High Five for Friday - Week #4

You guys, I'm really enjoying being back in the blogging world now. The five-month break I took was absolutely necessary, for a couple of reasons, but now that I'm back, I'm so glad to be here. I came back excited about writing, and about sharing my life, and reading about your lives. And I came back refreshed from all the silly blog-drama that goes on when thousands upon thousands of girls are all trying to achieve some level of popularity at this little hobby of ours. It's just silliness really. But it feels good to have gotten some perspective on that.

And now I just want to get back to documenting my life, and my interests, in whatever way I want to, without the pressure to conform or perform, or get 30 bajillion page views a day. So that's what I plan on doing. I just wanted to get that all out in the open now that I've been back for about a month now. Anyways, let's move on and get to the fun that is High Five for Friday with Lauren, because I really do like these posts :)

1. I went to a new kick boxing class with a friend from work last night, and it was killer! It's "cardio kick boxing" so it's very high energy. Thursday's is apparently arms day, and so we did a lot of pushups and little weight things too. Then at the end, she made us all go outside and run a lap around the center, which was probably less than half a mile, but it was still rough. I forgot to wear my Polar heart rate monitor, but I feel like I must have burned like 11,000 calories... Going back again next Thursday though!

2. One of the photo prompts this week for the April photo challenge on Instagram was "Hobby." So I took a photo of some of my very favorite books, and I just like it :)

3. My self-designed blog is so super cute, right? And the best part, it completely fit into our budget this month, because it cost a whopping ZERO dollars since I figured it all out myself. Still not perfect, since I need to tweak and fix a few things, but I'm still loving it :)

4. Speaking of the budget, we cut up some credit cards this week at our weekly Financial Peace University class, and that felt great! We completely paid off one of them last week, and now it will never have a balance again! (The other one was Macy's and it had only been used once in like, 2011, just to get 20% off my swimsuit purchase...)

5. I made this amazing SkinnyTaste Macaroni Casserole for dinner the other night, and it was so stinking yummy!! My pictures may not look magazine-worthy, but let me tell you, this was so delicious, and so easy! I modified the recipe a bit though, because I was scared of the whole not-cooking-the-pasta-ahead-of-time thing. So then once I put it all together, I just put it in the oven long enough to melt the cheese, so like 10-15 minutes.

And since more than just five things need high fives this week, here are a few more awesome things I just want to share today...
- Did y'all see the round robin giveaway on Instagram this week? Well, I won a $10 Amazon card from it!
- I printed a whole bunch of pictures last weekend for the house, and I also updated all the frames and stuff in my office, and it's making me happier.
- I've been reconnecting with a lot of my old blog friends this week and it's been a lot of fun.

So that's about it for today now. This weekend is sure to be fun, because it's the opening concert weekend at the new Cascades park! I won four tickets, so we invited two of our friends to meet at our house, then all go together, so we're looking forward to that. Tonight is also a big block party for the FSU spring game, which is tomorrow. And who knows what else the next few days might hold?! Looking forward to it of course :) Hope y'all have a had an equally good week, and wishing you an even better weekend!

High Five for Friday: Week 2

Friday's are always the bestest. Everyone is just in a better mood, things seem a little more jolly since the weekend is so close, and there's only nine short hours of work to get through until you're free for a couple of days. (Minus one glorious lunch hour in the middle of the work day.)

I want to join in with Lauren again today and celebrate Friday with a couple of virtual high fives, and highlight some of my favorite things from this past week :)

1. Jeff and I started Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University class on Tuesday night, and we're both pretty excited about it. Wednesday night we sat down and did some of the homework, and we're both feeling ready to really accomplish some of our debt and get our budget under control! We can do this!

2. My sweet little Primrose, always ;)

3. Making my springtime bucket list for the next few months. There's lots of fun things on the list, and I'm looking forward to getting to do some of those things. I think my goal will be to do at least one of those things this weekend..... but which one should it be?!

4. The new Cascades Park down by our house is really pretty! I took Prim on a walk around the park yesterday to check it out more, and there's so many cool parts of it! The beautiful waterfall feature is just one of the cool things, but there's really so many more!

5. Instagram :) Seriously you guys, I love Instagram! I didn't do as many of the photo-a-day prompts this week (because some I didn't like, and some I just couldn't think of anything), but I still like to upload some random pictures anyways, so this is a mix of some of the photo-a-days from the week, and some "regular" IG photos.

