Christmas...its the best time of the year

Santa was great to Will and I this year! 

We got a ton of things for our one day house. We got a crock-pot, glassware, Christmas china from Pottery Barn, cookware, and much much more.  I love Christmas with my family because we spend about 3 hours opening up gifts, taking our time, talking, and eating! It was odd being the first Christmas without getting clothing since we need a lot of home things but I must say the most exciting part was getting my ELF ON A SHELF!!!! :)  It was great.  The elf on the shelf tied string to my bedroom door and I had to follow the string down the stairs and into the living room to find it tied inside of the box.  Once I opened my elf on a shelf he got into a lot of mischievous trouble exploring the house :)

Joey also got me my first cookbook! I need the practice so I have decided I am cooking the remainder of my winter break!  Tonight I made Meatball Pie, it actually might have been the best meal I have ever made....which isn't saying much because I have made some pretty awful stuff before.  The cookbook might be the key to Will eating well once we are married! 

Now that Christmas has come and gone I have been busy during my time and I finally got around to cleaning my closet...I have 3 bags of clothes to donate and my closet is still stuffed full.  I am now wondering how I am going to live once Will and I share a closet.  

I know I haven't been too busy wedding planning but I sure have been busy thinking about all the things Will and I will need once we have our home...so while I was out shopping with my mom this week I purchased our first piece of furniture! It was an exciting moment! The purchase was pinterest inspired after spending countless hours looking at home decoration. When I found this beautiful bench I knew I had to have it because I had pinned something like it on my own pinterest board :) An added bonus is that Ella absolutely loves it...she was finding a comfy spot soon after I had carried it in. 

I can't wait to put it in our entry way one day :) It doubles as a bench and storage.  

New Obsession...

Pinterest! If you haven't heard of it you must go check it out! I love looking at pictures and this is just the place.  Here is a cute photo I saw and want to take a similar picture with our flower girl and ring bearer on the wedding day :) Thanks Pinterest for the idea!

Getting a Head Start on Wishing

Last night after work Will and I were trying to figure out how to spend our evening when I gave the suggestion to go start our gift registry.  I threw the idea out there thinking Will would shoot it down and not want to send his Friday night in a store.  However, Will was in on the idea.  So after a nice dinner with my parents we headed out to Target.  We decided Target might be a convenient place for our guests to shop and they do have some cute home stuff that is affordable.  We scanned a ton of kitchen items and we even added a few fun things that Will was interested in so that he could get excited about "manly" presents.  We also registered at Bed Bath & Beyond this morning.  We picked out plates, glasses, and other exciting things.  It ended up being a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be and Will was super helpful.  He gave his opinion on a lot of things which I was thinking he wasn't going to be too interested in.  We had a lot of fun talking about what our future house is going to be like, it made us wish we already had one. But the awesome thing is that we are saving a lot of money right now so that we can afford our dream place sometime soon! Now I can't wait for my bridal shower in the summer :)  Here is a sneak peak at our registry:

Sadly, I was excited about this new food processor because it also will chop/slice food and if you have ever tried cooking with me then you would know this slicing option is good for me because I can't use a knife to cut a thing in the kitchen :(

This clock made me think of all the Pottery Barn catalogs that come in the mail :)

I love ANYTHING monogrammed! If I can add a "W" to it, then I want it! I even interested Will in some beer glasses (even though he isn't a big beer fan) just because we could add "Wheeler" to them!  

Flowers, Cake, Harpist...Oh My!

Well I first need to start off by saying I survived the 1st quarter! A lot of my parents asked about the wedding at parent/teacher conferences because apparently my kiddos are so excited that I am getting married that it has become the talk around a lot of families kitchen tables.  2nd graders are too cute!

So about a week ago we when to Twinbrook Florist to talk about flowers and my goodness were they great! Before even showing the women some example pictures I had found on the internet she pulled together all of the flowers I wanted in only a few seconds.  I told her I didn't want any roses or carnations and that I wanted a lot of texture to my bouquet.  She went off to the back and came back with this...

