my wedding was awesome.

I'm not one to obsess over a wedding. I pretty much wanted to get it over with as soon as possible to get on with the Wedded Bliss. :) That said, I had one SUPER AWESOME wedding! I think I get extra-double-bonus points because there are so many crafty creative and talented family members and friends that made it so. I can barely take any credit. Here's who can.

#1 Emily.
Emily made my invitations, rsvp cards, thank-you notes, address labels, etc. OMG they were so cute!

#2 Shannon (and Jeff! and mom!)
Shannon and Jeff renovated this incredibly cute trailer with the wedding in mind. oh. my. gosh. Not only was the inside totally dirty and sad, the outside needed some serious elbow grease.

Before:
After (the Shot Trailer):

Shannon also made these FUN chalkboard speech bubbles and scored a bunch of sweet vintage hats and props for a photo booth:

3. Alli
Alli was the best maid of honor in the world. We made about a million paper flowers for the table centerpieces. Alli was queen of all the odds'n'ends ... and she gives one heck of a toast!

4. Sara
Sara did my amazing flowers (dahlias! love!) as seen in the above picture, and our bouquets. I love, love, loved what she did. The charm with my dad's pic on this one was made by Shannon.

4. Jamie's Family
Jamie's family really showed their crafty sides as well! They fashioned these life-size cutouts of young Jamie and Molly for the rehearsal dinner...and they somehow made it to the reception. Don't you love my teddy bear sweatshirt? And oh! They (especially Jamie's sister Sarah and their dad) took tons of video footage and then had the loveliest video made. I wish I could show the whole thing here. Special thanks to Sarah and Shannon for the wedding vid!

I could go on and on and on because it really was the best day ever. This snapshot sums up just about everything else I can say about our party:
wigs, blow-up guitar, mustaches, tambourines, feather boas...and my super fun family!

OK, and Jamie was a pretty good part of the day too. Love you.

home

Even though it was just ANOTHER task, house hunting really was so much fun.

a) I was so over living in a 600 sq ft apartment.
b) It's awesome to see different houses, even though most we saw in our price range were...at best, interesting and at worst, horrifying.
c) My sissy Shannon was our real estate agent and was tons of help.

Shannon and her friend Kevin started a real estate business creatively named findwell. findwell not only gives amazing service and great advice to their clients, they also refund half of their commission! Shannon helped us find the. perfect. house. Here's our baby!
There I am on the deck in the back:
The day we found out we were getting the house was July 19. The following month was spent identifying which feature of the house was our current favorite feature...Feature of the Day. Several Features of the Day included:
-glass-front cabinets
-real fireplace
-surround-sound wiring
-the fact that you can only see trees from our deck
-low maintenance yard
-recessed lighting
-move-in ready
-creek in the backyard

and...drum roll please...

...

...

Space for a CRAFT ROOM! Proof that Jamie really does love me.

We were really lucky to find our house. We still love it as much as when we first moved in. Often still heard about every other day: "I love our house..."

crazy summer

It was a crazy, crazy summer.

I started grad school. Turns out taking 4 classes is a full time job!

Jamie and I decided to get married in October. 4 months is long enough to plan a wedding, right? no problem!

We started house-hunting, especially because of the first-time home buyer's credit that, at that time, was going to expire in November.

So, got that? Grad school + House hunting + Wedding planning = I am crazy.

I was busy LITERALLY every second with either:

reading for class
writing for class
going to class
looking at houses online
looking at houses in person
wedding planning, which entailed being out of town every weekend.

Happy Highlights:We decided to get married at Red Barn Farms. Perfect and obvious choice! July at Red Barn Farms...gorgeous. October at Red Barn Farms...we were crossing our fingers for semi-decent weather.

Hiking at Engaged Encounter...NATURE!

Bro Adam and Pearl Girl in the wheat fields

4th of July Tribute to Michael Jackson...complete with handcrafted sparkle gloves and outfits (see Alli's and my matching Dazzle Shirts, far right)

Oh yeah, and it was my BUSIEST MONTH EVER on Etsy. Do you ever look back on times in your life and wonder how you did it? I can't say that it was the most graceful period in my life, but it all got done. This summer is going to seem like a breeze!

oh, and this one was pretty good too.

Happy Event #2.

In order of occurance, not importance, OK???

Jamie and I went to Neskowin, OR for Memorial Day weekend. Have I told you about Neskowin? It's a lovely little beach town just north of Lincoln City. Jamie's parents have an awesome cabin there called The Green Dragon, so we go down to visit as often as we can.

Just look at this beach!Anyway, early one morning we went for a walk on the beach to see the super-low tide. Imagine my surprise when Jamie got down on one knee! How perfect, in the shadow of "Proposal Rock."
Jamie seemed to think there was a chance that the diamond ring he designed wouldn't be good enough for me, so he presented me with this wax model so I could give it the final OK.
Um, hello? Why would I not love this? He designed it with family friend and jewelry designer Dyke Vandenburgh. Of course I loved it and of course I said yes. :) The rest of the weekend was spent with the the rest of Jamie's family. So fun!

So yeah, I guess you could say that was a happy event of '09.

sweet opal

OK, on to describing the Happy Events of 2009. On the very same day my dad died, my amazing sissy brought her baby girl into the world: sweet, sweet Opal! What an amazing turn of events, huh? Opal really is the sweetest little thing. I am a proud auntie AND her godmother!

My sister-in-law Sarah knit the cute little hat she is wearing here. I love this picture of you, Em!

I knit this sweater a while back, and Emily always had her eye on it. So it became Opal's! I can't believe she has already outgrown it. Stop growing so fast, baby girl!

back in blogland

Um... hi! Seriously ridiculous that my last post was LAST APRIL! omg! 2009 was . . . a bit crazy. It had its ups and downs. Mostly ups, but a big downer was that my dad passed away in late April. This may have triggered my blog's temporary demise. I have my dad's side of the family to thank for my creative impulses. My dad was super creative. Do you know anyone else who makes furniture and buildings out of tools? Here's to you, dad.

a book holder

So about what I made (see last post).

Sister wanted a book holder for young Oliver. Did I mention that my nephew is a genius? He is just over two, can say his ABCs, count to 10, and read several books. By "reading" I mean memorizing and repeating. Still! OK, so Oliver loves his books and just got a Big Boy Bed. My sister wanted a book holder to help with the book organization. Brilliant! -and- so easy. She got the idea from this super cute blog...but as I'm trying to link to the blog...I get the dreaded "Oops! This link appears to be broken." :( Sad! I hope they didn't go out of blog business. Anyway, here is the book holder, not hung yet:

ps. Stupid Blogger.com! Does it ever refuse to load the image the right way for anyone else? Grr. I am posting it anyway. Maybe it will fix itself. Just tilt your head slightly to the left and you'll get the idea. yes, like that.