WILW

I have been MIA the past few days. I am still adjusting to my new schedule. I went to sleep at 8:45 last night even though I had a long list of things to do! Here is what I am loving today.

I am loving that my husband comes home tomorrow!!!!

I am loving that my birthday is in 2 days. I will be a quarter of a century!!

I am loving that I am going to dinner with some great friends tonight to celebrate my birthday.

I am loving that we are going to College Station this weekend. We have a lot planned while there so look for that update next week.

I am loving my etsy store. You can check it out HERE but I am going to do a full post on it soon!

I am loving that next week will be a 3 day work week for me. We are off for Labor Day & my little brother & sister are coming to spend the week with me.

I am loving my sweet husband.

This is such an old picture, I think it is from our senior year of high school! (& yes, my hair is in braids, awesome!)

What are you loving today? Link up with Jamie & tell us what you are loving.

Weekend Recap

I have had a very productive Sunday so far and it is really just getting started for me! This weekend was a great one minus my husband being gone.I already posted about my exciting Friday night. On Saturday, I went to the mall with a friend and made a few awesome purchases.

*If you are a teacher, NY&C has a teacher discount that is regularly 15% off but through Sept. 6th they are giving 30%. I took advantage!*

Saturday night, we celebrated a great friends birthday at a Electric Cowboy. It was an interesting place and we had a great time. Today has been a very laid back day. I relaxed (for most of it) but am now doing laundry, cleaning, and making dinner.

I am ready for Chris to be home so that I can give him a big hug and kiss but also to make him some of the new recipes that I have found. If you follow me on pinterest, you know that I spent a lot of time on it this morning. I probably posted 20 new recipes. If you do not follow me, click HERE and you can!

Here are some of the recipes that I plan to try when I pick back up with meal planning next week...

Smoked Turkey Brie Apple Panini

Oven Baked Ribs

Chicken Enchilada Pasta

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

All of the recipes can be found on my pinterest boards. I have found a few new food blogs that I am obsessed with! Let me know if you try any of these recipes. I will be week after next!

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Wedding- Details

I must have been really tired last night. I got home around 5:30 after having celebratory drinks with some teacher friends since we survived the first week of school. I walked Acey and got in bed around 6:30. I planned to write this post & watch a little bit of TV before eating dinner. Well, I feel asleep sometime soon after 6:30 & didn't wake up until 9:00 this morning!! Wow! Teaching is exhausting!! I am well rested now.

On to the wedding! These next few pictures are some of my favorite. We worked so hard on all of the details for the wedding & I think these pictures are amazing.

This is the Manor house were the girls got ready

Inside the Manor house

The reception hall. It is an old barn transformed into a reception hall. I love the red & the feel of the place

Reception doors. Loved our moss covered letters

Inside the reception before anyone was in there

Centerpiece

Centerpiece

Centerpiece

Ice Sculpture

Wedding Cake

Grooms Cake

I love the way our reception decor came together. I could look at our pictures all day!

I will be back with more soon. I hope everyone has a great weekend. & those of you in the path of Irene, you are in my prayers. Stay safe!

Lots to this post

This has been one of the longest weeks of my life! Not complaining, just a statement. Which brings me to a new link up I am participating in this week. Meg over at Henning Love has started a Thursday link up. The purpose of this link up is to post what we are thankful for. I am only going to post one thing I am thankful for but not mentioning so many others.

I am thankful for my wonderful job! I have dreamed about being a teacher since I was a little girl & could not be happier now that I am living out my dream. Everyday is different & has it's own challenges but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Will teaching be my profession forever, who know, but I am so thankful for my job now.

I also have not been keeping up with my wedding post. Be ready tomorrow because I am working on my next wedding post. I also said that I would keep up with my blog challenge so I am going to continue that now.

The second day challenge is to list 9 loves. This challenge will definitely be a lot easier than the first one which was 10 secrets.

9) My husband

8) My siblings

7) My family

6) My friends (many not pictured)

5) My dog

4) Shopping (latest purchase)

3) Coke Zero

2) A nice long bath

1) Snickerdoodle anything

I am off to make myself dinner, read some more of the Hunger Games, & head to bed early!! Excited about wearing jeans tomorrow! Have a great Friday!

WILW

It is Wednesday and that means it's time to link up with Jamie @ This Kind of Love.

I'm loving my 36 little first graders this year. I am excited about the potential each of my students have!

