a party, not a performance

love this. and it is so true. i am starting the nightmares. like i open my wedding dress bag on my wedding and the dress is BLACK. i wake up in cold sweats. but really? WHO CARES. 6 o'clock will come and go, and I will be married to Drew. :)

some wedding happenings from the weekend:

chevron bridal showers thrown by the amazing Mowry/James' ladies

successful bachelor party...i think?  i "font" wanna know the details :)

combining our lives is messy! good messy, though :) have you ever met a boy that has like 4 comforter sets? me either! ;) 

meetings with my "personal" graphic designer." :) 

things are getting serious, my friends. :) 

whatcha weigh monday?!

you guys. i have this next weekend (which is supposed to be 80 degrees by the way) and then the next weekend is my bachelorette party and then the next weekend? MY WEDDING!

that means I have one more weekend to just be a single girl enjoying a lazy saturday morning. :)
perhaps i shall go get my nails done? hahaha.

so last week was the fun week where I gained a couple pounds.

but this week?

dun dun dun

DOWN 3.6 pounds.

i am less than ONE pound away from my wedding goal weight. :)

BUT i can't let up know, especially with all the fun eating and celebrating that I have planned in the next 19 days :)

i gotta stay focused.

i just have been really trying to eat more produce. the raspberries and strawberries and nectarines and peaches are SO good right now, that I have been trying to eat as many as possible.

AND this little fun trick I recently learned.

3-2-1 cake

3 tablespoons of mixture (1 box angel food cake mix and 1 box any other type of cake mix)
2 tablespoons of water
1 minute in the microwave

chocolate or lemon or whatevsss

put in a little mug and ta daaaaa. a delicious little cake. :)

this has been my saving grace for these late night wedding crafting sessions.

taking notes

my mom was in Seattle friday so i got delegated to go with my dad to my grandpa's sister's grandson's wedding :) ya with me? :)

it was the first wedding i have been to since i got engaged and started planning nuptials of my own.

and i don't think a wedding will ever be the same. :) i intricately studied the color of the chairs, wondering if maybe i should have gone wood instead of white.

i about fainted when i realized what a cute flower girl they had, actually THROWING flower petals. Hmm... pretttyy sure I didn't order any petals from the florist for Evs to throw.

i couldn't find my dad at one point and my uncle pointed over to where the cupcake tower was. my dad was literally behind it (where you aren't supposed to go) looking under the top tier to see how it was attached. screws or nails if a VERY important decision, ya know.

the flow, the timing, things I LOVED and things that I had never even thought of. Like a microphone for the pastor to use? Brilliant. :) I pretended like I was checking my email on my phone but really I was typing a note to myself about all the things I had realized I had forgotten. At one point I was talking to my third cousin while I was googling on my iphone under the table "unique wedding favor ideas that AREN'T food." low point. :)

PS Bryan and Ashley your wedding was beaaauuttiful :)

I was even taking a picture of their precious utensil wrappers (you know you are going a liiiiitle wedding planning crazy when you even know what a utensil wrapper is) when I heard the bride's dad say something that caused my head to jerk up.

It was almost time for cake, and speechs and toasts were being made. (apparently, i wasn't really paying attention. I was trying to figure out how many different salads they had.)

what got me? the bride's dad had the microphone and was standing up. all i heard?

"She is so happy when she is with you, and I never have seen her laugh so hard."

ya know what? that's what it's all about. it doesn't matter if the line to sign the guest book gets a little backed up. it doesn't matter the wording that goes in the programs. i wasn't even ENJOYING the wedding because I was sooo obsessed with all the little details and getting more ideas for my wedding.

I almost started feeling ashamed of myself. I hadn't even said hi to my relatives that were there or taken a picture with the beaming bride and groom. I was missing the ENTIRE focus of the celebration.

