Weekend

Friday~Nothing much

Saturday~We cleaned and I did some laundry, then we went to Academy Sports to get some autographs from two Braves players and a coach. It rained so we could not get anything outside done. Had late lunch/early dinner at Momma Goldberg's~there is nothing better than a Momma's Love sandwich!  Ran a few errands to pick up a few things which included make-up that I needed.  Laura I am going on your recommendation of the Revlon.  Came home to watch the 'Sunshine Cleaning" (o.k. but a little odd) and "P.S. I Love You" (cute) on On-Demand.  Had dessert of popcorn and sugar free Jello. Got in bed and watched the Miss America pageant.  I thought the girl that won looked a little like Beyonce.

Sunday~Slept later than we should.  Drove to Rome, Ga for the Bridal Show.  We ate a yummy brunch at one of new favorite restaurants in Rome.  Went by the church we are getting married in to show Mary my Dad's wife and look at what all we are going to need for decor.  Drove through the school campus where the church is.  Drove back home.  Cooked dinner.  Watched Grammy's.  I love Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles FYI.  Now laying in bed blogging trying to watch the Duggars's special on TLC.....that baby is soooo tiny, the two young girls Jennifer and Johannah are a handa full, although hard to hear since someone laying next to me is snoring extremely loud and Maggie is dreaming under my arm and shaking it.  2 of the cats are in bed with us.  Ahhh we need a King Bed......Hoping to drift off to sleep! Night

Wedding Wednesdays

OK I am going to start doing a Wedding Wednesday post each week.  I am going to make a picture for it but I do not have it done yet.  So I will either come to you each week with an update of what I have accomplished that week with our wedding plans, show you pictures, or even ask for your advice or suggestions!  I have so much to do in so little time!

Here is a basic checklist of what needs to be done 6-12 months before the wedding.  Many checklists are way more extensive so I picked a simple one:
6-12 Months

• Choose the kind of wedding you will have, date and time. Sort of done....
• Discuss the budget, and who will pay for what. That has been done. 
• Consider hiring a wedding coordinator. Looking into one since we don't live there.  Any of you use one?
• Make arrangements with the officiator. We are looking for a church now.
• Reserve the wedding and reception locations. Church is booked and reception is booked!
• Select your wedding dress, veil and accessories. I have tried on dresses and liked two a whole lot! I do know what type of veils though!  Yes I said veil'S! I fell in love of the look of a shorter one over a long one!
• Choose the bridesmaids, groomsmen, ushers, and honored roles. Chosen but I have got to make my cards and ask them!  I know I am behind but we have been gone.  Any of you do anything cute or special to ask your attendants?
• Have a formal black/white photo sitting for announcements. We are going to have this done at some point so I can use them for my save-the-dates.
• Send announcements of your engagement to your fiancé's and your local and hometown newspapers. I don't think people do this much anymore....any of you do this?  We off course sent out our Christmas cards as our announcement.  Yes I checked ahead of time to see if this was appropriate.  I recieved the answer of yes!  I would also like to thank those close friends and family that called by telephone to say Congratulations.  Even my Dad and Mary called to say Congratulations when they recieved the card even though they knew already.  Everyone has gone to their Facebook and text messaging these days!  Impersonal for some situations.
• Meet with the florist, photographer, caterer, videographer, and D.J. or entertainment to discuss budgets and options. I do not have any of the following yet!
• Discuss the guest list with fiancé and families. Cas and I have made a preliminary list.  I am waiting on family list's.
• Plan reception music.Working on that.  I have what I want in my head.
• Contact a rental coordinator for equipment reservations. We rented the country club so it comes with everything we need.  Many places we looked at were high but then you still had to rent tables, chairs, linens, etc.
•   Discuss honeymoon and reservations. We have not decided where we want to go yet.  Any suggestions?  I do not really want to go on a cruise for our honeymoon.  While Yes I do love cruising I just don't want to honeymoon with 2000 plus other people and children!
• Arrange for time off work, if necessary. Don't know how long we will be gone yet.
• Buy a wedding planner and envelopes to store brochures and notes. I received a wedding planner for Christmas and I have been collecting many brochures.
• Develop record-keeping system for invitations, gifts, and thank-you notes. I will for sure do this! Thank you's are so very important.  Especially Thank You cards.  I have been to many showers and given some where I did not receive a Thank You card.  I am already looking for some Thank You cards.  If you are from the South you should know this is etiquette!

Like I said this is basic.  Atleast we have the main two things.....the church and the reception!
Anything any of you found helpful when you were getting married?  Please leave me a comment!

