It's Officially Official.....I'm getting Hitched

So many of you know Lover Boy & I have talked about getting married, I just wasn't ever quite ready to take the plunge and actually do it. It's been just talk that someday it will happen for about the last year. Well we talked about it some more in January or February but I thought I still wasn't ready just yet. Then after we got home from our cruise I thought and thought about it and did some meditating. I realized that I'm just letting the awful fear take over me, but that really I am ready. So we talked about it a little more, but decided to still just wait til we could get some money to have a little wedding without stressing out over it.

Since my dad is a bishop we've talked how we'd like him to do it. I thought it'd be really neat to be his first wedding, but awhile ago he'd told us that he'd been asked to do 2 weddings already; I just thought that the one was happening sooner when he told me it was May 9th the light bulb turned on...I could get a wedding put together before that. So I proposed to Joe, this was about the 3rd or 4th proposal that has taken place between us, but this time I said we had to get married by May 9th.

So here we go. We are going to throw together a very small and simple wedding by May 2nd. Joe asked my parent's permission last night so today I asked my mom to help me find a place and brainstorm. We didn't have much luck today with the few places we looked but I guess that's ok, we got some things eliminated. Then we went to the Bridal shop...nothing worth it there. I can't stand to spend money on a dress for such a small simple wedding that will never be worn again. But me being me, I still want to look pretty and have a nice wedding. That's kinda driving me crazy with this planning process. How do I incorporate small, simple, cheap, nice, pretty, memorable all together? Please offer any ideas if you know of any!!

PAY IT FORWARD

The first 3 people to leave a comment here, will receive a gift from me within the year. You don't know when it will come or what it will be. It will be a total and complete surprise to you, and possibly to me too.

Now you've gotta do your part and post a blog like this and offer the same thing!

**Here's a little something extra....I'm gonna offer the same possibility as my mom, I might decide to be extra nice and do something for each person that leaves a comment. We shall see.

Horsin' Around

My mom's neighbors are big into horses. They have the cutest girls who Little Princess just adores. She's been asking if she can ride their pony. Finally we decided that Thursday night would work for all of us. All day long Little Princess was asking when it would be time to ride the pony. We had to wait for the girls to get home from school and their mom to get home from work, which would be around 4:00. They day was too long for Little Princess. About 3:00 I decided that we could get her clothes changed and start getting her ready, you know I can only take so much of "how much longer mom". Little Princess was devastated when she realized that she didn't even have any cowgirl boots to wear. She's outgrown all hers. This could've been cause for a "Princess Break-Down" but I was able to prevent it by promising her that if she had fun tonight riding the pony that we could go get her another pair of cowgirl boots. Phew, it worked.

When we got out to Hodson's house, Little Princess all of a sudden got nervous. She didn't want to even look at Renegade, the pony. We thought that maybe if she watched the girls brush him and get him ready that she'd loosen up and get excited. It didn't work. We even tried to show her that Little Man could ride the pony and that there was nothing to be afraid of...it worked until he started to scream. I'm so glad that Karen is patient and understanding because I was seriously ready to try to knock some sense into Little Princess. She'd been dying all day to ride the pony and now that the opportunity was here, she wouldn't even get near him. Karen suggested that the girls play on the tramp and swing set until Little Princess was ready.

Finally she made it up on the pony. Her face was a scowl the entire time, which made me feel bad because if she really didn't feel comfortable riding the pony maybe I shouldn't force her to stay on him. I offered to let her get off, but she quickly said no and wanted to go around a few more times.

Before we left, she did throw a small tantrum that she wanted to ride the pony some more, but we had to leave because I needed to feed Little Man and didn't figure us being out there so long and didn't pack him a bottle.

Little Princess can't wait to ride Renegade again.

Mickey and Minnie on Ice

A few weeks ago, Lover Boy and I had a date night. Little Princess asked us where we were going and I couldn't tell her that we were going to Crystal Hot Springs because she'd be so sad that she couldn't go with us, so I simply told her we were going on a date. She decided that she would like to have a date night. I misunderstood her because I assumed she meant with just me, but she quickly corrected me and said that she wanted it to be with Lover Boy and me.

I mentioned this to Lover Boy and so we agreed that we should have a special night out with her. We saw the commercial for Disney on Ice, so we got tickets for our date night with Little Princess. This was Mickey and Minnie's safari, so me being the enthusiast that I tend to be decided that it'd be so much fun to have Little Princess wear a Minnie outfit instead of one of her princess dresses. (Maybe I just needed a craft to do.) So I headed to Wal-Mart, spent less than $15.00 and bought all my supplies and the perfect yellow shoes to complete the look of Minnie Mouse. I must admit that I really do enjoy creating unique things. Sometimes they don't turn out quite how I'd imagined, but that's ok because no one will ever know what I actually was trying for. This costume was no exception. It is a little different than I'd hoped, but I still think it turned out cute.




We had so much fun....well those of us who didn't enjoy this date night so well, sure did a great job at faking enthusiasm. Lover Boy was an awesome sport who wore a smile all evening.







I'm really not a big fan of cotton candy, but when it cost so much I figured I'd give this candy "gold" a shot. Little Princess didn't like me stealing a huge chunk.

