Girls just wanna have fun!

My girls totally spoiled me for my bachelorette party! For months and months, any time I asked what we were doing, the girls said we were going camping. Throughout that time, the story elaborated to include tents, woods, etc. Ha!

SIL and I met up at one of my bridesmaid's house after what could've been a huge disaster (I left my debit card in the ATM earlier that afternoon, but luckily a friendly banker turned it in for me!).

There was yummy food and lots of drinks:
We played some fun games: And then we headed out to our first destination. And yes, they brought along tents, sleeping bags, and any other camping gear you can think of!

I was then blind-folded (which is a slightly bad idea after a glass or two of wine):
And we arrived at the most BEAUTIFUL hotel where my girls had my bed made up with fun things:
Where I opened up embarrassingly saucy gifts:
And then we prepared to leave for dinner:
but not before making sure I was properly dressed:
We arrived at the sushi joint, where I was the only one who didn't order sushi* but a good time was had by all:
and then we walked to a bar where we had our first drink:

and decided to head back to our rooms for some quality girl talk!

After some great convos we headed back to the bar:
Where we danced

and laughed

the rest of the night away!Thanks girls for throwing me the BEST bachelorette party I ever could've dreamed of! All of the thoughtful details throughout the night meant so much and definitely didn't go unnoticed! I'm so blessed to have you all in my life! kisses!

*I've never had sushi before and was being a chicken that night about ordering some. After I tried some off of the other girls' plates, I thought it wasn't too bad and have since been back with husband and am happy to report that I LOVED IT! So - thank you girls for opening my eyes to a whole new world!

all photos by my bridesmaid and dear friend Andrea

Raspberry goodness; thank you very much!

I finally got around to using the last of our raspberries our awesome neighbors gave us and made these delicious crumb bars. I followed the recipe, with the exception of using raspberries in place of blueberries, as well as adding 1 tsp. of coconut extract to the middle layer. Yum, yum! Also, I've been working on these babies:

Pump Up the Volume

Pump Up the Volume

Got this in my Daily Candy - and she is awesome.

A beautiful bride, a handsome groom

Earlier today, I was reminiscing about one of the most beautiful weddings I've witnessed to date. There was love; there was laughter; tears of joy and lots of dancing! I remember this day like it was yesterday - a day I will cherish forever, when one of my best friends married the love of her life!

photo by Jeff LaPlante

If you have some time, go and check out their post and slideshow. Yeah, it was as beautiful and awesome as it looks.

Raindrops on roses

I was tagged by A Girl in Pearls & A Boy with Toys to list a handful of my favorite things (love following along during your wedding planning! If I can lend one piece of advice - when your day comes, enjoy it because it will go by in the blink of an eye!!).

So here are the rules: Tag and link back to the person who tagged you. List six little things that make you happy. Tag six bloggers and let them know they're “it".

I think SIL said it best: I haven't really garnered many followers so I think I'm going to skip the tagging other bloggers part. If you read this and you're inspired to make your own list, please do so. I'd love to see a few of your very favorite things!

And with that, ready, set, GO!

1. Home life with my husband and babies:

2. The life long girlfriends I've picked up somewhere along the way:

3. Enjoying a glass of wine:

4. Dancing like no one is watching:

photo by Jeff LaPlante

5. And last, but very certainly not least - the ones who would give up anything and everything for my sister and me:

Candy Apple

My partner-in-crime and I went to Williams-Sonoma yesterday to pick up a meat grinder attachment for our new KitchenAid mixer and while we were there, I spotted this lovely new 90th Anniversary mixer:

Isn't it beautiful? The sales associate told us they got it in a week and a half ago or so - about the same time I purchased ours. I wished I would've swung by here then so I could've purchased this beauty. I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind to return the one I already have (and have only used a handful of times, ok maybe more than that). Since I used a coupon though, I'd end up having to pay full price on the one at WM... so I guess I'll just have to drool over this one.

Pretty, Pretty Peonies!

Our flowers were ordered from Bridgewater Gardens and I was very impressed with the quality of peonies and how well they held up! Highly, highly recommend them - great service and they smelled and looked incredible! Here are all 8 dozen the day of the wedding along with 3 of my 5 girls!

Happy 4th!

Hope you guys had a fun and safe holiday! We drove over to the Couer d'Alene Resort with one of my BMs (Baybee!) and friends to see some pretty spectacular fireworks!

No Sporks here

When I saw these here, I thought it would be an easy way to add a little color to the tables. Sis and I spent an afternoon folding, cutting, tying, and repeating. Oh yeah, and there was definitely some more Arrested Development!

Each one turned out like this: And the final product:

Even the wine got dressed up!