Sickly Weekend

I have not been very productive today as I have been sickly this week and I have just kept going but last night it really hit me and I have been on the couch most of the day watching WE TV!  Watching wedding shows mind you!  While my Dad was here this week him and I rode to the town that Cas and I are getting married in (which is where my Mom and Dad were from) and looked as possible reception sites.  I do have to say that some of the places people list on their websites and suggest as places to pay a lot of money for and call it your reception are totally not worth it!  Kind of scary actually.  Anyways I really liked two places and I wanted Cas to give his approval first.  Of course he said "go with whatever you like!"  I still wanted him to see the places and give his approval and like it so we rode to Rome, Ga yesterday to look at it and look at two possible places to have our rehearsal dinner at, one of which would be at the same place that we are going to have the reception at.  I know that we want a place that is just for us and that we don't want to be sitting in a restaurant with half the town and then the party gets split in half.  I really want to rent out a place for all of our guests and not just the wedding party because everyone will be from out of town and it is the right thing to do but I have other wedding issues to cross off of my list first.  But Cas and I will pick out the place we want.  So last night I started feeling really yucky and between being sick this week and being gone a good bit I have yet to go to the grocery store yet since we have been back from Virginia!  So meals have been interesting.  Hopefully I will be able to go tomorrow.  I have not planned out our menu yet anyways. I went into our room earlier and asked Cas what he was doing and he had cleaned the bathtub and was getting ready to make me a bath but he could not find any bubbles or bath stuff.  He said thought it might help me feel better or maybe it was his way of saying you need a bath!  I have caught up on some of my DVR'd programs so we are headed off to bed to lay around and watch some more tv!  Anyone else have a more exciting weekend?

Five Question Friday

1. What is better: Growing old without any money or dying young and being rich?

Well as I have read a lot of the comments and I agree with the answer off.......can we dye old and rich?

I guess I would have to go with old and poor maybe between now and then I will be rich in between.

I have a fear of dying and I fear dying and leaving my children because it happened to my mother!

2. Who takes the garbage out at your house?

Um the man!  Isn't that a mans chore?  No really I put it in the trash can inside but when it is full the hubs to be takes it out to the outside trash can and this horrid place that we live does not have trash pick up so you have to drive it off to the trash dumpster so he does that too, obviously because he has a truck and that smelly stuff thanks to cat litter is not going in my car.  Him and Maggie and usually me take it off once or twice a week!  She likes to ride so that is her special treat!

3. Have you ever had the same dream numerous times?

Yes, I can not pin point any of the specific dreams at this minute

4. Can you play a musical instrument?
If I tried to you probably would leave the room!  So um no!  I took violin lessons when I was young!

5. If you owned a store what would you sell?
Well I have lots of ideas!
Our town needs a good bakery, but more than likely it would be the cute kind of store that carried Vera Bradley and tons of cute things for your house, jewelry and purses and lots of monogrammed things.  Kind of like Heartstrings here in Auburn which is no longer Heartstrings.  But something like that where I could bring home one of everything for me!




        

Thoughts From the Road

* We are in VA after spending the night half way in NC last night.
* Maggie had surgery this morning and I am soo sad that we are away from her but all went well and I left her lots of treats so they could spoil her!

* There is still lots of snow on the ground around here and in all the fields (which there are a lot)

* We are in Charlottesville VA~a cute little college town.

* We are thinking about going to Monticello in the morning

* South Carolina smells~I have noticed this before when in South Carolina!  They should look into some mass air freshining!

* I have been in 5 states in two days.
* I stopped at a TJMaxx in Gastonia, NC today!  I left with nothing :(

* Virginia is known as the "State for Lovers"! Interesting!

* We had a great dinner and drinks at a brewery down the street tonight with my parents and one of      my brothers best friends.  Great conversation and great food and drinks!

* One of the conversations was that "the wedding is about the BRIDE and GROOM~exactly I can't agree more but I will get on this soap box later!
* The friend that ate with us uses the company Cas works for for his teleconferencing !

* I can't wait for the party tomorrow night!  Their are fraternity brothers lined up to tell stories and it is an open bar!  This should greatly amuse me!

* I learned something cool tonight~one of their fraternity brothers* We are in VA after spending the night half way in NC last night.

* There is still lots of snow on the ground around here and in all the fields (which there are a lot)

* We are in Charlottesville VA~cute little college town

* I learned something new tonight.  A fraternity brother of Tom's drowned while they were all together at a lake and my step brother was the last one to stop diving to look for him after everyone had worn out and he also wrote a check to build a memorial for him in front of their fraternity house at Alabama!

