Hello 2014

2013 has been such a huge year for Jim and I. We ended 2012 by visiting South Padre with Jim's family. It was such a relaxing vacation and a great way to start the year. 

In 2013 we had our dream wedding, honeymooned in Maui, visited Victoria, BC (never got around to posting about that amazing vacation, I'm a bad blogger), welcomed 2 new nieces, had a cousin move to Austin, added a new member to our family, visited New York City, and bought a new vehicle! Whew.

2013 has definitely been the best year of my life, and I'm sure 2014 will be even better. I'm not really big on making resolutions because they never seem to stick, but I do have some personal goals and ideas for change in mind for 2014. 

One thing that I know for certain I want to keep doing is blogging. Even though I don't have tons of readers, it is still fun to look back at all the events I've documented over the last year and know that I will want to do the same for this coming year.

Here's to 2014!
Lexi

Have yourself a married little Christmas

Although this is Jim and I's 6th Christmas together, this one is very special because it is our first Christmas as a married couple. One tradition that I waited to start until now was sending out a family Christmas card and here is our first one!

My cousin Laura took this photo and it was the only one out of literally a hundred where both the dogs were looking at the camera. Who knew taking a photo with your pets could be so difficult.

Happy holidays everyone!

Lexi

Cold fronts and hair cuts

So the day after our wedding we had a family brunch to say goodbye to all the family members who came into town for the wedding, and as soon as that was over I went to get my hair cut. I had been growing my hair out for the wedding since before we were even engaged (don't judge, my hair takes forever to grow!). I have pretty fine hair and I was getting so sick of constantly getting trims. 8 inches later, I felt great and was ready for Maui! 

love the lace details

Now on to my outfit. It's crazy that I'm wearing jeans and boots in April...in Texas. We've been having cold fronts come in lately so I'm trying to get a few more uses out of my boots before I put them away for the summer. My go to outfit this past winter has been boots with skinnies and a flowy top, it's a no brainer. 

I had this cameo made to wear with my wedding dress and now that the wedding is over I can wear it anytime, love the details! 

Lexi

Looking back on our wedding

So I'm married (woo!). Our wedding day was truly perfect and went off without a hitch. The day started off with Jim and I taking the dogs for a walk and sipping on some coffee at home while we waited to start the day. The bridesmaids and I went to the venue at noon to start decorating and getting our hair done. When I arrived I was shocked to see that all the chairs for the ceremony and reception had already been set up, and our DOC (day of coordinator) was already putting together the centerpieces, she had everything under control! 

The one thing I wasn't looking forward to was measuring and cutting burlap runners for all the tables, and that was already done when I got there! So I went back to the bridal suite (which was basically a 2 bedroom house, huge) and ate some breakfast tacos while chatting with my ladies. 

The whole afternoon was stress free, and I spent most of my time gretting family and then adoring my beautiful flowers when they arrived. Jim and I did a 'first look' since we were planning on taking all family pictures before the ceremony started. 

I wasn't nervous at all until our DOC started getting the bridal party ready for the ceremony to start. I looked at my dad and said, "If you feel the need to say anything sweet or nice to me before this thing gets going, shut it because if you say anything I will lose it." His reply was, "Well I don't even like you anyway so why would I say anything nice?" :)

I was super nervous when the ceremony started but we all got through it and I managed to keep it together until the bridal party walked back down the aisle after the ceremony was over and Shelley said something sweet and then I started crying. So unthoughtful of her ;)

The reception was a blur and flew by. I spent the entire night either in the photo booth or on the dance floor. I don't have any professional pictures back yet, but when I do I'm sure they'll show up on the blog!

Lexi

It's the most awkward & awesome Thursday!

That's right Jimbo, you're marrying this awkward girl!

This is perhaps the most awkward & awesome Thursday ever, it's the day before my wedding and it's surreal and amazing at the same time. 

My entire life I've been telling myself and other people that I'm in no rush to get married and that marriage will happen much further down the road. Well I'm down the road now and although I am ready, it is strange to experience such a big shift in my life. 

The other day I asked Jim if he could remember the moment when he realized he wanted to marry me. He laughed and said 'oh, maybe a month in', I thought he must have misunderstood the question. I said 'no, I asked when you realized you wanted to MARRY me.', he gave the same response and I was pretty surprised. 

I don't remember the exact moment that I realized I wanted to marry him, but I do know I've been committed to him and us since we met. The path to this day has been so effortless it almost caught me by surprise.

I have been trying to enjoy each moment leading up to the wedding as much as I can (basically doing the opposite of the brides on Bridezillas), and so far I have enjoyed every moment. There was a stressful moment where I felt like the details were spinning out of control, but my awesome day of coordinator brought everything back in for me and it's been smooth sailing since then. 

My mantra tomorrow will be to enjoy every moment of the actual wedding because it is literally a once in a lifetime event and will be done before I know it. If you see me tomorrow, remind me of this!

