Be back soon!

Hi all! Sorry I haven't been posting much... or commenting much. I have been visiting but not always taking the time to comment.

I'm busy getting some spring cleaning and projects underway.

Also, since recently joining Facebook, I have found many people I know from school and it's been a blast catching up with them.
I'm also putting together a blog site for the salon I work at....
So, I have been putting a lot of my puter time into those two things!

I'm also dealing with an issue with my wedding dress... will try to post soon.

Just wanted to say I'm still *here* and I'm not ignoring you!

Have a great weekend everyone!

8th Wedding Anniversary~

Happy Anniversary Kevin! I love you!

Today we celebrate eight years of marriage~

Our song is Beautiful by Gordon Lightfoot, are your speakers on?

You can read more about our wedding day here, but for now I thought you'd enjoy a slideshow~ there are some doubles in there and I apologize... should be 60 photos in all.
You can enlarge the slideshow by hovering the mouse over it and clicking on the four arrows in the square.

I had fallen in love with leonidas roses and pretty much chose our wedding colors to coordinate with those.

I designed and had my gown and bridesmaid dresses made. I was just learning to use the internet at the library... a few more months of research would've changed a lot of things I think! I had to have the Victorian/Antoinette looking shoes. Could not find them ANYWHERE. I ended up finding a black brocade pair at a thrift store. They were a bit too small but I didn't care! I covered them in the fabric from my dress, and my seamstress made new bows. The photo of them is a scan, and it was a few years after the wedding so the glue had yellowed a bit.

I was also heavier then, and thank goodness for corsets! I wore the whole sha-bang under my dress; chemise, pantelettes, and corset. My friend Lori and my sister Jonna were my bridesmaids... Jonna was only 15 at the time! My jewelry was from Victorian Trading Co.

I gave Kevin a pocket watch as a wedding gift, which gave a nice vintagey touch. His friend Greg and my brother (only 14!) stood up with him. In the slideshow you'll see my brother reaching for the garter, it's one of my favorite pics. The look on his face is hilarious, and it looks like he's in slow motion.

I see that you can have your vows renewed on the Titanic, the museum in Branson. Hmmmm..........Perhaps for our 10th Anniversary?

We are going to The Hill in St. Louis for pizza this weekend to celebrate, the BEST place to get pizza!

Tales of a shoe hoarder, Episode 11~

This past weekend I went with my sister Jonna and her friend Lacy to get measured for bridesmaids dresses. (The third bridesmaid, Kristyn, had to work.)

Jonna picked up her wedding gown to take home~ squeeeee!

Sorry folks, can't show you that!

But I did get permission from the bride to let you see the bridesmaid dresses we will be wearing this summer! Well, I'll show you *most* of it...

As I mentioned in this post, the wedding colors will be orange and pink.

The dresses are cute, but the shoes we found are SUPER cute! My mom says they look "naughty", lol.... Well perhaps they do, one more reason to love them!

They have a sheer organza ruffled ribbon edge, which will look awesome with the sheer pink underskirt on the dresses. Jonna is going to wear pink shoes too!

We can wear them with or without the ankle straps~ Here's a closeup! They're comfortable too. I like them so much I may have to get a pair in black, hmm... maybe white... or...red???.... stay tuned!

Seeing sideways~

Oh, my dear blogging friends..... I just about had a nervous breakdown! I'm tooling along on my computer when all of a sudden my entire screen went sideways!!!

Has this ever happened to any of you? I couldn't get the mouse to X out of anything, it was frozen. So, I unplugged it and rebooted.

OMG. Still sideways. WAAAAaaaaaaaaaah! Do I have a virus???

Is my computer FRIED???

I started to panic.

We have negative computer funds if we need a new one. I knew it couldn't be the "new" mouse, because it was from our old computer.

I don't WANT to have to go to the library!

What about all of my pictures and files?!?!

So, I rebooted again. This time it said something about my C drive was dirty. What?

Now I'm frantic.

I run down to get Kevin's lap top to google

"my computer screen just went sideways".

Hmm... must be a familiar issue, as it popped up before I finished typing the word sideways.

Oy, is that good or bad?

WHEW. Easy fix. Hit Ctrl, Alt, and the up button. THANK GOODNESS!!!

*sniff* All of this computer stress and no chocolate in the house!!!