* My heart is braking for the people in Haiti!  I wish I could go help!

* I had to stomach Al Sharpton and Rush Limbaugh on the news this morning~bleh, Rush said we are only helping out because Obama is black and so are the Haitians!  Wow what stupidity.  I have watched news in NC and VA today and boths states were missing people from their states that had happened to be there for school/work/charity.  So for his info half the people that we are helping are Americans moron!  And even if they were not it is the right thing to do as humans!  Let me jump off of my soap box of closed minded people.
UPDATE~The news said that 45,000 Amercians were in the country of Haiti!
* I am excited about going to Richmond after this to see my cousin!

* I will change my background when I get back :)

* Oh and I did get my video done!  I did ALL the work and Cas burned it to a DVD! :)

* I am getting ready to crawl in this comfy bed at the hotel and watch "The Real Housewives of the OC" on our flat screen tv! Nighty~Night!

P.S. Also LG gave me an award of sorts last week so I will post that and share my answers to my quetsions that go with it when I get back!  Thanks Laura

What Would You Wear~Help!

OK so as I have mentioned one of the brothers is getting married next week in Virginia......please picture the freezing temperatures.  Well I have not found a dress yet.  It is an evening wedding and the Bride has listed on their Knot page that the dress is semi-formal.  So would you wear sleeveless?  My arms are fat and pasty if that paints a pretty picture!  Well last time I went by the rules of what you should wear to an evening wedding there were people there a lot more casual than me.  I was just going to find something black and not worry too much but then it dawned on me that at some point I will have to be in a picture and my Dad's wife also has mentioned using family pictures from the weddings of the year on the 2010 Christmas card.  Argh.....so I am asking all of you ladies what would you wear to a evening wedding in cold weather?  PLEASE send me your comments! 

My Snow Day

* I did see a few flurries and little ice pellets while I was waiting in line at the bank today to make the house payment. 

* I did buy milk and bread today because we did need them, not because I am fearful of spending a week snowed in!

* I did purchase some items to make "Will You Be My Bridesmaid Cards" cause I need to get on that and after getting all of the stuff to make them, thinking I would save money, I know realize had I bought the ones off of Etsy I would HAVE saved money!  Frankly I am too tired and freezing to start on that project....another day.

* I did score a super cute Lilly Pulitzer notebook, this exact one in fact for a few mere dollars.  I also scored the mousepad with tear off paper that has the Bees Knees pattern on it too!  I found these at TJMaxx!  That somewhat made up for the screaming child that's Mother kept trying to bargain with him.  Lady he screamed a loooooooong time.  Why would he stop if you are just going to continue to bargain with him and overlook it while you are perusing cheap name brand clothing!  He screamed so much that there was a group of ladies who did not know one another that were tallking about her parenting. 

* I picked up a few things at Target on the way home which included a pizza for dinner!  For heavens sake it is yucky weather outside~I am not cooking really we are leaving for the weekend and did not want leftovers!  Cas pulled the pizza out of the freezer to put it in the oven and started griping because it was DiGiorno.......he got sick one time after he ate DiGiorno and so he thinks he will always get sick.  He expects me to remember that, I didn't and just picked up what they had at Target.  I provided food.  There is one thing made around here and you can eat it or starve.  He ate it and to my knoweledge has not made a mad dash to the porcelain thrown!

* Friends that live in our area keep posting on Facebook that it is snowing at their house.  So inbetween Cas watching the game he keeps walking out the door to see if it is snowing.  It is not.  It is just sleeting and it is letting my heat out of the door!  I am freezing and currently have the heat set on 73!  Wow what the electricity bill will be! 

* I am having to DVR Real Housewives of Orange County because of this football mess on tv.  Yes I realize it is trashy reality t.v.  I must have so many hours a week! :)  It is like credits you have to take a semester!

* I am not saying Roll Tide even though they are in the SEC.  I live on the outskirts of Auburn.  That is a sin.

*Off course the media today has shown some of Alabama's (the state) finest people making the state look stellar!  As usual.........

* I would love some snow but do not think we will have any....sigh.  I am just ready to go curl up under the covers with some hot chocolate.  I sure do wish we had bought an electric blanket that I have been wanting.  I am registering for one....fo sure!

While I sit around and wait on the great snow storm of 2010 here are some pictures from the snow we had this March!

Happy Snow Day

 

 

She had her heavy coat on but it kept coming off as she was drudging through the snow

I love this picture!  She had a good time playing like a reindeer!

pretty I know.....

