It's been a while, but 2 months to go!

Ok, so how do you fill people in on the past month and a half? To sum things up, I have been beyond busy with school, conference, presenting, re-writing, bylaws, oh yeah, and I'm trying to get married soon too!

First off, all of the dresses are in in, including my own! It's just perfect and fit's me like a glove. If anyone is getting married anytime soon, I HIGHLY suggest getting the hollow-to-hem measurement when they measure you for your wedding dress. What they do is measure from your collar bone down to the floor to make the dress your specific length. I cannot tell you how nice it is to try on your wedding dress and not have to worry about alterations there!

Let's see, as you all know, invites are out! When I get time, I'll be posting a separate tab about wedding info, just incase you need it!

Ed and I also had our first shower in March! It was a Pampered Chef shower, and let's just say we will be very pampered chefs once we receive all our gifts. Here are the highlights:

Ed helped open presents

And got slightly carried away with our new vase... 

Our hostess-with-the-mostest 

That's all for now!

~Rachel

Happy Valentine's Day!

This Valentine's Day weekend was a very special weekend for me. This was my first and only Valentine's weekend as an engaged man. This weekend meant a lot to me because with my fiancee being so far away . Any time we spend together comes at a premium. Rachel came this weekend on Friday night, and will not be leaving until Monday. While most couples get to see each other every day, spending even 2 days and 2 nights in a row with Rachel is something I get to do about once a month. So needless to say, I wanted this weekend to be amazing!

Friday night I got home from work, and Rachel was waiting. We made a delicious turkey pot pie dinner with some of my leftover smoked turkey, onions, vegetables, smoked turkey, covered with biscuits. Just a great comfort dish! We paired it with some Seinfeld. Just a great feel good night. To cap things off we frosted and decorated heart shaped cookies that Rachel had made using my Grandma's sugar cookie recipe.

Saturday was the big day of plans. Rachel had a conference planning meeting to go to in Menomonee Falls, so after a quick pot of coffee and some cereal, she took off. I got cleaned up and went out to get groceries. Rachel had gotten us a cookbook called "anyone can cook" which had a great recipe for Steaks with Pan Sauce. I had won some steaks at an office work party, so we were all set for a lovely Valentines day dinner. I got the supplies that we would need, and got Rachel a card for Valentines day.

After Rachel got back we had a quick lunch and went for a walk on Brady street. We ended up stopping at a store called Gloriosa's. It's a very fine Italian grocery store. They have all kinds of high quality noodles, sausage, cheese, sauces, basically any italian ingredient you can think of. They also have a deli with Italian dishes and some great canoli! I think Rachel could get lost in that little store for hours.

When we got back, it was time to start getting ready for our Valentines day feast. Rachel had decided to make a new focaccia bread recipe. It had fresh tomatoes and cheeses on top. She mixed up the dough and set it aside to chill. I got the steaks out and set up all my ingredients. I cooked the steak in a skillet, and then transfered the steak do a dish and covered the dish with foil. I then started working on the sauce. Melting some butter in the pan, we mixed in some beef broth, red wine, mushrooms, onion, and a little bit of garlic. I deglazed that until it was nice and thick. While I was working on this Rachel tended to her bread, baked a potato, and cooked some green beans.

Soon it was time for everything to come together. We had our wine, we had candlelight, and our entertainment for the evening was to watch Casino Royal. Casino Royal was one of the first movies we watched together, and it was the movie we watched when I asked Rachel to be my girlfriend. It was a fantastic evening. The steak was great, the sauce was amazing, the potatoes were perfectly cooked, and the green beans added a great compliment. It was by far one of the best meals I have ever eaten. After the main course, we exchanged our valentines day cards, ate our cookies, and sipped on White Russians.

Overall I would say that this was easily the best valentines day ever. I got to spend 3.5 days with my fiancee and start a lifetime of Valentines day traditions. I hope everyone else's valentine's day was as great as mine!