(I still don't know what that C drive business was about!)

My little sweetheart~

We ususally don't do much for Valentine's Day... Kevin and I think it's over rated and commercialized. Plus our anniversary is next week.

But it IS fun to decorate for the holiday!

He did get me flowers though, pretty huh! (they were prettier when I first got them but I forgot to takea pic!)

He and Nova made me a card with some $ inside so I can buy more plate hangers for my bathroom, yea!! I can't wait to finish it.

I really enjoyed getting the Valentines together for Nova's preschool class. I printed out some vintage cowboy greetings and glittered them up, then Nova signed the backs in red crayon. I attached them to little heart covered bags filled with candy.

There's glitter on the eyes, scarf, jeans, and dust cloud too~ but it doesn't show~

Then I couldn't find my Victorian scroll scissors to edge them. Oh well!

Ok, but now for the good part.

Last night I had one of the most memorable moments of my life!

We had just finished dinner and I took Nova into the bathroom for the normal routine; go potty, blow nose, wash face and hands. As I'm washing his face, he looked up at me and said, "I like you mom".

Gaaahhh! I get teary eyed just thinking about it! Sure, he says "I love you" when promted, or after we say it to him when we kiss him good night. But for him to just come out and say it....he melted my heart.

~one of my favorite photos taken on his second birthday~

Eeeeek! Dead mouse!

Some of you may remember my complaining about my mouse shortly after I started blogging. It wouldn't scroll any more.

I blamed it on my new blog viewing obsession~
scroll, scroll, scroll.

Yes, there are other ways to make your mouse scroll, but the wheelie button thingy was my favorite!

Being that my desk is against the wall, and it has a back on it with holes cut out just for cords, I was not looking forward to getting back there and switching mice!!

Alas, my mouse was getting worse. It would jump all over the page, wouldn't highlight things where I wanted it too, wouldn't roll across the page. Bad mousy!!

So finally, I blindly reached behind my tower left handed and unplugged the old mouse. I am right handed, and trying to put the new cord into the back of the computer without seeing it was extremely frustrating. Took forever! Goodness knows I didn't want to accidentally knock another cord out of whack!

After what seemed like an eternity, I got it! Woohoo....

happy scrolling days are here again!

Get it Melly and Katie, get it!!

Click to enlarge if you like!

~*~Have a wonderful weekend everyone!~*~

Weddings, babies, Christmas and friends~

Four of the most wonderful things in the world!

Since $ was tight this past Christmas, my siblings and our significant others decided to keep the gift giving simple and exhange ornaments.

Since my brother and his wife were still technically "newly weds", and my sister and her beau are getting married this summer I decided to make quilted ornaments in their wedding colors.

Jake got married in his Air Force dress blues. He and his bride Mandi chose navy and light blue for their colors. It was gorgeous! You can see more about their wedding here.

They were all about the *bling* so I wanted to be sure to add some rhinestones to their ornies~

I had a hard time finding a fancy matching trim for these tho~

My sister Jonna and husband to be Richie have chosen orange and pink for their colors. I had better luck finding supplies for theirs! Jonna wants to use this pretty irredescent orange/pink ribbon in the wedding, so I had to include that. Then I found some awesome beaded trim to match~

Since by brother is a new daddy, I wanted to make a special ornament for him and my niece Jaidan~

Hey, he's wearing the same shirt as in the ornie photo, hehe...

I also made a quilted candy cane ornament for my SIL Joyce, and since Jaidan's room is done in turtles I found a little turtle and jazzed it up to add to her "my first Christmas" ornie collection.

...and here they all are together...
Did you notice the extra one? Recognize them?
Yup~ none other than our sweet blogging friend Rue and hubby Rich!

Dream a little dream~

Another major "event" happened this week~ we took down the crib and Nova is now sleeping in his big boy bed. Rather emotional I must say!

Some of you have asked how old Nova is... he's going to be 4 in April!

Yes, I know that's a long time to be in a crib.

However, he never tried to climb out. Never stood there and jumped up and down. I put him down, he slept, he woke up, I took him out. He's always been so calm when he wakes up. Usually lays there and talks to himself, or does sing-song noises... and if I don't come soon enough I'd get a long "MOOOOOM!"

I was so glad he was able to stay in it for so long because we worry about the stairs.

