I *heart* Giveaways!

So my bloggy friend, Katie, from It's In The Details, has probably the coolest giveaway going on right now. She is giving away a signed copy of The Pioneer Woman's book, "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" !!!! I *heart* P-Dub. So I'm definitely hoping to win this giveaway and trying to enter as many times as I'm allowed. Are you? ;)

Penguin Suits

On Monday night Kevin and I had an appointment at Men's Warehouse to do the tuxedo thing. I honestly had no idea what expect. The guy who was helping us, Jon, was great and both Kevin and I left there very happy.

So here's what's up with the guys' wardrobe for the BIG DAY (the following are all iPhone pics, so they're not the best quality and the stuff looks better in person).

The tux is Calvin Klein. We had two options and went with this one because it's more light-weight. This is very important because it'll be around 90 degrees on our wedding day and the poor guys are going to be perspiring like nobodys business! So anything we can do to make them more comfortable on that day, we'll do.

Kevin will be wearing an ivory vest, Euro tie and suspenders. Our Ring Bearer Will match him. :)

The Groomsmen will be wearing a black vest, Euro tie and suspenders.

My dad and Kevin's dad will be wearing a black cumberbun, black bow tie and suspenders.

Kevin's uncle, Jim, will be marrying us. So he is going to be wearing a red vest, Euro tie and black suspenders. We thought it'll look nice in our wedding photos to have that red up there when we're saying our vows.

A great idea that Jon gave us was to order two white shirts for each guy. That way after the ceremony and pictures outside, when everyone is all sweaty, they can change into a clean, fresh shirt for the reception. GENIUS!

And you want to know what's even better?! Since we have more than 10 tuxedos, Kevin will get his tuxedo for free! And you want to know what's even better than that?! Since we have so many tuxedos, Kevin also gets a free suit up to a $400 value! I love me some great deals. :)

It was exciting to get to do that with Kevin on Monday. Now that I think about it, that was actually our first wedding thing that we've done together! So far nothing has required both of our decisions (seeing as how I make most of them - ha!). We did pretty well with the decision-making process too. No arguments or bickering. :)

Next weekend is going to be full of wedding stuff. It will include engagement photos, food tasting and cake tasting. Finally getting to do all this wedding stuff is making it seem all the more real and that it's actually happening. I think I'm still in a state of shock that I'm going to be getting married. It's something I've wanted since I was a little girl and the fact that I'll be betrothed (I like that word) to Kevin, makes the whole process that much sweeter.


Hugs,

What I'm Loving: WW Edition!

As I've mentioned before, some friends of mine have started up with WW again, and I'm doing the same. But this week I've started up for reals this time. I'm really sticking to counting my points and so far so good.

For me personally, WW has worked out great. I've lost 20 pounds so far and I didn't do any exercising AT ALL. Now, I know that's not really a good thing and it's definitely something that WW doesn't recommend - and I'm not recommending that either. But I just wanted to share that because it's obviously my eating habits that have prevented me from losing my unwanted weight in the past. And for others it may be more about exercise. And I plan to rectify this non-exercising-habit today, after work. I will be doing Pilates. Thankyouverymuch! :) And I hope to continue with the exercising from here on out!

I wanted to share some tips that I've found while doing WW that have helped with staying on track and such.

1. Right now I'm not a paying WW member. I was a paying member for about 3 1/2 months. Then decided that the monthly fee wasn't something I could afford with a wedding coming up and all. So I stopped the membership, but continued on with the counting on my own. The way I did this was by using the iTracker app on my iPhone. It's free and it works pretty well. It is in no way affiliated with WW and it does not calculate your calories, fat and fiber into points. But it's just a way for you to keep track of your points each day. It also accounts for your extra weekly points. I'm using the "old" points system and not the new points system that I've heard WW has now. But the old system worked just fine for me, so I'm sticking with it.

Keeps track of each day. As you can see, I had a great dinner at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday and went over my points a bit. Ha!

Keeps track of your points as well as water, oil, veggies, fruit and dairy.