Lexi

Our family wedding shower

Two weekends ago, my step sister and sister in law threw us a wedding shower with all of our family. I wish I had gotten more pictures of all the cute decorations, my favorite was the 'almost married' banner above the buffet. Also, check out the flower arrangements, so beautiful! 

So much planning and effort from multiple people went into it and it turned out to be a lovely event. 

Future brother in law!

My mom and Jim's step mom

Future in laws!

Lovely Shelley

Jim and his dad

It was so great having both of our families together celebrating us, such a great feeling! We are so lucky to have so much unconditional love & support from our families. I can't wait to share our wedding with them!

Lexi

Deciding on Maui

via

So, after much much deliberation, we finally booked our honeymoon! It was so stressful really fun figuring out where we wanted to go. The first step was deciding what type of honeymoon we wanted. Did we want to backpack through Europe, visit Italy, relax on a beach? We decided the most honeymoon appropriate thing to do was to relax on a beach.

Jim's two requests were that we go somewhere that 1. spoke English, and 2. accepted US currency. Hawaii it was. 

After getting input from many people, we (meaning I) decided on Maui. We'll only be there for 5 days (not including 2 days of travel) so I wanted to focus on one island, and next time we visit the Hawaiian Islands we can focus on a different island.

We rented a fabulous condo on Sugar Beach in South Maui and plan on renting a Jeep (Jim's idea) to explore the island. I'm not looking forward to the 9 hour plane ride, but once we get there I'm sure it'll be well worth it!

via

Any suggestions on things that we must do?

Lexi

Our Sunday funday wedding shower

So in my last post I said that I was going to go back to document what I have been up too while on my mini blog vacation, and I still plan to but I wanted this post to be about the wedding shower that my lovely friends Ashley and Amber threw us last Sunday.

Just look at all the cute decorations! It looked like Pinterest exploded in there and I loved it. A make your own bloody mary bar, mimosas, french toast sticks, mac & cheese in a baby mason jar, just a few of my favorite things. 

It truly was exactly what Jim and I wanted, a party with all of our closest friends.

As I'm typing this I'm listening to Death Cab For Cutie and getting nostalgic, so indulge me for 2 seconds. Just look at these fabulous ladies, who really pulled out all the stops for us. It's such a great feeling knowing that your friends will gladly do that for you.

You can't really tell from this pic, but Amber decided to throw in a few slightly embarrassing pictures in our little collage. 

Playing the newlywed game, each question seemed to get more and more inappropriate thanks to Ashley. 

Ha the look on Jim's face as he holds up his sign that says 'Spice Girls' is priceless, because he knows they were my fave!

Lexi

Wedding Inspiration

As our wedding gets closer and closer, I've been having a hard time putting all my ideas into words and organizing them. It's like I need to see everything so I don't miss out on a good idea. Pinterest has definitely helped me with this, and here are some images from my wedding Pinterest board.

All images via Pinterest

Clockwise from the top left:

• I've been thinking a lot about my bouquet recently, and I've fallen in love with peonies. I love the blush color of these.
• How cute is this succulent hair piece? Guess what it would match??!
• Our wedding favors, which are small succulents.
• I have to get a picture in my wedding dress with my dogs.
• This is a picture of where Jim and I will be standing when we say our vows to each other.
• How cute is this sign? I want one!
• This is a picture of where we will have our reception, love the chandelier. 
• Our wedding venue is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so having cute signs to lead the way is a cute and helpful idea.
• Last but not least is the fisherman's knot.  The rope will break before the knot comes undone and the knot only gets tighter with pressure.

Lexi

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Picture from our recent engagement photo shoot

Awkward:

-There is a famous view in Austin that looks down South Congress Ave and you can see the Capitol in the background. We wanted to take pictures with this view in our background...so we waited until the light turned red and ran out into the middle of the street with the photographer to take a few shots before running back to the sidewalk when the light turned green again. It was interesting taking kissing pictures while traffic watched.

-The other day I was in the Central Market parking lot walking to my car when a lady in an SUV decided to not only back out of her parking spot, but to back all the way out of her aisle back to the main road. I happened to be in her path but I guess she wasn't looking (?!?!?!) and I had to literally jump out of the way. Boy was she surprised to see me yelling at her when she was done backing up.
-My hair at this exact moment.

Awesome:

-We got our engagement pictures back from our photographer and they came out great!

-My ring, I catch myself staring at it all the time.

-I recently completed the Couch to 5K iPhone app, and now I can run for 25 minutes straight. Never been able to do that before.

Ok so on an unrelated note, doesn't Jim's hair look black in this picture? He swears his hair is brown...but I say his hair is black. What do you think?

