Show Us Your Life: Wedding Party, Flowers, and Ceremony

Kelly, over at Kelly's Korner hosts a feature every Friday for bloggers. Originally, her feature was "Show Us Where You Live", however, it has been updated to "Show Us Your Life" as we ran out of rooms in our home. I am saddened that my blog missed all the fun home tours, especially with my obsession of home decor.

Jeff and I were married August 27, 2005. It was a beautiful day, mostly overcast, but warm nonetheless. Our ceremony took place at noon at St. Albert's the Great Church, the Church in which I grew up. My childhood priest also married us which was extra special. My bridesmaid's wore a blue strapless dress and the flowers were colored roses. My bouquet was all white roses with a white ribbon tied around the stems. The flowers were absolutely gorgeous, I love our florist, she did an amazing job. She also did a wonderful job in hanging around for the ceremony to begin and did her best job in calming my nerves.






My sister, of course, was my maid of honor. My bridesmaids also consisted of Lisa, who I met at work several years ago, friends Megan and Gina were fellow Pi Phi's with me in college and my sister-in-law, Melissa. My two adorable niece's were our flower girls, it's amazing to see how little they were back then, they are mini-teenagers now!!!



Jeff's brother, Nick, stood up as his best man. His other groomsman were my two brothers, Jason and Brian, and his two best friend's Marc and Brett.

Following the ceremony, we drove around the greater Cleveland area taking pictures at all the popular local tourist attractions: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland Browns Stadium, and University Circle.




Looking back at our wedding just fills me with such happiness. Everything about the day was special, not only were Jeff and I finally married, but we were able to share it with all of our friends and family. It's hard to believe that we will be celebrating our four year anniversary in a few weeks!!!!

While you were out.....

Several months ago, shortly after my miscarriage, I decided to give blogging a break. I was upset, heartbroken, and just want a break from everything in my life. I am in such a happier place now and wanted to document all of the wonderful things in my life that happened while I was away.

February 2009 - Wainscotting Project

With the help of our builder's Amish carpenters and Jeff's wonderful paint job, we finished off our dining room with wainscotting.




March 2009 - My Sister's Baby Shower

I actually MADE the diaper cake, I was so proud of myself. My hair is also the shortest it's ever been here. Should I keep it or grow it out? It's in that in between stage and it's driving me nuts.




March 5, 2009 - My sis had her baby 3 days after her shower at 32 wks!

Little Nicole Rae was born and she was such a little peanut!





Look at her now!!!



April 2009 - Clearwater Beach, Florida

Less than a week after we realized we were expecting again, we were left on our "Spring Break". This was our get away from infertility and miscarriage break, little did we know when we scheduled it, we would have an unexpected traveler!!!

Karen's Casserole

One night after work, several years ago, I was searching for something to make for dinner. That evening, "Karen's Casserole" was born. I had a bunch of random items laying around the house that were just begging to be made into a yummy casserole.

Karen's Casserole:

3 Boneless Chicken breasts - Defrosted
1/3 cup sour cream
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
2 bags of success rice
1 small bag of frozen mixed veggies
3 cups of stove top stuffing
1 cup shredded cheese
1 tablespoon butter
sprinkle of garlic powder
sprinkle of salt

Preheat oven to 350
Cut chicken breasts into bite size pieces. Sautee on stove top with the butter, sprinkle chicken with a little garlic powder and salt for taste. While your chicken is cooking, cook success rice and mixed veggies. I typcially cook the rice on the stove and microwave the veggies until they are no longer crunchy. In a small pot, boil the water for the stuffing. You want to use more water than you normally would when making three cups of stuffing, you want the stuffing to be slightly soggy so you can spread it over your casserole, it will firm up in the oven.

Wet stuffing:


In a large bowl mix all of your ingrediants except for the stuffing, you will be spreading the stuffing on top of the casserole so you will need to mix all of your ingrediants in a bowl first.



Spoon mixed ingrediants into a large casserole, spreading evenly with spatula.



Spoon stuffing over the casserole spreading evenly.



Once stuffing is spread evenly over casserole, pop in the oven for 45-50 miuntes.


ENJOY!

Vote for the gender of my baby!

I added a poll to my blog, please place your vote if you think I am having a boy or a girl. We find out August 5th!!!!!!!!!

