Happy Birthday to Two of My Favorite People!

Today is a very special day in my family. Two of my most favorite people in the world were born today. One was born 50 years ago and the other 4 years ago. 

Happy Birthday to the most amazing Mom that anyone could ever ask for! She is my best friend and I don't know where I would be without her. She gives the best advice you could ever ask for. She is loving, caring, beautiful, crafty and smart. 

With each passing day, I see myself becoming more and more like her and that is something that I am very proud of. I hope that I can be as great of a Mom to my future kids as she has been to me and my brother. 

Me and my Mom when I was little

Me and my Mom on my Wedding day

Mom helping out on the day of the Wedding 

Me and my Mom at my College Graduation in 2010

I love you Mom!! And I am so blessed to have you in my life! And I love that I am just like you and I can't wait to have kids so that I can be an amazing Mom to them just like you were for me! Happy Birthday!!!

And Happy Birthday to my adorable, smart, beautiful and free spirited niece Kelsi!! It seems like it was just yesterday that you were born. I can't believe how much you have grown over the last four years. You are such a spunky little kid and I love every minute that I get to spend with you. I can't wait to see you grow more and more with each new year. 

A month old

She was the cutest duck that I had ever seen!

First School Picture

I love you so much Kelsi! You are such an amazing little girl and so full of life. I hope that I have little girls like you one day that are just as smart and beautiful as you. And I can't wait to see what you have in store for us as you continue to get older and more spunky. Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!!

P.S.

I hope you like your present even though Ken looks like he has Justin Bieber hair :)

She wanted a Wedding Barbie.

Why does he have Bieber hair?
Remember when his hair was molded plastic?

Foxy Friday: A New Link Up

Happy Friday everyone! I can not tell you how excited I am that it is finally Friday. Now if only 5 pm would get here, I would be a happy camper. And now I guess I will tell you about this new link up :)

The always hilarious and amazingly bad ass K at Down at Fraggle Rock (seriously if you don't already follow this girl, you need to STAT) started a new link up last week to help all of us get back on the fitness band wagon. Hello Foxy Friday!!! I completely spaced taking my before pictures last week so this is technically my first week, but this is the second week of Foxy Friday. So if you are wanting a little bit of inspiration with your fitness goals, head on over to her blog and link up with the rest of us.

I can't believe that I am getting ready to post these pictures for all of the world to see, but after taking them, I realized just how unhappy I really am with my body. You don't realize how bad it is until you see it in a picture I guess. Yuck! These "before" pictures are going to be my motivation. I have to get out of the lifestyle that I am used to and get on the road to being healthy. So here are my "before" pictures...

Ewwwwwwwww!!!!!! Again, I didn't realize how unhappy I was until I was taking these pictures this morning. Just have to use this as my motivation to work harder!

I didn't take any measurements for the week, but I will do that for next week. My weight as of today is 216 which means that I have gained about 7 lbs since I quit doing our Biggest Loser competition at work. I was so good for so long that I lost control afterwards. This is something that I need to work on. I need to reward myself every now and then with something not so great so that I don't go crazy and eat like a pig for long periods of time.

Something that I am going to challenge myself with is Mean Abs June. Some of you may have seen this floating around on Pinterest, but if not than you are seeing it now. As soon as I saw it I thought to myself, "Challenge accepted!!" Barney Stinson anyone? I hope some of you join me in this challenge.

Source: meetmeinthebedroom.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

That is all that I have for today's Foxy Friday. Hopefully next week I will have some great results to report to you guys.

Do you want to join in? Head on over to K's blog and link up! Come be healthy with us!

House Hunting

I know I have been MIA for the past week and a half and I apologize. We have been house hunting like crazy and it has consumed our lives. Last week we looked at three different places. One of the places we looked at twice and one of them we looked at three times. The one we looked at three times, we actually put an offer on it on Saturday. We haven't heard anything yet, but we do know that someone else put an offer in right before we did, so now it is just a waiting game.

However, we are still looking at places. Should the one we found that we did like fall through, we need to continue looking. And who knows, we may find one that we like more than the one we put an offer on. So like I said, this has been consuming our lives.

I never realized how much thought would go into this. There are so many different things to consider like School Districts, safety(of course), garages, decks, kitchens, roofs, carpet, hard wood flooring, etc. The list goes on and on. Just when you think you like one thing, you see something else and you completely change your mind.

And not only that but with a lot of these places you have to really keep in mind the potential that it could have. There are so many things that you can do to up the value of these homes and make them your own that it puts that many more thoughts into your head. It is madness I tell ya!!

Anyways, I am sorry for my lack of posting all together. I am hoping to find some time this weekend to get some posts done and hopefully get back on track with the wedding posts. We are finally getting to the reception and I can't wait to tell you guys about all of the little details of some of the projects that I worked on in the months leading up to the wedding. And I need to start getting back on track with my weight loss goals. So expect more posts about that.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the week so far. We are half way through! That is something to celebrate on it's own! Have a great rest of the week everyone!

With These Rings We Wed

Remember me telling you about the great ring debacle? No? You can read about it here. All I have to say is that it was completely worth the fuss and I am so glad that we ended up with the rings that we did.

The photos of our rings are some of my favorite non people pictures that came out of our big day. Our rings looked absolutely gorgeous together. I loved the different ways that the photographers positioned them and the different objects that they photographed them with. Take a look at these gorgeous pictures of our wedding rings!