Top L: "Letter" S is for springtime! // Top R: I just liked the light // Bottom L: yummy sammie // Bottom R: Cropped.

Tonight my aunt and uncle are having us all over to their house for a cookout, to welcome home my cousin on his spring break from seminary in New Orleans. So I'm really excited about a big yummy dinner with my family! We're a pretty crazy family, so I know we'll all have a good time together. Then tomorrow I'm looking forward to lunch and Hobby Lobby shopping with my mama :) 

Thrown in to the other bits of the weekend will be the usual house cleaning, and maybe some time spent in the sunshine as well - because time in the sunshine is always necessary at this time of the year. Hope y'all have a great weekend, and I'll be looking forward to reading the recaps on Monday! :)

Sunny Love,

Halie

Projects for the Wedding Update

Two weeks ago, I posted a list of all the projects that need to be done for the wedding. This morning, I opened up that post hoping I was able to cross a thing or two off the list, and kinda had a freak out when I realized that not one of those things had been done yet. Yikes! Now, that doesn't mean I haven't done anything, but it does mean I haven't done any actual projects.

But that's because the twins are still here, and it's not like a have a ton of free time when there are twin seven-year-old boys running around. So next week, my life is becoming wedding project central. For serious. And I'm super excited about it actually! There are so many fun projects and crafts that I want to do, and I can't wait to finally get started on them.

First up on the agenda though, will be getting our invitations out. As of yesterday, we're exactly two months away from the big day, and so those babies gotta go out in the mail pretty ASAP here! I ordered envelopes last night from an awesome site called envelopemall.com. I got 200 envelopes for just $40.50, including the shipping! And they should be here before Friday. Awesome. Once they're here, I will immediately start addressing them, even though the invites themselves won't be in quite yet.

And speaking of the invitations, I am so stinking psyched about them!! My blog-friend-turned-real-life-friend Angie did an amazing job designing them for us, and I just love them so so much! We're sending them to print through VistaPrint, and I can't wait to see how they turn out in-real-printed-life.

Some things I have actually accomplished are:
- Met with florist and went over flowers and set up and all that jazz
- Ordered invitation envelopes
- Researched my bridal jewelry, and where I can find it for a decent price
- Ordered wedding day shoes!
- Bought some stuff at Hobby Lobby for our cake topper craft
- Ordered the bicycle basket to use for cards on our gift table (gonna cute it up a bit too)
- Figured out our wedding favors
- I feel like there was at least one or two other things for this list, but now I can't remember them....

So things are happening, but obviously (based on the post from a couple weeks ago), there's still a whole lot more to do. But I'm not feeling crazy or overwhelmed with it all, I'm just excited to finally get started. This summer has been super busy having the boys here for six full weeks, and it's made wedding planning during that time very tricky. Now I should have plenty more time to get down to business, and really get moving on some things! I can't wait actually, I'm just so excited to get moving on plans and projects!

Wish me luck as I go into crazy-wedding-planning-mode over the next two months, and feel free to offer up more of you helpful tips and tricks and suggestions and all that, because I'm open to anything!

Much Love,
Halie

Prints, Twins, Paychecks & Jeans

Here comes another random blog post of some of my ramblings and musings on this pretty Thursday morning... :)

I get to wear jeans to work today for special "disaster relief" recognition, and that makes me happy. Here's the thing though - I'm down to one pair of jeans that "fit" and actually they don't really fit at all, because their to BIG! I need to go grab a new pair in a smaller size that will look a whole lot less baggy and saggy and droopy. Not a bad problem to have, huh?

Tonight at midnight my paycheck will be direct deposited into my account. And that's normal. The exciting part is, this will be my first paycheck of my new position! So it should be a niiiiiice little upgrade from that old crappy position :) Yay for a new big girl job and new big girl paycheck to go with it!

