Living w/ a Gown up baby..

I like most moms have to introduce "new" foods to my "grown up baby" very slowly.. One at a time.. In my effort to make our home more eco friendly and the things we put in our bellies better for us I find myself relating very much to the moms around me with babies(real babies).

When we moved to our new apartment (ALMOST A YEAR AGO) I forced recycling upon our home which at first was meet with much resentment but now is more of habit and no so much work.  Now I am working on food. 

 Last week I filled our home with lots of fresh foods and have been trying to weed out some of the packaged foods that zach and I tend to lean on.  The one thing I noticed.. I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO ATE THE FOOD!! 

 So now THIS week I have made a menu that I VOW to follow and prepare food everyday this week.. WITH fresh veggies, home cooked food, and only a few meals with packaged foods.. As with this introduction today zach says "What's for dinner" I say "Didn't you look at the menu?" of course you can guess the next response..... So I say we are having pork chops and you know the first thing he asks for.. MAc and cheese!?!? Mac and cheese OVER my home made mash potatoes with homemade gravy and salad!?!?! 

So We'll see how this goes.. MY other food introduction.. shh.. A meatless meal!! I have always been debating between vegetarian and carnivore but found it challenging to give up chicken.. so i have decided at lease once a week we will have a meatless meal.. THis week: bean chili.. I'll update you on how THAT goes.. considering.. that fresh veggies hasn't been a hit!! 

Time for a Wedding update!

It's been so long since I posted i had to go back and review my own blog!! Last week was spring break from school for me so it was a week long wedding work  week! My mom came up to visit with me so that we could get as much done on the wedding as possible considering the upcoming months will be packed full of events (other than my wedding) that it would be very challenging for us to squeeze it in.

  So to fill you in on the progress.. We now have less than 3 months until the wedding!!

• We have now received all of our bridesmaids gowns and all but one have been picked up and all of them fit just as they were order to fit (one will need to be altered but we knew that from the beginning) My wedding dress is scheduled to arrive by the middle of next month and once that arrives we will decide on a veil and or headpiece.  My wedding shoes have been order and will arrive about the same time as my dress.  My bridesmaids shoes are in the process of being purchased(as they will double as gifts).  Our flower girl's dress is order and not sure when it will arrive but when it does the whole top will need to be remade so lets hope it gets here soon! One of the ring bearers has a tux and the other one still has to be purchased.   All hair appointments have been scheduled.  Our groom now has a tux and 2 of the 4 groomsman have been fitted! 
  
• We have a confirmed HONEYMOON! Which I was beginning to think would never come through! We will be going to Masunutten VA thank you Uncle Bill and Aunt Linda for you help w/ that!!  
  
• We have our reception decor: candles, votive, and the necessities ( table cloths, napkins, forks, plates, & cups).  Our flowers have been order and mostly paid for thus covering centerpieces, boutonnieres, corsages, and bouquets. We have gotten lots of volunteer chefs to help prepare our pot luck food so I believe food is taken care of (this is the one item i personally have not been handling) Items for the reception that are still lacking are: guestbook, music, greeters, toasts, cake cutting knife, toasting glass (bride and groom) 
  
• As for the cake, I am still planning on making it.  I am half way through my 2nd Wilton cake decorating course and am now learning about fondant which is what I want to use with the cakes.  While mom was here we made a few to practice and were very please with the results to Cake is till a go! 
• We have a photographer confirmed and I believe a videographer (Zach's working on this so I'm not sure if its confirmed) 
• For the ceremony we now have, benches, arch, vases(for decor) and flowers to run the aisle, we have an officiant, and we are lacking supplies for a sand ceremony and the vows to be said.  My mom is working on putting together the programs which will be handed out at the ceremony.  We are still lacking transportation for the bride and her mother from the dressing location to the ceremony as well as transportation for those who are not able to walk to and from the reception to the ceremony.  
• Invitations are almost finished! Each one was made by hand with the help of my groom, mom, and a bridesmaid!
• Our wedding website is up and running with the most up to date information as well as rsvp online! which i love! 

At this point I think that we have everything mostly done for the wedding.  I am still projecting on finishing the invitations to be mailed out by the end of the month, practicing on the cake, finding music. My mom and Zach are working on many of the other task that I have mention as still missing... 

But considering this is my first wedding that I will be attending and planning and my mom's first wedding to be planned WE would love any advice you may have on things we may be forgetting or not thinking about... Or just advice in general!!! 

Sorry for the long winded post but as much as I wanted to update you all it also has helped me map out my to do list!! 

Forgotten Beauty

Some days you really take for grated the beauty that surrounds us.. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to the beach oand photograph Zach surfing.. While the waves were not consistant there was often a lot of down time where he was just floating in the water and I was left to just look around at the enviroment around me... As I have been so busy lately I had totally forgotten how much I enjoy the beach! I almost forgot what the sand feels like between your toes and how relaxing the sounds of the waves crashing to the shore can be.. I just found our day at the beach to be so calm and soothing.. I can't believe that I don't go there more often!! I alway take for granted how lucky we are to live so close to the beach and we rarely have bad weather.. When I am on the beach and look around at the beauty of the ocean, the sand, and the sea grass I wonder how hard it must be to NOT have ever seen the ocean.. HOW difficult it would be to move away from it.. and I just can't believe that I don't go and enjoy the sights more often! I decided to show you some of the pictures that I took while on the beach.. Enjoy :)

What I love about the Theatre...