The Wrapping Paper He Will Never Forget

We all know Men are not into gift wrapping, cute bags with tissue and especially not bows!  In the past the step-brothers have wrapped their gifts with whatever Mary (their mother) has left over.  Well now that one brother is getting married and he has a woman to point out such holiday things you should do so he was sent out to buy their own wrapping paper and get their presents wrapped before he arrived to the house!(she was at her parents since she had to finish up some wedding details)

Said brother is on the right....

So while perusing the tree my Dad points out that Christie has him wrapping gifts and to go check it out.....mmmm ok sure.

One of them is right begind that snowman gift bag.

Notice? Stellar Wrapping Job :)

I will tell you that this paper provided some laughs to other brother in the left of the picture above!  He said he just walked into Wal-Mart and grabbed a roll!  I am pretty sure their is still half a roll left for next year!

(This is in no way, shape, or form to offend anyone)

Rub-A-Dub and Snug as A Bug

Maggie has been trying out some of her gifts Santa brought her

Going from smelly to squeeky clean

You must have a robe when you get out of the bath tub

She always wallows when she gets out of the tub!  I guess she does not prefer cleanliness!

Maggie and Momma's Ducks

Off to warm up and nuggle with Mom and Dad

Christmas Is For Those With Four Legs Too

We treat our pets like our babies so they also get Christmas presents and have stockings! No one role your eyes!

Excited to see what Santa brings!

Twas the night before night before Christmas Eve and Maggie was all snug in her jammies and 4 cats piled on Cas's side of the bed

While visions of pigs ears and cat nip danced in their heads

All the stocking were laid out with care

Cause Santa had been there

On Tillie

On Snittens trying to dig his catnip out

On Snoogans

On Possum

(notice her wrapping paper and bags~they were from the $ section at Tarjay and they had Weenie Dogs on them!!!)

And Maggie!

They ran through the house excited about it all!

Now dash away dash away all!

They sprang through the house with their news toys and treets until the were lost from their sight

They wished everyone a Merry Christmas~now if they would only let us sleep at night!

Our Family Is Growing

As of a week from this Saturday I will have a new Sister-In-Law Christie!  We will be traveling for the wedding next week.  I am so excited to have another girl at family functions!  Although she has no idea what is in store for her!  She is a lawyer as well as her hubby-to-be!

Also Cas's sister is pregnant with her third child~a girl!

That is her in the purple

Cas's cousin Coley is pregnant with her 2nd child~sex not yet known!

That is her in the floor in navy

And also Cas's cousin Brent's (brother of previous cousin) wife Melissa is pregnant and due this month~with a boy!

It is already standing room only at his family functions!  So we have a lot of new family members on the way in 2010!

I Am Over Technology

O.K. so I said that I would be in front of this computer for the past two days!  Well when I said that I was telling the truth but EVERY time I lay out a plan of action for anything in my life something throws me off track!  Well Monday I skipped off to Best Buy bought my much needed Apple upgrade software maybe priced some other Apple products and drooled over the DSLR's and returned home about the same time Cas did.  We came in the office to quickly load up our new software and we were DENIED!  It says you do not have enough RAM.  To make a long story short Cas spent a long time on the phone with Best Buy and they did not have what we need so the next option was the Mac and More store in Pratville (1 1/2 hours away) so I had to get up yesterday and drive out there.  Well another shortened story was when I got there they said it would 3-5 days!  That was mentioned the night before and I let them know about their customer service!  So to get the matter solved yesterday I had to pay $75!! just to move to the front of the line to have more RAM installed so that I could install my new software!  All I can say is that I was not very thrilled with my day but atleast there was a TJMaxx in the same shopping center!  Thank You Jesus!  Before I was even done with my parusing of the store they called to say it was done!  I won't share the total with you, but lets just say they make ALOT off of 30-45 minutes of work!  We finally were able to get everything installed last night and our computer is so much faster!  After all of this we could have had half our laptop but I want a DSLR before a new computer!  If only we could have all of our needs/wants! Sigh.....Back to work self!