-E.

DIY Ring Pillow - Martha Stewart Inspired

It's finished! I've been a diy bride and made my own ring bearer pillow. It was hands down the easiest thing I've made for the wedding! Truth be told, I made this pillow two weeks ago and am just now blogging about it. I'm going to use the old "college started up again" excuse to explain my procrastination.

For those crafty brides out there like me, you've probably been searching for the perfect ring pillow to make for your special day. I found mine on Martha Stewart's wedding website. Here's the link to the pillow that inspired me, as well as a picture:

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/photogallery/creative-ring-pillows#slide_16

Martha Stewart Ring Pillow

I liked this idea but wanted to add my own spin to it. I wound up buying a yard of white satin fabric to make the pillow (with finished dimensions of 8x8). P.S. I have a TON of that fabric left, so if anyone needs to make a pillow, you know where to turn. To add some color to the pillow, I bought some pink ribbon that matches the pink rose petals that our flower girl will be tossing. Instead of making my own flower for the top, I bought a large ivory flower (I'm not sure what kind it is, but I'm thinking hibiscus). I choose an ivory flower because I wanted it to contrast with the white of the satin. I finished it off with a thin white ribbon that we'll tie our rings on.

Here's my finished product! I'm very proud of it! If anyone ever needs a ring pillow, I'd be more than happy to make one for you! 

Our ring pillow! 

Also, before I forget, if anyone wants a more detailed description of how to make a ring bearer pillow, you should visit this site. It was the best instructional I found, complete with pictures! 

http://www.weddingbee.com/2010/04/14/diy-ring-bearer-pillow-tutorial/

Now it's onto hemming thirty squares of yellow fabric for our tabletops.... thank heavens that our wedding is happening soon so I don't keep coming up with more and more craft projects!

Keep crafting!
~Rachel 

Brandi Carlile - The Story

Ed and I both have fallen in love with this song! Please take a listen!

"Celebrations" Announcement!

It's here! We got our engagement in the "Celebrations" section of the Wisconsin State Journal! Here's the link so you can check it out:

http://host.madison.com/announcements/celebrations/engagements/article_7d4755ba-2574-11e0-b1e7-001cc4c03286.html

If anyone gets that paper and has an extra copy, could you please save it for us? We'd really appreciate it!

Love,

R.

Grandma Arleen's Cookies

A week or so I mentioned that I bought a set of cookie cutters so I can make flower cookies for our wedding favors. I was pumped about them because I used my 40% off J0-Ann's coupon and got them for cheap! Every once in a while they will send me a 10% off your entire purchase, but that hasn't happened in a while.... man!!! Anyways, here are the cookie cutters I bought:

I'm testing out recipes for our cookies. First of all, I wanted to see how the flower cookie cutters would work. Second, I wanted to compare cookie recipes. Finally, I wanted to see how bright I could get the frosting to look. The cookies need to be BRIGHT yellow, orange, and pink. Ed just loves cookies, so he is more than willing to eat anything I bake. The first recipe I used was for my Grandma Arleen's Sour Cream Cookies. My grandma passed away when I was two, so my mom has made these cookies every year to help us keep her memory alive. Anyways, I love them! Here's the recipe if anyone is interested and the final product! I used the three biggest cutters for these. The pink one is the biggest and quite the cookie! I think we're going to go with the yellow size.

Grandma Arleen's Sour Cream Cookies

1 C. Sugar 1 C. Sour Cream

3 C. Four 1 Egg, beaten

1 tsp. Salt 1/4 tsp. Vanilla

1 tsp. Baking Soda 1 Tbl. Real Lemon Juice

1 C. Butter, firm (Mix these liquids together)

Sift together dry ingredients and cut in butter. Stir liquid ingredients into flour/butter mixture. Use hands to form into a ball of dough. Chill overnight.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface to a scant 1/4" thickness. Don't roll too thin though! