Water Fun, Baseball, & Rings

It has been a busy past week. Here are some picture highlights:

- Ian came over to help Uncle Matt wash his car & truck (he was a great help! well, with water the rocks, the bushes, uncle matt and aunt jenni!) & I took a picture of my future house!! =)

- We went to a railcats game with a church group on Friday..... here is Brett & Matt being tough guys and Melissa and I enjoying ourselves on the ride there!

- We got to witness the engagement of Nathan and Renee (from very far away!!! and you don't know how hard it was for me not to run up there and start taking a million pictures!!! but i held back - ok, well, matt held me back.... j/k!! but i really wish i had my camera & my zoom lens that exact moment... oh well. congrats to the two of them!!!)

So, it's official! We have sent out our invitations and people are actually going to come to our wedding!!! Haha! We sent 'em out about a week ago and I'm amazed at how many have responded back already! We truly are loved and we are very fortunate to have that! We can't wait for all of you to share in our special day!!

Matt's Design work

What a GOOD WEEKEND! Well, aside from that fact that Matt had to work a quite a bit... but that's ok, we still saw each other when we could! =)

Let me just say that I have the greatest friends! Friday night it was planned that I was going to go to Ashley's for a dinner date with her. Eat some of her good cooking, catch up on each other lives, etc.... but to my SURPRISE..... Becca, Sara, and Amanda were there toooooooo!!!! They surprised me with a nice meal and a night JUST FOR ME.... it was wonderful! So, THANK YOU GIRLS, you all mean so much to me! =)

A little update on wedding stuff... today our cake lady came over to bring us samples and take about design ideas and such... and i just thought that i should share this precious picture with you. Matt was such a good sport about being there that he even drew a cake of what he wanted (well, 4 of the layers are what we talked about doing..... but the 5th ones was his own idea/creation)... he got such a good kick out of it... adding a smiley face and/or Cubs "C" as our top layer! Haha.... well, we kinda nix-ed that idea... but his effort was very much appreciated! =) Aside from the design, I am super excited that we are going to have one layer of red velvet cake..... =) it is so good! =) I can't wait..... MMMMmmmmm... CAKE!!!!


Hope everyone else has had a good weekend.....

3 months and counting

WOW!!!

3 MORE MONTHS!

i kinda feel productive!!!

Well, it has been a VERY PRODUCTIVE past 36 hours or so!
(THANK YOU TO MY MOMMA WHO HELPED ME A LOT!!!)
Here are some major highlights:

- we painted matt's room... a.k.a. OUR FUTURE BEDROOM "where the magic will happen" - hahah... get it... from MTV's CRIBS? (crappy pic at bottom, sorry, i'll show you one later with it all done, but this is just what i had so far) One wall is a SAGE-ish GREEN and that is where our bed will go up against, and then the other 3 walls are just a cream.... it all matches the colors that are going to be in our bedspread! I can't wait for it all to come together!
** SIDE NOTE: my mom is an awesome painter! And a trooper.... we went over to matt's while he was out of town, painted last night and then SLEPT OVER at his house and she painted again in the morning!!!!THANK YOU MOM!


- i organized shower gifts....... opened a couple things!!! But one thing I did realize is that.... it's going to take a LOOOOOOOONG time to wash all that new stuff.... dishes, pots, pans, tupperware, baking dishes, etc...... ALL BY HAND...... haha... THAT SHOULD BE FUN!!!!


- cleaned out a closet in the kitchen, mom ripped some hooks off the wall, threw some old crap away and painted the bottom of it to make it look a little brighter and neater. I'm hoping to get some shelves in there before I get to re-organize the whole entire kitchen!!! =)

- went shopping today.... got wedding shoes, a bathing suit, candles the wedding, unity candle holders, fabric for pillows, stuff to decorate our house !!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHH!! SO EXCITING!



Other than that, not much more is new.... we are meeting with the cake lady on Sunday.... mmmm... CAKE!!!!!!!

Sunday Writer's Cramp/Butt Cramp/ Hand Cramp

After a couple of days & nights of

butt aches & finger cramps...

All the invites are addressed, ribbons have been tied on the announcement, the direction sheets have been glued, all the invites are stuffed and ready to be licked, stamped and stuck with a seal. I'm excited to send 'em out! But we have to wait a week or so..... but good thing we did start those when we did b/c we realized we need to send 'em out a week and a half earlier than we were planning. Hahaha! But it seems to be going A LOT faster and smoother than I ever thought it would.... =)! I guess I've actually ENJOYED addressing all 213 envelopes!! Maybe I could even offer my services to anyone who wouldn't want to do their own themselves... haha... well, maybe not!

This weekend Matt was busy with NASCAR.... so i had time to .....