Lazy turned Busy Weekend

Even though our Saturday morning started it out slow, it ended in a whirlwind. We had so many fun things planned for the weekend, I am still catching my breath! Movie night turned out great, it did end up raining, however, the show must go on!!! We ended up having it in the neighbor's garage and the little ones didn't seem to care, as long as the movie was still playing!





We were up at 5:30am Sunday morning for Jeff's first triathalon. I am so proud of him, I had such a great time cheering him on with the other wives. He did an amazing job and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. The race took place in Fairport Harbor and Lake Erie just looked so calm and peaceful on such a beautiful Sunday morning.

Rainy, Lazy, Saturday

This is still July, isn't it? I know how anxious I am for the fall and winter seasons to be here because of our little peanut, but come on, let's be serious for a moment. I don't think the temperature has exceeded 75 all week and we have had more than enough rain. Can a girl get a sunny, Saturday? Do you spy the new home going up to the left of our neighbor's? Just another sign of the neighborhood continuing to grow. I can't wait until all of the lots sell and a new phase to be opened. I was really hoping to take pictures around the neighborhood and dedicate a blog post to the beautiful model homes and all the progress our neighborhood has made this year in spite of the recession. Stay tuned for that, for now we are in a rain delay.....

In attempt to try to make the most of it, I focused on feeding our little one with a yummy pancake breakfast.



For lunch, I decided to make one of favorite summer salads, tomato with fresh mozzarella. Marinated in Italian dressing. Yum!!!!



This evening we are headed out to Jeff's cousins graduation party. We hope to be home by dark because it's the first annual neighborhood movie night!!! How fun is that? Another activity planned by our Neighborhood Children's Activity committee. Our next door neighbor will be showing "SHREK" against their garage door for the kiddee's while the neighbor's plan on hanging out and having a little cocktail party of their own. Pray for no rain, it should be a fantastic evening!

Another reason why I love our neighborhood

My neighbor, Amanda, had a great idea to form a neighborhood children's activity committee. She was so sweet to invite me to their first meeting although I am not officially a "mommy" just yet. For our first event, we decided to plan a 4th of July parade. It was so amazing how it all just came together. The city even agreed to allow one fire engine and one ambulance lead the parade. Everyone came out to join in the fun by decorating their bikes, wagons, dogs and kids in red, white and blue! After the parade, a neighborhood picnic event was planned along with games for the kids (and adults!!!). Even though we were in Myrtle Beach for the event, I just had to post a few pics of all of our hard work!

Kelly's Korner

I recently had the pleasure of finding the blog Kelly's Korner. The blogger is a 35 years old mom from Arkansas who is so sweet and real. We also share the same love of shopping, cute accessories, and home decor. This adorable girls also struggled with miscarriage and infertility which are two subjects very dear to my heart. I just had to share with you her most recent post, her beautiful blog made her local news and I couldn't be more happier for her.

16 Week belly pic

I have been really bad this pregnancy about posting belly pics, I guess I just didn't want to get my hopes up too high or jinx myself by taking pictures that everything was going to be OK. Like I said in my previous post, I was taking pictures my first pregnancy at 6 weeks so I was a little nervous about getting into it this time around. Well I found that 6 week picture in my Shutterfly albums and thought I would post that as a reminder of how far I have come. I was also 10 pounds lighter back then as compared to where I started this pregnancy (damn fertility meds and revised workout routine due to countless surgeries and procedures). The picture was also taken in the bedroom of our old home, how much life has changed since then too. I wouldn't trade where I am at now for anything in the world.

We received our second screen test results back yesterday and the results confirmed that this baby is perfectly healthy. We just couldn't be more excited. In celebration, here is my belly at 16 weeks. I crack myself up that I am even posting pictures of my bare, pregnancy belly. I laughed at my friend Staycie back when I was 27 years old and told myself that when the time comes, I would never reveal my pregnancy belly to anyone. Alas, here I am. Just one of those examples that you should really never say never!!!!



6 Week pregnancy pic with "Hyphen" - November 25, 2006.

I borrowed this cute little pregnancy summary from fellow nestie friend TobeMiller at Simply Beautiful.