Yesterday, Jeff's twins Ryan and Gabe, turned seven years old! Their Nana (Jeff's mom) always let's them pick their own presents from Toys-R-Us, so we went there first, then Chick-fil-A (where they were given huge ice cream cones instead of the kid-sized ones since they told the worker girl it was their birthday), and then we even had some cake at the house! Love these cute little guys :)

Yesterday I got an email from Shutterfly for 50% of any of their products - the catch was that it expired last night at midnight... So when we got back to Jeff's house last, I planted my bootay at the kitchen table with my laptop, and I made it happen! I made a super cute photo book of all of our favorite pictures of Jeff and I from our whole relationship, and we're going to use it as our guest book for our wedding! I'm sooo excited to see it in real life, so I hope it ships super fast!

Also last night, we were talking about our wedding invitations, and blah, blah, blah... Well my blog-friend turned real-life-friend Angie (who has a degree in graphic design) has so so so graciously offered to design our invites for us, for free! We will just have to get them printed ourselves. So we started talking about VistaPrint, and that I've occasionally seen deals for them online, so we checked, and lo and behold we found a LivingSocial deal for pay $10 and get to spend $50! There was only 5 hours left on the deal before it expired, so we each bought one. It won't cover the entire cost of printing them, but it will certainly help out quite a bit. Thank goodness for that - budget bride over here!

I realized I never shared our save-the-date card or our engagement pictures last week like I said I would - oopise! Well, here's our save-the-date card, and I still plan on sharing all the rest of the pictures, but I'll save that for it's own post, since there are so many photos I love and want to include!

Let me just brag on my future husband for a bit here really quick too... When we originally picked our wedding date, it was October 12th. So we made a cute little banner in our wedding colors to take pictures with, with the intention of using it on our save-the-dates. Well then we had to change our date to the 5th, but our banner and picture still said the 12th. I didn't want to not use it, so my dear fiance came up with a great plan - we just painted a new square with the 5 on it, took a picture, and then he used his fancy computer skills and PhotoShopped that baby in there! And you can't even tell! I watched him do it and I was just amazing at how efficient he was with it, and how easy he made it look! And I'm 100% happy with the final project and how it turned out. Thanks honey :)

Florida is still basically experiencing monsoon season, and my tan is practically non-existent anymore at this point. My powder is almost too dark for my face (seeing as how I'm using my "summer color" now), and that is unacceptable. The plan is to head to the beach on Saturday with the boys for a little while, but if it ends up raining and spoiling our plans, I'm going to be one sad girl over here. I need sunshine in my life!! Get it together Florida.

Well, I think I've rambled on and on for long enough now. (Is it ever really long enough for me though considering how much I just love to talk? I don't think so...) But anyways, I'll just go ahead and wrap up now, before I overstay my welcome. Hope y'all have a great day, and I'll "see" you again tomorrow!

Much Love,
Halie

Pinnacle Moment for a Bride-To-Be

Although I'm (obviously) not going to share a picture of the wedding dress I've chosen before the big day, I do at least want to write a little story about the process of finding it! I think that making the decision on my wedding dress was the one thing that really made me feel like a bride. Creating a Pinterest board or looking at pretty wedding cakes we want is super exciting and fun. But every girl can do that. But what every girl can't do, is pick out her wedding dress. That's a tradition that's reserved solely for after he pops the question and slips the bling on your left hand. The beautiful ring on my finger feels amazing, but actually picking out the dress I'll wear when I say, "I do," feels like something completely different. It feels like the Pinnacle Moment for a Bride-To-Be. Picking out my dress made everything seem so surreal and crazy and exciting. But let's back up and talk about the process of actually finding "the one!"

As I've shared before, we're trying to have a small-ish wedding, on a pretty tight budget. So that meant I wasn't going to be spending a couple thousand dollars on just the dress alone. (Side note - on 'Say Yes to the Dress' yesterday, I watched a girl pay $10,000 for a dress. Insane! Our entire wedding won't even cost that much...) So even though I had a certain vision in mind for what I wanted, I wasn't willing to spend a fortune to get it.

So the first place we headed was to David's Bridal. And it was not so great. We had been there for my sister's wedding to look at bridesmaid dresses and the flower girl dress, and both experiences were pretty rough. The staff wasn't friendly or helpful, and God forbid if you didn't make an appointment. But I wanted to give them a chance, because I had seen some of their dresses online and liked both their style and their price. But once there, my "consultant" didn't really provide me with what I was looking for. I felt like she didn't listen to a word I said about what I wanted, and a couple of the ones she brought were the exact opposite of what I was looking for. Pretty, but not the style I was going for. We did end up finding one there that even though it wasn't the style I thought I wanted, I did actually like it. Just not enough to buy it...

