so much easier! About twice a year, I purge things that I don't want. Between Husby and I, we usually have several trash bags full. Over at Young House Love, they've set a goal to purge 100 things (via donations, Craigslist, Ebay, trash). I love this idea and feel that it's attainable. Sure, it may take some time to go gather 100 items, but my goal is to have it done by Thanksgiving. Like YHL, I plan to keep a list of everything that'll make an exit from our home.

Maybe if I rid our house of 100 items, I can find things easier. Like thank you notes. And send them out before it's been a year.

Six Months Ago

We were here:

Wearing this:

Loving this:

Happy six monthiversary, Husby!

My Favorite Wedding Portraits

Now that we have 3.5 months of marriage under our belts, it's time to share wedding pictures. Our super-wonderful-amazing photographer was Allen Arrick. He's so great; we received the picture DVD in the mail a few weeks ago. But since they were posted online, I hadn't opened the DVD. Then, I forgot to order pictures from online. Typical me.

Anyway, I love our pictures. I love looking at them and re-looking at them. Yesterday, I thought I'd somehow deleted portion of pictures from the DVD. Until BFF Devon told me I'd be the first person in the history of her life to delete something off of a DVD. Which really wouldn't be all that surprising. I have an astounding effect on technology.

Our wedding day was a perfect day. Because of my superb planning skills, my stress level was a negative one. I loved our wedding day and have great memories of it. We chose Tyler Presbyterian Church for the ceremony because of it's simple beauty. (And, more honestly, because we knew it'd look great in pictures.) These are some of my most favorite pictures. They can be some of your most favorite pictures, too. I'd totally understand that.

Five Days & Counting

If tonight is a good indicator, I predict a lack of sleep this week. I'm so excited to be married on Saturday! Because I can't put together more than three sentences due to lack of sleep and excitement, I'll share a picture from our engagement session.

The Single Digits + Food

As of today, we're in the single-digit countdown until the wedding. I can't believe it! I'm so ready for the day to be here. Not only do I get a husband, but I get rid of the never-ending to-do lists. Hallelu! (Just to clarify, I'm most excited about the hubby part!)

It's such a full-time job having a full-time job. And then adding wedding planning and merging households. Oh. my. goodness. It's funny to me that people ask if I'm nervous about the wedding when they should be asking if I remember to breathe because of all the stuff there is to do.

But things will be done. And if they're not, I don't care. We'll still be married at the end of that day.

In other news--especially for you Tyler folk, along with those in the surrounding area--we have a new Vietnamese restaurant in town. My boss is Vietnamese and asked if I'd like to try it for lunch yesterday. It was wonderful! In fact, it was so wonderful that I wanted it again today. So we went back. I also have plans to go tomorrow with Jeremy. Yeah, it's that good.

Pho, pronounced "fuh", is across from the WalMart on 64. If you want to give it a go, but don't know what to order, I suggest the #20, Pho (with lime, Sriracha, & Hoisen added); the #4B, Seared Beef Salad (ask for rice on the side); and the spring rolls. I've learned that Vietnamese food has very little fat, so that's a huge benefit to eating it multiple times a week.

Readership is Up

It appears that readership has gone from nine, as mentioned in this post, to ten! Thanks, Claire, for sharing that you're a new reader. :)

Our wedding is two weeks away. I'm so excited! I've loved every moment of our engagement, but I'm ready for the planning phase to pass. It's such a long state of transition; I'm ready to cross to the other side.

I had a second bridal shower today, and received some great things. I can't wait to use it all. Though, today, I was kindly reminded by Claire (new reader, see above) that I can't use anything until after the wedding. I'm pretty sure she could see the wheels turning as I planned to use things tonight. Previously, I've been the enforcer of wedding gift use, but it's just so dang tempting to break out all the pretty things!

Crazy enough, I've heard that some people receive wedding gifts, and then don't use them. What?! I wonder, did this happen to you? What items are still sitting in a box at the back of a closet? I'd love to know if I registered for things that I'll never use.

Warning: Lots of Miscellany

I get annoyed with bloggers who don't post new blogs for weeks on end. I mean come on. What else could be so important?

Of course, for the nine people who actually read my blog and have blogs of your own, I would never feel this way about you. Never ever. Unless it's been more than two weeks. Then I wonder if your life is so much more exciting than mine that you don't have time to post. Because that makes me jealous. Not annoyed. And, yes, I do realize that total readership is probably more like four, but nine sounds better.

Since I'm hitting the two week mark since my last post, it's time to write something. But be forewarned, it might get boring.