"she is so happy when she is with you." if you have that, the rest is history.

in that case? my wedding will be perfect. i'm not promising cute utensil wrappers or tossed flower girl petals but I am soooo happy when I am with that boy of mine, and all i can hope is that our wedding shows that :)

who are we?!

in the last week we have gotten:




a marriage license (which you have to pay for?!?! and we had to take an oath in the middle of a quiet office where we promised neither of us have been married before, have a sexually transmitted disease or are related. ) 

a new couch (i wanted lighter, he wanted darker. we compromised. :) go us. :) 

and a picnic basket. (there are no words to describe how much i love this thing.)

my life is NOTHING what I would have expected it would be,

but SO incredibly better. <3

"we must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~joseph campbell

it is 6:54AM and the house is already clean, laundry all done..

happy friday :)

it is 6:54AM and I am already catching up on laundry, sheets are being washed and the house is spotless. 

because I got 10+ hours of sleep last night and just feel so energized?

noooo...

:)

i woke up at 5AM to drop drew and his buddies off at the airport.

for his bachelor party :)

off to california those boys go...

annnddd their little "pre-funking bonfire" didn't really get over until like 2AM. (they let me participate in that part of the "boys only" party :) 

so after a run through McDonald's for breakfast and a triple-check that they have their boarding passes, they are off. 

and thus, I am awake :) 

and thus, the sparkling kitchen floors :) 

whatcha weigh monday?

okaaaaay.

less than a month till wedding day

i saw this article about how brides "eating plan and workout regime preparing for their wedding is similar to that of athletes gearing up for the olympics."

ummmm.. if thats the case, I need to step it up, girlfriends. :)

this week was too much costco birthday cake (anything that has a label that states "two pounds of vanilla mousse inside" can't be good for the waistline.)

too many starburts from the candy jar at work. (2 freaking starbursts is ONE WW point. I could also eat like a whole freaking thing of yogurt for that. I really need to work on my priorities.

annddd a delicious thai food dinner out with my daddy where I justified eating almost me ENTIRE order by ordering vegetable pad thai instead of chicken. ha.

this would have all been just FINEEEE, except for the fact that I think I maybe worked out a total of 2 hours all week? This wedding planning stuff is a little time concuming but I NEED TO MAKE TIME or things are gonna get scary.

both my attitude, my arms in that strapless wedding dress and the baker when I mention I need an extra tier of the wedding cake for my midnight snack after the wedding.

dun dun dun...

+ 2.6 pounds :(

but it is that magic 4th week of the month, where i always seem to gain a little weight.

Here's to a week of sweat and knocking out wedding tasks. :)

food for thought :)

This blog post has been going around the cyber world, and it really makes me think. 

I got asked this question Friday evening by a lovely acquaintance whilst I was in the freezer aisle choosing between chocolate icecream and chocolate chip mint icecream.  :) 

"so after all of that, you STILL think there is a God? How does that work?"

i will be honest with you. i was speechless. I mean, YES, duh, the theater shooting didn't make me think God doesn't exist. But I really didn't know how to answer. 

Easy for me to say, "yes" right? My six year old daughter, or husband, or grandma wasn't killed Thursday night. Had I gotten the call the next morning that one of my loved ones was not coming home, who knows what I would be thinking... probably not something very nice towards mankind and probably not something very nice towards God. 

and after I read this, I still didn't feel totally confident to answer that question. I didn't have an eloquent answer prepared, the words still seemed so awkward. I don't even feel like I have ANY place to answer that question or reason HOW something so awful could happen if I am sure God is in control. 

but i think i liked this. 

God IS good. 

and sometimes, as not-making-sense as that seems, that is enough.  

check out marie's words below: 

SO YOU STILL THINK GOD IS A MERCIFUL GOD?!

