To Have and To Hold Stuff

I decided that I was going to make totes for all of my girls. They are going to be getting their jewelry as their gift and I also ordered each of them a pair of flip flops from Old Navy to wear at the reception. I thought that this would be a cute way to give them their gifts. Plus, they can use their bags for the wedding to put important stuff in that needs to come with them while we travel from my place, to the Cathedral, to the reception.

Aren't they cute? I used some kind of paint that didn't really work when I first stamped the letters on. So, I went back to Michael's and bought actual fabric paint and brushed it on. Obviously, you can see that they've turned out pretty cute. I'm thinking about doing another coat. And perhaps doing something more to add a little more flair. I don't want to over do it though because I want the girls to be able to use them again.

My shoes have come in that I'm going to be wearing for the wedding. Aren't they adorable?

56 Days!!

He Works Hard for the Money

Drew picked up a "part time" job working on some big airplanes and, he has been working some crazy hours. He's been working at Job A from 7 AM until 3:30 PM, and then he goes and works at Job B until late, most of the time until 9 or 10 PM. Yesterday, he worked from 6:30 AM until 3 AM. Ya, that's about 20 hours right there!! Today, he worked at Job A from 7 AM to 3 PM, came home and slept until 8:30 PM, ate dinner, and is now back at Job B from 11 PM until 7 AM when he goes back to Job A to work from 7 AM until 3:30 PM. Confused? Tired?? Cuz I sure am!!

I have been so-o lonely lately. I keep telling myself that it's only for a little bit. And that it's really good experience for Drew. And that the paycheck will be very worth it; which will be nice considering our upcoming wedding and honeymoon. Thanks goodness for all the wedding projects. They are keeping me very busy at the moment.

Anybody want to come play with me though?

Engagement Photos

Drew and I took some engagement photos last Sunday at Klehm Arboretum. Our friend, Anna, took these photos for us and I am so pleased with how they turned out. I plan on making our guestbook with these photos. We got a code for a free book from Picaboo by registering at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. That will be my project tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites:





Yep, there are definitely some cute ones. I can't wait to play with them and make our guestbook.

Today also is the 2 month mark!!! Can you believe it? Because I can't. I can't believe that in 2 months, I will be a married woman. Eeeek!!!

They Like Us, They Really Like Us

Drew and I have the best family and friends ever!!

Remember how I put the invitations in the mail on Wednesday? I always work on Saturday mornings and I was kind of excited to come home because I thought that maybe, just maybe, there might be an RSVP in the mailbox. Imagine my excitement when I opened the mailbox and there were 7!!!! Can you believe it? 7!!!!!! I even squealed when I opened the box!!

And... everybody said yes!!!

This Is Only A Test

My aunt has graciously accepted the task of baking the cake for our wedding. I found our cake in a bridal magazine that I bought and it's something from Martha Stewart. She baked us a test cake and followed the recipe exactly. It's called Moist Chocolate Cherry Stout Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze.
Drew and I cut up and tried a piece last night after dinner. It was definitely different. You have to like cherries in order to like this cake. There are dried cherries in and if you don't like cherries, you won't like the cake. Drew and I both think that it would be better if the cherries were just left out of it.

Now that she's baked a test cake, she's going to try some variations on the recipe. The recipe calls for a dense cake, since it has a glazing on the top, so I don't think that we could just use a recipe from a box and make any flavor we wanted. I don't know though, she's more of the expert than I am. I'd honestly be happy with buying a box of Duncan Hines spice cake mix and vanilla frosting. We also want to try to tie in our color scheme more. I'm not too crazy about all the brown and chocolate colors, especially since we aren't using any of those colors. I'm sure there will be more pictures to come.

64 days!!

You're (Officially) Invited!

I dropped off the invitations at the post office yesterday. I can't tell you how excited that made me. It makes the wedding feel very real and very close. People here in town have already received them today. Ahhh, that is so exciting!

