Mustache Party

About a month ago we had a wedding shower/going away party for our dear friends Austin and Amanda.  Nick and Austin used to be roommates and Austin and Amanda were recently married and moved to Syracuse with the Army and for graduate school.  We did a simple mustache and lips theme with some diy decorations.

We also tried to serve food that reminded us of the two of them.

The whole spread

Austin's I'm too Poor PBI (in the shape of mustaches)

Raisin Bran Cookies
Don't Feed them to Wrigley Austin...

 Wrigley and Austin have a very special bond and when Nick and Austin used to live together Austin would regularly share his Raisin Bran breakfast with Wrigley which is where the Raisin Bran cookies come in.

Who doesn't love a Cupcake?

Amanda's Smoothie in Salad Form 

Cheesy Quinoa Bites
Healthy & Cheesy, just like Amanda

Amanda's I Make it Classy Chicken Salad (to compliment the PBJ ofcourse)

Our gift to them even stuck with the theme, matching mustache Tervis cups  and the mustache sandwich cutter we used for the PBJ sandwiches.

It was a great night celebrating two great friends who we already miss a lot!

28

Last week was my 28th Birthday.  Unfortunately I had to work.  Yes I recognize that most people have to work on their Birthdays but when you have a July Birthday and summers off you don't expect to work on your Birthday.  Luckily it wasn't too bad of day.  After work Nick and I went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Brio and it was quite delightful.  Prior to dinner, Nick came home with these beautiful flowers:

Saturday he also surprised me with a kayaking trip.  We have been talking about this for a while and it was a great surprise. It was a great 7 mile trip down the river.

Some highlights:

It was a pretty low key birthday but we had a great time and so far being 28 isn't so bad!

Baby Alphabet Book

For our niece, Payton's birthday Nick and I made her a custom alphabet book.  

We used an online photobook company to put it together.  Each letter has pictures of family or of Payton doing something like napping or going to the zoo.  Here are a couple of the pages:

G is for Grandparents

L is for Lake
M is for Mommy

S is for Sister

V is for Very Busy
W is for Wedding

Y is for You

The other letters were:

A- Aunts

B-Bathtime

C-Cousins

D-Daddy

E-Easter

F-Friends

G-Grandparents

H-Halloween

I-Itty Bitty Payton

J- John Deere

K-Kisses

L-Lake

M-Mommy

N-Naptime

O-Ohio State

P-Pictures (we used pictures of art that Payton had created at school)

Q- Quite Happy

R-Reading

S-Sisters

T-Toys

U-Uncles

V-Very Busy

W- Wedding

X- X-mas

Y- You

Z- Zoo

It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to put together and as you can see we had to stretch a bit for some of the letters, but in the end I am pretty happy with how it turned out and hopefully Payton has not only an educational book but also a keepsake!

Stitches of Love

One of the gifts we received at the shower was an unbelievable expression of love.  Friend's of Nicks parents created and designed a gorgeous wedding quilt for us.  Words can't really do the quilt justice so I will just let the pictures do the work:

I'm not sure the pictures do all the beautiful detail of the quilt justice either but hopefully you can get some idea of how lovely the quilt is.  Thank you Jim and Mary Jo for such a beautiful heirloom

Another Shower

Last weekend I had my second shower.  Nick's cousin, Lindsay and Aunt Sheryl threw the shower for me at Nick's dad's church.  It was a lovely afternoon with Nick's family, many of the members of the church and friends of Nick's parents.  Here are some pictures of the afternoon:

Nick ended up joining us for most of the afternoon at the shower as well entertaining Baby Payton

Thanks Lindsay and Sheryl for a lovely afternoon.

Showers of Love

In the last month I have had two amazing showings of love by friends and family.  The bachlorette party/DePauw reunion weekend that I mentioned in the "Wedding Wall" post and promised pictures and my first wedding shower in St. Louis. The bachlorette party was thrown by my amazing bridesmaids, Sara, Jenni and Katie and the shower was thrown by my dear friend Darcie and my sister.  Both were such an fabulous chance to spend time with lots of people I cherish.  It really is amazing how loved a girl feels when all of her favorite people are in one place.  Here are a couple of pictures from both events:

Lucy Girls at Bachlorette Party

Showing off Tany's new bling

Nick and I back at DPU

Late night run to Taco Bell and Walmart- just like old times

My very first shower gift (it arrived on my doorstep from a friend who couldn't
make it to the shower)

Opening presents at the shower

Thanks for such amazing memories everyone!

200

Yikes only 200 days until Wedding Day!  I really don't know where the time has gone.  Luckily I think we are in a pretty good place in terms of my to do list and there are only a few more major things to cross off and then it is just my little projects and random things that have to get done! Ask me again when we get to 100- not sure I will be as calm, cool, and collected.

And now I am going to brag for a minute about my wonderful fiance.  We had decided a while ago that we weren't going to do anything for Valentine's Day. We were out of town all weekend and both had busy Mondays so going out just didn't make sense.  We are also saving for a house and a wedding and neither of us really need anything so we decided not to buy anything for each other either.  Well then I came home from the gym last night at about 8pm to a lovely candlelit dinner.  Not a bad way to celebrate Valentine's Day or the 200 day mark!

