April Showers bring... Babies and Weddings!!

How is April almost over? I swear it was just last week when I blogged...right?? Where has the time gone? Oh wait... I know...

Showers! Parties! And MORE Showers!!!

My Fridge is running out of invitation room!!

First Weekend: Easter with the Dixon family.

Second Weekend: Jon's Birthday

Second Weekend: Kelli's Baby Shower for little Aiden

Third Weekend: Holly Jo & Michael's Stock the Bar Wedding Shower

Third Weekend: Holly Jo's Family Shower

Oh and don't you worry... the month's not over yet! One more weekend! That mean's I have another wedding shower! Plus we have a family gathering, which makes for a second wedding shower PLUS a baby shower I, sadly, won't be able to attend! 

I'll have a shot breather at the beginning of May before I have four BUSY weekends: Bachelorette in Nashville, bachelorette in Chicago, wedding in Lexington, wedding in Louisville! Let the fun commence!!

Lots of love to all my friends during this happy, wonderful time in their lives! God is good!

My Wedding on a Budget: 28 Days to Go!

Shower #4: Mothers & Daughters!
An old school family reunion with all my County girls and second moms from growing up! Kelli and her mom, Amy, threw me a shower today that was a mother-daughter shower. Rachel nor Michelle got to come but Mom & I were there along with the two of the, of course, plus Beth & Lora, Amy & Joyce and Melissa couldn't come with Meagan, but that worked out okay since Meagan is the first of us to have her own daughter, so she had Bella with her! Jan Rader also came which was wonderful since she can't come to the wedding itself. I haven't seen her in ages so it was quite great. Emily, being in Florida, couldn't be there with her.

I don't get to see any of my highschool friends nearly as often as I'd like, so it was great to catch up. It's the first time I've met Meagan's little Bella. I hadn't seen Amy in about a year. She's looking to make a big move when she's done with dental school this Spring to continue into pediatric studies. I think it's awesome that she's looking for a change in scenery. News of Bethie's bun in the oven is out among all of the girls now. There's enough excitement from the rest of us to fill her lack thereof. It's great to still have such a close, special bond with that group even after the years apart and our lives being all over the place. Plus I have these Moms that have watched me grow up and looked after me that I feel like are now more my peers than my overseers. They are the people who helped me become who I am so that I can be at such a happy place in my life now.

As stated recently, I know my wedding day will go by in a flash, so it's nice to have these showers so you have time to celebrate the exciting times with these important people in your life.

My Wedding on a Budget: 46 Days to Go!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I did quite a bit of that tonight! I finally have time to knock out some of these thank you cards I need to write from my showers earlier this month. The last 3 weeks have been madness with how much traveling has been involved. I think I wrote it a night or two ago, but I cannot express how excited I am to have several weekends of STAYING HOME with Jon. Sure I have to drive to Louisville for work, but compared to these exhausting last few weeks, traveling up here for a couple of nights of work won't be anything! Anyway, yes I knocked out the thank yous from the shower in Ohio and 90% of those from Evansville. I know people always say to not worry about sending them a thank-you but I truly want to do this and give them a good little note inside. These people have NO REASON to buy us gifts. Sure it's customary that you have showers before weddings and people bring gifts, but the truth is, NONE of this is about presents. Jon and I are just so excited to begin life together and we'd love to have our closest friends and family be a witness to that beginning. So the fact people are buying us things to begin our new life with is above and beyond, I don't care what today's culture says. I am thankful to anyone who thinks of us during this time, says a prayer or shoots us kind words and I mean that with all of my heart. So for all of you out there... regardless of any gifts we may or may not have gotten from you... thank YOU for wishing us well on our marriage!

My Wedding on a Budget: 55 Days to Go!

Shower #3: Family & Friends All Around!
I cannot tell you how crazy it was to see so many of my favorite ladies ALL in the same place! It was great enough to see Michelle's house transforming into a cute party place full of purple decorations and delightful food, but then the Dixon family began to filter in...then friend after friend after friend. Everyone there from my aunts and cousins and Grammo... to college friends like Alex Henning to GSP friends like Anne-Tyler! Virginia came and even introduced herself as knowing me by "marrying into the Man Clan." KK came and brought some sample flower decorations and with the other girls we made decisions on which ones for the sashes, which ones for hair and which ones for the pews. Jerusha's cake-pops were adorable. Holly's games were fun and any time Holly is hosting something (and just talking in general) people end up with a laugh. I got lots, lots, LOTS more presents. Jon and I don't even know what to think of it all!
Mainly I just had a wonderful time having so many fun people around me. It's overwhelming even imagining how the actual day itself will be when it will be ten fold what it was today! I'm getting more and more excited about the time I'll get with the girls at both the bachelorette and just the day of. In many ways October still seems a good ways off, but with how fast summer itself has gone I have no doubts it will be here in a blink! The most fun I've found in all of this, though, is having other people get excited with me! It's just great to feel that other people are EXCITED for this and not just doing it because they have to. At least I sure hope that is the case!

