Taking a short wedding planning hiatus

Wedding planning has taken a bit of a break the last few weeks and probably will stay on a break until after the Holidays at this point. We have had a lot going on and with all the major decisions behind us it just seemed appropriate to enjoy the holidays without having to worry about our wedding to do list every other minute.

So what have we been up to? Well the fun started right after Thanksgiving. We came home early just so we could put up the Christmas tree.  Nick wanted to put it up weeks before Christmas but I refuse to give into anything Christmas related until after Thanksgiving.  This was our first shared Christmas tree and I think Nick has plans* to blog about the whole thing so I won't go into much detail, but I just can't resist posting a picture!
*(I can't make any promises on when this will happen or if at all.  Sorry people I know he is a blog slacker but I promise you I am still working on him.)

Then the first weekend in December our friends Jeff and Kathryn invited us to the 30th Annual Silver Ball for the Arthritis Foundation. Kathryn, an event planner by profession, was in charge of decorations and did a fabulous job and while I say I'm on a break from wedding planning I didn't pass up the opportunity to pick her brain for ideas and ended up with several that I am excited to try out after the holidays. Here are a couple pictures from the event:

Thanks to my wonderful friend Darcie for letting me borrow her fabulous dress. I know you can't see it in the picture, but trust me it was cute!

 

And I just can't resist posting this wonderful picture of Nick and Jeff busting a move!

Our next exciting adventure was a hockey game (sorry no pics of this event- I only took one and it is an awful unflattering angle).  I have never been to a hockey game before (professional or not) and was really excited.  It also helped that we were in a box thanks to the Webster University Alumni Board.  The fights were not all I had hoped they would be, and I still have no idea what any of the rules of the game are, but all in all it was a lot of fun.  Best part was the Blues won and scored 4 goals which resulted in free Big Macs the next day (so not on my wedding diet but who can pass up free!)

Then this past Saturday we woke up early to build bikes for kids.  Nick and I have recently started volunteering for Variety St. Louis, an organization whose mission is to "help children with physical and mental disabilities reach their full potential."  Every year they host an event called "Bikes for Kids" where over 200 volunteers help build bikes for kids at Variety partner organizations.  This year they gave away some 300 "regular" bikes and 33 therapeutic bikes for children with series physical limitations.  The kids who received the regular bikes had to either write an essay or draw a picture describing why they wanted a bike and I just thought some of these were too cute not to share. 

not sure if those are pigs, or dogs, or maybe cats?

 And my absolute favorite one:

Here are a few pictures from the event itself:

Nick building a cute pink bike!

 

The kids looking for their bikes

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the 33 therapeutic bikes but those kids were so happy and excited to get a bike. I just felt bad that it was bitter cold that day and has been since so none of them have probably been able to ride them.

After that event Nick and I hosted a Christmas party which was a lot of fun, but I suck and didn't get any pictures of the evening.

So there is just a little bit of the excitement we have had going on lately and why the wedding related posts have been few and far between.  We have a few more fun things planned before then end of the holiday season that I will share and as always I promise more wedding related posts coming soon!

Wedding Swim...

And this is why we are not getting married anywhere near the water because this would be just my luck!

Worst Best Man Ever @ Yahoo! Video

Poor girl and really how awful must that poor best man feel?

Engagement Pictures

I just realized I promised to post these pictures long ago and never did!  We had a great time with our photographer taking them.  We decided to hit up some downtown locations so we wouldn't have to make the trek all the way downtown on wedding day.  So we started at Busch Stadium.  Even though it isn't my favorite place (I much prefer Wrigley Field!) I do think it reflects an important part of "us"- our love of baseball! I also wore my Cubs jersey so it made it just a little better.  After pictures at the stadium we headed to the Arch for pictures with the Arch and for pictures with the fall trees on the Arch grounds.  Some might say the Arch is a little cliche but how many cities have one?  All in all I think it was a pretty good combination of locations.  Here are a couple of pictures for your viewing pleasure:

You can check out all of the pictures here.   
You may have to enter a username (Leader) and password (7405).  It will then ask you for your email.  Also another tip.  This website has interesting music that you can turn off by clicking on music options in the list on the left of the page. 

Learning New Things...

If you remember way back when I wrote a post about Life Goals and one of the goals was to learn something new.  Well I did it- I learned to knit!  My first project was nothing pretty. I was mostly just knitting for the sake of knitting and hoping it turned into something.  My goal was a pot holder, but somehow I managed to not even be able to accomplish that and it looked like not much of anything. (Sadly I forgot to take pictures and I left it at my sister's house over Thanksgiving).  But every new skill has to start somewhere right?  I just bought some new yarn and my new goal is a scarf.  We shall see how that goes and I promise to post pictures of that!. 

Inspired by my learning of new skills, my friend Darcie and I spent our Friday night in a very interesting way.  We attended a lingerie making party (I know but there was free wine!).  I was inspired by my new knitting to start sewing again and what better way than with some friends and some wine.  Well it didn't exactly turn out like we had hopped.  I didn't take any pictures but there are some pictures on Darcie's blog here.  So probably not something I will ever ever wear but I got to play with a fun sewing machine and maybe it will inspire me to start sewing more often. 

Shoe Obsession

Shoes have never really been one of those things that I was obsessed with.  I appreciate a pretty shoe, but my collection is pretty basic and not very extensive.  However, recently I have become obsessed!  Long before we were engaged I saw this picture on a photographers blog: 

and I fell in love with the pretty green shoes and just knew I needed some just like it to sport under my dress!

So now that I have a dress I have started my hunt for green shoes and I have failed miserably.  Searching for green shoes yields all sorts of weird things (some of which are not a color I would ever call green!)  I have found a few:

 

The first one's aren't horrible but 4 inch heals might be pushing my luck and I don't like the ankle strap.  The second pair just aren't doing it for me.  I want shoes that make me swoon... like this:

...only in green!  Seriously how gorgeous are those two pairs? But I can't seem to find any that make me nearly as happy as those 2 pairs do.  There are lots of Pinks, Blues and Reds out there but green seems hard to come by.  Any suggestions on where I can find pretty green shoes?

I suppose if I can't find green shoes I could always go with this look:

that would make Nick happy