I'm so not a shoes person.

As mentioned before... I'm not a shoes person. I think I own like ten pairs of shoes, including flip-flops and two pairs of tennis shoes. But now... I may be a shoes bride. I love these, both from David's Bridal:

Unfortunately the second pair only comes in white, ivory, champagne, or black. Definitely doable, but they won't be orange. Oh well, still gorgeous!

(And the reviews on the 2nd pair say that even for people who don't wear heels these were comfy - how wonderful!)

camping, flat taffeta, and puppy tricks

so, lots of exciting new things today!

dad is a den leader for my little bro's cub scout troop, and for Christmas they game him a folding checkers table, designed for campouts. so funny!
In wedding-related news, David's Bridal's new spring line is ON THEIR WEBSITE! HOORAY! I chose a specific color and fabric, and then found all the bridesmaids dresses that come in that color, fabric, and are knee- or tea- length for my 'maids. Five girls, six dresses, you do the math. Not a lot of options... UNTIL NOW! two more dresses showed up today in my color/fabric! More on bridesmaid dresses later...

In ORANGE news, I found on i-do-it-yourself.com a link to this amazing tool, that lets you pick your colors (up to ten) and then it spits out all the pictures it can find in those colors! I put in navy and orange (duh!) and it spat out this beaut:

ok, so i've already strayed from the title of this post. the title was divined as i was playing with dad's new puppy (of which I promised pics but have yet to share any...oh the guilt). but her newest trick is a great one: when i let her out, she hides under the middle of the trampoline. my parents live on a large lot of woods (incidentally, a tree farm, but not Christmas trees). said lot is on a mountainous road with little to no traffic. our 6 year old dog roams free, and we had planned on letting little Ruby roam as well. but now she hides under the trampoline! might i add that as of late it has been about 11-13 degrees (fahrenheit!) and there is a great deal of snow and ice on the ground. i am not crawling through snow, ice, and rotting fallen leaves under the trampoline to catch the little bugger! it's a fun trick alright...

ORANGE!

Here they are! The aforementioned shoes. Maybe a brooch on the toes for a little sparkle?

"Natural Bling"

So I'm totally copying this from Once Wed, but with a twist. While roaming IKEA the other day they had a bundle of decorative sticks that I would love to use as reception decor. But would they be too plain? Not with this so-called "natural bling"! Orange rock candy hung by navy ribbon on white branches would be cool, maybe? Actually now that I'm typing that I'm wondering what that would look like. Maybe not my best idea ever. How could I use this idea?

SHOES!

While I am not a huge fan of David's Bridal for my dress, I am a fan for the fact that my bridesmaids (scattered across the East Coast) can all go and get the dresses I picked out without a great deal of travel - I think my sister might have to travel a whole 45 mins to get to David's.

ANYWAY, their new Spring line is in magazines, but not yet on the website, and I am SO SO SO anxious! Why, you ask? ORANGE SHOES! My dress will be long enough so that you don't see my feet that much, and Caleb (wisely, knowing how much I hate wearing shoes) suggested just wearing rainbow flip-flops. I cannot deny that this might be a fabulous idea for the reception... but I want some orange shoes! How often do us normal people (who don't spend a fortune on one shoe let alone two fortunes on a pair of shoes) get to buy ORANGE SHOES! I will post a picture as soon as I can find one on the web - or get to a scanner!

Bridesmaid's Gifts?

So I am thinking about these for bridesmaids gifts, since I can't decide between silver or pearls. My alternative would be some tiffany-inspired starfish, but I think I like these better.


Mom has a friend who might be able to do these on the cheap for me, which would be amazing! Because as much as I love my bridesmaids, I am not working next semester and am feeling very broke.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like CHRISTMAS!

IT'S SNOWING!!! Hip-hip-HOORAY!
And my Christmas shopping is done, save for one last thing I need to pick up for Caleb at Target. But I am afraid to go to Target during these last few days before Christmas, for fear that I will be trampled! I won't see Caleb again till the 26th, (SO SAD!) so I will stop at Target before flying back to grab that.

In other news, mom surprised dad with his Christmas present the same day I flew in: a PUPPY! She is adorable and there will surely be some pics of her up here soon.

In wedding news, mom and I stopped at IKEA after she picked me up from the airport, and they have a lot of things that could work for the reception decor. I suggest, if you are getting married on a (relatively) little budget like we are, definitely go to IKEA before making any hard-and-fast decisions on how you will decorate. Why?

• Candles for cheap.
• Candle holders for cheap.
• Vases for cheap.
• EVERYTHING YOU COULD WANT! CHEAP!

IKEA also has the bedroom set that I want for Caleb and I when we move in together after the wedding:


How cute is the yellow linen cabinet? It's the perfect mix of contemporary and country home that I love, and I'm pretty sure Caleb loves it too!

I just had a wonderful idea.

So... it occurred to me that after Christmas all the ornaments will be on SALE and who doesn't love a sale? Since Caleb and I had discussed a large vase filled with oranges for our centerpieces, why not get both our wedding colors in there and stock up on dark blue Christmas balls after Christmas? We both live right near a Garden Ridge (which, side note, has a really really random inventory. Couches, ornaments, and popcorn all under one roof, but not at Target? random) and they sell ornaments essentially in bulk. If they don't have it, I'm sure we could find them somewhere. The closest thing I could find to give a visual is this lemon centerpiece on Martha's website.
So readers, if you are out there, click on the little buttons under this post to let me know if you think this might be a good idea...

What it takes to teach...

Let me start this out by saying I love Caleb. And I love my first graders. If these two statements were false, the majority of my time would not currently be consumed with wedding planning and hanging out with / thinking about the first grade class with which I am student teaching.

Now let me tell you about my day.

Every once in a while, Caleb feels the need to vent, which is TOTALLY understandable. We all have to do that sometimes. And yes, he did have a rough day: he's working with his not-favorite judge all week and said judge made him work through lunch because he decided it would be cool to never end the morning session of court but just continue hearing cases into the afternoon. But still, Caleb got to leave work at, oh, what time? Four o'clock. An hour early. As he was venting about how awful his day was (and I am admitting it's not the best day ever) all I could think was,

"Were you sitting down to eat lunch as a first-grader threw up on your hands, not only COMPLETELY grossing you out but also removing all desire to eat, ever? Hmm? No? That's what I thought."

"Did your day start with a first-grader making a repulsed face while asking what's on your eye and then telling you that 'teachers aren't allowed to wear make-up'? Yeah."

"After all that, did you then take these precious first-graders out to recess only to find that some hooligans had spray-painted the playground equipment with bright orange misspelled cuss words?"

"And during recess did you watch two of your boy students run and full-out tackle a girl in your class?"

So if anyone ever tells you that teaching is easy, do me a favor and drop-kick them. Hard. Don't get me wrong, because as I said earlier, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my first-graders. I look forward to spending five days a week with them in the spring semester. Some think I am insane, and maybe I am, but I love them. I'm just sayin' teachers have days like this.

It's DECEMEBER!

Welcome to December! Ok, all together now, let's sing "It's the Hap- Happiest Seeeeeason of Aaaaaall!"

I love Decemeber. I love Christmastime. And if you've ever met Caleb, you KNOW how much he loves Christmas music!
Anyway, I started this post to catch up because I haven't written in a little bit.

We went to my parents for Thanksgiving, which was an adventure in and of itself. Before that, we went to the Biltmore for their Candlelight Christmas Evenings, which was SUPER FUN!

While we were at home though the family decided to do family pictures, and we got a BUNCH of really good ones! Here's just a few, maybe I'll put more up later...

Maybe more later... we'll see!