The weekend my sis came to visit, we got a lot accomplished. One of those items were these little wine bottle bibs that said "Please drink responsibly!". We thought it'd be a good idea to have those on the drinks since the dirt road up to the ranch was long, narrow and basically on the edge of a cliff. These were pretty easy to make - just printed the note on a piece of card stock, used a few punches and looped them with twine. And yes, that's Three Buck Chuck!

Whew!

I've been kicking around my thoughts about the wedding, trying to decide where I was going to start my recaps. Everytime I thought I had a good topic to write about, I ended up getting bummed that the wedding/wedding weekend flew by too fast. I finally feel like I'm out of my hump - (glad to know I'm not the only one who had the post-wedding blues) and am ready to get back on the blogging wagon! But first I'll have to go back to a few DIYs completed before the big day....

We Got Hitched!

It was the most beautiful day, we couldn't have asked for anything more perfect. What an incredible feeling - the outpour of love from family and friends; repeating vows as old as time; seeing all of our hard work planning for months and months pay off. I keep replaying it all over and over so that I may never forget a single moment.
The father-daughter dance:

photos by Jenny Jimenez

Busy, busy bee

My little sister was in town this weekend and she helped me knock off a ton of item's off the to-do list. One of those was a hair trial - nothing like a good cup of coffee, good company, and some Arrested Development marathon action to make for a great Saturday morning!

Monkey Business

My handsome lil boy got his first summer shave this weekend, and wow - did he look good!

Bout's

Is it just me, or is 'boutonniere' a really difficult word to spell? Anyhow, I got an email last night from one of my BMs of a mock-up boutonniere she made for the wedding and I LOVED IT! Here is her awesome husband modeling it :)

bachelorette mayhem

My best-ies are throwing me a bachelorette party and I have no idea what the festivity entails, other than a postcard I received in the mail that said "We may all be miles apart...". I'm still not sure what I'm going to wear to the shindig but this is a good candidate:

from here

DIY Soap Bars

These are so stinkin' cute and would be such a thoughtful welcome gift for your guests!

found it here

As if I wasn't busy enough

My sis is coming to visit me this weekend and we're going to bust out a ton of wedding projects while she is here. On the list are ceremony programs and I'm totally loving these:

from here

walking down the aisle

With just a few weeks left, we still haven't decided on ceremony music. I know it will all come together :)

Someone suggested this version of Canon in D:

Apparently my occupation comes home with me

I'm dubbed the "slavedriver". We worked on the deck the ENTIRE Memorial Day weekend trying to get it done before all of our family and friends join us in the next couple of weeks.
That hole is where this huge old tree used to be that the previous homeowner built the deck around. That tree freaked me out whenever we had a good wind come through because you could hear it sway back and forth from inside the house. The guy who chopped it down told us it was a good thing we did because it wouldn't have made it another year. Eeek! No worries, we've planted 7 trees in the front and back yard to make up for chopping it down.

His bling

When Steele and I first started looking for rings for him, he really wanted a dark (preferably black) tungsten ring with some bling in it. He found this ring that he really loved, but when we tried contacting the vendor they never returned our messages.

Crappy picture of it since now it's apparently sold out:
Bigger picture of it, but with the wrong color of diamonds:
Anyway, we went around to many local jewelers to see if they could find this ring or something like it, or even attempt to make it. After many rejections, Steele was pretty bummed and gave up on looking. He finally came around a few months later and we decided to stop in a jewelery store just to have a peek. As luck would have it, they had a new style in that he really liked, so he tried it on and 15 minutes later we were walking out of the store with this ring:

Sorry, don't know where I found this one!

And my non-pro version of it after being shinied up this weekend! So excited he'll be wearing it in a few short weeks!

Puppy Love

Chloe:Riley:
And the latest addition, Bailey, trying to befriend Gonzo - the grumpy cat.

Rehearsal Invitations

Since our wedding invitations were so time consuming, I wanted to put together something much, much more simple for the rehearsal invites. I even considered not sending any out, but my love for paper was much too great!

I printed these on regular cardstock I had leftover from the invites and was able to fit both pages on just one sheet. I used a Martha Stewart craft punch for the top page and made sure to align the red underneath so it showed through. After placing the first page on top of the second, I used a rectangular punch I found at Michael's and tied a knot through the two punches to bind the pages together.

I had some leftover scrapbook paper that I traced an envelope template onto by carefully disassembling an envelope I had around the house in the right size and then cut and folded to make envelopes. And voila, they were off!

I'll have two please!

Thinking some freshly squeezed lemonade would be a yummy homemade drink for an outdoor wedding or summer picnic!