Baptism x 2

November 30, 2011

Today I’m thankful for good days! I had a great day today. Last night I got nine hours of sleep. NINE hours, people! I usually average about five to six hours each night (and we don’t even have kids). So upon waking up this morning I felt like a new woman! I got to work on time, was super productive and I got to leave early. It was a great day!

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A couple weeks ago Kevin and I were invited to see these cuties get baptized.

Mikaela and Kesara were on their best behavior that day. They never made a peep the entire time in the church. It was really amazing.

Since they are twins (duh!), there are two sets of Godparents.

Michelle and Brandon’s very good friends, John and Jenn are Mikaela’s Godparents.

Brandon’s sister, Danielle, and her husband, Oscar, are Kesara’s Godparents.

Afterwards, there was a beautiful lunch out at Brandon’s parents’ house. The food was great and the special little touches were precious!

I also got to love on John and Jenn’s youngest daughter, Jillian. She was so cute. I would’ve taken her home with us but I think her parents and big sister would have missed her too much.

I was also able to rock Mikaela to sleep and put her down for a nap. Ya, it’s not really that big of a deal, but it made me feel good and I got my full-on baby fix that day.

We love these two (and their parents) so much and look forward to watching them grow up and reach many more milestones!

Hugs and babies,

Day of Thanks

November 29, 2011

I’m thankful that nail salons exist. There is nothing better than a good pedicure and manicure!

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We had a great Thanksgiving. Like I’ve said, my family came to town to celebrate the holiday with us. The dogs got so much attention from everyone!

I somehow managed to take six days off of work! It was much needed and so hard to go back to work on Monday.

We had a lot of family time last week. I think my family was ready to go home come Saturday morning, and we were ready to have our house back that morning too.

As little welcome gifts, I got Dad and Brother a beanie, body wash and some chapstick. For Mom and Grandma Ruth I got each a book, body wash and some chapstick. Nothing crazy, but just something thanking them for coming. I put each gift in a brown lunch bag and tied it with some festive ribbon and put it in their rooms.

Dad brined the turkey a few days before T-day. So when it was all cooked and done it was pretty much the best turkey we’ve ever had.

Mom and I made mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and stuffing. We were able to get it all done early on in the day so all we had to do was pop everything into the oven for about 30 minutes once the turkey was out.

Oh, and I attempted to make two pies the night before T-day and they both turned out not-so-good.  I was so frustrated because I used the same recipes I did last year (and they both turned out amazing last year). I ended up not slicing the apples thin enough for the apple pie so they were a little crunchy, and then for the pumpkin pie I put twice as much cream cheese in the recipe than it called for! I was super disappointed and therefore refused to eat either pie come time for dessert. Ha!

However, the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies were a hit so at least something I made turned out well.

Dad and Kevin managed get a little tipsy before the meal. But it made for some good laughs.

This would be my husband - post shots of Maker’s Mark and Thanksgiving dinner. Haha!

Since we don’t have a dining room (or an area for a table for that matter) we rented a table and chairs and set up shop in the living room. Not ideal, but I enjoyed being able to set a table in our house for once.

It was an all around good holiday. One with memories that we for sure won’t forget.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well.

Much love,

Family, iPhones and Stretchy Pants

November 23, 2011

I’m thankful that my parents provided us with an amazing wedding. I know a lot of couples that have to (or choose to) pay for their own wedding, and I feel very grateful that my parents were able to do that for us. It helped us out tremendously and it’s something I will never forget and always cherish.

November 24, 2011

I’m thankful for my family! We had my parents, Brother and Grandma Ruth here for three days to help us celebrate Thanksgiving and it was great to host Thanksgiving for them. However, I don’t think we’ll be hosting again in the near future. It was exhausting!

November 25, 2011

This is very materialistic, but I am pretty darn thankful for my iPhone. I do pretty much everything on it. I’ve lost one iPhone and I about had a coronary, so I keep this one extra close. I’m sure I would live if I didn’t have one but I’d rather not find out. Ha!

November 26, 2011

I’m thankful for Christmas tunes! It gets me in the mood for the holiday cheer like nothing else can (well, except for maybe Starbuck’s Peppermint Mocha).

November 27, 2011

I’m thankful for sweatpants and anything that stretches. I’ve gained eight pounds since our wedding and I sure felt all eight pounds of that after Thanksgiving. So that means I’ve lived in my stretchy pants every second I’ve been home.

November 28, 2011

And this leads me to what I’m thankful for today: Weight Watchers! I’m back on the WW plan as of today. I didn’t do too bad today. I’m determined to feel “myself” and comfortable at Christmas, so that gives me about a month, which is doable. Oh, and my birthday is exactly one month from today and I’d like to feel good about myself while I ring in my 29th year of life.

Amen.

Catching up on some thanks

November 18, 2001

I’m thankful that we live only an hour and forty-five minutes from my parents. It makes for a short drive, which is always helpful after a long day of work when we have to leave for a weekend visit, or just an overnight visit; like we did this past weekend.