- Cleaning House -

I have been starting to pack a lot of my stuff to move over to matt's. But I did some more this weekend...... in between editting and converting some of my wedding photos, I have been going through all my "crap" and deciding what I really want to/need to keep and throwing away things that I have had for a long time that I never use. It is definitely hitting me that I'm moving out. Although I am super excited... I did realize I am going to miss BUD (and my parents too of course), but hearing Bud's laugh while he's watching "according to jim," "my wife & kids" or anything else on channel 9 from 4:30-6pm.... it cracks me up hearing him crack up at these shows!!

that's all for now....

We've hit the 100 day mark!!

WE'VE DONE IT!!!! IT IS OFFICIAL....  all the #'s didn't really mean anything before, but now we are at 100 DAYS TIL OUR WEDDING!!!!!  I'm (and assuming Matt is too!) so excited!!!  I can't believe it.... the last 7 months have FLOWN by and I can't imagine how fast the next 3.5 months are going to go.  There are a lot of things to do still, but no matter what happens, I will be married to my best friend in 100 days!!!!!! =)

A couple of updates:  

Aunt Joyce heard back preliminary results that it isn't cancer.  She still hasn't heard definite results, but it is looking really good and she is starting to be able to eat some things and feeling a little bit better!  Praise God for his healing hand and his faithfulness!

We picked out tuxes last night. Little more of decision making process than I thought it was going to be... but everything turned out great and the men are going to look VERY STUDLY!

4th of July weekend

Well, what a busy 4th of July weekend. Friday, my friend Amanda and I walked/ran the Beecher 5K..... even though last year we said this year we were going to run the whole thing, we only really ran about 1/2 of it.... we needed to catch up with each other lives too ya know!!!! And how can you do that when you are running? haha.... Maybe next year I'll be able to run the whole thing....

But then later on in the afternoon, Matt was in the Beecher parade with the Grant Park firetruck. He was the driver, so I got a great view of my FIREMAN looking all hot in the fire truck!!! =) After the parade, I got to ride back in the fire truck back to Grant Park.... that was fun!

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back, I had to take some family photos, Matt worked at church for awhile and then we went to JARED (yes, he went to Jared!) to pick out our wedding bands!!! To my surprise we both picked 'em out there and we were able to take 'em home that night! WOW! I thought we had to ORDER 'em and wait! After that little exciting adventure, we went to a new restuarant in Orland Park called Granite City.... it was my "christmas coupon book" dinner for matthew! =) I would recommend eating there... it was very tasty to me!

Now on a more serious note, I please ask all of you that read this to keep my soon-to-be Aunt Joyce in your prayers. It is a long story and I won't get into it on here, but she has a chance of having cancer and has not found out any results yet. She is definitely like a second mother to Matt and we just pray that God gives her the strength to get through this time right now.

Only 3.5 months! WOW!

Hello all.... Well, I'm going to attempt to start posting things that are going on in our SOON-TO-BE MARRIED lives as of right now and hopefully continue it when we are married too!

We are in the midst of wedding planning right now... at 3.5 months to go, I'm feeling a little 'overwhelmed' and Matt still thinks that everything is planned and ready to go, haha... but he is being a good sport about it all. We have had one shower already and have 4 more. The first one was with The Stouwie side of my family (my mom's side!). It was a small, intimate shower and we had a lot of fun with it being our first one. Matt was a very good sport, making the women laugh, and helping me move along with the presents! We got some WONDERFUL and very thoughtful gifts that we appreciate very much! Here are some photos:

-- Me & My Girls --

(Amanda, Amy, Ashley, me, Sara, Patti, Becca

Mikayla, Cassidy, Madison, Lydia)

Some say we are a perfect match... i have NO IDEA WHY! haha!

"Do you think this is big enough for your cereal honey?"

See... Matt was a VERY GOOD SPORT!

Even though I photograph weddings, I still am amazed at how much there is to do. I anticipated that it would be a lot of planning and I thought I would be pretty organized, but it seems like that is all just slipping away. But I'm trying to stay on top of it

as best as I can without driving myself, matt, my mom or anyone else crazy!! Haha! At least we have a lot of the major things done.... =) Invitations are starting to get addressed and ready to be mailed out in the next month, wedding bands have been bought, dresses are ordered, honeymoon booked... just to name a few!

I know some of you have asked, "well, who is the photographer getting to photograph her wedding?" Well, I have these AMAZING photographers, Rob & Lisa Walcott, they are a married couple from Michigan that I know from Trinity! Lisa was in a couple of my art classes! Check 'em out.... their website is www.walcottimaging.com! They offer a photobooth, so we will have a headshot photobooth at the wedding too! =)

Also, other than wedding plans, we have also painted the office and gutted the bathroom. Matt put a lot of time, sweat and work into re-doing the bathroom over the course of about 2 weeks! And here is what the before and after pictures looked like....

Before

After #1

After #2