Lexi

The proposal story

Ok so I should probably start at the very beginning, when we started going ring shopping in December 2011.  We decided to go to every ring store we could think of and try every style there. Umm I was a little overwhelmed, at first I thought I wanted an emerald cut, then I was sure I wanted a princess cut. Jim patiently let me try on every style I wanted to. 

It was very important to me that we buy a ring from somewhere that was trusted, and preferably local. Our last stop on the ring shopping train was Kruger's, a local company in downtown Austin. The salesman there was very patient and dealt with my indecisiveness as well as Jim did. I must have tried on every ring there. When I was done exhausting and confusing myself, Jim asked that I try on a round cut in a simple setting. It's amazing that the person you love could know exactly what you want before you even know you want it. All along I was convinced that I wanted something unique and uncommon, but as soon as I tried on the simple ring with a single round diamond, I knew. We both knew.

'Is there anything in my teeth?' Preparing to take a pic the day after we got engaged at Jim's dad's 4th of July party.

 About a month later my mom took me to lunch and told me that she had inherited a diamond ring from my grandmother when she passed away, and knew she wouldn't have much use for it. She told me that if I wanted, I could use this ring's center stone and put it in a new setting for my engagement ring when the time came.

The thought of wearing a family heirloom that had been passed down for so many generations made my heart swell. It had to be fate that Jim and I fell in love with a round cut diamond engagement ring, and the family ring that was just given to me had a round center stone. 

My mom gave us the ring and it stayed at our house until June 2012. By then, we had decided that we wanted to buy a setting from Kruger's, but still weren't sure about which setting to put the family diamond into. When we went back to Kruger's, we had the same salesman that we did in December, who made me forget I was ring shopping and made me feel at home. I picked the same setting I had originally picked back in December, and so we knew this was the setting for our ring. 

At Jim's dad's 4th of July party, the day after we got engaged.

 We were ready, so Jim gave the family ring to the salesman and they took my ring size for the new setting we picked out. I overheard the salesman tell Jim 'It will be ready to pick up on Friday'.

The week that the ring was being made was pretty surreal, we'd been talking about this ring for so long and now it was here. That Friday when Jim came home from work he said, "Lexi, I am just going to say that the ring is spectacular.".......thanks for reminding me....The next week and a half was the longest ever, I kept wondering when the heck Jim was going to propose!

It's all about the ring! ;)

 Every time we went out to eat I kept wondering if this was going to be it! I could have been more patient, but I had waited for so long already and it was killing me knowing that the ring was somewhere in the house! I finally sat Jim down and told him I was dying.. he was killing me making me wait....I said, "You know how you can burn an image on a tv screen if you leave the dvd menu on for too long? Well I have an image of this ring burned into my mind and all I can see is the ring! You're driving me crazy making me wait!". He told me to just wait....not what I wanted to hear.

Jim, my dad, and his dad.

After that second weekend came and went I figured I had to wait yet another week for the ring. I came home from work on Tuesday and Jim was already home, which is unusual. We were chit chatting for a little bit and then I started a load of laundry, I heard him go into the backyard so I followed him out there. He was sitting on the swing in our backyard and I was walking around playing with Rocco. After a few minutes I sat down next to him and we were just swinging for a few minutes.

Jim started telling me how much he loved me, and how much we've grown with each other and changed since we've known each other, and other sweet things. He got down on one knee and I immediately started sobbing, I was totally shocked. He asked me to marry him and I said yes.

My Great Great Aunt Hazel's diamond in the setting Jim and I picked out.

 The way he proposed was so perfect, at the home that we built for ourselves, under the tree in our backyard. 

Celebrating at The Grove, a restaurant in Austin.

Afterwards Jim told me how much he had been stressing about proposing, at least he was going just as crazy as I was. He said he was thinking of going on a helicopter ride over the city and doing it there...uhhh I'm glad he decided against that because I don't want to die in a fiery helicopter crash and wouldn't have gotten in that death trap. He said he had eventually decided to do it at the Zilker Clubhouse, a place in Austin that has an awesome view of downtown. The morning before he was planning on proposing he decided to do a trial run and drive to the clubhouse, but was met with chains and signs saying 'no trespassing'. So he had to scrap that idea and was now back to square one. He told me that when I came home from work that Tuesday, he just knew he had to propose that night, so he did. 

Anyway, that's the super long proposal story, and we couldn't be happier. In the 4 days I've been engaged I already feel such a bigger commitment to Jim.

Lexi 

Put a button up over it

I feel like this blog is turning into "Guess how old this article of clothing is?". I might as well accept this fact, so here we go! 

Guess how old this dress is! Now guess how many times I've worn it because it's too low cut for me.....

The solution: Put a button up over it!

Button up: Forever 21 Dress: Forever 21 (I'm assuming) Shoes: DSW

Earrings: stole from my mom

Flower sandals #2

Oh I also got engaged on July 3rd, the story of the engagement is coming soon!

Lexi