November 19, 2011

I’m thankful for friends with babies!!! This past Saturday we attended the twins’ baptism and I got so much good baby time in with not only the twins, but also Jenn’s precious Jillian. It made my heart so happy. And I’m also thankful my friends let me love on their babies too. Just call me [baby] crazy Aunt Kay Kay. Ha!

November 20, 2001

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually thankful for football! If you would’ve asked me two years ago, I would’ve never been thankful for football. However, I’m in my second year of an all-girls Fantasy Football League and I’ve been in first place for a number of weeks now. I’m pretty stoked! I actually listen to the games on the radio and I even watch the games when Kevin isn’t home. It’s given us something to bond over and I just love that football = fall.

November 21, 2001

I’m thankful that I only had to work one day this week! Woo hoo!!! I have the rest of this week off, and I am so relieved. I’ve been busy preparing for our house guests for the Thanksgiving holiday so I won’t be able to relax too much, but it’ll all be worth it.

November 22, 2001

I’m thankful for hot water. When I roll out of bed and blindly find my way to the shower and let the water heat up and I step into that heat, it’s probably one of the best feelings ever. I know I take having hot water for granted and that there are people in this world without it, so it’s always a good reminder.

The end.

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that…aka…flying port-a-potties and flamingos

November 17, 2011

I’m thankful for my health insurance. I had to go to the doctor today and got a couple prescriptions and thank goodness for insurance because that would have cost us a pretty penny.

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-It feels like I haven’t blogged in forever! Even though I have, but I just wanted to get our wedding pictures on here.

-So back to my doctor’s appointment: my appointment was at 11am. I didn’t see the doctor until 11:55am. I wasn’t too pleased. Then I had to get my prescriptions and that took another 45 minutes. Good thing I took the day off work for this appointment. But like I said, I’m thankful for my insurance so I can even go to doctor appointments.

-I don’t think I ever posted the picture of our two fur-babies on Halloween night, sporting their Halloween scarves (and if I did - whatevs; means you get a double dose of cuteness). I *heart* these two. Aren’t they cute!? Pretty sure this is the closest Kahlua has allowed Stella to be to her, and the fact that they both sat still and looked at the camera is a miracle!

- The garage sale we had last weekend went pretty well. For the record: I am not a fan of the garage sales. You have to get up early, you have strange people coming onto your property, it’s cold (if you’re not smart and decide to do it in November like us) and it’s pretty boring. It helped that I had a space heater and my laptop. We made a helpful amount of money and then took the rest of our items to Goodwill. We were so exhausted at the end of that day. It was all worth it though because our garage is now clutter-free!

- I was driving behind some kind of work truck today that had a port-a-potty hitched to the back of it. It looked a little suspicious so I decided to not drive so close behind it. It’s a good thing I didn’t because the door to the port-a-potty flew right open every time the guy accelerated! So at the next stop light I decided to hang back even further just in case. Well, whatayaknow? When he accelerated around the corner this time, the entire toilet came flying out of said port-a-potty! Water and all. It was pretty bizarre. The guy had no clue that a portion of his port-a-potty was sitting in the middle of the street, so when I pulled up next to him I yelled “Excuse me! Your toilet flew out back there!” And he said, “Oh the door flew open?” and I said, “No. The toilet flew out!” (I am laughing so hard right now recounting this little experience.) At that moment his light turned green and he kind of glanced in his rearview mirror and had to go. I’m not sure if he went back for his toilet. And I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever have the opportunity again to tell someone that their “toilet flew out” onto a road. HAHA!

- If you’ve been watching the news, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Occupy movement. I’ll keep my opinions to myself on what I really think about these Occupiers (I am NOT a fan of them!). I work in the financial district of San Francisco. The Occupiers have decided to occupy this area of SF as of this week. The other day they full-on went into the Bank of America that was right across the street from our building. I work for a very large bank, but fortunately our building doesn’t have our business name on it, otherwise things would’ve been ugly. We were all pretty on edge though that day. Just look at the crowd of people doing their marching into BofA!

- On Monday night we got Flamingoed. I went to go turn the outside light off before bed and peeked out the window of our front door and saw a bunch of bright pink things on our lawn!I had no idea what getting Flamingoed was. I had to Google it (because The Google knows all). From what I could gather it’s sometimes done by church youth groups.Turns out Kevin’s boss’s kids go to a Christian school and this is something the school does. They “nominate” a house so I guess we were the chosen ones. Never a dull moment in the Pino Household.

- I’m getting excited for Thanksgiving. My family is coming to our house and we’re hosting. I’ve washed all the new stuff we’ll be using so I don’t have to worry about it next week. I’ve also been brainstorming on how I want to decorate and set the table for the Thanksgiving Feast. Here’s an idea of what I have in mind and the look I’m going for. Like my decorations: lots of golds, silvers and mercury glass.

Carry on,

Wedding Photos: Part VII

November 15, 2011

I’m thankful for my friends! As my mom always says: “It’s not about quantity; it’s about quality.” So true, Mom. So true.

