Friday, November 30, 2012

November Happenings

November kicked off the start of the holiday season for us.  Every Thanksgiving, we always have my mom and Jason's dad over for Thanksgiving dinner.  I cook mostly everything, with the help of my mom making a few side dishes (her signature sweet potato casserole, YUM).  This was my third year roasting a turkey and it was another success!  I'm always terrified I'm going to mess it up... luckily my streak is holding strong.

I really do love Pinterest for showing me festive things like these that I stole for some snacks to munch on before dinner:


Turkey cheeseballs

Veggie turkey
Dinner was yummy as always!

Table before we sat down to eat
We're always left with food for days because I tend to over estimate on things....  So we made some Capriotti's Bobbie sandwiches with our leftovers.  To be honest, they were much better! 

drool.


Before Thanksgiving, our best friends had their second baby, Hudson.  We got to visit the day he was born and it totally made us baby swoon for one of our own someday!  He is a perfect little chunk, and we are so excited to be auntie and uncle to another awesome baby of the Luks family!


For a "before Black Friday" deal, we splurged on a Kitchenaid mixer that I've been wanting for a while.  We had put it on our wedding registry, realistically knowing it was way too expensive to be on there.  So once this deal came around, I had to get it!  It was worth every penny.  The first day we got it in the mail, I busted it open, cleaned it, and put it to use for some Ghiradelli Brownies.  

This thing is going to get lots of use!
Jason got a fun early Christmas gift from Brock... Christmas sweater beer koozies they can use together!  Bromance.

Best friends and their koozies.

Happy November!















Thursday, November 1, 2012

Fall: Pumpkins, Apple Cider Donuts, and Halloween

For getting into the fall spirit, I wanted to visit Gilcrease Orchards on the other side of town to pick our own pumpkins!  We had never been before but have always heard great things about the orchard.  

The orchard entrance

They have many different fruits and vegetables that they grow year-round.  It is mostly an apple orchard, but anyone can go and pick their own fruits and vegetables for a super reasonable price!  When we got there, I instantly spotted the apple cider donuts and definitely needed to get some for us to munch on.


Seriously the best apple cider donuts EVER.

After we ate those up (in seriously 2 minutes), we walked down to the pumpkin patch.  On our way we saw the apple orchards.  There were aisles and aisles of apple trees.  We will definitely be going back to pick some of those next year when they are in season!  At the very end, we found the pumpkin patch and began our search for the perfect pumpkins.  There were quite a few gone since we went only a few days before Halloween, but we ended up finding ones exactly like we wanted.  I wanted Cinderella pumpkins, and Jason wanted to get a reject pumpkin: large, veiny and ugly.  He definitely found one!  And of course, we had to get a baby pumpkin for Harley.    

Apple orchard

Pumpkin patch

Jason and his "special" pumpkin on the left, Harley's on the right.

Cinderella pumpkins!

We loved everything about Gilcrease Orchard and I can't wait to make this a family tradition for us every fall!


We may or may not have gotten more donuts on the way out... (no judgement!)



For Halloween, our best friends invited us to spend the night Trick or Treating, snacking and hanging out with them at their house (which is about three seconds away from ours).  Scarlett was the most adorable Tinkerbell ever, and somehow, these are the only pictures I got of her that night.  Our neighborhoods are great during Halloween and make it super fun for the kids, so it was fun walking around with them for the night!

Tinkerbell saying CHEESE!

Jess always puts together the cutest headbands for her!

And finally, we always let Harley dress up for Halloween every year.  Usually we are pretty creative and go all out... but this year Halloween kind of snuck up on us to prepare his costume.  So, he ended up being a tourist in Hawaii since he was so jealous he missed out when we went for our honeymoon!  His shirt and his lei are actually gifts we  brought back from Hawaii for him, so he's pretty official!  

Harley saying CHEESE!

Hawaiian tourist

Harley and his pumpkin from the orchard

Happy Halloween!!





Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Life of a DIY Bride

I wanted to document some of the DIY projects I put my blood, sweat and tears into (not really any of those... but I did work hard on them) leading up to our wedding day.  Although I didn't come up with an original, whole DIY crafty wedding (because I would have killed myself with all of that planning and work), I did steal some ideas from Pinterest as well as come up with a few of my own.  

My very first wedding project was a prop for our engagement photos, which I intended on also using for decor for the wedding reception.  Even better, it was something we could easily display in our home after we used it.  All I used was a paper mache letter K, some yarn, and a tulle flower- super easy!





The next thing I made were my bridesmaid cards.  I knew I wanted to ask my girls in a special, creative way.  After searching Pinterest for some inspiration, I decided to make my own version of the "Will you Be My Bridesmaid" DIY found here.  I used the colors of our wedding palate, and tried to create each "bridesmaid" to represent the girl that was receiving it.  Each card had information about the wedding details (that were known at the time); my promise to not be a psycho, crazy, Bridezilla, the attire that I was imaging for them to wear at the time, and each of their contact info.  I was so happy with how they turned out and the girls loved them!  
Cards completed and put together
Chain link bride and bridesmaids
Front of the cards
3 additional cards with all details information


Photobooth props were a must on my DIY to-do list.  We booked Shutterbooth (amazing vendor!) and props came with the package that we purchased, but I still felt the need to create our own little touch.  One of my close friends, Bobbie, helped out with this project (love you, girl!)  Pinterest linked me up to these sites for the props and inspiration for the Team Bride/Team Groom fingers: Propsmore propsFoam Fingers










 The Mr. and Mrs. sign (which I created myself) also had a "Thank You" on the back, which we used for our wedding thank you cards!  Again, thanks to our awesome photog, Jennie Slade Photography for taking some amazing pictures!


I also created our own photobooth sign to direct our guests to use the props that we made, which we displayed on the table next to the actual booth.  


I also made another photo prop for our wedding photos after the ceremony.  I also thought of and created this myself, no inspiration necessary!  Just some scrapbook paper, some burlap and some string.  So easy!


I bought a bridal hanger from the etsy site here and decided to add a little of my own flair to match my decor of the wedding.  


Similar to my bridal hanger, I made my bridesmaids their own for their dress the day of the wedding, and it was something they could use later, as well.  I also wanted to get them gifts that they could reuse, and not just have for one day and never look at it again!  So I went the Toms route, and bought each of them a pair of ivory Toms to wear for the reception, as well as a cute necklace with their initials from another Etsy site here.





I also made favors gift bags for the kids at the wedding.  We only had about 10 or so kids that were on our guest list, so I figured it would be an extra special favor for them since the adult favors weren't exactly kid friendly (we did our own DIY cigar tubes and chocolate candy tubes in our wedding palate colors... wish I got pictures of them, but I didn't).  I printed off this coloring book that I put together for each of them, and added in some crayons, some snacks, a magnetic doodle board, silly straw and funny glasses for the photobooth.    




 Just like the yarn wrapped Letter K I made for our engagement photos, I also made all of our table numbers the same way.  Paired with wheat bouquets and some simple hydrangea on every other table, they made a understated, rustic touch to the reception decor.






Finally, the last project I did, literally three or four days before the wedding (last minute, much?) was write out everyone's escort cards for their reception table.  We had assigned seating with both a seating chart as well as escort cards to distinguish each guests' meal choice.  I placed them in corks that I ordered off Etsy, again (source not available).  This by far took the longest of all of my projects and I for sure thought my hand was going to fall off.  Again, I was completely satisfied and happy with how the final result came out.


Sorry for such a long blog post today!  Just wanted to share a little glance into what it took to put together some extra special touches to add to such an amazing day!