So then a couple of weeks later, my mom and I headed up to The New Image in Thomasville, Georgia. She was looking for a Mother-of-the-Bride dress for Megan's wedding, and I got to try on some wedding dresses for myself as well! (They have a huge variety of bridal, prom and MoB stuff.) I tried on about four or five, and really liked a couple of them. Then that last one I tried one, Mama and I both loved it. Mom immediately said, "That's the one. That's your wedding dress." And although I think I agreed then, I still wasn't quite ready to commit to it. And plus, I really wanted my sister to be able to see it first too.

Then on June 1, I made an appointment at a local place here in town, Vocelles. (This is actually where Megan found her dress last summer!) This in a cute little boutique bridal shop with a pretty atmosphere and super helpful staff. There were about three here that I really liked a lot, and one that I was in love with. (The one I loved the most was pretty similar to the one I liked at The New Image.) The train was longer than I wanted, but that's about the only thing I didn't like. Well, that, and the price of it! Because that's the thing with Vocelles - it's all gorgeous, but it's all a little pricey, and definitely over what I wanted to spend. In fact, it was about $600 more than the other one at The New Image, for basically the same thing. So as much as I loved the one from there, I felt conflicted about how much it was.

Aunt Suzanne, me and my sister Megan.

So we left there, and headed back up to The New Image again. I had them pull the one that I loved from my last appointment, and then we pulled about four or five more again, just to try. And I did end up liking a couple of the new ones too, but then once I put back on the one from the first trip, we knew that was THE One! Mama, Megan and my Aunt Suzanne all loooved it, and so did I. It's exactly what I was picturing in my head, and just what I wanted/needed for an outdoor wedding. It's simple, yet beautiful, and I think it's just so me. (And it makes me look so good and so skinny!)

I am so so so incredibly happy with the dress I've chosen and I can't wait to get my actual dress in so that I can get a better feel for it! The one I tried on was about three sizes too small, so I'm just kinda stuffed in it, and things are all tightened up to get the right effect. Like, so tightened up I couldn't breathe very well. So I definitely can't wait to try it on in my actual size! I think it's going to be perfect on my wedding day, and I'm so glad I found exactly what I had pictured myself getting married in. Hurry up, October 5th!

Much Love,
Halie

Planning Our Wedding on a Budget

Ladies! My wedding planning adventures are starting to get underway. And of course it's so super exciting!! But I'm not gonna lie though, it's also a little bit daunting with everything that comes along with it. There are about a million things to think about, and people to include, and ways to do every little thing - and a lot of that is swirling around in my head. But the biggest issue for me?? (And probably most brides in some way or another I'm assuming...) The biggest issue will definitely be the budget.

We had always been thinking about a handmade/DIY wedding, and we most definitely still are. I can't wait to see what kind of beautiful decorations and things we can come up with in order to make this wedding unique and special for us! We are planning a casual wedding at the beach in the fall (October, more specifically), and a lot of our ideas are centered around the beach theme as well. Right now we're thinking lots of sand, seashells, mason jars, twine, burlap, bamboo, bright blues and teals with light greens, candles and twinkle lights. And we want to make and create as much as we possibly can on our own. And luckily, I have a super crafty man who will be awesome at stuff like this. (Y'all remember my handmade Valentine's card?!)

But at the same time, there are things that we can't do or make on our own, and those will probably end up being the most expensive. For one, we'll probably have to rent tables and chairs. That's kind of unavoidable, so whatever... But other things like invitations? I'm not really planning on hand-making those, but I also can't spend tons of money on them either! And I want to be able to do cute favors, without spending a fortune.

Sooo...I'm calling out to all of you! I would looove to hear your ideas, tips, tricks, awesome websites, places to buy bulk for cheap, or just whatever you can offer. If you've already planned your own wedding on a smaller budget, let me know how you did it! Or if you haven't planned your own wedding and just saw something cute that you want to share, leave a link for that too :) I need all the help I can get here ladies. Help me out with whatever information you have, and I'll be sure to check it out. And I'll of course be so grateful for the assistance of this amazing blog community!

But mostly, I cannot wait to marry this goofball with crazy hair, no matter how much we spend on the wedding :)