 

November 16, 2011

This is a little out there, but I’m thankful for the Investigation Discovery (I.D.) channel. Weird, I know. But I’m somewhat obsessed with murder mysteries and things of that sort. I majored in Forensic Psychology for my undergrad degree, so that tells you something. It’s pretty much the only channel I watch, besides some other shows I record. Kevin thinks I’m weird because of this (and probably for other reasons too, but that’s neither here nor there).

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Here are the last set of pictures from our wedding! These are all the little details. I’ll link to sites that I got stuff from and explain things for anyone who’s interested.

I got this wire name hanger from the Etsy site Buttonz & Bloomz. I liked this site a lot because she made the wire in color and added beads and the bow. I also ended up getting one for Maygan and Alison for each of their wedding shower gifts.

As I posted in the past, Maygan got me these shoes for my bridal shower gift. I wore them pretty much the entire time of our wedding. They were so comfortable!

My mom, MIL, Kevin’s grandma, aunt and my SIL all helped me make the bouquets. We ordered the roses from Costco and they were delivered. It took us about half the day to make seven bouquets, 13 boutonnieres and four corsages. (And just as a side note, if I were to do the boutonnieres over again, I would have covered the floral tape in black satin ribbon.)

These crystal pins came in so handy! I got them from Save-on-crafts.com. Seriously, this is the best website ever. Perfect for wedding planning, party planning and/or any other type of décor. A box of 100 of these pins were like $2.99. I bought a ton of boxes and even have a couple boxes left over that I’m sure I’ll find some use for. I put them in each rosebud in the bouquets, as well as each rosebud of the pomanders.

I ordered a ton of stuff through Save-on-crafts: corsage/boutonniere pins, floral tape, floral wire, bird cages, wishing tree, wishing tree tags, crystal garlands and shepherd’s hooks. Great website.

Of course the brooch bouquet I made. This will have to be for another post. It was quite involved, but so worth it!

So I didn’t really have anything in mind for a centerpiece between Kevin and me at the head table. So the week of the wedding I went to Michael’s and got these wood letters, then decoupaged some damask scrapbook paper on them. Literally, the second we sat down to the table at the reception someone came up to give us a hug over the table and the thing fell off the table and broke. Oh well! Ha!

The wishing tree; used as our guest book. I really really loved how it turned out! Like I said, the wishing tree, crystal garlands, wishing tree tags and the bird cage (that held the tags) all came from Save-on-crafts. I made the little sign that said “Advice and wishes for the Mr. and Mrs.” and found that frame at TJ Maxx.

I made this seating chart myself. I am still very proud of this. I designed it using a program that’s similar to Adobe Photoshop and just taught myself how to use it and I was able to come up with this. I prefer seating charts like this, versus individual seating cards at a wedding because it seems to me like it’s a lot easier for guests to locate their name. Instead of having to hunch over a table and try and search out their place card amongst a hundred other ones that look the exact same. But that’s just my preference.

I bought this frame at Michael’s. I’m going to re-use the frame for a wedding photo. I put one of the table runners behind the frame. The table runners came from Tableclothsfactory.com.

The menu I made. I posted about this as well as the table numbers and seating cards for the wedding party in this post.

I ended up doing all the centerpieces as the pomander on top of the vase with the crystals hanging down. I ordered the pomanders from afloral.com. I was really concerned the pomanders were going to look like fake flowers (because duh…they were!), so I ordered two different kinds and went with these ones because I felt like they looked the least fake. I unhooked a portion of the crystals from the crystal garlands and hooked them onto each pomander (luckily each pomander came with a little part to hook the crystals to). Then I hot glued each one onto the vase.

To keep the pomander theme somewhat consistent throughout the wedding day, I also used them in the ceremony, instead I also added a black satin ribbon on each one. They were hung from a shepherd’s hook and lined the aisle at the ceremony.

Our Flower Girl also had a pomander to hold as she walked up the aisle. I used the crystal garland as a little handle for her.

Red chair sashes provided by the wedding venue.

Mom was in charge of the candy bar. I’m not sure where she got all the candy. She kind of began collecting it as time went on whenever she would see any on sale. She also did a lot of searching online. She stuck with the red, white and black theme. The candy bar was a HUGE hit with the guests. I made the sign. Luckily, we had a family friend who had most of the candy bar jars, ribbon and tongs that she let us borrow, so that was a huge help!

Cake and cake stand came from Ettore’s.

This gorgeous cake topper initial came from  Toppers With Glitz. I also went ahead and ordered the matching cake serving set to match. All this was handmade and was such good quality. I’m going to frame the initial in a shadow box. It’s just too pretty to not display.

Kevin’s aunt made the bouquet for the ceremony and also put together the extra rose bouquets we had and set around the reception hall. She is quite talented. The unity candle set came from Michael’s.

I took this chalkboard sign from our wall at home right before we left to head out for the wedding weekend. I sure am glad I did because I hung it on a post and our guests were easily able to find where they were supposed to go. Didn’t cost me a thing!

XOXO~