To Give Thanks

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  Not only is the food some of my absolute favorite foods I also really enjoy spending time with family and the true meaning behind Thanksgiving.  I try and take time frequently to remind myself of all of the blessings in my life to be thankful for, but sometimes life gets hectic and it is easy to forget.  It is nice to have time set aside every year to remind us to stop and be thankful for all the wonderful things we are given.  So on this glorious holiday here are just a few of the things I am thankful for:

• My wonderful family
• My amazing friends- I really do think I have some of the most amazing friends a girl could ask for!
• My health
• My job and it being in a city that I appreciate
• My cats and dog (I know, I know- but they really are wonderful companions and they make me happy)
• Diet Coke (call it an addiction, but a nice diet coke really can make it all better)
• Hulu (that little invention has saved me a ton of money in cable bills!)
• Grooveshark.com (especially when my Pandora has run out)
• Fall (the weather, the trees, all of it!)
• Beautiful photography
• A good glass of wine
• Days off with nothing to do but lounge around
• Sweat pants, yoga pants, and scrubs (I really would wear them everyday if I could-sorry Nick!)
• Flowers that smell as beautiful as they look

I know some of those are cliche but I think it is important to be thankful for those things we often take for granted as well as the small unexpected things in life.  There are many many other things I am thankful for and I am going to try harder to find a few blessings everyday to stop and be thankful for!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Towels, and spoons, and tongs, Oh my!

A few weeks ago, Nick and I started the registry fun.  I had heard a few horror stories of the fights that registering could cause so I was a little fearful going into it.  We had gone back and forth on where to register but Nick was set on registering for tools and I'm not gonna lie I like a good power tool too so a hardware store was a must.  We started at Lowes only to find out they stopped doing registries several years ago.  Our next stop was Home Depot.  They still do registries and we began registering there.  It was a bit anti-climatic as they don't have scanners and you just have to write down the SKU for everything you want and you can't view the registry online (which we didn't find out until after we had written everything down).  It also turns out that Home Depot really isn't convenient for either of our families and since it wasn't online we decided to try plan C and register at Sears instead. 

Other than that our initial debated was between Target, Macy's, Crate and Barrel, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  We wandered around Macy's and really were not impressed and felt like much of the "essentials" were a little over priced.  Not to mention I was pretty sure I would be disowned as a "Kingma Girl" if I actively promoted business to the "store which shall not be named."  You see my Mom's side of the family has a long standing tradition as a Marshall Field's family and I have many fond memories spent there with my grandma as well.  But ever since Macy's aka "the store which shall not be named" took over Marshall Fields we have severed our ties so creating a wedding registry there just didn't seem right.  The only problem was they sell Fiestaware.  These beautiful dishes:

I already have a set my parents gave me when I graduated from college and I dearly love them.  We decided we wanted to add to this collection as our everyday dishes.  I wasn't sure what to do until someone told me they thought Kohl's had them.  So Kohl's it had to be.  Registering at Koh's was a lot of fun, but turned out to also be very exhausting- who knew wandering around a store not actually buying anything could make a person so tired?  Nick may disagree but it was also a lot easier to agree on things than I had anticipated so no nasty fights :)

We wanted to register at one other place to provide some variety.  We perused Bed, Bath, and Beyond and felt it was very similar to Kohl's so we took that off the list which left Target and Crate and Barrel.  I don't know as though we ever really talked about which one made more sense, but I heard about this event

Which was basically an opportunity to have Crate and Barrel all to yourself (ie you and several other couples) so you can register.  The best part is they provide food and beverage and a free gift!  I asked Nick what he thought and we decided to sign up.  Decision made Crate and Barrel it was.  Sorry Target I still dearly love you but how could I pass up panini's and mimosas?? So this past Sunday we got up early before Crate and Barrel was open to the public and enjoyed a lovely tour of the store, followed by some yummy breakfast.

Then it was off to registering

And having a little fun in the process

And we even took home these lovelies as a free parting gift

lovely heart shaped champagne flutes!

not really our style but who doesn't love a free gift?

So there you have it our registries are complete (at least until next seasons fashions come out and we have to update them)!  I think we did a pretty good job being practical while still including some things that would just be nice to have.

Can you guess what the post expensive thing on our registry is?  Hint: it is not as I would have guessed a power tool, and really I am not even sure why this item is so expensive.

Well it is this little doozy




that we registered for on a whim only to find out when we got our print out of our registry that it costs....are you ready for this??


$270.00!!!!!  Yes that is right you can make yummy margaritas in your home for a mere $270 big ones...seriously what makes this so much more expensive than my $25.00 blender. (also funny side note it is technically called "Margartiaville Frozen Concoction Maker"...just call it what it is people!)

I have informed Nick that if we get this and nothing else we are returning it to purchase pans so if you decide to purchase this for us please do not be offended if we return it for something that is well...much more practical (but we will only do that if we did not receive any other practical gifts :) )