2. My co-worker told me about this recipe blog (Skinny Taste) last year. This woman takes your normal, everyday recipes and converts them into WW friendly recipes. She also does the points thing for you too. I love it! She also takes really good pictures of the food. Yum! :)

3. I don't know if you all have heard about these, but they should be in most grocery stores by now. They're the Oroweat Sandwich Thins. LOVE. THESE!

They are only one point and the sandwich you make with these is the perfect amount of food. When we run out, I'll usually buy two packs and put one in the freezer and take it out to thaw when I use up the first pack. Kevin and I only use these now when we want to make a sandwich.

4. I love me some breakfast! And I need some sort of carb in the morning to jump-start my day. Sometimes I'll make myself an egg sandwich using either Thomas' Triple Health English Muffin or Thomas' Bagel Thins. Each is just one point!

5. Kevin bought some Diet Green Tea when he went grocery shopping last week and it's zero points. It's nice to have something other than water every now and then. However, this particular brand has aspartame in it. And aspartame (along with chocolate and caffeine) can cause migraines. So I don't think I'll be drinking this too often. But the zero points thing is a plus!

6. My week turns over on every Thursday. So I weigh myself each Thursday morning and my points start over each Thursday. It also helps because I tend to eat the most over the weekends, and I'm really good on the weekdays. So I can enjoy my food (to an extent) on Friday-Sunday, then I don't worry too much about going over my points during the weekdays because I pretty much stay on track for that. That's just what works for me.


That's all I have for now. I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll think of something that I forgot to include here. Again, this is all stuff that works for me and it may not work for everyone - I just thought I'd share.

If you have any good WW tips that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment! I love new tips. :)

PS: I was not compensated in any way for this WW post or the foods I shared.

Trying to stay healthy,

Sunday Stuff

Happy Sunday, everyone!

• I cannot believe that it's already March! And now, a little less than five months until our wedding! Eeek!

• I hate worrying about money. I just have to keep telling myself that God will provide and that things will work out. But still...no fun.

• A couple friends of mine have made some very brave posts recently about their weight loss goals and I am so proud of them. Their posts have actually helped me get serious about these last pounds I have to lose before the wedding (and hopefully for good). I'm kind of thinking that to keep me accountable I might journal my meals here, on my sidebar. Still thinking about it...

• I met up with my friend, Erica, for breakfast yesterday. It's always so great to see her and catch up. She's got a little bun in the oven so I wanted to give her a gift. I made this bib (it was a cross-stitch pattern) a while ago and I've held on to it ever since. So I thought it'd be perfect for her little one. She loved it. :)
  

• After breakfast with Erica, Kevin and I went to Kohls to find him a shirt for our engagement photos. We found one, but he said I was a little "pushy" with my opinions on what I thought he should and should not wear. Ha! Oops!

• While we were at Kohls I spotted this t-shirt. I busted up laughing because I thought it was so funny. It was only $5.00 so I went ahead and got it. I thought it'd be fun to wear around Easter-time.
  

• I spent the rest of yesterday cleaning the ENTIRE house. It desperately needed it. We've been out of town a lot and we'll be out of town some more and I just needed to get things back in order. That included figuring out how to display this amazing tray I won from Megan's giveaway!!

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and looks on our coffee table. :)

• Since I have the cleaning out of the way, I'm spending all of today working on a lot of projects. I'm hoping to share them with you soon!

• Later this week I'll be doing another little opinion / poll / advice about wedding music! So stay tuned. I love getting to hear your ideas and such about all things wedding! It makes this planning process that much more enjoyable.

• Now I'm just waiting for Kevin and his brother to wake up so we can go get some breakfast. I'm a starvin' marvin! ;)

Hugs,

The OTHER Saturday and Sunday

After consuming too many beverages the night before, Kevin and I headed up to Donner on Saturday morning. The drive wasn't too terribly bad. How beautiful was the snow!?

Once we got to the cabin there was even more snow!



And there was ICE!