(Maybe, just maybe God spared my life because He loves YOU and wants you to hear this..He wants you to believe that He loved you so much He gave His only begotten Son that if you would believe in Him you would have eternal life.)
“So, you still believe in a merciful God?”  Some of the comments online are genuinely inquisitive, others are contemptuous in nature. Regardless of the motive behind the question, I will respond the same way.
Yes.
Yes, I do indeed.
Absolutely, positively, unequivocally.
Let’s get something straight: the theater shooting was an evil, horrendous act done by a man controlled by evil.  God did not take a gun and pull the trigger in a crowded theater. He didn’t even suggest it. A man did.
In His sovereignty, God made man in His image with the ability to choose good and evil.
Unfortunately, sometimes man chooses evil.
I was there in theater 9 at midnight, straining to make out the words and trying to figure out the story line as The Dark Night Rises began. I’m not a big movie-goer. The HH and I prefer to watch movies in the comfort of our own home…where I can use subtitles and get a foot rub. I don’t like action movies. And I don’t like midnight showings.  But, as I wrote in my last post, parents sometimes make sacrifices for their kiddos and I decided I would take my fourteen year old and sixteen year old daughters who were chomping at the bit to see this eagerly anticipated third movie in the Batman Trilogy. Twice I had the opportunity to back out and twice I was quite tempted. But something in me said just go with your girls. I did.
So I was there with them, fidgeting in my seat, some forty or  fifty feet away from the man with the gun. It’s still a bit surreal, but I do know that when the seemingly endless shooting started, as my girls were struggling from whatever gas or chemical had been released, and we figured out what was happening, we hit the floor. I threw myself on top of my fourteen year old who was on the end of the row, straight up the aisle from the shooter.  In that moment, as the rapid-fire shots continued, I truly thought I was going to die. And I realized that I was ready. I have put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the redeemer of my soul, and there wasn’t the slightest doubt that I would be received into heaven, not because of any good thing that I have done but because of His merciful nature and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Still, as I lay over my daughter, I began praying out loud. I don’t even remember what I prayed, but I don’t imagine it really matters. I’m sure it was for protection and peace. It drew me closer into the presence of God. When there was a pause in the shooting, people began to clamor for the exits. The girls and I jumped up and joined the masses. We had to step over a lifeless body,people were screaming and pushing, not knowing where the shooter was. We raced to our car and I dumped my purse, frantically searching for keys, looking all around, prepared to hit the ground. I yelled at Michelle to call Matthew and find out if he had made it out of the theater next door. She did. He did. We booked on out of there.
Why would you think such a tragedy would make me question the goodness of God? If anything, both of my girls said it made Him a much more real presence to them; the youngest shared this verse: Do not be afraid of sudden fear nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes; for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your feet from being caught. Proverbs 3:25-26
He is not the cause of evil, but He is the one who can bring comfort and peace in the midst of evil.  It’s been amazing to see the outpouring of love from so many people after this unthinkable act.  Yes, there was one evil act, but it is being covered by thousands, possibly millions of acts of kindness.

We have not yet slept, so the girls and I are overtired and a bit emotional.  But overall, we are praising God and resting in His Goodness.   I love this word of wisdom and encouragement from a former pastor of mine:

Up to this point I haven’t had words to say that would matter. Of course we are all glad that you and the family are safe. Of course we would all state the obvious that this is horrific and senseless. But those words still don’t carry weight that remain in the midst of the questions. Then it hit me… Do you know what the difference was between Job and his wife in their response to the tragedy of losing everything… Job 1:20 Job was the only one that worshiped in the midst of it. Marie, I know your heart and I’ve seen your worship lived out before your family. Before the weight of this becomes unbearable… worship. Your profile pic was not coincidence, not by accident that you changed it on July 15th, but a beautiful foreshadowing of your need to hear the cry of your heart and give Him praise.  


Though we don’t have all the answers, we do indeed listen to the cry of our hearts: When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What  can mere man  do to me? Psalm 56:3-4


God is always good.

Man is not.

Don’t get the two confused.

We will continue to praise and worship our mighty God, anticipating that He will bring beauty from ashes, as only He can do.

If you want to know how to pray for us: first and foremost, we need sleep. Somehow our bodies seem too wired. We also want the life that God has graciously allowed us to continue to live to not be a gift given in vain, we want our lives to draw others closer to Him.

We do not want fear to dominate, for God has not given us a spirit of fear. We want His joy to be seen and experienced in all that we do.

Pray for the families who lost loved ones, and for young people who witnessed such horror.
 Pray for this to be an opportunity for God to manifest Himself in mighty ways.

