So, the wedding was nice but we have to move on. Luckily, we were able to move on to something pretty big shortly after the wedding. Yep, we're having a baby. We conceived the little guy on our honeymoon - sorry if that was TMI - and found out a few weeks after we got back. I always knew we would try as soon as we were married, I just never thought it would be so soon. It has been amazing and difficult all at the same time. Difficult, solely because of the sickness. Thankfully I never threw-up, but there were a few weeks where I felt like I was going to every day. And, well, now that I am almost done, it is constant difficult living. I love that I can feel him, look forward to him, have him around with me... I hate that I can't pick anything up, get off the couch, must use the bathroom every 15 minutes... I cannot wait to roll over in bed without re-positioning 1,000 pillows. I cannot wait to lay on my stomach. Soon, it'll happen soon. So, here's what has been happening to me:
This is 17 weeks:
This is 21 weeks:
This is 31 weeks:
This is 35 weeks:
I know, I'm gigantic. Yes, there is only ONE baby in there. Yes, I'm huge. Oh well.
Our baby is due March 18th and I cannot wait! I have a feeling he will be early. But, then again, I had a feeling he was a girl too so I can't really rely on my "feelings". I hope to continue posting stuff that I'm doing. I already added a bunch of stuff to the nursery and it is pretty much done, but I'll add pics and little crafty things I did. Since I steal so much from the internet and DIY-ers, I feel it is important that I contribute too.
I know, it's been forever. What can I say? It was a little hectic those last few days... and, well, so was the wedding... and then the honeymoon... and then, well, I'll get to that piece later. But the wedding was PERFECT and I cannot believe how perfectly everything "fit". Here's some pics to see how things ended up:
Our vow/wedding books: I bought them at Goodwill. I put our vows in separate books, then the whole written out wedding in another for our friend who officiated our wedding.
Here are books that I tied ribbon to. The bow in the middle held the rings for the ring exchange. I should have modeled to bill on how to open the bow and pull it out since he struggled with it during the ceremony. Oh well, it was funny.
Juice boxes: These were a hit! Got some juice boxes for the ceremony. Perfect and cute!
Lavender sachets: Made the bag from on sale burlap-like fabric and got the lavender from the farmers market. Great and cheap!
Centerpieces: Mason jars from thrift stores, candles from Ikea.
Name Tag Table: I created different heights with a salvaged old window and a shutter. Those were propped up by mason jars. The name tags were then all over the table, some higher than others. Turned out perfect!
Cake Table: A Martha Stewart idea of plates glued to candle holders - so awesome, cheap and pretty!
This was taken by one of the disposable cameras. If I could do it again, more disposable cameras! And they were PERFECT in black and white. They turned out great, they were fun and it gave us pics that the photographer missed and of all the guests. We could really see that the wedding was fun from their perspective.
Reordered OOT (Out of Town) bags. I hope they get here on time!
Bachlorette Party:
So much fun!
Tons of friends
Lots of food
Too many drinks...
This was water. Or, the Blue Dolphin as it is called... I guess. Look how cute it is! Kimi, Rachel and Erin did a great job decorating and organizing it. THANKS SO MUCH! I felt super special all night...
Day 7
...All day recovery
I did get some gifts ready and Bill and I started working on the ceremony... Nothing like leaving one of the most important things to last minute
Day 6
Happy Father's Day!
Shopped till I dropped with Bill. First pre-wedding week major fight, check! What a great recipe for a fight: Spending tons of money, tons of stress because of the upcoming event, and fatigue. Oh well, what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger! And we aren't dead... so, ya.
Finished our table numbers! Look at how we did 'em:
These are the numbers that fit on top of the wooden sticks that were cemented in the pail. I hate how most of the numbers turned out. OH WELL! You'll see how they came out later. K?
Started the name placement game. I hate this game. It's like a horrible logic puzzle that really effects peoples' lives for a few hours. I hope no one gets mad at the choices!
Holy goodness. I cannot believe it is almost here. I am running out a time, getting a little overwhelmed at the moment. Oh well. I have a list in my head of all the things to get done. Bill and I have a list that is also written down. It's funny because I start doing something and then he says "wait, you just start doing stuff that's not on the list. I feel like you are just making up more work for you to do." Ha ha... There are just too many little things to do. However, I just go through each thing and figure out "what needs to get done so that is done?" And then do it. For example...
Yesterday, DAY 9!
I completed the Guest Book Table set up. It looks awesome and all bundled up in a box. Thing on the list for that still, pens! Need to buy pens today.
I finished the veil and it looks really pretty. My mom did most of the work, of course. But I added the little detail on the clip.