Pretty much the grand-daddy of all icicles!

The curtain of icicles outside our bedroom window.

I pretty much spent all of Saturday laying down, then I took a nap. That night we had the ritual of homemade pizza straight out of the brick oven. We also sang happy birthday to my MIL.

Matt showed us how big his nostrils really are. Ha!


On Sunday my MIL, Kevin's aunt Kris, and my SIL and I all went shopping in downtown Donner. It was so nice to get out of the house and spend some time with just the girls (the guys burp and fart a lot - gets kind of old after a while ;) ).

Me before we left. I never wear beanies, but given that it was oh...

THIS MANY DEGREES! I thought I should keep my noggin' warm. ;)

And the rest of the time was spent relaxing, eating, playing a lot of Taboo and in Kahlua's case...

...sunbathing.

I love these trips to Donner.


PS: Happy Friday!
PSS (or is it PPS?): Have a great weekend!


Trying to ignore the fact that I just posted about my weekend, when the next weekend is already upon us,

The Friday Over Yonder

So this past Friday I decided to take the day off work because we had planned on heading up to Donner that afternoon. So I took full advantage of the opportunity to sleep in and when I got up I made myself a nice breakfast, and finished the cake balls for my MIL's birthday (which is the reason for the trip to Donner).

The flavor was strawberry cake inside, with chocolate on the outside.

Well, the weather had different plans that day. There was a fierce storm rolling through Northern Cali so we ended up just driving to Sacramento to stay the night at Kevin's brother's house, and planned on leaving extra early Saturday morning to make the rest of the trip.

I will admit even though I hate admitting it that I was being kind of a brat and very whiny when we got to Sacramento because I was bummed that we couldn't be in Donner at the cabin. I kept saying how I didn't want to go out anywhere or anything like that. So anyways, Kevin, his brother, another friend and I went to Tex Mex for happy hour. As the night went on more friends joined us and I ended up having the best time! So I feel like an @$$ for being so whiny before about not wanting to go out and be social, but I'm sure glad I did.

Here are some pictures from the night...

Kevin, Kyle, Quinn, Nevin and Matt

Me, Kev and Salma (Nevin's girlfriend)

Nevin, Kevin and Matt

Me and Salma (isn't Salma beautiful!?)

After Tex Mex we headed over to some other bar that I do not remember the name of. I continued on with the pictures...

Kyle and Kevin in deep convo. I promise they weren't yelling at each other ;)

The Boys -- and why Matt is holding the vase of tulips that was on the table, I do not know.

Salma and Sevana

KISSES!

Sevana and Kyle

Nevin and Salma

That night was so fun! I had about seven one too many margaritas though, and boy was I feeling the effects of them come Saturday morning. Ooof!

More to come!

Margaritas and I are still on friendly terms,

Engagement Photos Recap

I have a plethora of things to blog about. But I'm going to break them up over the next few days so you don't waste a good 20 minutes of your life reading about my adventures. ;)

Thank you all so much for sharing your engagement photos with me! You've given me some great ideas and tips. Here's a little re-cap:

1.) Try to wear something that isn't too trendy. Stick with something more timeless.

2.) Someone mentioned to steer clear of white shirts. I personally like photos with the white shirts. But, I'm sure in some instances it doesn't work very well in photos.

3.) Wear something you're comfortable in, because the uncomfortableness will show up on camera.

So here's my plan:

We're only going to do one outfit. I have such horrible option anxiety that just choosing this one outfit was enough to do me in. Ha! So my outfit is going to be this dress in ivory...


It's so comfortable and pretty. I'll be wearing it with some really cute brown boots that I'm borrowing from my mom, and probably a jean jacket. I wanted something bright, a little different - but something I'm still comfortable in, and something fun. I tried it all on together and LOVE it!

As for what Kevin's wearing, I don't have a clue. Guess I'll have to give that some thought.

I loved every one's photos! I can't wait until my wedding date gets closer so I can ask you all to share your wedding photos with me!

Squealing with excitement,