Here's to 2008...

What a year 2008 was! So many great things happened! Since today is the last day of the year I thought I would delicate this post to all the great things that happened in 2008.

January:

This is when we got Carson. He is the best cat and always does crazy things that always make us smile.

February:

Andy & I decided to paint the kitchen. It's may favorite color in the house.

March:


St. Patrick's day...nuff said :)

April:

This is when we got our e-pics. We had such a beautiful day.

May:


My birthday!! Fun times with my favs!

June:


I went down to Tennessee for an interpreters workshop. While I didn't learn much I made some amazing people. It was a fun little get a way.

July:



My favorite time of the year..Kenny Chesney concert. I look forward to this party all year long. Its a staple of the summer for me.

August:


My awesome Bachelorette party my MOH Lauren threw for me. This is my bridesmaids and me at Blackfin.

September:



My favorite month of the year. On the 6th Andy & I got married after6 years of dating. Its hard to believe the day has come and gone!

This month gets 2 pics because I can't forget about our honeymoon to St.Thomas USVI. I can not wait to go back there. I love the rum punch!


October:


We went out for Lauren bday/Halloween.

November:


The Rusty Ball. It was a benefit concert. I had a blast that night.

December:


Our first married Christmas.

Quick post

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Mine was wonderful. Its hard to believe its all over. I just wanted to share some of my favorite gifts I received. Andy got me these awesome earrings by a designer named Shaseby.
Here they are, except mine are silver.

My other favorite gift was from my brother David, and Lauren. A long time ago I fell in love with a Lucky handbag. One day Lauren and I were shopping for the boys when I found it again at the mall. Lauren, being sneaky, took it to the register when I wasn't around and put it on hold and bought it later. I was so surprised and excited when I opened it on Christmas morning.

Every Christmas morning my mom makes breakfast. We look forward to it all year. We always come over in our pj's and everything. David always bring his dogs over too. Well this year Bentley decided to make Christmas a little bit more interesting. Bentley jumped into my mom's lap while we were opening up gifts. All of a sudden he threw up. My mom yelled, David's other dog Mercedes came over to see what was happening and Bentley got sick all over her. It was a crack up. And the best part of all was that it was caught on camera =)

Lastly, I wanted to share the cupcakes I made for Christmas. This is where I got the idea. While mine didn't turn out as great I think I did alright for a first time try =)

I will be posting and wrap up of 2008 here soon....

Christmas time is here...

I had such a fun weekend. It started out on Friday with a Christmas card making class. I met the Stampin Up demonstrator, Kristy, at a craft show last year and ever since then I always go out to her condo when she has classes. Making cards is such a fun hobby. I find it relaxing. Here are the cards we made:

We made 2 of each.

It's always hard giving them away because they are all so cute but I think people appreciated the handmade cards over the store bought kind.

Then on Saturday we went to cut down our Christmas tree. Of course I forgot the camera but Lauren got some cute pics. Once she emails them to me I will put them up. After we got our tree we were off to a welcome home party for our friend who just returned from Iraq. Later on that evening we were off to Mea's 3rd birthday party. It was a fun day.

Sunday I worked a trunk show for the jewelry store I used to work at. It was so nice to see all the customers again. It was nice to know they remembered me (I did work there for 2 years!). Plus it was nice to get some extra money right before Christmas.

I then came home to help Andy put up the tree. This year we decided to put it in the living room, last year it was in the dining room. It looks much better in the living room =). Here are some pics of the tree and the rest of our decorations around the house. Enjoy =)

Carson's is the small one

shopping

I was one of those crazy people on Friday who got up at 3:3o am to shop! I went with Andy's cousin Holly. Our first stop was to Kohl's. I got some good deals there, including some boots for $19.99 for myself :). I got some gifts for other people there as well. Our next stop was to Old Navy who opened at 5. I got some great gifts for Andy at some great prices. Then it was off to Target who opened at 6. Talk about crazy! I did pick up 5 new DVDs and a new board game.

It was all in all a good shopping day. But the best deal of them all was the deal we got yesterday. Macy's had their Dyson DC18 Slim Vacuum on sale. This vacuum is originally $520. For cyber Monday Macy's had it on sale for $249. We had about $30 on a gift card and used our friends Macy's discount (finally since I don't work there anymore I can use someone elses card like they did to me!) and got the Dyson for about $175 shipped! I am super excited to get our new vac cum. I never thought I would be this excited for a cleaning tool :0)

Novembers over??

This month went entirely too fast. Time just flies by! But good things have happened in that time. Thanksgiving was fun as always. Andy and I love the holidays because we get to be with the family, play board games, and always have a great time. I forgot my camera on Thanksgiving so I can't share how yummy the food looked that my brother and his girlfriend made. Delicious!


Last weekend my cousin Tammy, my mom, and myself went to the Rusty Ball. It was a charity event with the 80's cover band the Rusty Griswalds. It was an awesome event. 80's music and open bar...who wouldn't have a fun time?! I am already looking forward to next years ball! Here is a picture of us 3 at the concert:
Tonight we are off to dinner for my brother David's 26th birthday. It feels like yesterday we were 11 & 8 playing wiffle ball in the backyard. After all these years we are still close and I am glad that we are. He's one of the funniest people I know and we get each other when other people don't. He's the best big brother a girl can ask for! Happy Birthday David!!

Bart Simpson cake!

how cute were we..

and still are =)

Vote '08

I voted..did you? I can't wait to see the results of this election. And yay for the commercials to stop!

WHODEY!