Caitlan "KK" (cousin & attendant), Becky (college roommate & bridesmaid), Holly Jo (cousin & Maid of Honor), ME!, Rachel (sister & Matron of Honor), Dani (college roommate & bridesmaid), Michelle (sister-in-law & attendant)

My Wedding on a Budget: 56 Days to Go!

Shower #2: With the soon-to-be "in-laws"!
How overwhelming!! I cannot really describe what it is like to receive so much from so many people--especially in this case where I hardly know so many of the people from today! Cassie and Jenny put together a Couple's Shower for Jon and I. I normally wouldn't have really felt it was necessary to make it for us both (ie, I wouldn't have made Jon sit through a shower), but we decided it was a good choice for a few reasons:
(1) By myself, I would only know a handful of the people
(2) Jon hadn't seen some/many of these people in a long time either
(3) This gave people a chance to congratulate us who may not make it the distance to the Kentucky wedding in October.

The shower was lovely and very purple-filled! Yummy food and drinks and lots of great people. I felt bad to have not spent more time with some of the people whom I hardly know yet bought us gifts. However, several people warned me that the day-of will be even worse as far as the amount of time I get with people. The more I think about it, the more overwhelming it feels--so many people I care about that I want to thank for being there with so little time to do it!

We got so many wonderful gifts today. Many great tools and utensils we'd registered for at one place or another. Jon's neighbor (Jenny and Mike's neighbor) gave us SO MUCH! She made us lots and lots of beautiful throw-pillows along with boxes of other things.His grandmother made us a quilt. One of his old Scout leaders who is another Bellarmine grad got us really cool 2011 National Basketball Championship coffee mugs. Yes, all of the presents were amazing, but really it was just nice to get to spend some more time with so many of the people who have been a part of Jon's life for so long and will now become a loving, supporting, wonderful part of my life as well.

My Wedding on a Budget: 57 Days to Go!

Friday's always seem to have traveling involved these days! That also usually means little time for wedding progress...however, today did bring for some progress. I finalized which flower girl dress Julianna will wear. I went up to visit Aunt Lea to give her a few answers on what I was envisioning with the veil. It really should be pretty simple and we even found online the one (I'm pretty sure) that I tried on at David's Bridal that gave me the idea for what I wanted made. Jerusha was busy-busy-busy finishing up Cake-Pops for the shower on Sunday. I was lucky enough to get to taste-test a couple! Delicious indeed!

We headed for Newburgh tonight for tomorrow's shower with Jon's friends and family. It will be followed by the Dixon family/Louisville friend's shower on Sunday. (I know, I know...Quite a shower filled weekend!) I started working on some thank-you notes from last weekend's Ohio shower while in the truck (YES, we drove the new truck) and we also went through my iPod listing some of our "must play" songs for the reception!

My Wedding on a Budget: 63 Days to Go!

My First Wedding Shower!
Rachel took on organizing my first shower,but it we quickly learned it should have never been titled a shower since she expected men to come as well. The point of it was to give any of the Rousculp/King/Gill side of the family the chance to congratulate the two of us especially considering many of them might not make it to the wedding. Jon was a real sport about it when he heard it was a "couples shower" but it wasn't even a really big to-do anyway. Debra did a beautiful job of opening up their house to host (since the actual family reunion was up the street at Uncle David's). There were a few snacks and drinks. She even made me one of the fun, cool towel cake displays as her gift. Rachel put a fun game together for us. She knows I am not a big fan of shower games, but this e played the newlywed game but all married couples plus us got to play. Seth was our game show host, and as Deutsch tends to do, he played it up and did well. The best question for us had to be "Your significant other hires a beautiful blond secretary. What do you do?" We, the ladies, had to write out an answer and then the men had to say what they though our answer was. I'm not sure if anyone else got that one right but we sure did! Thanks to my silly dream I had about 2 months into our relationship when a waitress licked on his fingers and I poked her eyes out for it! So When Jon answered, "She'd tell me 'No finger sucking.'" Everyone looked at him funny until I turned over my paper which read, "I'd tell him not to let her lick his fingers." That just lead to lots of laughter and the need to explain. It was a fun first shower and a great chance to get some hugs of congratulations and laughs with family I don't see enough.

I saw KK at the Seitz reunion (Also going on today in Ohio.) She's going to make some trial flowers this week to bring to the Louisville shower next week to decide if she can make the sashes for her and Michelle. I also saw Janet and Julianna there, so I talked with Aunt Janet about what type of dress I'd like Julianna to wear. I'm going to bring her some ideas also to the shower next weekend.

Jon and I did some reading during our car rides in order to move closer to choosing our readings. Usually readings just lead to discussions on God, love and life and how they all fit together. I could find deep meaning in so many or most of the readings. I would love to have one that, for anyone who is listening that day, they really hear what we are all about.