Rings and Dancing

Tonight the plan is to shop for rings. How much bling do I want? Not sure. Mostly concerned about it complimenting my engagement ring.

It will be interesting to see Brad try on rings. He's not into jewelry but is excited to finally have a wedding band on his left hand. I'm not a huge jewelry fanatic either. I wear a minimal amount but due to the fact that I am such a minimalist for some reason when it comes to my wedding ring I want it to shine! It needs to exceed my minimalist nature when it comes to jewelry.

We also plan on practicing dancing tonight. We've danced with each other but not in a serious way. It's been in a more playful and funny spur of the moment type of thing. I don't believe dancing is my thing. I do watch Dancing With The Stars sometimes and I even own 2 DWTS's dance fitness videos. However, I'm not delusional enough to think that helps me out with my dancing abilities! Wish me luck!

Continuing to Plan the Wedding!

Lets see, what have I been up to...well during the last few days I've ordered a lot of stuff for the wedding, including our wedding day cake server, flute set, and guest book. We're actually not doing a "guest book".  I did some research on alternatives and found something more appealing to me.  In the recent days I've also been working on wedding menu and chosen the photos that we for sure want from our engagement photo shoot.  I still have to work on the cake.  It keeps getting pushed back to make time for more pressing things.

This week we plan on shopping for rings.  Brad is rather excited about being able to wear a ring.  I'm excited too.  My engagement ring is so pretty, I just want something that compliments it well. 

Another big task for this week is choosing songs for the dj to play at the wedding reception.  That should be fun yet time consuming.  We also need to practice dancing!  I'm not worried about Brad, I'm actually more concerned about myself.  He can hold his own.  I'm worried about getting nervous to dance in front of so many people.  Stage fright!  Doing the first dance in front of everyone I can plainly say makes me the most nervous at this point.  I dance!  But I dance for fun and in not in serious manner.  Slow-dancing as the center of attention for a few minutes makes me slightly nervous.

Turkey Day Review!

Our Thanksgiving was lovely.  A good time was had by all.  A bit of a smaller crowd than usual at Brad's family Thanksgiving.  The weather was perfect.  Not cold, not warm, simply perfect.  My pecan pie was a huge success.  I actually never got a piece of it.  I had a bite of Brad's slice but that's it. At some point during this past weekend I did give thought to baking another pecan pie just so I could have a piece this time! Perhaps I'll have to bake another one for Christmas we'll surely want more than one dessert on hand when we host Christmas Eve.

What happened to the Cowboys?  Man, was that a disappointing game or what?  We were driving back from the Thanksgiving meal when we heard the score on the radio.  We both looked at each other in disbelief as they reported the halftime score to be 28-3.  We got back in time to watch the 2nd half. 

I have to admit I did horrible on my football picks this week.  We had to have them done earlier than usual and so I rushed quite a bit.  It showed! I even picked the Cardinals to win!  I truly thought they would break out of their slump!  Wrong again!  Better luck this coming week!  The best part of the weekend in the world of sports in my opinion was that my Sun Devils beat the Wildcats.  I was dancing around the living room as I watched that game, singing a little song about how the Sun Devils will now be bound for a better bowl than U of A.  Ha Ha!

So did anyone go Black Friday shopping?  We did.  Brad had to work on Friday.  He normally takes a vacation day for Friday but due to our wedding he's saving his days.  After he got done with work for the day we went out in the evening to do a little shopping.  We were quite successful!  We also went out Saturday to shop by the end of the weekend we were able to mark some people off our combined Christmas list.

Turkey Day Preparations!

Tomorrow is turkey day! Better known as national wear your stretchy pants day!  Does anyone remember the Friends episode where Joey went to change into his stretchy pants so that he could eat more of the Thanksgiving dinner Monica had made?  Friends made some good Thanksgiving day episodes during the shows run.  Remember the Geller Bowl?...where they all played football in the park, got locked out, and as a result their turkey burned up. That episode was sibling rivalry at it's finest!  Some televison channel should run a marathon of all Friends Thanksgiving episodes tomorrow!

We are going to Brad's family Thanksgiving.  They have a pot luck affair for all their family holiday get-togethers.  We signed up to bring a green bean casserole, a pecan pie, and my 7-Layer Dip with some chips.  I love making all three of the items we signed up for.  Well, actually there's not much I don't like to make! The difficult part about making a pie though is that it's more of a cross your fingers and hope it turned out well type of item!  With a cake or brownies or even cookies you can taste the batter but that's not exactly the case with a pie.  It looks great!  I just pulled it out of the oven a few minutes ago.  Simon was the master sous chef.  I kept "dropping" pecans for him to eat.  Pecans I came across that didn't look pretty enough for my pie went to the sous chef!

Thursday will start very early for me and the boys!  Did you hear that Cody?....you need to get up EARLY.  Cody is a night-owl, loves to stay up late and mornings are not his favorite unless it's a reasonable hour.  There's literally been Sunday mornings before church that I'm leashing Cody up and he's struggling to keep his eyes open. Sometimes he even sways a bit as if he's ready to collapse to the ground from all his tiredness.  We have a reasonably long drive to get to Brad's cousin's house so that's partly why the day will start so early.  I have the dip and the pie ready to go.  But tomorrow morning I have to make the green bean casserole plus take care of the boys, the morning will go by fast. 

Happy Turkey Day to all!

Tux Shopping!

This past Saturday was tux shopping day. I trusted my groom to choose his own tux. His parents and brother went with him while I stayed behind with his sister-in-law. I didn't want to see him in a tux yet! I want our wedding day to be the first time I see him in a tux.

Yesterday my soon to be mother-in-law called me to encourage me to go to the tux shop and check out what Brad had on order. She saw what he got but wasn't in agreement with what he chose. Her biggest concern was the color shirt he chose.

