Beau rules

Hacked by baby bro. Love you case

So it's been... three weeks?

It's Saturday night. At 10:50 p.m. I'm in bed. And I'm updating my blog.

You're probably thinking exactly what I am... Now? After nearly a month?

Simply put, I suck at blogging.

There's been too much going on. I have been to 8 bridal showers in the last five weeks. Worked two weekends in a row. Joined a gym. Starting reading a riveting memoir (Sarah Palin's for all you die hard conservatives reading) and also started the process of packing up my stuff. Because, ya know, I have to move.

So allow me to digress on the last jumbled paragraph.

Lots of people getting married these days. Matter of fact, my cousin Ben's wedding is tomorrow evening, which kickstarts four weekends straight of weddings, weddings, and more weddings. Which means showers, showers, some bachelorette parties and more showers too. Some for me, some for friends. Course, I took some pics (you'll have to excuse the shortness in my grammar. Keep in mind, it is late).

Best friend Jackie's shower (Married on 6/8)

Shower for me, thrown by my sister (In case you forgot, married on 6/22)

Random foot shot from Sara's shower (Married 6/2, so next Saturday)

Showers are fun and if you have never experienced one, this is what you have to look forward to. The current stockpile that's been chilling in my basement.

Next item of business: Work. Since I started back at the nursing home working a different position, I have been keeping busy with working every other weekend. However, since I have a million wedding related events that are scattered across my schedule, I've had to work out some scheduling by working two weekends in a row which made me feel like I had even less of a life than before. When I was teaching, I had weekends off and completely took it for granted by doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING following the bell ringing on Friday afternoons. Now that it's crunch time with wedding stuff I'm beginning to pine for those coveted free weekends.

Never take anything for granted, they say.

Oh, and Dust and I decided to buckle down and do something for ourselves by joining the YMCA. You're probably laughing if you know me well, seeing as how I DON'T work out, but we have actually been having a really good time at the good ol' Y. I really like the community feel of the place and also enjoy the fact that it has a pool. Our apartment downtown is two blocks from a YMCA so we are looking forward to walking to and from the gym on a (hopefully) daily... okay maybe weekly, basis.

 

Cue Chariots of Fire theme music

Dust has a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with my iPhone. He's not really one for pics on the indoor track, and I guess I don't blame him.

I finally finished the third (and final) book in the Hunger Games trilogy and since I wasn't too satisfied with the ending, I had to come up with a solution to the bitterness by moving on to a new book. Luckily, I do work at a nursing home where elderly residents are constantly trying to pawn off their old, unwanted books to our library. A couple of weeks ago, 101 year old Jonathan (who recently upgraded his transportation mode to electric scooter) rode on up to my desk and asked me if I wanted Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. I'm not necessarily a Palin fan but I did read her daughter's cheesy memoir last summer during my "Teen Mom" meets "Dancing with the Stars" reality TV addiction. So I accepted the book from Jonathan, got to reading, and am nearly finished with it. Sarah Palin is, in a nutshell, annoyingly fascinating. I got so into the book that I turned to Netflix to watch her short-lived TLC nature show on Alaska. Her book? Not bad, but I now understand why her show only lasted ten episodes.

So now that I'm nearly done with the Palin book, I had to find something new to read. Dust and I hit up Half Price Books today and just in time for Memorial Day, everything in the store was 20% off! I hit the jackpot and bought a biography on Abraham Lincoln and stayed in line with my nerdy, history-major mind by purchasing a book on all the "First Families" of the White House. I can't wait to delve into them both.

I am especially excited to say that FINALLY, my love of all things historical has blended with Dusty's love of fantasy/fiction (typically, Dust is not a huge fan of history at all, and I am not a huge fantasy person, so we tend to clash on our reading choices). Well, when Dust purchased Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer recently from Half Price, a small glimmer of hope began to burn inside of me. Sure, it's fantasy, and borderline blasphemy to combine the nation's greatest leader with stupid vampires, but ever since he finished it, Dust has been OBSESSING over Abe Lincoln.  Not sure if you were aware, but there's a pretty big anticipated biopic coming out this fall/holiday season starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Abe. Dusty spent the rest of tonight researching everything there is to know about Abraham Lincoln and chatting about how excited he is for the movie to come out. I was beaming from ear to ear. It could (dare I say it) be the sweet start to a shared love of American history.

Not to mention, the vampire killer book is being made into a movie too... and Dust can't wait to see that as well. It's released on June 22nd, but we can't go because we have other stuff going on that day...