We're at less than five weeks until our wedding. I'm excited! In fact I'm so excited, that I choose to forget the million things I need to do. You know, like choose songs, decide on order of service, design the programs. I did choose a cake today. Which is good since my mom owns a cake shop. People have always asked if I knew what I wanted. And the answer is no. When you see three wedding cakes every week for however many years, nothing really stands out. But I found one.

This weekend, the showers began. It was fun seeing ladies that knew me growing up, and now get to celebrate this special time in my life. It was also fun getting new, pretty things! Possibly my favorite is the red Kitchenaid mixer. It's wonderful. And beautiful. I've looked forward to getting it ever since I was told it's something you get when you get married. A Kitchenaid mixer in any color and a husband. Doesn't get much better than that?! Can you believe that only two things we got weren't on a registry? And I loved those so much that I thought they were on a registry!

I also had a fun lingerie shower. I loved hanging out with a smaller group of ladies. We had Mexican food and margaritas. Of course, that's never a bad combination. Unless one drinks too many margaritas. Which did not happen. Again, I liked everything I opened! I really didn't expect that. Especially at this particular shower.

Jeremy & I were supposed to have our reshoot for engagement pictures on Sunday, but since it was raining, we rescheduled for the reshoot. Now, I'll have school pictures and engagement pictures on the same day. Which makes me have to decide how to wear my hair. I wanted to wear it straight for school pictures so that it doesn't look too big in the yearbook. But I think I need it curly that afternoon so that it doesn't frizz up while wear outside doing engagements. Oh, the decisions!

This week should be full of other excitement like Back-to-School Night and lunch duty. I bet I'll have lots of stories to post by Friday. Stay tuned!

49 Days

...until I marry this man. Isn't he so handsome? :)

I can't wait to be able to say "good night" as I drift off to sleep. Rather than "good bye" as he drives away.

The Results

For lack of not having the time to come up with a clever blog post, I decided to post a link to our engagement pictures. Enjoy! (Well, only if you want. Don't feel obligated to spend your time looking a pictures of me & Jeremy.)

P.S. Our wonderful photographer agreed to do a reshoot so that we'd have a few more pictures to choose from where my hair isn't wet. Woo hoo!

The Countdown Begins

In 100 days, I will be have a husband. In 100 days, I will be a wife. Wow. It's so exciting! Our engagement period has been fantastic. In all honesty, I think I could have been one of those people with a long engagement period. It's so enjoyable. Now, don't get me wrong, I am ready to be married.

There are certain perks that come along with marriage. Like the other night when a water bug the size of Crickett decided that my bedroom walls looked like good stomping grounds. Yes, that's a time that a hubby will come in handy. Luckily for me, I was on the phone with one of my besties, Marieke, when I made the horrid discovery. [We both understand that at our age, terms like "besties" might seem a little childish, but we enjoy using them. And if you see "Besties" necklaces, let me know. I need a few.] She gave as much support as she could while laughing at me and my predicament. You know, there is certain terror that comes when lying in bed without any shoes or bugspray within any sort of reach. That stupid bug didn't even know how lethal an issue of Country Living can be. Oh, and I hear there are other perks to marriage, as well.

So, we still have lots of planning to do. I was warned of all the little details. And there are a lot! This Tuesday, Jeremy & I went through our wedding checklists we made a couple of weeks ago. Neither of us made significant progress, so we gave ourselves deadlines and discussed the ceremony. I think it was nice for both of us to talk about something--the one thing--that will matter most that day. We want our ceremony to reflect our relationship and, prayerfully, our marriage; we want the focus to be on our Lord. We're excited about how we can incorporate scripture and worship into our ceremony. I'm so blessed to marry a man who loves the Lord so much! I'm so excited to marry this man in 100 days!

Something New

My wedding dress is ordered. I feel more like a real bride. It's not the wedding dress I thought I'd have, but it's the perfect dress for me. Like many brides, it happened to be the first dress I tried on. It was between three dresses. I eliminated one because I didn't like it in pictures, and since I'll wear it at a day documented by pictures, I felt this reason was quite fair. The next dress was eliminated because it was only available in two sizes too big. Which left me with one dress. And it was my favorite from the very beginning. Yea!

I also ordered a big, pouffy veil that I love. In fact, I loved wearing two veils at the same time so that it'd be super-pouffy. At one point, the owner of the shop pointed to a picture from the '90's and jokingly said that they could add a piece to make it stand up even more. I asked her not to tempt me. If there's one thing I love, it's pouffy, Texas hair, and now, pouffy veils. At every visit to my hairdresser, I stress the importance of my hair being very voluminous. She says it is already; I say I want more. She says okay, and I leave happy.

Now I need jewelry and shoes, and I'll be set to walk down the aisle. I'm thinking some pearls, which I love, love, love. And I want some unexpected shoes. Maybe red. Or green. Or some with a bow. Ooh, this should be fun!