A New Year

It's 2012 y'all!

I'm channeling Paula Dean today. Maybe I'll make something really buttery for dinner tonight.


So, it's time for resolutions right? So besides losing weight (hmm maybe I should re-think my Paula Dean dinner) I've decided to try to use this blog again. So, my first resolution is to write a blog post at least 3 times a week. It's Thursday though... so does that mean I need to write three by Saturday?? I should have started earlier in the week, this is not a good start.

Lol.

So, in my defense, I did get pregnant shortly after my last blog post... in November 2010... and have been kinda busy. But, I thinks it's kinda important to have an outlet, so it's best I get back to this blog.

The letter 'z'

Where I'm from, people say 'zee'.

My Canadian husband and his family say 'zed'.

The first time I heard him say it I looked at him waiting for him to laugh or say something in a funny accent to finish his joke... it's not unusual for him to say something a little silly or quote some movie that I've never heard of, but it turned out he was being totally serious.

Now when he says 'zed' for 'zee' he always finishes it off with a nasal 'orrrr as you Amerrricans like to say, zeeeee'

Today, I tried to get my almost 2 year old son to say 'zip'. As in- 'zip up your jacket' and he thought the 'z' sound was hilarious! The first time he tried to say 'zzzz' he just stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry,and that was it. It was over after the first try.

I had to catch some of it on video:

Now I have to explain, he was pretty upset at first that I wouldn't give him the camera, but his mood changes pretty quickly.After that it's me saying 'zzzz' and him blowing raspberries and laughing hysterically.

I think he was just way too tired and delirious at this point to concentrate on a new sound.

Sidenote: Dontcha just love our 1967 kitchen?? We're considering some peel and stick vinyl tile and painting the cabinets white. Maybe eventually we can replace the countertop and do a nice glass tile backsplash.

Photo Placecards

For our placecards at our Wedding, I really wanted to somehow display photos of Charles and I at our wedding reception. My mom came up with the idea to use them in the placecards.

So, I used 4 photos of Charles and I from various times during our relationship:

We bought $1 frames at a grocery store (I've seen them in a few different store here, in the dollar section). These are great because they are large (4x6 and 5x7), meaning people can actually put a decent sized photo in there when they take them home, and they were clear glass with a tiny silver edge just around the photo, so they didn't take up too much space visually and could be used with any color scheme. We did not find 40 matching frames, so some were horizontal, some vertical, some were straight, some curved in, and some curved out.

You can of see them on our tables here: The frame almost disappears on the tablecloth.

I put the photos in Photoshop, cropped them, and used Pioneer Woman's free Photoshop Actions to make them black and white and make our eyes pop. (by the way, I love Pioneer Woman's blog and I highly recommend you visit and take a look around if you're not already familiar with it) One of the photos had a big white blur because we had a window facing the sun behind us:

That worked out well because we used that space to put the placecard names in it! The others had a lot of black space already, so I just colored that space with a little more black to create a bigger contrast with the white letters:

It was really simple, but I really liked it. I thought it was a unique and personal touch and I hope our guests are able to use the frames (but if not, they were only a dollar and no hard feelings)

Wedding 10/9/10

I had my wedding on October 9, 2010.

We were actually already married, but we got hitched at the local courthouse with only ourselves and our son (he was just short of 2 months old at the time) and waited until now to have our real celebration. I'll have to tell our backstory in some detail another time but, in short, we met online, dated (mostly) long distance for a few years, then I got pregnant and we decided the waiting was finally over and made things permanent. (He's Canadian and I'm American, so we were kinda forced to tie the knot to stay together before we were totally ready for the big shindig.)

It ended up being absolutely beautiful for a very low cost. I don't know exactly how much my mom spent (she bought a lot of decorations and flowers) but I believe everything ended up costing around $3500-3700.

My mom's wonderful friend Kim helped so much with the decorating. Here's a shot of the centerpieces that she designed and they a few of us copied her look and threw them together one night. The lanterns and vases were bought at Ikea for super cheap and all the pumpkins came from Hobby Lobby, on sale of course!

Kim created my bouquet:

and she decorated the arch with flowers that are now adorning the front of my house (I'll post pictures of that  when my batteries charge for my camera)

Here's a picture of hubby and I in front of the sign I made with some foam board and card stock from Hobby Lobby. The brown swirls mimic those on our invitations and the easel is actually a garage sale find my hubby picked up:

The cake, with silk flowers put together by Kim:

 We did have the cake made by a local bakery.

And here's a glimpse of Kim holding up my dress in the restroom. The dress was about $650 after alterations, bought on sale at a local bridal shop:

That's my sister, my maid of honor, to the right. My mom found that dress on craigslist for $20 and did a tulle belt and overlay to make it a little more modern.

All photos were taken by members of my new family. My sister-in-law and her husband, and my other sister-in-law's fiance, with a little bit of editing in Photoshop.

It was a beautiful wedding. Small and perfect. :)

Hello There

I created this blog a couple weeks ago... I thought I needed to come up with a specific game plan for this blog before I could write anything. Then I read this over at The Pioneer Woman. Love that Blog. So Much. I discovered that blog here when Mrs. Katie Bower was blogging about photoshop actions and where she got some of her free ones.

So, anyway, here goes :) I'm not sure where this will lead but I felt like I needed to start writing something. I love to read and write and I desperately lack a social life so maybe blogging will work for me. Who knows?

Here's a photo of our baby boy, who isn't really a baby anymore. He was telling me what he was eating when I took this, which is a "pockart" (poptart). He's adorable... if I do say so myself. And I do. :) I Love him and he's my only right now so he's basically still the center of my universe.

I also have a house and am addicted to DIY and home improvement blogs... I'll probably have to list the ones I frequent some day. I don't have a good photo of the house yet, but I'll post that someday. It's cute and was very well taken care of by the previous owners, but a lot of things hadn't been updated since 1967. Like the carpet in the bedrooms... the kitchen counter and cabinets.... the bathrooms... so we'll be slowly working on those.