We move into our apartment this Friday, the 1st. Well, Dust moves in, and I move in all the stuff that you can see above in my stockpile picture. I won't be moving in until after the wedding. Nevertheless, we are very excited to call the place "our own."

Nothing too new to report on the nanny front. Still love my job and can't believe I get paid to spend time with this adorable little one every day. I never thought I'd say it, I really didn't, but I love babies. Well actually, maybe Grace is just the exception to my general rule ;-)

2 cute 4 words.

Grace is great because she allows me to get a ton of wedding stuff done in her down time, which includes time in her jumper, time in her bumbo (like the above photo), hanging underneath her playset, and if she gets really bored, movie time while I sit closely nearby.

Gracie watching Beethoven on Netflix. Love the universality of my iPad.

There is surely more to report on and write about, but the night has come to an end, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I had a very wonderful shower this morning thrown by the Wahl women and close family friends of Dusty's, followed by the baptism of my future cousins' adorable baby girl, followed by the earlier mentioned bookstore trip, followed by hauling my gifts into the basement to add to the pile, followed by a meltdown related to wedding stress, followed by a pretty loving fiance who let me cry for about five minutes before cheering me up, tucking me in, and pressing PLAY on my DVD player so I could watch another one of my stupid/embarrassing movie choices.

Tonight's choice? Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

It's the little things.

BEST DAY EVER

Do you ever get so, so excited for something that it kind of just feels like it's never gonna happen???

You probably think I'm talking about my wedding. Well for once, I'M NOT! I am talking about something far different but {almost} as amazing... Sort of kidding.

I OFFICIALLY GOT MY BIRCHBOX SUBSCRIPTION TODAY.

Nearly all of you are probably clueless as to what that means, so I will now take the time to explain to you just how exciting this really is.

I recently began following a blog called "The Small Things." It's basically my new obsession. The talented woman behind the blog, Kate, is an amazing hairstylist who also writes about fashion and beauty tips. I discovered this blog through Pinterest because Kate posts some ADORABLE pictures of hairstyles that she tries out on herself and then writes tutorials for on her blog. My own hairstylist and I talk about her all the time.

So after following her blog for quite some time, I discovered that she subscribes to Birchbox. Basically every month she writes a new post on a little package received in the mail that contains some of the best beauty products available for women in sample sizes. I came to look forward to her posts about these exciting little packages so much that I realized I should probably jump on the Birchbox bandwagon. So I went over to their website, signed up, and was promptly put on a waiting list.

I hate to be wait-listed.

But I waited nonetheless. For two months, actually. And then today, I received the coveted email alerting me that my subscription was available and I had 48 hours to claim it!

I pulled out my credit card in an instant and dropped everything I was doing to sign up. For ten dollars a month, I get to experience the joy of getting a package in the mail full of beauty goodies that I know I will be just DYING to try.

If you are still a little confused as to why I'm so excited, read on. I copied this from their website:

"Birchbox is a smart, streamlined, and fun way to discover high-end beauty, grooming, and lifestyle products. We sort through the clutter to send you what works and what’s worth the upgrade. We created Birchbox because, like you, we enjoy using the best products but we don’t want to have to work too hard to find them."  

 You should read Kate's blog to get more information on this delightful little package of joy that I am very shortly going to be receiving. May's box is scheduled to arrive by the 10th! Be SURE to stay tuned for a post on all the little goodies that I am going to be receiving!

In other news, this week FLEW by and I am sort of shocked that tomorrow is already Friday. This is the last weekend until the weekend BEFORE our wedding that we don't have something "wedding related." Actually, I lied, I do have another shower on Sunday, but sometimes I only consider Friday's and Saturday's to be the true weekend. Here are some other things that have happened to make this week go by in an instant:

~Addressing, stamping, and mailing ALL of our wedding invitations

~Discovering Dog the Bounty Hunter on Netflix (I know what you're thinking and yes, I just admitted to watching that show)

~Wrapping up our final session of premarital counseling! 

~Steadily working my way through the third/final Hunger Games book

~Spending the better part of this evening working on a project that I got from Pinterest which turned into something that is completely different... but I totally love it (I'll post pics later)

~Becoming more and more preoccupied with how much I adore little Gracie :) 

^^In fact, allow me to spoil you all with a montage of Gracie pics from the last week (again, I am unashamed of the life I lead and happen to be fine overlooking the fact that I've turned into "the girl that posts baby pics" on Instagram)

Well hey there!

Anyone who feeds me is a friend in my book!

I even threw in an incredibly low quality iPhone video for your enjoyment so you can get an idea of what I listen to right around 3 p.m. when we do jumper time. Oh, and don't mind the sound of me chomping on Doritos in the background. 

