nerd alert!

i'm too busy watching the election results to continue my honeymoon post from yesterday...yes, i know, i'm a giant nerd.  so, to entertain you this evening, here's a list of five super nerdy things you may or may not know about me.

1.  i love lists - HAH!  if you read my blog ever, you know this.  i'm constantly making lists.  i make lists of lists i need to make!  some call it organized...it would probably be organized if i actually attempted to DO the things on the list.  although, to be honest, whenever i check a thing off my to-do lists i get a little giddy.

2.  i love to read - anything and everything.  i'll read a book that got the worst reviews in history, just because it's a book.  i always had my head in a book when i was younger.  i think it used to annoy my parents, but hey, at least i was reading and not doing drugs, right?  that's gotta be saying something.  the sad thing is i don't feel like i get to read as much as i used to.  i've been reading barack obama's book dreams of my father for almost 6 months now.  granted, i was planning a wedding and going on my honeymoon and other things, but it's small enough i should have finished it in less than a week.  great book, by the way, i love the writing style.  and he lived in indonesia, which is awesome.

3.  harry potter - yup, i'm obsessed.  that's probably enough said, you guys know who harry potter is, just admit he's awesome.

4.  i'm slightly ocd - this probably ties in a little with #1, huh?  a few examples: i sort my skittles and other colored candies by color and i eat them in ROY G BIV order, table confetti (you know, the stuff people put out at weddings and parties and stuff?) yeah, i pick it all up and stack in with like words/pictures and line it up in front of my chair, i sort anything and everything in some sort of order, alphabetical, numerical or by color, and i count all the time (i just found out this is weird...kyle says it is anyway) i count things like how many steps it takes me to get from one place to another or how many stairs i just walked up.  that's all i can think of right now, but i'm sure there is more.

5.  politics - this isn't really nerdy, a lot of people are into politics, but i'm really into researching and getting into the issues.  i hate when people just vote by party, so i look into the voting records and personal beliefs of each and every candidate before vote.

i'm sure there is more, but i'll save that all for another post!

and because no post is fun without a picture...

PHOTOBOOTH!!  my mom sewed the curtains!

NaBloPoMo

in an effort to get myself to blog some more (really?  the last time i wrote anything was two days after my wedding...which was only, you know, over a month ago.  blogger fail.) i'm going to attempt to participate in NaBloPoMo.  i'm going to assume everyone knows what that means, but just in case, it's National Blog Posting Month and i will attempt to post a blog each and every day of november!  get ready for a fun ride!

to start things off, i thought i'd share a couple of my favorite shots from our honeymoon.  oh, i didn't tell you i went on a honeymoon?  whoops.  well, i know you'd rather see the pictures, so here's a few from our Great American Road Trip Honeymoon, day one (walsh, colorado to sante fe, nm):

we waited a week to leave for our honeymoon, so we left wichita the friday after our wedding right after work.  actually, kyle made me leave work at 3 to meet him at the rental car place, but that's a whole other story.  we drove from wichita to walsh, co to stay with his maternal grandparents.  the next morning we woke up bright and early to visit his paternal grandparents.  we wanted to visit his grandmother in the nursing home.  she recently suffered from multiple stokes and she and his grandfather were unable to make it to the wedding.  after we visited with her and tracked down his grandfather and chatted for a while, we headed out on our trip!

 we stopped in trinidad, co for lunch.  trinidad is near kyle's grandparents cabin where we stayed on our engagement trip.  i love the town, it is so quaint and nestled into the mountains.  our usual lunch place was closed for the day, so we tried a new brick oven pizza place.  yum!

this bird cage statue is new.  and huge!

 trinidad is a large coal mining town and the last time we were in town this coal miner's monument was under construction, so i was glad it was finally done so we could see what it looked like.

a coworker of mine gave me this vinyl sign to put on the car when we left the wedding.  since we didn't do a grand exit (we were going to take the trolley, but the last one left right before we made it out of the museum) so i decided we'd use it for the honeymoon!  this also showcases our pimp gold elantra that we rented.  i make fun, but it was actually a pretty good little car and we didn't have to drive one of ours!

 kyle's uncle, who was also recently wed and spent some time after his wedding in the area, told us to take the scenic route from trinidad to santa fe.  we are SO glad we did.  it added about 1.5 hours to the drive, but it was gorgeous.  we weaved in and out of mountains and national parks and then through taos.  taos was gorgeous.  i think i'd rather go skiing there than colorado!

i have a ton of pictures from that drive, but i won't bore you with them, they are similar to the picture of the mountains above this one.  this lake is the last one i'll show.  we wanted to stop, but weren't sure how much longer it would take us to get to santa fe and we were getting a little hungry.  (us?  hungry?  NEVER.)

that was the gist of the first day of travel.  good thing for me, i can probably take up at least 10 days with just honeymoon pictures!  10 day trip, 10 days of blogging about it?  probably.

a few final wedding projects...

i'm BAAAAAAAAAACK!