After the countless hours you put in, all the dinners skipped to work on the productions, getting behind on homework assignments you know the production will come and be gone and you can get back to life as you knew it before tech.. But after the cramming stressful days just before a show goes up you wonder why do i put myself through this why do I do this every show.. The 2 wks before a show opens are complete and utter chaos all the time you have goes in to the theatre.. there are lots of frustrations as cues you worked so hard on are suddenly deleted from the show.. You are asked to find various extra cues you weren't planning for and you think.. THIS IS NEVER GOING TO BE READY.. but when the night comes that you finally have an audience you know "THIS IS WHY I DO IT" hearing the audience enjoy all the various aspects of the production as they sit back in their chairs laughing at all the right parts.. following the mood of the production and the show.. And you can see only the backs of their heads but you know they are smiling when they leave.. although no one ever knows how much work actually goes into productions like this but seeing the audience smile and enjoy the show is enough to keep me in the theatre and behind the scenes..

Skating through Life

Valentines day for me was a day I wan not exactly looking forward too.. Not b/c it's Valentines day but because I knew that I had to spend 12 hours in the theatre for our 1st tech day; which never goes so smoothly! But I woke up to a wonderful breakfast cooked by my wonderful Fiance.  He made me Egg in the heart which is one of his mom's famous breakfast items that he loves to cook.  He always made me YUMMY YUMMY heart shaped toast.  Then the 12 hours in the theatre wasn't so bad and we actually ENDED early... so that I was actually only there 10.5 hours so we had enough time to make it to couples night at the ice skating rink.  While we were there I had a lot of thoughts about our relationship and life together.  

As we were Ice Skating as anyone who has ice skated before knows your skates carve the way in ice to move forward but of course as each person moves forward there are many many paths and each path created by another person can make it more and more difficult for you to move forward on your own path and i thought.. this is so much like life.. there are many many people who have moved forward through life before us and they carved out their own path and as you watched them go through you are often challenged in figuring out how to make your own path.. ... But I also realized that as Zach and I carve a way through life and try to stick together there will be lots of obstacles that will will have to avoid and deal with.  We also will have to learn when to hold each other back and when to let go and let one another try new things(Zach was learning to ice skate backwards while i can barely go forward) and move ourselves forward.  And when one of us falls ( Like i did while skating) know that the other will be there to help them get back to their feet! And just learning to trust each others judgments, learn each others goals and help each other achieve personal and family goals will help make our relationship more successful and our personal growth will make one another happier! 

Today's Baking Fun!

So  I was just so exciting about all my new baking supplies that  I just couldn't wait until class on Tuesday to start so I made a cake last night so that Today when I had a little more free time I could practice decorating.  Well my mom found this really neat site that said how you could make the little cakes that I want for my wedding so i decided to try some of the things it said to do.. 

After creating the initial parts of the cake I didn't start following the dir

ections to frost the little cakes which didn't turn out so well 

After that I went back to the instructions which also didn't work out so well.. b/c the candy stuff they said to put on was just too thick.. 

After that I just decided to have fun with the frosting... 

Then I decided to frost the cake.. Which turned out the best of them all And that was my baking adventure today...

They may not look the greatest but I don't think it was too bad and they TASTE Awesome!! 

The DIY Wedding!

So I have decided in order to save costs and make our wedding as much US as possible I am creating most aspects of our wedding on my own which for me is fun but also a little stressful.

The Save the Dates went out last week and I created those which was tons of fun and I got lots of compliments on! It was so simple too! I just went to the beach wrote "Save the Date" and i wrote our names in the sand and when I got home i photo shopped them together and added a text box with our wedding date and WOW! an awesome save the date card! I just had to order then in the form of post cards, address them and stamp!

The next aspect of our DIY wedding will the be the invitations. I just received the paper today from the online co. that you can order paper from for fairly cheap and My mom and I will be spending spring break assembling those! Tons of FUN :)

I will also be creating the favors, programs, and many of the decorations. What I won't be DIY is Photography, I have hired Joey Wooton to do that for us! And Flowers, The flower Basket on HI road will be doing that!

I ALSO am going to ATTEMPT to make our wedding cake! I have signed up for the cake decorating class at Micheal's where we are learning how to decorate cake. So far I haven't had a chance to actually decorate yet but I have confidence that I will be good at it and quite capable of making the cake that I want for our wedding without having to pay the $500 everyone is charging!!! Since I am in the cake decorating course I will also be making alot of different cakes over the next few weeks so if anyone has an awesome cake recipie they would like to share I would love to try and make it!!!

I am loving the DIY wedding because it allows for me to input lots of my own creativity into the wedding as well as save a lot of money!! But I don't recommend it for those with little time because it can create quite a bit of stress!!