That about does it for this post. Have a great weekend and stay tuned for my Birchbox post. I can hardly contain the excitement!!!

Weekend Recap with a little help from phone pics...

I posted my schedule for the past weekend in my last post and it went about as fast as you probably could have guessed it would. Overall, though, it was an INCREDIBLY fun weekend and I am still thinking back on it because it had been a long time since I had such a packed, crazy three days. Let me start with my shower, Saturday morning, which ended up being just absolutely wonderful. Two dear friends from my church hosted and they did just an amazing job setting everything up and making my first shower extremely special. Unfortunately, I was a little too busy opening gifts to take any pictures at the actual shower, but I did manage to take one of the goods I took home...

That would be my parent's basement which has become home to the stash of gifts received so far. Dust and I are extremely blessed. Among my favorite items that we received at the shower...
~A KitchenAid Grey Teapot
~Keurig Coffee Brewer
~Cake dome with RED VELVET CAKE MIX (My fav)
~Dusty's personal favorite... The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches (I thought the kid was going to CRY when I showed it to him)

So that was Saturday morning. The theme of the shower was "God's True Riches" and everyone there (all 40 women in attendance) shared with me in some way and I felt incredibly loved. It was a really special day. Perhaps one of the cuter gifts was a piggy bank which each woman at the shower signed. I decided to follow suit on the "riches" theme, and promptly filled the bank with 75 dollars cash.

After the shower, I scrambled to get home so I could change and get ready for my dear friend, Andrea Loecken's wedding to Mr. Peter Leafblad. This was a special occasion because I consider both the bride and the groom to be dear friends. Peter and I (as mentioned previously) go WAY back to 11th grade when we thought it would be a good idea to go to Mounds View High School's Homecoming dance together.

Not my finest hour, but to be fair, it wasn't really Peter's either

We have both moved on since the days of 2005 and high school but this wedding was A BLAST! It made me want my own to be tomorrow... but then I reminded myself of all the s*%! I have to finish between now and June 22nd and I decided it's a good thing I still have a little less than two months. It was great to hang out with friends from Bethel and to see two great people make the decision to get hitched.

Mr. and Mrs. Leafblad workin' it on the dance floor.

Peter and Andrea are definitely not Jewish, but if you are from Bethel and know the crowd of people who orchestrated the above display, you probably aren't surprised

Mazel tov!!!!

One of my favorite things to do to other people is make them feel awkward with their significant others. That's why (after a couple of glasses of wine) I took the liberty of snapping a few pictures of the cutest girl-guy match ups on the dance floor

Amy and Aaron= CNCA (which I learned at the wedding stands for "cute new couple alert")

Katie and Beau- blurry from all the fun???

What would have been an adorable picture.

The wedding celebration was fantastic and I am really excited for Peter and Andrea to begin life together as they prepare to move to Connecticut. Gonna miss those two. 

Just a quick sidenote, one of the things I love about weddings these days is the option to have a photobooth on site. My future sister-in-law Callie had one at her wedding and we had a ton of fun in it, so I was really excited to see one at Peter and Andrea's reception. Naturally Dust came along as my date but happened to disappear after about 25 minutes and I had no idea where he went. The look on his face when he came back made me realize something was up and then he proceeded to hand me this...

I am one lucky lady.

Sunday was also a pretty special day as we celebrated the 90th birthdays of my grandparents, Rodney and Marian (just a sidenote, one of my favorite things ever is old people names!!). My grandparents celebrated 67 (!) years of marriage on April 4th, and they happened to be born two days apart in 1922. There lives together have produced six children, eighteen grandchildren, and now seven great-grandchildren with three on the way!!! WOW. We had a large open house at their apartment building Sunday afternoon with most of the extended family, many friends, and a lot of fond memories. 

Grandma with one of the "greats"- Emme

It's pretty cool to be able to see the legacy that has been created all because of two people and they have lived a FULL, wonderful life together!

Emme's big sister, Malaina, who is also the flower girl in my wedding. I think she kind of thinks its her wedding. Which is fine because that is exactly how I treated being a flower girl when I was a little girl. 

My grandparents with their six kids. There are a combined 534 years between them all. It took us quite awhile to figure that out...

Obviously a very full and busy weekend but definitely a memorable one. I think I also may have broken a record of number of pictures used in one single blog post... Hope it was worth it because my phone battery is officially drained from all the picture transferring. Dust and I have just 52 days to go before our own wedding, and there is definitely much to do. So if you don't hear from me for a little while, it's probably because I'm busy licking stamps or finalizing hymn selections. Have a great week!