I'm loving that it is already Wednesday. The first week of school is exhausting and long but seems to be going quickly for a change.

I'm loving these books & that I have some time to read:

I'm loving that we will be in College Station in less than 2 weeks for the 1st A&M football game!

As always, I am loving my sweet husband & can't wait for him to come home.

What are you loving today?

10 Day Challenge- Day 1

I am not done with the wedding posts but just incase I have followers that don't love weddings as much as I do, I wanted to break things up. I am participating in a 10 day challenge that I have seen done on a few blogs but it will be more like a 20 day challenge. Here it goes...

My top 10 secrets:

1) I love where I teach, live, & call home but I miss my family & high school friends so much. I often wonder if my husband & I are in the city that we will call home forever or if we will eventually move back to our true "home."

2) I am not sure if teaching will be my life long career. It has always been a dream but what about nursing?

3) I eat strange meals when I am alone. Such as tonight... Sausage, corn casserole, & cinnamon rolls! mmm!!

4) I could drink Coke Zero for the rest of my life and often can't remember the last time I had a sip of water.

5) I plan to save a large amount of money each month but end up buying myself something that makes it so that I can't save that much. Secret, not really, but I try not to remember kinda like a secret to myself :-)

6) I wish I had a fun, cute, sports car. I really do love my current car but I feel like it is a mommy car and I am no where near ready for that stage in my life.

7) I had our house cleaned while my husband was out of town. He told me that he was so proud that I cleaned so well. It wasn't me...

8) I love football, I really do but it consumes our life during the Fall months and it gets kinda old.

9) I love time to myself but not every weekend. Duck, deer, bird, whatever hunting season it may be, only lasts for a few months but prep & cleanup takes the entire year. Not a fan!

10) I don't like secrets, coming up with 10 was very hard!

Do you have any secrets?

Weekend recap & week 2- Meal Planning

This has been an awesome weekend before having to go back to school tomorrow. We had little plans for the weekend (which is very uncommon) and ended up having so much fun with each other and friends.

Friday, we had planned to go to dinner somewhere but I was really tired and needed to take a nap first! We ended up going to one of our favorite restaurants called Chuy's.

Saturday, we had a relaxing morning and then went out on a friend of our's boat. I had been out to Lake Lewisville once before and had a blast so I was excited to go again. Here is my favorite picture from the day.

Not the best quality but the best I could do with my phone. What a peaceful, amazing way to end my Summer!

On Sunday, we slept in and relaxed before having to pack Chris for a 2 week work trip. I hate when he leaves & I miss him so much. I guess it is a good thing that school is starting back up so that I am busy while he is gone.

I hope you had a relaxing weekend. & good luck to those teachers that are going back tomorrow!

Meal Planning:

I am excited to say that we followed our planned meals last week everyday except 1. All of the recipes (minus the bell peppers) were amazing and will definitely be on the menu in the future. We did not need to make the Mexi Mac meal because we had enough leftovers to eat. So for my first week of meal planning, I think we did awesome!

Here is what I learned:

- You do not need to buy a lot of lunch meat because their are only 2 of us & we had plenty of leftovers

- You don't have to plan a meal for every night. Take into account that you will have leftovers!

- Plan to have similar meals each night every week. This way you will bring in a variety of different kinds of food. Ex. a breakfast night, mexican night, chinese night, beef night, chicken night, etc.

I am not really going to plan meals for the next 2 weeks because I normally don't cook for one and I don't want to. I think this week, I will be so tired that cereal, a sandwich, or ice cream will be good enough for me. I also have a dinner planned with some of my best friends this week. If you post your weekly meals or you meal plan, leave me a comment so I can come see what you are eating!!!

Have a great week & more wedding pictures to come!

Wedding- Ceremony

I hope you enjoyed the getting ready pictures. This next set of pictures are some of my favorite. Chris and I took a long time to plan our ceremony. We wanted to have the perfect timeline, decorations, entrance songs. When I look back at all of that and the stress it caused me I feel silly. I feel silly because what stands out is not the songs, decorations, or how long everything took, but our vows and the way he looked at me. I don't regret causing myself all of that stress (because the pictures look amazing) but I just think it's funny what mattered so much then compared to now that it is all over.

Enough of me babbling, here are some of the pictures from our amazing ceremony.

No words are really needed to explain these pictures. I could have posted a hundred but figured I would spare you some lol. I love looking at these pictures and reliving the moment that the two of us became one!