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i kept a few wedding projects until the last minute.  i'm a bit of a procrastinator, i have to admit...  :)

anyway, one of the last minute projects that we wanted to do was a cake topper for the grooms cake.  kyle had found some really cute polymer clay ones online that i became obsessed with, so i decided to recreate some (for, well, a lot cheaper than we could have purchased them for.  just an fyi).  i adore penguins, so he had found some really cute ones.

so a trip to michael's, two bags of pluffy and about two hours later, we had our penguin groom's cake topper!

here they are in all their little penguin glory:

i painted the bride's bow red and the groom's tie aqua.  i LOVED them!  when i get the professional pictures, i'll be sure to post a few!  i figured i'd have to settle for something not quite as cool as what he had found online, but i guess those two years of ceramics in college really paid off!  yay, fine arts!

project total:

clay - 2 bags of clay at $2.99 (used a 40% off coupon)

paint - 2 bottles of paint at $.99

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around $8

$160 cake topper found online can suck it!

engagement pictures

i know i'm way late getting these up here, since i've had the cd for like...oh...6 months?  i dunno, it's been a while anyway.


here's our engagement pictures!  we had a blast taking them.  even kyle opened up a bit and SMILED.  now that never happens.  or at least rarely happens.  in photos.  i mean he smiles in real life all the time, just not in photos.  i'm glad our package included engagement pictures, it was a great way to get to know our photographer before the wedding and see how she works and so she can get to know our personalities a little.


all photos by jackie cooper, check her out at jackiecooperphoto.com.

i think this is one of my favorites.  i look like i have a secret or something...

jackie appeased us by letting us bring along the brats.  look at sly, such a model.

i love this one!

we had an impromptu shoot at the house when we went to change.

i heart sun flare!

another favorite.  we are hoping to get one just like this during the wedding with all the guests in the background!  i can't wait to see that one!

doesn't it look like he likes me or something?!?  :)

this is over by my work, so i threw this one in there, and i love that necklace that i happened to find at my grandparents house the last time i was there.

LOVE!  peaks of the exploration place, looking into the future, and the colors look amazing in this.  it was almost pitch black when she took this, but i love it anyway!

when the boy is away...

...the crafter will play!

so, probably something you don't know unless you have been one of the poor souls that has had to listen to me drone on and on about my wedding, is that i'm pretty much DIYing the shiz outta my wedding.  why?  because i love to craft.  and i love weddings.  and i'm cheap.  so why not?  :)

[that being said, i'm SO INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL for the crew i have handling a lot of the projects that i took on and am now like, "holy crap, i'm getting married in almost insertnumberofdaysatthetime days and i don't have this insertrandomprojecthere done yet!"  they have SAVED MY ASS on a lot of this.]

more on the awesome people helping me out later, but i thought this was hilarious.  i found it via weddingsandcookies who found it via 100layercake (side note: how did i miss this?  damn you google reader and my ability to fly through super fast while trying to decide what to read!!!)  and it's totally appropriate being that i'm going to attempt to tackle over half of my "wedding to-do list" this weekend.

anyway...this is awesome.  and so true.  i needed this about, OOOOOOOOOH, 8 or so months ago.  but that's okay, i'll survive, thanks to my awesome crafting crew!  enjoy.

source

ummm...'scuse me?

that's what i said when i found out that all the candles at my venue have to be encased in a candle holder that covers the flame by TWO INCHES.  now, let me tell you, in the wedding votive world, that's a lot.  like it might as well be friggin' twelve inches.  sheesh.
hopefully you remember what i told you i'm doing for my flowers, and since i did finally find a votive candle holder that did cover the flame by two inches, i wanted to show you what they are!


are you ready for this?


blue. mason. jars.


okay, so not as exciting at some people think, but i adore them.  and they remind me of my grandmother (who, coincidentally, i got most of my jars from...)


feast your eyes on some candle jar porn:

source

source

source

seriously, i'm in love with these and i can't wait to see it all put together on the big day.

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in other big news, our house is OFFICIALLY clean!  like really and actually clean!  kyle's grandparents came into town this week to see his great aunt (who lives nearby) and they wanted to see the house, so we spent a few days picking up and organizing all our crap.  it's SO NICE to be organized.  huge relief.  and now i can focus on wedding invites this weekend!  i also have my first dress fitting, so my mom is coming back to wichita to spend the weekend, so it will be a wedding filled weekend!  yay!

my "other" wedding

the other day, i found my "other" wedding.  you know, the wedding that i would have planned if i were to get married again.  (hey, i just thought of this....there's still time for vow renewals!)

ironically, it's still in my color scheme, which is the main reason i clicked on it...to get some inspiration/ideas for my programs.

i am LOOOVING this wedding...80s high school sweethearts?!?  hello, if that doesn't scream "catie" than i don't know what does.  i mean, other than "retroish family-affair kid-friendly i-do-what-i-want awesomeness" which is what my real wedding is.  :)

oh my, i might just have to start blogging about wedding inspiration, because it just makes me smile every day!  :)

i love a good chair.  i can't help it, i'm an interior designer for christ's sake.  and the bunting made out of an old school jump rope?  friggin' adorable!

oh, handwritten font...i SO wanted you for my invites...but you just didn't fit anywhere!  sigh....how cute would it have been if they put an arrow through that heart?  just sayin...

a report card style menu and schedule of events?  adorable!

i love hand drawn elements.  i almost hand drew a few antique frames for my invites and scanned them in, but in the end, i really like what i did (post to come...eventually).  if a cassette doesn't represent the 80s, than i don't know what does!

i love their outfits...that blusher veil is awesome.  don't show kyle though, he'll want to wear a hat to our wedding...i wanted a short dress at first, but changed my mind later.  i got the best of both worlds though, i'm wearing a short dress out to the bars after the reception (yes, you read that right, we are going to the bars after the reception).

okay...ONE MORE!  i love this idea of the "pass a note" guest book, too cute!  we are doing a "recipe for love" guest book...that i have yet to complete!  i did, however, locate and spray paint a recipe card tin (thanks, mom!)

all images from http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/blog/2010/06/23/1980s-retro-high-school-love-wedding-ideas/  and http://www.thesweetestoccasion.com/2010/06/80s-school-theme-wedding-ideas/