As for you…we will pray that YOU might know His goodness.

Still grateful for this wonderful life,
Marie

July 22 – a note of explanation

I’ve tried to leave this post just as it was originally written because it was a heartfelt response after a very traumatic experience.  But I’m sometimes clumsy with words and even when I think I am writing clearly, there is always the reader who doesn’t know my heart or doesn’t hear the words the way they were intended.

I feel as though a few people have taken what I said and twisted it. When I wrote my post on Friday, I had a grand total of eleven blog  followers. Yes, eleven. I generally post on facebook and have had a loyal little group of readers that numbered thirty or so. That is who I generally write for.  People who know me  know that I dislike talking on the telephone. I’d pretty much rather clean a toilet than spend time on the phone. I am not a speaker. After the shooting,  friends and family began calling. I knew I had to let people know what happened and that we were safe.  Since I also really wanted to respond to the people that were blaming God for this tragedy,  I wrote the blog post and put it up on facebook. I never in a million years would have anticipated the readers to skyrocket past a million , including strangers from all over the world. Only God could do that.

I realize that the vast majority of readers are complete strangers; they know nothing about my heart or my faith. Those who do, know  I would never, ever imply that God chose to keep me alive instead of another individual or that I think I am more worthy of being alive than any of the victims. I am grateful to be alive but still there are struggles with being a survivor when so many others lost their lives.  What I did mean to say, and what I do believe is that as His child in Christ,  my life has a specific purpose to draw others to Him, and that is how I can use the gift of life.  I believe that He can take something as horrific as the tragic, unfair and senseless deaths of twelve innocent people and create some good things from it.  Their deaths were NOT the good thing, their deaths were NOT God’s heart but the result of a man bent on evil.  God is a redeemer. He takes ugly, ugly situations and can bring something good out of it.

The people we lost in Aurora loved and were loved. They were mothers and fathers. They were husbands and wives. Sisters and brothers. Sons and daughters. Friends and neighbors. They had hopes for the future, and they had dreams that were not yet fulfilled. And if there's anything to take away from this tragedy, it's that life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious. And what matters here isn't the small things, not the trivial things, which often consume us in our daily lives. Ultimately, it's how we choose to treat one another, and how we love one another.

"I'm sure many of you who are parents here had the same reaction I did when I heard this news. My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theatre, as so many of our kids do every day? Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls, a little tighter tonight, and I'm sure you will do with your children, but for those parents who may not be so lucky, we need to embrace them and let them know that we'll be there for them as a nation.

-president obama on colorado shooting

the days in instagram

1. evening stroll around the neighborhood 2. $13 dolla manicure. heck yes. 3. LOVE 4. jes and baby ford at the birthday partaaay 5. drew getting in on the wedding crafting action. 

6. fish tacos 

help?

soooo.

something old

something new

something borrowed

something blue?

HELP!??!!?

saw this and just BURST into tears. 

her something blue/something borrowed is this blue patch made from one of her dad's work shirts :)

that is the most precious thing EVER. 

what did YOU use for your wedding "somethings?"

woah...

i feel like the next month is something i have dreamed about since i was a little girl.

in one month from TODAY, i am getting married to the hottest boy i know and my best friend :)

like. ME. I will be going for my final dress fitting and to pick up my veil. granted it comes in :) 

in the next month i will begin to set up our "household". i will help drew move into "our house" and then I will move back home for a few weeks. 

i will finalize my wedding hair and what jewelry I want to borrow from my momma for MY wedding day.

i mean really. today drew broought over some stuff and i am pretty sure i put his extra linens into our "linen closet." WHAT? since when am i old enough to have a linen closet????

i will finalize the decorations on the cupcakes.

ugh. i will pick out the cupcake liners for those cupcakes. 

i will organize our pantry and our freezer. like we get to decide if we want icecream kept on the bottom shelf or the top. big decisions, people. 

we freaking have a joint email address. thank you comcast installer man. 