I Shall Be A Slave to My Computer This Week and Other Weekend Ramblings

Yep I shall!  As I mentioned earlier I have volunteered my time and sorta-kinda computer knoweledge for a wedding slideshow project!  Plus my sorta-kinda is more than the parents nothing-really knowledge!  I spent some time with the Apple-AllKnowing LG last night and she was gracious enough to make me a little how-to-video on a Mac program that I have never used! So sweet!  Well we have the older version so the hubs-to-be has agreed to let me do a little Best Buy shopping this a.m.!  Now I would like to say that I would not have to be making a mad dash to Best Buy this morning had we been updating our software when Apple puts out the latest and the greatest upgrades.  So I was emailing LG and I told her hubs-to-be works on a computer (normally with multiple screens running) all day so when he comes home he rarely ever uses our little apple. I told her the case would be that if he used it like I do because blogging, wedding planning, facebook, email, etsy are all very IMPORTANT then he would have this thing to the highest of it's potential!  Well a few minutes later hubs-to-be even spewed it out of his mouth that "yeah if I used it more then I would make sure it had all the latest updates and newest software on it!"  Remind me to put "I Cas do promise to keep the computer updated or buy her a new MAC for my wife during the course of our marriage," in my wedding vows!  He did have me looking up Mac Laptps last night because he is envious that Laura has a Mac Book Pro!  Once we get married and start on the babies that leaves us shutting down the office and turning it into the guest room and making the guest room a nursery.  Well that insued the hubs-to-be to start measuring out rooms last night!  We don't want to spend all this time finishing painting and decorating the office with my cute black/cream/tan toile~tear if we are just going to undo it!  Yesterday as we were working on putting away all the Christmas decor we started re-arranging the back half of our den.  Well before Cas and I bought this house he decided to go out and buy a desk from Ashley furniture not knowing or bothering to find out that I come with two desk's! One desk is my childhood desk that my parents bought for me that my Dad sent with us when we were moving in!  It was really just his way of saying you don't have a lot of furniture yet so get this out of my house cause we need to room and find a place to stick it!  So we did and now that desk as of yesterday afternoon has moved to a new place to make room for a new piece of furniture!  We need a buffet for storage of the tons of pieces of glassware/dishes I have and will be getting so I am taking a piece of furniture that is really a dresser and making it a buffet!  So instead of just putting away Christmas yesterday we re-arranged and pulled furniture out and vaccumed and mopped!  Wow it is amazing what you find under your couch!  Anyways since we have that desk in the den we may just end up putting a laptop in the den or moving this current one and Cas has some elaborate plan to make some network of "stuff" so there are not any wires!  Personally I like this idea that Shannon did!  No we won't be needing a baby room any time too soon but I also have a set of furniture that was my Mom's when she was little and I have got to move it out of my old house to sell and I will be using part of the furniture for our children so we wont be using the office as an office for too long!  That also means a lot of of Cas's Peanuts collection, shot glasses, sports memorabilla and our other random items in here will have to find a box to live in and we will have to store some shelves and a desk until we move to a bigger home.  After our day of reorganizing and packing up we had to make a return trip to Target.  Well this week they had a copier/printer/scanner on sale for cheap at Target and since I needed a scanner for the mentioned photo slideshow project and will need one for our wedding stuff we went ahead and bought it so that I did not have to borrow a friends scanner!  Well hubs-to-be started taking it out of the box and did not notice care that apparently it had been taped back up and that it looked like something was missing.  So he goes to hook it all up and guess what there is not any ink or the install disks with it!  So apparently someone bought it took the ink out and returned it! CLASSY!  So we had to drive back to Target and swap it out for an un-thefted one!  So now I am in business of scanning pictures!  Might I add that when you scan wallet size and 4x6 pictures you have 3/4th's of the screen that is white so then you have to go in and crop that out!  So since I shall be sitting here this week I am going to work on blogging and updating from the holidays in no particular order!  Each picture takes 3 minutes to scan!  The Bachelor starts tonight so I will have to break for that!  Gosh I wish we had bought that t.v. for the office last summer!  I am excited to see my finished project though!  Hope it turns out o.k.!  I may be charged and hourly tech-support rate from LG!  I realize I am skipping around in this post but that is how my thoughts are running right now! 

Our 2009 Christmas Card

I am just know getting around to posting about the holidays!  Here was our Christmas card for 2009!  Make sure you read the message! 

Video/Photo Programs

I am getting ready to embark on a project that has to be completed in a little over a week so I am coming to all of you for some advice!  My step-brother is getting married 2 weeks from today and Cas and I (mainly I) are going to be putting a video together of all of their childhood to recent pictures together in a slideshow/video that will have music to it.  So my question to all of you is do you reccomend any certain programs to do this in?  I have used Powerpoint numerous times (but the music factor is kind of tricky) and we have a Mac computer which has I Movie on it but I have never used it so I am not sure how user friendly it is.  So I need some suggestions of either FREE or cheap programs that are user friendly to make a video out of scanned pictures and uploaded pictures!  I would love to hear all of your suggestions!  I have seen a lot of you do amazing things!  Remember we have a MAC and it has to be something that can be burned to a flash drive!  Thanks!