It's hard to believe that in 65 short days this will all be over. It's sort of bittersweet. It can't come fast enough, but yet I just want to scream out for it to slow down.

And my aunt baked a test cake last night and I think that she's going to drop it off tonight. Yum!!

It'll Get Better Before You're Married!

Drew and I went to Klehm Arboretum on Sunday to take some engagement pictures. I had never been there before and it was beautiful. Anna, a friend of a friend, took the pictures for us. We expect to have some back by the end of this week.

After the pictures, Drew and I went to the Winnebago County Fair. Josh was driving (Do they call it that?) in the demolition derby and Drew was pretty stoked about seeing it. I had never been to one, so I was excited to experience it. Ya, there was one word that I would use to describe it, and one word only. REDNECK!!! Only men would think of an activity where you get in a junky car and run into other junky cars. Josh did great though, and actually finished 2nd. And he would have held out for a lot longer, except that he broke his drive shaft (?).

After the derby, we came home. And I have had an intense headache since Sunday afternoon. It lasted all night Sunday and I finally decided to take something about an hour before I went to bed. I figured that it would help and once I woke up in the morning I'd feel better. Wrong! My headache lasted all day yesterday too. I took non-aspirin pain reliever twice yesterday and nothing put even a dent in it. I woke up this morning and still had this blasted headache. So, I caved and took some Extra Strength Excederin. Ok, that helped. But now it's 11:30 AM and my headache has come back with a vengeance. Seriously, maybe this is dramatic, but AM I DYING?? I've had this nasty headache for almost 2 whole days now. I don't have time to be sick. Nor do I have the patience right now.

Not For the Feint of Heart

*****WARNING*****

The following post contains graphic material that may be unsuitable for younger readers.

Parental guidance may be suggested!

Have any of you been wondering what exactly Drew's finger looks like? Well if you have, today is your lucky day. I took Drew back to the doctor so that they could clean his finger for him. After taking the wraps off, this is what I was shown:

Gross, huh? At the moment, he has no fingernail. The nurse had to cut the entire thing off. And we're not quite sure if it will grow back. I don't think that he's going to have feeling in the tip of that finger anymore. Only time will tell.

You're (Almost) Invited

Tonight, Drew, Debbie, my mom, my sister, and I began the process of addressing and stuffing the invitations. I had the (very) high hopes of addressing all of them tonight. I'd say that at this point, we're about 3/4 of the way finished. I would love to be able to put them in the mail this weekend. I won't be horribly upset if that doesn't happen. But, they will be in the mail by Monday, at the latest.

Drew is doing ok. I plan on taking him to the doctor tomorrow so that they can scrub his finger. I don't feel confident doing that. I'll either throw up or pass out. Wish us all luck with that one!!

74 days!!

At Least it Happened Today...

Drew sliced the tip of his little finger off at work today! Apparently, it goes from about half way down his nail to the tip. Luckily, the nurse at the clinic, was able to sew it back on. She warned him though, that if it became infected, they might have to amputate it. I think she called it an open laceration fracture. While she was sewing his finger back on, she pushed some of the tissue aside and tapped on Drew's bone for him. Gross!!!
My poor baby!! But the best part of it all, when I talked to him on the phone about it, he told me that at least it wasn't his left hand. I was slightly puzzled and he goes on to tell me that we take ring pictures the day of the wedding. What a guy to try and reassure me like that. I love him!!

We'rrrre Grilling

Drew has been moved back over to line service for a little bit because they needed some help. This has actually been kind of good because he has Wednesdays and Saturdays off. (Except that from now until he goes back to maintenance, he'll have Wednesdays and Sundays off, which is even more exciting because then we'll have all the same days off.) He was working yesterday and he called me and wanted to see if I wanted to cook out because of friend of his, that he works with, wanted to grill out. I said sure and he said that he'd call me back in a little bit. He calls back about ten minutes later and lets me know that we might be having about 20 people over. Ok!! Great!!