we are going to pick out "our" couch

i will have a sleepover with my best friends in the whole entire world, for one of my last hoorah's as a single woman :)

i will pick out outfits and things i want to pack for our honeymoon. yep. i feel like seriously i have thought about honeymoon outfits since I was a teenager. is that weird?? :) 

i will write vows that i have spent my whole life searching for. 

i will thank God that His plan was bigger and better than mine. bigger and better than that freshman year of college breakup, or that prom-date gone wrong.

these next four weeks are going to go by SO fast, and my goal is to really try and soak it all up. I have talked/dreamed about these next 31 days and i can't believe it's actually here. :) 

what i have learned thus far:

so it's been officially TWO full weeks :)

things i have learned:

1.) in our cute backyard there is a clothesline. I always thought it looked so fun and quaint and cute to dry stuff on a clothes line. Maybe my expensive jeans since they shouldn't be in the dryer anyways?  So I do a load of dark laundry and take out my skinny black jeans and some other pairs of pants and adventure out to the clothesline. It's been 75+ degrees allll week. Yesterday/today? It rained. on my clothes that I was trying to dry. great first experience with the clothesline :)

2.) fences exist for reasons.
I wanted to spruce up our yard a little, so last week Drew and I planted some flower pots. aka we had a competition about who could pick out and plant a better pot. my mom was the judge. drew won. ANYWAYS. I put some pots by the garage door, some on the back walkway and then a couple on the front stairs/patio. Beautiful and fun. For three days. I wondered why I was the only smart one to prettify their porch with potted plants. Colorful and EASY. Psshh.. Home Makeover here I come.

 I wondered why there were 3 deer roaming in our backyard yesterday morning. Thought maybe the ground here was just extra cozy? Wrong. I figured it out when I saw ALL THE YELLOW FLOWERS CHOMPED OFF IN THE FLOWER POTS. The deers realized I was the stupid yard-decorater who put out lovely "deer food" aka flowers with nothing to prevent them from eating it. Thus, all the fences I see on my little evenings strolls around the neighborhood. Imagine that.


At least they ate Drew's flowers too. No discrimination from them. :)


3.) SHUT THE WINDOWS AT NIGHT!
Okay. SO we all may know I am not the biggest fan of cats. I mean, I don't dislike them or anything, they just don't really do anything special for me. It has been super hot here (minus the freaking RAIN in July) so I had been sleeping with a window cracked open. This morning I woke up WAAAYYY too early to what I thought was kid's SCREAMING. I mean I know it's summer and kids play outside early, but this was weird kid noises. I even thought maybe Jenna and Megan were on the front porch trying to get my attention and wake me up. I got up and started looking outside. Hmmm... No one on the porch, no one playing in the street. I finally stumbled to the cracked open window and looked out. Two HUGE cats staring right at me, making the WEIRDEST noises I have ever heard. I think I have heard things about the noises cats make when they fight, but I had NEVER imagined it would be like that. It was like high-pitched shrieking or literally one of the worst noises I could imagine. UGH. I glared at them with my retainer-framed mouth and slammed the window shut. Now I know what cat shrieks sound like. It's like the cats KNEW that ONE window was cracked open so they were going to be sure to sit right outside it to make noise. :)


4.) EGGOS
I bought eggos at the grocery store and was sooo excited to eat them tonight and watch last week's Bachelorette. Got the syrup ready, got the eggos out... hmm. no  flipping TOASTER. I was dumbfounded. :) 


Well, there goes that idea. Cereal it was. 


THEN. I was reading the Eggo box for some reason and saw that YOU CAN PUT EGGOS IN THE OVEN? WHO KNEW????? Darn. I could have had my eggos after all. :) 


all very useful lessons. i feel so mature already :) 

Whatcha Weigh Monday?

happy monday :)

today was my THIRD wedding dress fitting.

i made my grandma come with me :) it was so fun.

on wedding dress fitting days, I like to wait to eat lunch until AFTER.

today? not so much. gram and i went out to mexican food for lunch AND I had a bunch of diet coke.

so heck yes I was ready for that fitting.

and she zipped right up.

