You Got Punk'd

We're doing a destination wedding! Do I seem crazy?? It's because I am.

I've been so busy lately because I overcommitted myself to way too many things, which I have a habit of doing. Being home for the semester I thought I'd have all this time to get stuff done, but I forgot that taking care of a toddler is a FULL-TIME JOB. Wedding planning on top of everything else was just too much. Not to mention we were up to $30,000! That may not seem like a lot to some people (or it may seem like way too much to others), but the thought of handing over that amount of money for a single night was giving me anxiety. So instead we are taking what's given to us by my parents, having a fabulous wedding in Riviera Maya with close family and friends, and putting the rest toward a down payment on a new house:) What's even better is that my friend is a travel agent and wedding planner so I barely have to do anything! Woop woop! I can't even say how much of a weight off my shoulders this is and I'm SO EXCITED. We are shooting for next February, which will be the perfect time to get away. I can already feel the sand between my toes.

The beach where we will be tying the knot!

In the meantime, this is my mantra:

It's My Birthday...

And I'm feeling very grateful today. Bear slept in until 8:45, which is a miracle, so I'm assuming that was his gift to me. He also had his 15-month appointment this morning and totally rocked it. Now I'm just waiting for him to get up from his nap so that we can hit the grocery store. Exciting stuff, I know;)

25 was great, but I have a feeling 26 has some pretty amazing things in store for me...

No one else I'd rather spend my bday with

Flowers from my bestie

More flowers from M and Bear

My new (desperately needed) flat iron!

:)

 

Dinner cooked by my love <3

My sweet little guy

We're Getting Married!

 
Okay, okay, this is old news, but since I never update this blog it's the first time I've really talked about it since we got engaged 6 months ago. I just finished up student teaching and am officially a licensed teacher (woohoo!), so now that I'm spending the rest of the year home with Bear I should have a little bit of time to wedding plan.

M started asking me yesterday about destination weddings, but I didn't have much to say at the time because I was exhausted from being up a good chunk of the night with Bear. I'm still somewhat open to the idea but part of me still wants the traditional hometown wedding. Either way we will most likely be getting married at the courthouse next month (shhhh, it's a secret!) for insurance purposes:)

I already have an entire board on Pinterest full of wedding ideas, but I'm horrible about transferring them from the internet into my real life. Unfortunately, wedding planning isn't exactly appealing to me. I'm the furthest thing from a DIY girl, I hate making phone calls, I'm the worst decision-maker ever, and I just hate planning in general. If I had it my way I would pay someone to do everything, show them all the shit on my wedding board, and only worry about showing up the day of. Unfortunatley I don't see things happening in that exact manner, so until I sort out the magical wedding planner thing, I'll have to actually get off my ass and do SOMETHING. Here is goes..

The reception venue I like most doesn't book until March, so we can't even set a date yet, but we are thinking it will be sometime in April 2014. There is a beautiful outdoor space downtown where my parents live on the lawn of a historic home where I'd like to hold the ceremony:

And no, I'm not going to have a harp. Also, I reeeeeally want these brown folding chairs for the ceremony, but I haven't found a vendor in the area who has them:

My mom already has lanterns similar to these that were used for my sisters wedding, which we will probably use to line the aisle and then use later on as centerpieces:

I'm thinking we'll go with warm, romantic tones with touches of gold for the bridesmaids and flowers:

I'll probably end up having around 10 bridesmaids because I'm really popular, so instead of putting everyone in the same horrible dress I'm going to choose around 20 dresses and let them pick whichever they like. Here are a few of the options:

All of the dresses are from J. Crew, Ann Taylor, BHLDN, and Nordstrom. I'll probably have them pair the dress with some gold shoes to bring in a little more of a glamorous vibe that the reception area has.

Flowers will be the same tones:

If we go through with this idea the reception will be held two blocks away from the ceremony site in the ballroom of the theater downtown:

Lobby (cocktail hour)

Lobby (cocktail hour)

Ballroom

Ballroom

Ballroom

The theater rents the mahogany Chiavari chairs seen in the last photo, so we will be using those (can you tell the chairs are important to me?). For centerpieces I'm thinking we will do a mixture of the lanterns and something like this:

So that's what I've got so far. Again, we could end up scrapping this all and doing something completely different (see, horrible decision-maker). We have to decide by March though, so I suppose we should get to figuring that out!

And of course, here is a picture of Bear before we went out shopping today:)

1 Year Old

My baby is 1! Well, technically he is now 13 months, but we've been so busy that I'm just now getting around to this post. I've been student teaching full-time and things are going great! I was nervous about being away from Bear for so long, but he is absolutely thriving in daycare and I have to admit that I'm feeling a little more sane these days now that I get to get out of the house, talk to other adults, and have intellectual conversations on a daily basis.

Bear has hit so many milestones in the past couple months alone. Not only is he walking, he's babbling like crazy, climbing all over stuff, coloring, laughing at everything, playing catch, and drumming like a champ (he actually seems to play with a beat at times, which completely blows my mind)! I love seeing how much he changes from day to day and am so excited to see what the next few months have in store for us.

The birthday party was a huge success. We had it at a park down the street from our house and so many of our friends and family traveled from far away to be there. We went with the "Little Man" theme since we've said since the day Bear was born that he is such a little old man to us. I got a photographer for the party so that we didn't have to stress about taking pictures and she also took some family pictures of us beforehand. I'm so glad I hired a professional because of course Bear got his first black eye the day before the party. The photographer did an amazing job of editing it out in our family photos, which I never could have done on my own. I am absolutely in love with the pictures and think they turned out so great!

When I think about the past year I'm amazed by how much my tiny little baby has changed. He has gone from a squishy newborn to a little boy in what seems like the blink of an eye. I have loved Bear with all of my heart from the moment I met him and yet somehow that love grows even bigger with each and every day. Since becoming a mom I've felt emotions I've never felt before and my life has greater meaning because of him. He is truly the love of my life and I will always do anything for him. I love you, Bear.