WE WON! Finally the Bengals won a game.
I had faith in the boys. WHO DEY!

photos from NFL.Com

6 years..

Today marks the day of Andy & I got from here:

to here:

It all started when I needed a date to my junior year homecoming. Ok, now this is where it gets complicated-but hang with me, a friend of mine was dating this guy, Tony. A girl on my soccer team, Emily, was saying how Tony needed a friend so he wasn't bored (he was in college-didn't go to our school). Anyways she suggested her cousin Andy (who was cousins with Emily and Tony but on 2 different sides). My bff Lauren agreed (she knew both boys) and Lauren and Emily both thought I would be a perfect match-we are both goofy, like to have a good time etc.
Emily called up Andy after practice and told him she needed him to go to the football game with her this Friday to meet a girl,me.
The whole week I was bugging Lauren asking her if he was cute and if she really thought we would match. She kept assuring me that I would like him. OK, flash forward to Friday night. I was a cheerleader so I couldn't talk to him until half time. The whole game I would avoid eye contact but I knew he was looking at me the entire time! We talked and later exchanged numbers.
The next night was fate. I went to a haunted house with a group of friends that was about 30 minutes away. When we were about to head home I got a call from Lauren saying she was on her way out there but needed to meet us to give us her key because he mom called her saying she was locked out. We met up with Lauren and she told me Andy was with her group and insisted I go back out with her. Well I did and Andy and I really had a chance to talk.
And that was it. We ended up going to the dance together and have been inseparable since. On this day 6 years ago he asked me to be his girlfriend and now here I am as his wife.

Thank you Andy for a wonderful 6 years fulled with nothing but happiness. Here's to many, many more!

pumpkins and apples..

This weekend we went to the pumpkin farm and apple farm with a group of friends. This is Andy's & mine fall festivity we look forward to. We had a big group with us this year. I got some cute shots of my friend Steph's daughter Mea.



I also finished our fall table decor. I love my glitter pumpkins. I saw them on Martha Stewart had had to make them! I think they turned out great.

We also stopped in Pier 1 because we had some time to waste before we met everyone. Andy had never really been in there and thought everything was expensive. I explained to him that when they have a sale it is good. Of course we found stuff but not what I thought we would. First I found these place mats for about $2 each.

Then Andy found a table. He fell in love with it and once he loves something he has to buy it. I loved the table as well and reminded him we had money from the wedding we could use. So we bought it:
We still have to get some new chairs for it, but for now it works. I love how Carson always shows up in my pictures.

Oh and this was our old table (also the old rug):

I think the larger table looks better. Here are some other fall decorations we have around the house:

I love my star wreath. I saw it at a craft show and it was $40! I knew I could make it much cheaper so I did. I made the wreath for about $12.

9.6.08 wedding

For the record I have been the worst blogger ever..that's going to change!

Anyway on to the important stuff..THE WEDDING!!! Everything went perfectly. Here is a recap.

I woke up around 7am. I stayed at my house and Andy did as well (blah to traditions). It was overcast outside-but hey I was fine as long as no rain! My mom and BM Mollie came over around 8. My mom stopped to get me a latte-my favorite, she is so sweet. We left my house around 9. I had one rose left from making the bouquets, I decided I would take that last rose to my Grandma & Grandpa Henke's grave. It killed me inside to not have my grandparents at my wedding-they did everything for me. It was a sweet moment and I am so happy I did that.

Around 10am we arrived at WPCG where the wedding was. We set up everything we needed to get done and started filling favor boxes. At 11am Heidi came to do our makeup. Mollie and Steph did every ones hair. I am so thankful to know these two girls! Some getting ready pics (non-pro)

Rachel ( the photographer) arrived at 2pm to shoot some photos.This time of the day flew by. I know Rachel took some great and I cannot wait to see them. Then the next thing I knew it was 5pm and still no cake! I think I was on such a "happy" high that I didn't even freak out, but about 15 minutes later we had a cake! It was then time to line up and get married..

I was not nervous until that moment. I was about to be married! This was it, after dating for 6 years and planning for 23 months the moment was here and I could not have been more excited. I had done so well the entire day with no tears. I walked halfway done the isle just fine, until everyone stood up and looked at me. It was so overwhelming that I let it all out. I couldn't stop the tears until I saw Andy.

The ceremony was everything I wanted it to be. My cousin did an Irish wedding blessing. We had beautiful violin musicians. The mom's walked down the isle to Coldplay's "In my place", the wedding party walked to Eric Clapton's "Wonderful tonight", I walked down to Canon D and the recessional music was Oasis "Wonderwall". I had to hold the tears in while saying the vowels. Even Andy had a tear in his eye so I know he was holding them back too. It was then time to partyyy!

Our entrance was a blast. Ok a quick background on the cowboy hats. We both are huge Kenny Chesney fans. We wear the hats to the concerts and we thought it would be cute. Once we walked in it was time for the first dance. We danced to Jack Johnson's "Angel". Then it was time for the parent dances. Then It was time for the cake cutting. I was looking forward to this!

Now I know some brides are anti cake-smashing. I really had a blast with this. Seriously, its the only time you will be able to do this and get away with it! We both were mild though, he might have got a little more icing on me than I did on him. This is the only cake we both got! All we heard (and are still hearing) is that our cake was delicious. Good thing we are getting one made on our one year!! Once I get the pro-pics back I will post those (which will be any day this week!!). To end this blog it is time to show how much fun everyone had with the cowboy hats! I didn't know so many people had them on till I saw pictures!

First Andy & I

Then Bobby & Cary

Then my brother David

Even my mom got in on the action