The Birthday Boys

Yesterday was Joel's birthday, so we had Graham over for dinner because it is his birthday too. :) I wanted to walk down to the corner store to get streamers and balloons to have up when Joel came home, but I had no money whatsoever. Instead Joel stopped to pick some up on his way home from work, and we quickly put them up before Graham got here. Because I didn't have room to bring ANY of my cake plates, I had to serve the bunt cake on the cutting board. :P Oh, well. Maybe I'll have at least one of them by next year. Oh, and you will notice that I wore the MEAJASO shirt all day yesterday. (That sentence shouldn't be understood by everyone reading this blog, but I don't really feel like explaining it right now.) I wanted to change before Joel got home, but I figured I should wear it the whole day. When he walked in the door the first thing he said was, "Wow! Are you wearing a t-shirt? You NEVER wear t-shirts" lol Maybe we should have put our design on a blouse . :)

Our dinning room
While I finished making dinner, Joel and Graham took pictures of themselves 

Balloons in the spoons
The cake is called "The Tunnel of Fudge Cake" I had never made it before and so I'm pleased to say that it turned out great

We look really festive don't we? lol

It Happens Every Night

I eat fast, I know that. Joel east SLOW and we all know that. Every night when we sit down to dinner I try hard (really hard) to eat more slowly, so I don't finish way before Joel. Last night was a little worse than usual. Take a look at my plate. We had been eating for quite some time when I took this picture because I didn't scarf it down. Now look at the next picture. It is Joel's plate and the photo was taken at the same moment. :)

I guess there really isn't much that I can do about it, but I remind him to keep eating when I'm almost done and he...isn't. Then I jump into a chorus of "This is the way we stretch the stomach" I guess last night was worse because of Mr. iPhone.  Joel was looking at my blog during dinner last night, but now I am smarter. Tonight I won't tell him that I blogged until he has FINISHED eating. :)

A Concert

Since Duane T. was traveling through the area with a Mennonite Choir, we drove down for one of their concerts. They performed at an Indian church about 25 miles South of where we live. 

We wanted more proof that we actually saw Duane, so we took some pictures with him after the concert was over.
Joel wanted proof that he was there too. :)

Our Evening at the Ocean

Yesterday evening Joel and I went to Santa Monica to spend some time on the beach. We will have to go back someday soon during the day when it is a little warmer, and next time we will remember to bring towels. 

The sun set, the moon rose, and with it, the tide. By then we were freezing from running through the water, so we headed home.

Friday Night

Last night we had Graham over for dinner, dessert, and a movie. We had Black Bean Salad for dinner, and cream puffs (filled with vanilla pudding), and coffee for dessert. I still can't believe Joel and Graham agreed to watch the movie I picked. It is called "My Friend Irma". It is the first movie that Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were in as a team.  It's a silly one, but I love it. 

Joel and I doing the dishes
Our dining room table from Ikea. It isn't the sturdiest thing ever, but it looks nice and was affordable. 
Our living room 
Our yummy dessert 

My Wedding

Since everyone posted pictures of my wedding, it seemed like I should post up a couple of my favorites. I was planning on waiting until my new blog was set up to post them, but it is taking a little longer than I expected. Anyway...here are a few of my favorites for the time being. 

I wonder who these feet belong to. 
Our getaway car that was decorated by Shannon and Amber


I love how you can see us dishing up food through the doorway

I love this picture and will always be envious of the Alice-Sebastian relationship. :) True love, true love.

Place Cards

Here is what our place cards look like. We ordered some online, but when they came the part that was supposed to be ivory was yellow. Go figure. Anyway, it forced us to come up with a way to make them ourselves and I like them way better. I embossed them all in one day and then yesterday I wrote all the names on them in gold pen and trimmed them up. I used the embossing tinsel again, and I still have glitter all over my face and that is after 2 showers. :) The other picture is the first page in our guest book. Since we are having a photo booth at the wedding, the pictures from that get put into the guest book and then the people sign by their photo strip. It just seemed right to me that we should put the photo strip of Joel and me on the first page. I know everything else is gold, but I had to go with the sparkle silver letters for this one because gold just didn't go.

Hotel Bags

I finished making the hotel bags the other day, and thought you would all like to see them. They aren't filled yet, but that will soon be done. I'm really happy with how they turned out even though it was a bit of monkey business trying to get everything attached. All the supplies were purchased just after Christmas, so they turned out to be very affordable. Oh, and if you didn't already notice, the blog colors have changed to match the wedding. Well, not quite, but they didn't have an exact color match to the bridesmaid dresses...er...dress. There is only one bridesmaid. :)

30 Days

It is only 30 days until the wedding, so I hope you won't mind if I don't type much text anymore. I guess I didn't really type much text in the past, but maybe I'll try to get into that after the wedding. Maybe. For now I'll try to put up pictures so you can see what we are getting done. Our friend Sarah stayed over at our house after the wedding showers this past weekend, and she has been kind enough to help us get wedding jobs done. I'll leave you with some pictures of our table numbers. Aren't they pretty? I love how they glitter. Embossing tinsel is a wonderful thing.

My Apartment

Yesterday Joel and I went to look at our apartment because I hadn't seen it in person yet, and Joel hadn't seen it since the renovation was completed. It is really, really pretty and it's so amazing that everything is new! Something weird is happening when I try to type under the pictures so I will just tell you about each photo up here. Sorry! 

1. Joel and I in the living room

2. The living room from the front door

3. The living room from the other corner

4. The kitchen 1

5. The kitchen 2

6. The bathroom

7. One hall closet

8. A second hall closet

9. The bedroom

10. The big bedroom closet

I Elfed Us

I know I've been posting quite a bit, but I have to show you one more thing. What I am about to show you seemed to be going through the internet all day yesterday because I know so many people who did it. After elfing most of my family members, here is the best one. I love how perfect Micah and Dad are. heehee http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1487768499 Go ahead and elf yourself. It's more fun than you might think. I've watched it so many times and can't stop giggling when I watch it. Merry Christmas!

A List of Christmas Favorites

Here is a list of my Christmas Favorites. What are some of yours?

My favorite Christmas CD
My favorite Christmas cookie

Favorite Christmas ornament. It isn't even mine and I have no idea why I love it so much, but it has always been on our tree, and I'll truly miss it next year when I'm gone.


My favorite Christmas movie


My favorite Christmas tv special

My favorite holiday crooner

My 70's Ski Hat for Joel

Christmas is coming and that means Joel is coming from the South to the North. I had been thinking (and someone had been hinting) that a hat would be really helpful. I hadn't found a patten that I really liked, but I came across this one (that is a link even though it didn't change color this time) a few days ago. It seemed perfect because every time I put on my hat and scarf to leave the house, my mom tells me I look like Ali MacGraw in the movie from the 70's called "Love Story". We might as well match, right? I knitted the entire thing in under 24 hours because we were a bit snowbound this past weekend. I didn't have the type of yarn it called for, but did have some nice wool yarn that wanted to be a hat for the head of someone special. ;) It came out a bit big, and I was very glad I had knit it out of wool. It felted up nicely, and I think it will fit Joel rather well. I made a few changes to the pattern, and if you would like to know what they are just leave me a comment.

The hat before felting.
Yep...it's too big.
At this point I was really hoping that it felted, but if it didn't, I figured that I could always turn it the other way and use it as a teapot cozy. Hmm...

Ah, yes. It worked!

The hat after felting.

I LOVE This Movie!