Those fabric roses are pretty easy to do once you get the hang of it. You get ribbon and then you wrap the ribbon in a circle. However, as you wrap, you twist the ribbon. Here is a YouTube video of what I am talking about:
I watched this about a million times until I got the hang of it...
I got my make-up! I ran by the mall and decided to go to the Mac counter and get some make-up for the big day. 30 minutes later, my face was done and I spent... some money... (crying inside a little)... and now I am ready! And I will have make-up to last for a century. Make-up: DONE!
Fixed my tan. It was hideous. Out of all times to get a bad tan, the week before my wedding. You can still tell A LITTLE that there is an out-of-place line on my chest. Oh well.
I bought books for the rings. I was going to do pillows, but something just turns me off about pillows. I don't know, it just doesn't go with this rustic theme we are going with. SO, books! What do you think of that? We will tie ribbon to it and then put the rings on them. Cool, huh? And simple. What was hard, though, was finding the perfect book. I wasn't going to use just any book (I saw the Communist Manifesto, the Bible, books on how to cure your relationship...), I wanted books that spoke "us". And I also wanted them in our colors. It was hard at first, but then all these books just came together! Look how it looks:
These are the ugly book covers. Sorry, they were ugly. What can I say?
There is book on Frank Ghery (Bill and my favorite architect), a book on Music Appreciation, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love, a book on wedding etiquette and the history of it (hello! awesome!), a and a book on gardening. Perfect for us. Now, we choose 2 books for the rings, one book to paste the ceremony script in, and 2 books to paste our vows in. Then, during the ceremony, we will read from those books. CUTE, HUH???? On with the list of things to do: Finish books. Tie ribbon to them.
I was able to hire some free labor to clean my house... Just kidding. My mom and dad came over and helped clean my house so it is ready when we leave. They were champs! My house is beautiful and it was done in no-time. It really does help having tons of people help clean a house at once! Sure beats doing it by myself.
Wednesday, DAY 10!
I finished Kimi's dress. I added a yellow flower to it to make it "blend" with the rest of the wedding party. We all have two toned colors in the wedding party, so she will too! Kimi's Dress: DONE!
I put all of the mason jars away. Whew! Mason Jars: DONE!
I finished the Guest Book pages by copying them at Kinkos and putting photo corners on them so our guests can attach Polaroid pictures of themselves on it. Love it!
11. Tuesday is 11 days to go... Do you want another number? How about 184. Yes, that is a lot. Of what, you ask? Well, here you go:
Yes, those are our vases and mason jars that are to be used at the wedding. We have had them in the garage, piling up as we got more and more (thanks Melinda, Sanchez, mom!). Tonight I had the great fortune to take them all out, count them and sorta clean them (sorta = dishwasher. Hey, I have to wait for them to clean! That requires effort!). 184 mason jars. Wow. Then, I took the number of each size and divided them by the number of tables. That was a great math equation. "If I have 10 tables, 1 gift table, 1 name placement table, 1 guest book table; and I have 43 jars, how many goes on each table?" I got it figured out, and now I am ready.
Well, sort of. I have to pack them all up. So far I have about 8 carefully packed boxes of mason jars. By tomorrow, they are out of here and I will not see them until they are nicely positioned on that reception table. Wow, all this effort for a few hours of one day. Oh well, it's my wedding. It'll be worth it!
What else did I do today? Hummm....
Figured out a transportation issue. All I have to say is limo is out, school bus is in. Oh yeah.
Got a weird tan. When one problem gets figured out, a new one enters. Perfect. Guess I'll have to figure that one out in a few days. I know, it sounds weird. A weird tan? But I did. I tan so easy, I had the wrong swimsuit on, and not there is a line across my chest that is, well, weird. Ugh.
Worked on the veil with my mom. We have been having fun working on it. We both decided that a veil is so easy! And do you know how much they cost? $200! At least! So we spent about $50 on a homemade one. Sure, there is some loving care and man hours, but it is worth it. And my mom is doing an AMAZING job making it special and pretty. I love it! Here she is, hard at work:
I worked out. The moon was full today! Look at that moon on the run. It was amazing.
And hot. Sac-town got to the 90s today! Bring on that hot weather, I have been dying for some heat!
And now, this. It's 1am. I need to go to bed. Another eventful day tomorrow!
OM. The days are going to continue to fly. I cannot stand it. WAIT! HOLD ON!! I NEED MORE TIME!! I guess that is what I get for doing EVERY SINGLE THING FROM SCRATCH! Oh well, I love it and am so excited for the final day. However, it is getting more stressful. B and I have been a little snappy with each other lately. Humm... I wonder why? Oh, ya, cause we are planning a wedding together! It is only natural that we are going to vent to each other, get mad with the other, question the other's actions... What's great is that we come back from it, though. If we didn't, something would be very wrong.