this weekend was Relay for Life (= LOTS of good food) and then I had a bridal shower on Saturday with more DELICIOUSSSSS food, cupcakes and my aunt's sugar cookie recipe that is amazing.

buuuut. i had a cookie. i had a cupcake. i didn't dwell.

andddd...

down .2 this morning at weigh in :)

i know, i know. not much at all. but as long as the arrow is going in the DOWN direction, it's fine by me.

and now we are officially UNDER 2 pounds for wedding goal weight. and there is only a little more than a MONTH to go.

which could be why I had two coffees today and mexican food TWICE. the pressure is really getting to me. too bad Drew made me walk 5 miles to get to the mexican restaurant. :)

Team All in the Family

our friday/saturday                        <--------- watch this



being a video-grapher is hard work, people.

this video doesn't even do the Relay for Life justice.

Friends (James' girls! Kayla's friends!), more family and those we LOVE came to celebrate and raise money with us, but not everyone is in the video :(

shout out to:

auntie sue~ for being our fearless leader and walking 22 MILES over the course of the day/night.

jenna mae and kayla- staying up ALL night

mandy~ for taking us to Dairy Queen :)

so blessed to do such a great community activity with my precious family. 

 i love, love, love you all and papa would be SO proud of us :)  

midweek... yahooooo

what i'm loving wednesday?

things i love so far this week:

- my "deadbeat" fiance as he refers to himself. :) someone asked how the wedding planning was going, and he looked at me, shrugged this shoulders and said, "i think we're pretty much ready to go." like we were packing for a vacation or something. gotta love that guy. knows how to make me smile :) not to mention he was a trooper this weekend during our engagement photos.

-this quote. 

-evening strolls around the new neighborhood. i mean really. 70 degree weather at 8PM. what's better than an after-dinner walk? especially when you see the sun over the lake like this :) and get 57 bug bites. seriously? I read in my Women's Health magazine that mosquitoes tend to like the blood of people who are overweight or pregnant more than others. Ummm... are they trying to tell me something? cuz I sure am NOT pregnant, but I did make some reaaaaallllyyy good blueberry cobbler last night. fruit counts for breakfast, right? :) 

"you are as close to God as you want to be." ~psalm 145-18

my new outlook on tuesdays?

so i thought i had a brilliant wedding program idea so THREE days in a row I went to the craft/paper/stamp store at lunch.

i bought all this flipping different types of paper (if anyone wants pearl/pinkish paper) I have like a thousand sheets.

i bought twine, i bought ribbon, i bought paper brads.

ugh.

the first day there was a stamping class so it was rather uneventful (minus the 20 CRAZY people who had scrapbooks that were hundreds of pages long)

the second day, I was in a hurry so I was maneuvering my way through those aisles.

There was a lady with her two kids picking out ribbon for something, and the mom was pushing a elderly gentlemen in a wheelchair.

okay. first of all.

the craft store aisles were not designed with wheelchair transportation in mind, so my heart went out for this dear lady that was trying to make sure her daughters didn't knock over a display of paper punches while she made sure the sides of the wheelchair didn't snag a corner of the shelf holding 12,432 recyclable envelopes.

I got what I needed and was at the checkout when the old man in the wheelchair turned to me and smiled and casually said,

"how's it going?"

I smiled back, put my iphone back into my purse like a polite young lady and replied,

"not too shabby for a Tuesday."

you guys. you would have thought I swore at him. He gave me the most pitiful/condescending look and  YELLED (good things there was no stamping class, or they would have NOT been able to hear the teacher telling them the best way to clean their stamp pads.)

KIDS THESE DAYS! You just don't understand. What's so bad about a Tuesday? You can't go to the saloon and drink whiskey until you can't see straight? You live for Fridays. Completely oblivious to the fact that life goes so fast. 