So we had a spur of the moment cook out yesterday. Angela's boyfriend, Cody, Drew's work buddy, Nick, Jared and his beautiful new wife, Amber, and his little girl, Alex, our neighbors, Josh and Angie, and Adam, Nicole, Austin, and Brayden came over.

I love having people over. I love hosting parties. I even baked brownies. And I would have made banana bread had I had a mixer. (Drew broke our other one and I can't bring myself to buy one.)

Poor Simon spent the whole time hiding under the bed, running out really quick to see what was going on, then hiding back underneath the bed. Poor thing has slept the entire morning. I think he's been traumatized. I think combining the amount of people, plus two younger kids who really wanted to play with him, scared him a little bit.

And we now have more beer in our fridge than I'd care to store in there!

To Post or Not To Post

I've been debating about blogging about my experience on Thursday with Drew's wedding present. I started to post yesterday and got about 3/4 of the way through the day and then my mom called so I went to talk to her and walked away from the computer, and Drew wandered over to try to take a peek at what I was doing. I have no idea if he reads this blog or not. And I would hate for him to come on here in his desperation to find out what his wedding present is and find out. Let's just say, that Thursday was amazing. I've received some teasers and they are fantastic. I can't wait to see the rest of it.

I promise that I'll post about the day after I give Drew his wedding present. I think that I'm going to give it to him after the rehearsal dinner before we part ways. Brad, our photographer, is going to be at the rehearsal, so I can let him know that I'm going to be giving Drew his present and he can take some pictures. I can't wait to see Drew's face.

How will I sleep tonight?

Drew's wedding present is tomorrow. Right now, the plan is to get up, get ready, go to the mall and shine up the ring, get the nails done, get hair did, drive to Chicago, take great pictures! Breathe, breathe... I know that the pictures will be so fun and will turn out amazing.

They've Arrived!

David's Bridal called me yesterday and all of the bridesmaid dresses have finally come in. I ran there after work and picked up my sister's and Angela's. Angela stopped over after work and, of course, I made her try it on so I could take pictures.

With flash:

Without flash:

Anytime something like this happens, something wedding related gets accomplished, I get so excited. I'm happy that all of the dresses are in because now we can start alterations. I want to put my dress back on again!

My pictures are tomorrow. I don't know how I'm going to get through today. Or sleep tonight for that matter. I am so excited!!!

Tick, Tick, Tick

A friend of mine, Melissa, got married on June 7th. About a week before the wedding I asked her how she was holding up. She told me that she was so excited. She said that she wanted to speed the time up and slow it down all at the same time. I totally understand what she's talking about. Drew and I are 82 days away. 82 days seems like forever when I think about how excited I am to be marrying Drew. But, when I think about how much stuff we have left to do, 82 days is so little.

The invitations need to be out 3 weeks from today. We haven't started addressing them at all. And we still need some addresses for Drew's side of the family. Hopefully, next week we can all get together and get them knocked out.

A huge check is that some invites have gone out for one of my bridal showers. I am so excited. It makes it feel real. I have done so much planning, I'm ready to get to some fun!!

(Ir)rational Fears?

I've always known that the photographer would be one of the most important vendors that I booked for the wedding. After our wedding day, the only thing that we have left for our memories are the photos. I know that the day is going to fly by. I hope that by looking at our photos, we are able to relive our day for years to come.

I've been looking at a lot of photographers websites and blogs and I definitely notice one thing that is common in almost all of the photos. The church never seems to have a lot of people. I've always wanted a church full of people there to witness Drew and I become husband and wife. I would hate to have those doors open up and see nothing but empty pews. I know that they only thing that I'm going to be focused on is Drew and walking down the aisle to meet him and join our lives together. But, I want a church full of people. I want people crammed into pews! My fear is that hardly anyone will come to the ceremony and everybody will come to the reception. Am I being crazy??