Sweet Sweet Music

I hear the Little Man stir on the monitor. I glance at the clock and it is that time. Time to feed him. I head upstairs, make the bottle and then another noise catches my attention as I head down the hallway. I stop and peek in Little Princess's room. She's laying on the top of her covers curled in a little ball. She is laughing. Laughing so hard. I step a little closer to the crack in her doorway. Her eyes are closed, but she really is having a good hearty laugh. I smile. Little Man is growing impatient so I hurry to get him before he awakes Little Princess. We sit in the rocking chair while he eats. The laughter still hasn't stopped. I sit there amazed, I'm so glad that she is having such pleasant dreams. I hate when she tells me about how scary her dreams were the night before. I usually have to try so hard to stay awake while feeding Little Man in the middle of the night, but not this time. I was just loving the sweet music of laughter coming from the room across the hall.

Cruisin' around in my automobile....

Little Man finally experienced his first ride in a stroller. I needed to run to the grocery store for just a few items so instead of driving I thought it'd be fun to take the quick little walk over there. Lover Boy decided to join us.

Little Man loves being outdoors. He loves looking around and feeling the fresh air. I'm terrible at getting outside. Hopefully with the weather being so nice, we'll take advantage of it and get out there more frequently. Look how cute he is.;)

Please Please Please

Hey all of you! My wonderful friend/photographer is doing a contest on her blog. She wanted to see her work displayed in her clients home(s) and asked us to submit some pictures of how we've decorated our homes with her art. She is having you vote for your favorite. The winner gets a gift certificate to use with her. I MUST win!!

For those who know me, it'll be obvious which ones are mine, but just in case you are a little confused on what my kiddos look like, we are entry #3.

Now, click here and go vote for ME, well actually we can do this fair and you can vote for your favorite....but she has told me that she'll let me know who votes for who and if you don't vote for me, I'll block you from viewing my blog. OK so that last part is a total and complete lie, she would never break confidentiality on that, and I likely wouldn't really block you from my blog. But seriously go check it out and if you wanna be so kind to me have others vote too:)

Thanks so much for helping me out (I know that is a bit presumptuous, but hey...)

Frustration

I load the groceries neatly into the front seat. Return the shopping cart (Because I always return them) to the store. Fasten my seat belt, hands at 10 and 2, and start my 30 second drive home. side note: I'm not always this lazy to drive to the grocery store...I do realize that it is less than a football field away, but today I was getting 2 gallons of milk, eggs, veggies and a few other things that would've cut off my circulation to my arms had I loaded them full of the bags of groceries. Anyways, I pull out of the parking lot, switch lanes, turn blinker on to turn into my driveway when something catches my eye. I press on the brake and come to a complete stop; yes, I did this on the busy road that I live on and required cars to swerve around me while I just sat in awe staring.

My front yard was covered in beer cans, a target bag, newspaper, fast food wrappers and who knows what else. My eyes started to moisten, then a tear emerged in the corner. I had to fight hard because once one comes then it's like a signal to start a river flow. I quickly turned my disappointment into anger. That seemed to work at getting rid of the tears. The nerve of some people. Why dispose of their trash on my front yard? Now, I understand that my yard is no prize winning landscape, but still. Come on.

This isn't the first time this has happened either. We find things such as the above to shopping carts (and not the ones from the grocery store right across the street) to ripped clothing always in the front of our house. But today, it was seriously scattered all over. Ugh, some people just really annoy me. And I suppose that's what we get for living on such a busy road and not in the best neighborhoods I'm not gonna refer to it as the ghetto like my neighbor, but there are quite a few people who live on this road that are ghetto, I don't know if it is people who live around here or just passerby's that toss a bag of trash out the window, which really would surprise me because of the high amount of traffic, anyways I guess it doesn't matter....I just hate it because I'm sure many of you drive pass my house quite often and it's just embarrassing.

Talk about feeling OLD!!

We've all seen the little gramma with those long gray chin hairs right? Maybe, hopefully not but maybe some of you have seen a dark coarse hair on your own chin. Well let me just make you all feel a little bit better about yourself, and possibly freak out Little Princess with what she could possibly have to look forward to.

Each week sometimes 2 times a week, and this is no exaggeration, I sit down and tweeze those annoying little whiskers from off my face. When I say face I mean the entire area where a man grows a beard, from ear to ear, above and below my lips, and down my neck. I've always been very hairy, my dad said it's from the mediterranean blood in me. But in the last few years it's gotten out of control. I could probably sit down each day and tweeze at least 10.

I notice them most when I'm in the car checking out myself in the mirror. The lighting must be just right that they all jump out and practically scare me to death. Today while waiting for Lover Boy to get off work I was looking in the visor mirror when I nearly had a heart attack. Not only did I have a zillion, ok so that is a slight exaggeration, ugly whiskers poking out of my chin, neck and cheeks, but some where gray! UHHHH!

What on earth is happening to me? I got my first chunk of gray hair on my head at 24, and when trying to blame my parents for that I was informed that neither of them got gray hair til they were past 30. Now this?!! Gray hair on my chin, how HUMILIATING! I guess I'd better turn my weekly sometimes bi-weekly ritual into a daily chore. I'd hate for someone else to see those horendous hairs.

I plopped myself down on the couch with my tweezers in one hand and mirror in the other, ready to declare war. Lover Boy walked in and asked if I'd like some assistance, how could I turn down that offer. He plucked away. I counted each hair that he pulled out. When he was done I asked him if he knew just how many he pulled out, he laughed and asked if I seriously counted. UM, yah! I told him there was 106. Then he laughed and told me I might be slightly wrong because many of those tugs had 2 or 3 hairs in them. Can you believe it? Over 106 big, thick, ugly whiskers!