My wife? She died 2 months ago. On a Monday night. What do you think she would have given to have another Tuesday? Hell, she probably would have given up her weekly trip to the casino for the chance to have another "shabby Tuesday" as you so eloquently put it. 

the reason I remember this almost word for word is because I was absolutely traumatized. He was SHOUTING at me, and his face was getting very, very red. (aaaannndddd, I am not a "KID!" I am too old to be a part of the "kids these days" phrases :)

I just wanted to buy my heart paper punch and get out of there. By this point, his mom had realized that he was not being very nice and started apologizing to me. I swiped my debit card and kind of ran out of the store. I was speechless.

Once I was safely in the car (with windows tightly rolled up of course) I just sat for who knows how long. I think it was like 5 minutes but it felt like an hour.

Then I BURST into tears. Like major waterworks. I felt awful. I was sad. I was MAD. I was thinking of all these clever comebacks that I wanted to say to that grouchy old man. My heart hurt for him. My heart hurt for my own grammy who misses my papa every.single.day.

i drove back to work, tried to wipe the mascara off of my cheeks and went inside.

I was in a funk. I noticed how much I complain, how much we ALL complain. Yeah, Monday's aren't fun. Workdays aren't always fun. Rainy days in July suck.

and as much as I don't appreciate the WAY that old man spoke to me, I really needed to get that message. 

i guess the old adage is true, that you don't know whatcha got til it's gone. 

and i suppose that old man just really wanted me to realize that maybe Tuesday's aren't all that bad, in the grand scheme of things :)

look what we did this weekend :)

whatcha weigh monday?

oh my goodness, i think i forgot to post an update last week. because i know you are all on pins and needles wondering if I am going to be at wedding goal weight in a little over a month. eeekkkkkk.

this week was hard/great.

the fourth of the july is ALWAYS a good time, especially when you party with a chef and some amazzzinnnnggg bakers/"cookers" :)

throw in my bundt cake and my fourth of july cupcakes, and you MAY see a recipe for disaster.

well well well.

i have discovered the secret. the more i move, the more i can eat.

and i love me some food. :)

but i just am really thinking about "healthy food" and "healthy portions," not "weight loss" food and weight loss portions.

it is so crazy what a little shift in conceptual thinking can do.

soo...

weigh in this morning?

down .4 pounds :)

and yes, i am TWO pounds away from wedding goal weight. holllllaaaa :)

like a spear

miss jessica paige retweeted this and i just love it. 

i am being far too much of a tourist lately. 

friday night we saw the Amazing Spider-Man. I could NOT stop crying 

Like sobbing hysterically. I surprisingly LOVED the movie (and the diet coke and candy) and the love story. 

and it really got to me for some reason :)

just a reminder that my soul needs some TLC this sunny weekend. :) 

my favorite quotes from the 4th of july

honest to goodness snippets of conversation I heard during the 4th:

just more reasons why it is one of my favorite days of the ENTIRE year. and this year? no exception. 

"i should be a wedding photographer. look. three types of light. the moon, a firework and the bonfire."

"wait why does that mean you should be a wedding photographer???"

drew: "my face hurts from smiling so much. my cheeks keep cramping. fireworks just make me so happy. is that weird?"

"well lindsay, your cake tasted really good! and that's all that matters, right?"

man at the firework stand:"#1 morter shell fireworks in the WHOLE world."

Ford: "dad, what are you doing?!?!?"

"no. you aren't allowed to just take candy unless you put it in a smore."

"I AM making a smore. just in my stomach."

"we are the only beach that claps for other people's fireworks too"

the neighbors: "warning guys. we are about to light off another dry-ice bomb."

us scrambling: "DOES BABY FORD HAVE HIS HEADPHONES ON?!?!?!"

me: "drew, this is my FAVORITE holiday. i need you to be peppy"

:) 

"

it's 70 degrees and it's time to party!

yesterday it POURED AND POURED AND POURED.

today? 70 degrees.

and my mom has "i'm proud to be an american" cued up on the ipod.

yep. we allllll sing it (like 30 of us) around the bonfire every single year.

                                                            happy birthday, america :)

p.s. you should make these cupcakes. the stripes are made of fruit roll-ups. :)

Welllll.... No Internet yet but don't you worry. I got some swiffer wipes. And a night light.

It's official. I no longer live with my parents. :)