Day 30 of 30!!! I bid you adiue

Not for good though!

You can't get rid of me that easily! ha! I am rather happy that blog posting every single day is over. I get this stupid sense of guilt if I don't post. Just another thing to think of some days! That's why I think I have better posts when not pressured to post!

We had a very productive weekend!

Turkey Day was great! And on Friday we ventured out into the madness of Black Friday.

I have to say...I am not a huge shopper to the point where I would go crazy on that day. I'm not one for crowds.

I started off the morning by going with Jenny to pick up her wedding gown! She looked absolutely beautiful in it!

Below...a snippet of her dress. Can't show the entire thing now. Just in case her future Mister peeks in!





Her dress is so pretty!

I also got an early birthday present from her too! Look...





Isn't it just darling?! I love it! I will be wearing it on my wedding day. Oh the memories! And it came all the way from Europe!!! I am truly blessed to have a friend like Jenny.




The invitations are in the mail!

Or they will be as of tomorrow!!! Ryan and I finished them up today. I am so super excited!!! I also managed to finish all of my Thank Yous last night too! Yay for me!




I hope you all had a nice LOOOOONG weekend! I know I did.

Want to know a secret?

I'm off tomorrow too!

Yay!

Boo for my Mister though...wish he could play hookey with me!

3 more weeks and we will have another nice long weekend!

**We interupt this NaBloPoMo**

I have been 'rehabbing' around the site. I hope you will find it very pleasing! ha!

I'm experimenting and learning how to tweak html and make my own layouts! I love it!

Only problem is...now I'm a bit addicted to purchasing digital scrapbooking kits. Darn Pay Pal makes it so easy...

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas around here too!

Post 29 of 30: Christmas Decor

First off, I'd like to say that THIS IS MY 300TH POST!!! Can you believe it?!

'Cause I sure can't!

Well, we had a FULL day of cleaning today. I wanted to clean real good and put away fall stuff to make way for Christmas Stuff!!! I almost started last weekend but decided to wait.

I made these cute frames that say JOY. You can't tell but there is a polka dotted scrap paper in the middle background. I think they turned out cute. Those are on display in the living room!





I ended up having leftover fake garland, so I made a little wreath and attempted to make a cute bow. That obviously didn't work out all to well. I had to settle for these red ball things. They are ornaments for the tree. I think it worked out though.

We got our first Christmas card in the mail today. Can you see it?! I am trying this out as a card holder too. It's up high on a wall in between the living room and kitchen. So far, I think I like it. Now, if we could just get some more Christmas cards to put on there...




Here is what I have been scheming in my head for the past year. I have to say, I LOVE how it turned out!


Clearly, this is fake garland. I got some over sized ornaments at Ace Hardware along with some velvety ribbon and voila!




Another little new project. I had two leftover poinsettias from the bridal shower last weekend. I added them to our mantle with a little bit of garland and some of the Christmas decorations from last year... LOVE IT!



I was originally going to put the JOY frames above the mantle (under the clock). I decided that would have been too busy. I think I'm pretty happy how it all turned out!

Now we just need our tree. I have readied the corner and we are good to go! I love Christmas decoration. It's so bright and cheerful. I do have to say I am wiped from cleaning all day long!

When do YOU start decorating for Christmas?!

And when do you take it down? Is it a right after Christmas kind of thing or do you like to let it live on just a little bit longer?

Day 27 of 30: Giving Thanks

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.

Psalms 118:1

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!

Have a great Turkey Day!

Day 26 of 30: Did you watch?!?!

I was just about to settle in last night to watch some recorded shows that I have (yeah, like 4 or 5 episodes of Greys Anatomy...it's a bit overwhelming!).

Then I realized that The Real Housewives of Orange County started again last night!

Had to watch it.

No time for all of you Greys!

The RH of OC is my favorite out of all of The Real Housewives series. New York, their accents annoy me...Atlanta...well it's just not my cup of tea...

I can't tell if I'm going to like the new girl yet or not. Should be fun!!!

Check it out on Bravo, Tuesday nights at 8:00pm central time!

Day 26 of 30: It's Friday!!! Well...it's actually Wednesday...

Today is the last day at work until we are off for a long holiday weekend. I don't know why, but that just makes me SO happy!

Plus, I took Monday off too! So essentially I have a whole week off from work! ha!

I do have some much needed wedding things that need to get done. Such as...mailing out our invitations!!! How exciting!!!

I have to admit, (side story...we have a countdown on our desktop of our computer counting down days until the wedding is here) I am getting a little stressed out when I see the number on the computer screen.

Not for bad reasons, but I feel like we should have everything done and NOW! I'm like that though. I like to get it done and be done with it.

I wish I wasn't sometimes.

Do you like my rehearsal dinner bouquet? My girlies made it for me at the shower. It definitely have some character!

I'm off to get some work done. Later tonight I get to bake a few things and then tomorrow I plan on eating a lot! ha!

Not too much though...I have another dress fitting coming up on Tuesday!

Day 25 of 30: I can't believe Christmas is ONE MONTH away!!!

Did I mention we got A LOT of gifts at our shower?!

Well. We did.

I have put off putting them away, but decided to finish tonight. Phew, thank gawd that's over!


Being the neat/clean freak that I am, it is suprising that I even waited a couple of days! It feels good to have it all sorted out. Only now our 'office' is full of clutter.

Have I mentioned I hate clutter?

Well. I do.

We can't wait to use all of the new things!!!

Have I mentioned I LOVE black?

Well. I do.

Our kitchen counters have been pretty bare as of late. Actually you can say as of since we moved in here. With all of the new gifts, our counters are FULL now.