Today (I mean yesterday, Monday, not Tuesday...), Day 11:
Guess what I did? I went to San Francisco! Yes, I needed a day to me with my trusty friend, Francois the Ford Focus. I don't know why, but I always get so relaxed on a long car ride...
And, so, today was what I needed. Now, I did have a reason. Have you been to Zara? It is one of the best stores in the world and the closest one to me is in SF. I bought some amazing scarves there for the wedding dress (Mendocino will be cold, so I need a cover-up just in case!) a while ago, and I wanted to return the ones that didn't look right. And, well, because I was going to "the city" (as we Sacramentans call it), I decided to stop by my equally favorite city of Berkeley. Ahh man, there is a Crate & Barrel outlet in Berkeley. So I had to go there. And then I needed to go to Paper Source since it is right there. Oh, and then I HAD to pop my head in the Anthropologie to see what was on sale. Come on, I had to... Don't worry (I'm talking to Bill here), I didn't buy anything. Only stuff for the wedding at Paper Source. Sware.
After I needed to go to the Urban Ore. Have you heard of it? It is the biggest, umm... the biggest... dump? I guess? It is a place to find any kind of old window, door knob, old door, crap furniture, recycled anything... It is awesome. And a huge, organized, dirty mess. It is great for hunting for that weird thing you think you need. I found an amazing window, a shutter and a cabinet door. See? You can find anything. I'm going to incorporate those things on the place name table. You'll see.
I did make it to Zara and then rushed home to do my Tracy A video and then take Bill to the airport. Yes, he left me. :( He'll be back on Wednesday. Hey, it is the perfect excuse for me to make a total mess (yep, I'm the messy one). And then I HAVE to clean it all up on Wednesday.
This evening I did do some Wedding related stuff. I started and finished the Menus for the wedding and I did some major design work on the place cards. Look at this amazing work in progress:
Sorry Kari, Taush, Kimi and Rod (who doesn't check my blog anyway), I used you guys as guinea pigs for the design.
Ok, tomorrow is a BIG day. I have about 20 things to do and complete. Let's see if I get close to finishing them.
I can imagine that in two weeks exactly, 14 days from this time of 10am, I might not be feeling well. And I hope that feeling is because of sleep deprivation and party exhaustion. That sounds AWESOME.
14 days! Can you believe it? Sorry about the lack of posts - I told you that Fridays and Saturdays would be bad days to post. However, I did do a lot of stuff those days. Let's recap.
Day 15 - Friday
Took care of some of the fun reception activities. Thank goodness for Martha Stewart on that one, again. Here is a link (in case you are interested) in some of her fun reception ice-breakers. I did one, but I'm not telling... Well, here is a hint of the one I did... It may not be hard to figure out. I also will give you a step-by-step on how I did it... I know, not that super "secret" as you may think!...
Buy some of these:
Get some fonts! www.fonts.com is really awesome.
Go to "find fonts" and click on "free fonts". There are tons of really cool fonts that are totally free! And amazing. Goodness, I love fonts. I can really talk about it forever. Fonts are so cool! They can look pretty, make you feel good about what your reading, incite emotions like "happy" "sad" or "yuck" (time new roman does that to me every time I look at it). I love fonts. Wait, did you know I love fonts? I do... I'll shut up now.
Start the project. I used Apple's "pages" program. I really like it.
Print project:
Cut it:
Punch the corners so they are round:
See?:
Glue it to some other color paper:
Cut that to size:
See?:
Round corner that, too:
Grab your eyelet maker. This is mine:
Put an eyelet in:
Add ribbon:
Attach it to this:
And that is what I did on Friday.
I also had a dress fitting, the last one. I LOVE MY DRESS! I made some major changes to it and it looks awesome. Sorry, no pics though. You gotta wait on that one!
Day 14, Saturday:
Shopping day! Bill had his bacherlor party in San Francisco. He went with a few friends and my brothers. Needless to say, I picked him up at the train station drunk as ever. And happy. He had a fun day. I do think there ARE some secrets, but I won't ask.
So, I went shopping with a good friend. I got some cute outfits for the Honeymoon - Hawaii baby! And I'm all set.
I also started working on adding a flower to my maid of honor's dress. More on that later.
100% californian, lover of traveling and learning, teacher, music obsessed, eater, proud alum of St Mary's College in Moraga, procrastinator, listener... i don't know what else.
my bill and me. this picture says a lot. we met in 2005, we have lived together since 2007 and have been married since june 2011. we are totally in love most of the time, totally brother and sister some of the time, totally enemies a little bit of the time, and totally best friends all of the time.