This is just a sample of the flowers that will be in my bouquet and it will have a green grass cage as you can see part of that to the top right of this sample.  So now flowers are said and done and Will made the deposit on one of this days off this week :) 

The next day, after our flower appointment, Will and I went to taste the cake at a place in Reston.  The cake was good and we defiantly liked the pumpkin cake! However, we had to listen to this man for an hour and half talk about how he was the best Willy Wonka.  With them being in Reston and our wedding being in Myersville, it was going to be quite the haul and a hefty charge.  We are still thinking about it because we did love the pumpkin but we are going to try other cake places, maybe a little closer Myersville, before making our decision.  

Finally, the harpist idea has become quiet the hassle.  Apparently a harpist will only play outside if there is perfect weather between 62 and 85 degrees.  With our ceremony being outside we are starting to wonder if we should take the risk on a harpist because if we do, we have to not only have the sun shining but also have just the right temperature.  So with that said...we aren't sure what to do.

The good thing is flowers have been picked! :) 

P.S. I have become obsessed with etsy.com because I have been looking for a hair piece, props for our photo booth, and other miscellaneous fall items.  If you have never visited etsy.com before you must give it a try! 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! October has flown by and I can't believe November starts tomorrow! 

(Will and I carved our pumpkin last night before he traveled half way around the world for work)

Almost 11 months to go!  Wedding planning has been slow lately with school taking up most of my time.  However, this week is packed full of parent/teacher conferences + wedding planning.

On Wednesday my Mom and I are going to our second flower appointment to figure out what flowers to use in the bouquets and boutonnieres. I don't want any roses so I am ready to get creative.

Then on Thursday Will and I are going cake tasting! One of the appointment I have been looking forward too :)  We are going to try a pumpkin cake which I am super excited about since I have the whole pumpkin theme going on...why not continue the theme into the flavor of the cake? I hope it tastes as good as it sounds.  The cake place specializes in butter cream icing to look like fondant so I am also excited to see what is looks like.  A colleague of mine went to the same cake place and said you get to take home whatever you don't eat at the tasting so I can't wait for cake leftovers...I am starting to sound like a fatty.  I am just addicted to sugar.  Also, the cake place will bake you a complementary cake on your 1 year anniversary so Will and I can enjoy a fresh cake when we celebrate our first anniversary.

Then on Saturday my Mom and I are going to meet a harpist to listen to some of her music.  This week Will and I also signed our DJ contract another thing is checked off the list!

More to come after a busy week of planning.  We are still way ahead of schedule and I am liking it!

A Year From Today...

WE WILL BE ENJOYING OUR WEDDING DAY :) By this time next year our vows will be said, our cake will be cut and we will have spent one amazing evening with family and friends! I hope the day won't go by too fast!

Tomorrow my mom and I are taking a ride up to Myserville to check out some near by hotels, see what the fall foliage looks like, and possibly eat lunch at the place Mrs. Wheeler is thinking about having our rehearsal lunch/dinner at!  I just came across the cutest way to have our family and friends sign a "guess book" but instead it is a tree that we can hang in our house one day.  I really like the one with orange leaves :) Check out some examples I found online:

 lovliday.storenvy.com

 simplydivineevents.blogspot.com

  simplydivineevents.blogspot.com

 This month I have set some goals to keep me on track and to take my mind off school because I have been spending a lot more time at school this year than I did last school year! This month I am hoping to make appointments to pick out flowers for bouquets, go cake tasting (something I am looking forward), and get our save the dates out. Our save the dates should be coming in about two weeks.  I still need to get cracking on getting those address! We will see if I can get all of my goals accomplished this month.

Happy Birthday Will!

Today was Will's 24th birthday! This morning I was telling him how crazy it is going to be on his next birthday when we will be 5 days away from our big wedding day! Even though it was his birthday today we finally started to play with our engagement photos. First, we decided that we are going to turn them into a photo album so I spent 2 hours putting together an album on costco.com while he watched football with my Dad.  Then I decided we really needed to get our save the dates done so I started playing around on this website called wedding paper divas.  We found this save the date with a little calendar on it but then it bothered me because the photos were not symmetrical and I thought the calendar made it a little bit cluttered.  When I was just about to give up on playing with save the dates for the day I came across this one on the website that I feel in love with.  I spent 5 minutes inserting our photos and changing the date and that was that.  We bought them and they are going to be on their way in a few weeks!  Check out the proof, I even got to add the cute little picture of my shoes :) Now it is time to start collecting every ones address...I have been dreading this part of the process.

www.weddingpaperdivas.com