Our rings with my shoes!! I love the contrast of color!

Our rings with a flower arrangement from
our rehearsal dinner

Our rings on the ribbon sashes of our flower girl dresses

This is my favorite one! I think they are on my veil.

Did you have pictures of your wedding rings together? Did they turn out amazing? What do you think of the pictures we got of these?

Need to catch up?

Arrivals
Hunting Down Tuxedos
A Morning of Getting Beautified
Venue Set Up
A Rehearsal & A Dinner
Bridal Party Gifts Part 1
Bridal Party Gifts Part 2
Bridal Party Gifts Part 3
Getting Ready-Hair & Make-Up
Getting Dressed: The Groom & His Fellas
Getting Dressed: The Flower Girls
Getting Dressed: The Bride & Her Ladies 
The Ceremony 
Formal Photos 
Photo Fun: The Groom & His Fellas 
Photo Fun: The Bride & Her Ladies
Photo Fun in the Snow
A Girl Needs Her Accessories

Potential Home Buyers Here

Happy Thursday everyone!!! I hope that your week is going well. And I also hope that this is your Friday like it is for me!!

I wanted to fill you guys in on something major that is going on in our lives right now. It all started last week when we gave our apartments our 60 day notice. I have told you guys how many issues that we have had in this place and it was just not somewhere that we wanted to stay for another year. So we decided to start looking at a bigger place to rent like a town house or even a real house. A very good friend/second mom to me is a Realtor so we started talking to her about finding a new rental when she suggested that we should really look into buying right now.

Source

After a pretty lengthy discussion, Aran and I decided that we should talk it over with his parents just to get someone else's perspective and advice on the situation. After speaking with them, they told us that we should go for it. So we contacted a lender this week and discussed our options and about using the first time home buyers program. Come to find out, it is actually going to be cheaper for us to buy a house then to rent a place.

Now I know what you are thinking. You are probably thinking, "Well, duh!" Everybody has always told me that it is cheaper to buy than to rent but I guess I never actually believed them. It didn't really hit me until the lender told me what we could be paying and then it all clicked!

We are still in the very early stages of this whole process, but it looks like it will be happening. I can't even explain how excited I am about this decision. I can't wait to find our house and to be able to start making it our house with decorating and furniture and fun stuff like that.

Source

Now here is where I need some help. For those of you out there that have already bought a home, do you have any tips for us? What are some questions that we should be asking? Anything at all would help right now. We definitely have no clue what we are doing, so some guidance/advice would definitely come in handy.

Thanks in advance for those that can offer of up some suggestions/advice/guidance. Have any of you been thinking about buying a home soon? For those that have, how long did the process take?

A Girl Needs Her Accessories

Every girl needs her accessories! And I was no exception to that on our wedding day. Looking for and actually purchasing my accessories however was way more difficult than I expected it to be.

I couldn't find quite what I was looking for most of the time, but after scowering Etsy for what seemed like days, I found my jewelry. The Etsy seller I bought my jewelry from is called Treasures and the owner, Agnes who makes the jewelry does an amazing job. She was so easy to work with and she was very quick in getting me my necklace and earrings. If you are looking for anything for an upcoming wedding, I highly suggest checking out her shop on Etsy.

My veil was also something that I had a difficult time with. I didn't want anything too crazy or expensive. I just wanted a one layer elbow length veil with some pearls or crystals on it. I also wanted to be able to have a few lace butterflies put on it in memory of my Grandparents who had passed. I didn't think I was asking too much but some people just wanted an outrageous amount of money that I was not willing to pay. I finally found another seller on Etsy who said she could do all of this for under $70. Sold! Angela from the Etsy shop abusymother did a great job on it. I loved how it turned out.

My shoes on the other hand were a little bit easier. I knew I wanted them to be pink and glittery and be flats because this girl does not do heels well. So I originally purchased a pair of pink glitter flats from Zappos!, but they were too narrow. So I sent those back and bought another pair that I had found on Ebay. Here is the best part, I only paid $10 for these and they fit perfectly and were so comfortable!!!!

And quite possibly my favorite accessory of the entire day was the hooded cape that my Mom crocheted for me. I knew that with the wedding being in January that it was going to be cold and could possibly even snow and I didn't want to have to put a big bulky jacket over my gorgeous dress. So one day I found this pattern for a hooded cape that my Mom had once had years ago and I sent it to her. She did an amazing job on it and I am so thankful that she took the time to make it for me because it did snow and it was perfect. It even made some of our pictures look even better!!!!! So thanks Mom!! You are amazing and I love you!

Were you obsessed with finding the perfect accessories like I was? Did you find it difficult to find what you wanted? Or was it pretty easy?

Need to catch up?


Arrivals
Hunting Down Tuxedos
A Morning of Getting Beautified
Venue Set Up
A Rehearsal & A Dinner
Bridal Party Gifts Part 1
Bridal Party Gifts Part 2
Bridal Party Gifts Part 3
Getting Ready-Hair & Make-Up
Getting Dressed: The Groom & His Fellas
Getting Dressed: The Flower Girls
Getting Dressed: The Bride & Her Ladies 
The Ceremony 
Formal Photos 
Photo Fun: The Groom & His Fellas 
Photo Fun: The Bride & Her Ladies
Photo Fun in the Snow