I love this, but it also created a bit of a dilemma for me. I just couldn't get anything in the right spot. I am settled on the above pictures for now to see how it works out. Everything is just different sizes.

I think I found the solution...

We need a bigger kitchen! ha! And a house! :-)

Also...since we got a new couch. We aren't allowing the animals to get up on it. When I sit over there, Mason always wants to come up.

He can't!

So...he lays with his daddy!

He fell asleep all over Ryan's legs the other night. Luckily, I had the camera on the table. He was sound asleep just draped over R's legs. It was too funny.

I must have bothered him though because I got the look above. Woke him up right in the middle of his deep sleep. How dare me?!

Day 24 of 30: It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

When we awoke this morning, Ryan peeked out the window and said it was snowing. I, of course, followed with a, "whaaat?! a lot?!"

He said no and I went about my morning and got into the shower...

Afterwards, I went into the living room and noticed the snow was coming down quite quickly and there was a good coating on the cars in the parking lot.

I have to admit, I am NOT ready for snow to come. I don't think I'm even prepared for winter!

Needless to say, it stopped by about 8:30am, but my ride to work took 10 minutes longer.

Looks like Mr. Winter is really here... I am just waiting for that first big snowfall...I simply can't wait (not the sarcastic tone in my voice if I were really speaking to you!).

**as I am typing the lower part of this post...THE SUN IS OUT!!! YAY!!!





On a cuter note, I found this HERE.

I think I just may have to copy it. Or tweek it and make my own version!

I got out our Christmas decor yesterday. I didn't start putting anything up yet. I had the smallest inkling of putting a few things up, but my Mister is all about waiting until the weekend after Thanksgiving...

looks like I'll be hitting up some stores for new decor...

I also have a really cute idea for the ceiling part of our 'breakfast bar'. I just can't wait!!! I'll post pictures after I start to decorate!

Day 21, 22, 23 of 30: My Bridal Shower!

My bridal shower is here!!! Well, it's here and gone.

It was a great time though.

My sweet friends threw it for me and were so gracious in preparing everything.

I will admit, I had some anxiety at first. Just about everyone watching me open presents and it being all about me. I would like to think that I quickly overcame that.

We got so many great gifts. Much more than we had expected. It was just so nice to be with friends and family and have both sides of the family meet eachother. What a great day!

A few of us went out for a bit afterwards along with 'the guys'.

I couldn't have asked for a better bridal shower! Thank you everyone for everything!!!

For those of you who weren't present, I missed you!

My sweet future mother in law got these adorable bride and groom chocolate covered pretzels. Aren't they just so cute?! They taste good too! :-)

Day 20 of 30: The Devil's Swimming Pool

In Zimbabwe, Africa there is this magnificent waterfall called Victoria Falls.

During the months of September and December you can actually swim up close to the edge of the waterfall without falling over. This location is known as "The Devil's Swimming Pool".

Could you ever do this?!

I am almost peein' in my pants looking at the pictures.

You can tell I'm a real risk taker...

Source here.

Day 19 of 30: It's a Monogram Chick Giveaway - you should check it out!

Monogram Chick has posted her 100th post!!! Hurray!

In honor of that, she is doing a GIVE AWAY!!! Hurray Hurray!

Go here to enter and leave a comment with your favorite Monogram Chick product.

*if you're a blogger you can also leave how many posts you have too

It's so very hard to pick, but I think I love the travel mugs and any of the stamps. Aw, heck, I like ALL THINGS monogrammed so I think I'd be happy with just about anything from her site!

Day 18 of 30: Sneak Peek and a little gift...

Here is a little bitty sneak peak at the hotel/direction card that I made to go into our wedding invitations.

I think it turned out perfectly!

Although, it did take a bit longer than I had anticipated. I went back and forth with deciding on using the map or not using the map.

I opted not to. Most of our guests are from around here and I just couldn't get it to work right or look right.

So I made an M monogram design with digital scrap paper and voila! I think I like it even better!

Of course this is only one side of the card...the other side is quite boring, all type no decor!



I also got a semi gift from my Zizi (aunt)/Godmother. She happens to keep getting to go to The View and whenever she goes they usually give something away. She got some awesome things last time, but this time...

She got a $150 gift certificate to Ebags. Particularly to THIS type of bag (I think) on Ebags. And guess who she so generously gave it to?!

You guessed right...ME!!!

I can't thank you enough for it, Zizi Nikki!

Stay tuned to see what I get!

Day 17 of 30: Just another manic Monday...

Aww, look at little Mason! He got a haircut on Saturday and he looks so tiny and scrawny right now! I feel kind of bad because it is getting so cold here now and he has no hair. Looks like that sweater will come in handy! His Daddy doesn't want to be caught dead walking him in it though...





Just a silly (and kind of yucky) picture of us hanging out... Can you tell I didn't shower all day on Sunday?! Shame on me... ha!






And I made my favorite Apple Pancake! Yum-O! Click HERE if you want the recipe! It is serioulsy SO good!

I don't use syrup on this kind of pancake. I just like to sprinkle a bit of powdered sugar on it. Oh it's wonderful! And Mason loves it too! :-)

That's about all for the day...

I know, so exciting, isn't it?!

Up tomorrow...

A sneak peak at the direction/hotel/map insert cards for our wedding invitations (that I spent all weekend tweaking and making!).

Silent Sunday

image credit

Day 16 of 30: I've made an executive decision

I have decided that I'm going to change the rules of my nablopomo. It will involve not posting on weekends.

Unless I feel like it.

I need some time to be free.

It's not you, it's me.

Hopefully that'll mean that I'll have more to share on Mondays.

I like that idea.



So...stay tuned for tomorrow. A new day to a new week.