The crib in the beginning... my dad painted it red for me~My Grandpa Nova had refinished the rocking chair for my mom when she was pregnant with me.

I bought most of the bedding on ebay, nothing was from a matching set.

Awaiting baby boy...

Just a few weeks old here...cleaning the belly button.

I don't know if we have other pics of him at this age in the crib, he slept in the cradle during the day~

The night of his first birthday~ Cowboy theme

Second birthday~ Bear in the Big Blue House theme

Third birthday~ Toy Story theme, (could you guess?)

His big boy bed a few years ago. I've sinced moved it and changed the headboard. Still looking for the *right* headboard. Oh, and that's Melly. If you're making a bed, she's there! This miss-matched bedding is mostly from ebay as well. Flag pillow from Big Lots.

The bed as it looks now~

...and here's my *baby* now...sniff...

Our little dream come true!

This week...

Just sharing a few goings on from the past few days....

First of all, I just finished reading The Wednesday Letters.

It was pretty good. I got about half way through and HAD to finish it to find out what happened... so I was up till almost 3 am. It was a tear jerker! A bit of a surprise ending. One thing that bugged me though, was some of the fictional names the author used. But none of the "main" character's names really bugged me so it wasn't so bad...

My girlfriend at work had lent it to me, (thanks Mary Beth!), and I kept wondering why it looked so familiar.

Well, if you get Victorian Trading catalogs, you'll know why!

~*~

Secondly, I've been putting off messing with the curtains in La Boudoir because I was afraid my current rods wouldn't hold the weight. And I can't afford new rods, plus once I get my footboard/cornice up the rods won't show, and untill I get to that point I don't know what type of rods I want.

It was driving me nuts tho and I finally decided that what's the worst that could happen... the drapes will come crashing down, right? I'll just make sure there's nothing breakable where they might land, lol!

Ok... so you might recall, these velvet panels came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I only bought 4 at full price. Once I was ready to buy more they were clearanced, discontiued...SOLD OUT. Luckily I was able to order them, and they were clearanced even lower~woohoo!! I got these puppies for about $7 each! I think there are 14 total now.

ANYHOO.... I'm opening them all up and realize there are two panels that are NOT exactly the same. The other ones are a nice, slippery velvet... very shiny! These two are very dry in texture~ more dull... thus they appear a different color as well. UGH.

Here is one shown on top.

Well, I could live with them if I HAVE to, but I will see if I can get lucky enough to order replacements.

They actually photograph better than they look in person. At least since I'd be using them on top in the opposite direction, it won't be so bad if they have to stay.

Here's a pic of the window on the left, with all matching panels. See the difference? These are just "thrown up there" and not hung as I want them...

~*~

Third~ I have a little sneak peek of the bathroom.

I watched as Kevin hung the shelving with care, awaiting treasures that soon would be there!!

Katie watched too~

The room has been finished for a while, but it's taken me forever to figure out where/how to hang everything. It all seems to be coming together now, and I'm so excited! I've had to buy ALOT of plate hangers, and still need MORE! I even asked for some at Christmas. Does that give you any ideas? Stay tuned!

I won a give away!

Woohoo! I found a package on my porch this week from Hopscotch and Hydrangeas~ It was from Heather's 100th post celebration!

Oooo, let's look inside!

I knew I was to get the cute teapot...but when I opened the lid all these pretty vintage linens kept coming out! (I told Heather I expected to pull out a rabbit!)

Then I found these darling earrings! PINK! I especially like the ones with the wooden beads. You can find beauties like these in her etsy shop, 2sisters1love.




With this cute red and white gem arriving just before Valentine's Day, I felt a little vignette coming on...

Tossed in some vintage jewelry, pearls, and chocolate... and voila! You can click the images to see the baubles better~

The crocheted doily with roses on it is one of two that my friend Jaede sent to me~

Kevin must have been inspired, because when I came downstairs this morning I found THIS!

Scrambled eggs, yogurt, and fresh strawberries. All Weight Watcher friendly! Thank you sweetie!

And thank you Heather! I love all of my goodies! I'd post a pic of me wearing the earrings, but right now I'm wearing blue sweats with paint stains, and my senior t-shirt from highschool, lol!

I'd also like to thank everyone for their encouraging comments on my porcupines!