So today I went to the tux shop to see what had been chosen.  I didn't like a single thing he picked. I changed everything but his shoes! I changed the tux style, the shirt, the tie and the vest. He had chosen a mismatched tie and vest set. Now in his defense he did have the right colors I had originally told him were his choices. However, after seeing what the colors look like in person I wanted to opt for a different overall look. Well at least it was easy to change his wedding attire. When we saw each other tonight he quickly asked, "now what am I wearing?". Yes, he was aware I had spoken with his mom and was going to the tux shop to check out the colors for myself.

In hindsight I should have gone last week to select the main color instead of giving him the option of 3 different colors to choose from. Well at least I haven't seen him in a tux yet! I only saw the tuxes on display.

The Response of the Boys

As more and more wedding stuff keeps appearing I've noticed a slight difference in Cody. I'm convinced he gets it!  Now he has no clue what a wedding actually is but he's definitely clued into the fact that something special is going on. I think he can sense life is soon to change. Cody has always had good intuition.

As for Simon...he's clueless! He sees the items that have appeared. He hears the conversations but he doesn't stop to think about things. As long as his daily routine isn't interrupted he doesn't contemplate anything else that might go on in life.

We shall see what Simon's reaction is when I start packing up things and getting rid of things. The other night I went through my place pointing to items that we'll keep and things that have to go...Cody was right there by my side doing his best to figure out what I was doing. Meanwhile Simon was off getting some zzzz's.

The Final Countdown Has Begun!

Let the final countdown begin....30 days from now is the wedding. It's super exciting!

Early this evening I was out shopping for wedding decor. I bought all they had of a few select items. I felt bad for the lady that had to ring up all I had in my basket. Another sales associate came over to help wrap the many items up. First time I've bought that many delicate items at one time. I think as far as decor though we're about done. I have a couple more things to pick up and that's it.

I definitely have done a lot this week to get things together for our reception. I still have yet to finalize the dinner at the reception and we have to choose a type of cake. Well actually maybe a few types of cake. I want a different type of cake for each layer, or at least that's my plan right now. We'll see after we go to our cake tasting. Busy times!

Wedding Shower and Mom's Visit

Our wedding shower is tomorrow. My mom arrived yesterday. So other then going to the wedding shower, which I'm very excited about, there's other tasks to do during my mom's visit. Those tasks include shopping for an outfit for her to wear to the wedding, plus looking around for possible decor items.  It should be fun yet a bit busy!

While we were out shopping today I bought a new dress for the wedding shower. I didn't exactly plan on buying a new dress, I simply wanted to take a quick peek at a certain designers line of dresses and instantly zeroed in on a dress that would be perfect for tomorrow.  As for finding my mom a mother of the bride outfit, we'll continue looking.

So far the weather has been easy for my mom to deal with. She's not freezing! She is enjoying seeing the changing colors of the leaves on the trees. The large tree out in front of my living room windows is filled with red, gold, and wine colored leaves. Some cooler temps are coming. Monday however is supposed to feature a high temp in the 50s.

Wedding Colors Revealed!

By now everyone that knows us has received their wedding invitation.  The reveal of the wedding colors is out. Most will notice the gold and silver snowflakes and the silver bell all in front of a charcoal backgound.  Basically our colors are gold and silver. I'm using the dark charcoal color as a "base color". I thought the deepness of the charcoal would best highlight the gold and silver. I think I considered nearly every color that was out there. I probably even considered a few that have yet to be invented...;)

It was time consuming to make the invitations but I love the finished product. I also loved that my groom picked up on the use of the silver bell. That silver bell will be an added theme at the reception. We won't go crazy with the silver bells but a few here and there. 

So why gold and silver? I loved the idea of how easy it would be to get decor items in December to go with it. I also like things to match and making the ballroom that we've rented blend well with our colors was important to me. I didn't want colors that might clash with the carpet in the ballroom.  The gold and silver color scheme was the first one I thought of. It seemed Christmasy, wintery, yet it was different/unique, not in your face Christmas red and green. Even while flirting with other color schemes this is the one I kept coming back to. It felt perfect for us.....why?...because I couldn't lose sight of the fact that silver is one of the Dallas Cowboys colors and gold is one of ASU's colors....something Texas, something Arizona! I'd also like to point out the AZ Cardinal's logo features a cardinal with somewhat of a golden-toned beak. Lol!

Say Cheese!

First things first....It is now November, which means I get to say....I'm getting married NEXT month!  Woo-hoo!  December is no longer a far off month!

Today was picture day for us.  We met with our wedding photographer to do a special engagement photo session.  We did the photo session at the Gaylord Texan where we'll be getting married.  They've already started putting up their Christmas decor.  The first background we used for some pics was that of a blue and silver Christmas tree.   

I was a little nervous about the photo session.  But it went well.  It was fun to do.  Not as embarassing as I thought it would be.  I just pictured tons of people watching us, yes, there were people around but we weren't as on display as I was worried about.  It all went well!

We did a special set of pics that I had an idea to for.  I hope those special pics turn out well, because they were likely my faves to do.  I have a special way I want to display those particular pics at the wedding.  Fingers-crossed they turn out great!

The Gaylord Texan is so huge we felt like we had walked a bunch after it was all done.  We walked to numerous areas of the resort as we sought unique backgrounds for our photos. By the time we were done it was nearly dinnertime and we were starving.  We decided to go to the sports grill in the resort.  We sat there and watched TCU on a big screen as we dined on rather traditional Texas fare!  I had some awesome barbecue!  TCU went to double overtime, they won!  We weren't about to leave until the game was done!  Fun afternoon/evening!  I loved it!