How far along? 17 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 8 lbs.
Maternity clothes? I have several maternity shirts, three pairs of shorts, and no pants. I have been able to find larger size pants or use bella bands on my existing pants.
Stretch marks? None so far.
Sleep: I usually get up at least once a night to pee. I also had to force myself to sleep on my side, no more sleeping on my back, it's bad for the baby.
Best moment this week: my belly seems to have really popped, it still goes up and down but when it's up, it's really up!
Movement: none so far, hoping for this to happen soon! I have an anterior placenta which may delay feeling any movement.
Food cravings: I haven't had any cravings except for thin mint girl scout cookies last night. Weird! Good thing their were a few still in the house. I have also been craving fruit.
Gender: Will find out in a few weeks!
Labor Signs: none and hopefully it will stay that way for awhile!!!!
Belly Button in or out? my belly button sticks out a little on top, it started to do this around 10 weeks. That was an unusual change!
What I miss: working out, I miss my aerobics classes, especially Heidi's classes. I have been sticking to walking every day though to keep in shape. I also miss my diet dr. pepper!!!!!
What I am looking forward to: Feeling the baby move.
Weekly Wisdom: A fellow blogger recmmended taking Viactiv for extra calcium. Brilliant idea!
Milestones: Just making it to the second trimester. I am so happy to be here and thankful to God every day for giving me this blessing.

The bar stool saga continues

If you can recall back to the days that we moved into our home, I had been struggling with what bar stools to puchase for our kitchen island. We chose these:



from Target, while cute and my style, I am not in love with them. Shortly their after, we realized the swiveling metal bar stools may also chip our granite when we have little children sitting there, eating their lunch. So, I am on the hunt again and love these from World Market. I can't wait to place the order, they are exactly what I have been looking for!!!! Finally, 1 1/2 years later!!

!

Kitchen Window decor

Wow, finally a new home decor item. I haven't had the pleasure of blogging about this in awhile. Have I mentioned how great it is to feel like myself again??? LOL! Here is a cute piece I picked up at Kirkland's in Myrtle Beach.

Myrtle Beach and first maternity pics

We returned last night after being in Myrtle Beach for 8 days. We had a wonderful time but it went by SO fast!!! I can't believe we are back at home already. We mostly laid by the beach and pool although it rained two of the days we were there. Not fun. I was really good about getting up early each morning and going for a walk on the beach. I am trying so hard to have some what of an excercise regime while pregnant. It was wonderful to walk on the beach each morning, I am sure I will be longing for those days once I am back stressing out at my desk this week!!!!! Here are a few pics from our trip and a noticible bump protruding from my now maternity only wardrobe.

16w3d

Wow, where does the time go? I feel like a bad mommy for not blogging about the last four weeks. Currently, I feel great. Finally! The morning sickness started to subside around 12 weeks and officially left around 13. I was still exhausted up until 16 weeks and now really feel like I have my energy back. It's great to feel whole again!!!!!
Peanut is doing great, my belly is starting to grow more although there are days I still wake up and wonder where the heck my bump went. It goes up and down but on the down days I naturally worry and hope everything is OK. As I write, it's a good bump day so I am quite happy.
We go in tomorrow for my second bloodwork. This is the follow up to the initial screen test which all came back normal. I am not too too nervous about this one since little peanut did so well the first time, this is just to confirm that everything is still OK, which hopefully everything still is.
I am really starting to feel anxious about wanting to feel the baby move. I know it can be any day now so please give me a sign little one that you are in there!!!! Talk about reassuring once I finally feel the first flutters. I am also really anxious to know if we are having a boy or girl. Only a few more weeks, I am so excited!
I have been really bad about taking any pictures of my bump this pregnancy. I started taking pics at 6 weeks during the first pregnancy and what a great set of abs I had back then! No trace of a bump for obvious reasons that we know now, not to mention, I was in the best shape of my life back then. Now, not so much after several surgeries and infertility interfering with my workouts. It's OK, plenty of time to whip my bod back into shape after the baby is here. I have gained roughly 6-7pounds so far and tomorrow is weigh in day. We were in Myrtle Beach for over a week so we shall see how that went. I honestly ate quite healthy and turned down several dessert opportunities so it may not be so bad.

Interesting Dining Room

I really think what makes thi dining room so beautiful is that it is so different. I wouldn't have been able to pull this together in a million years but it just works. It's from the blog "Doin it Texas Style."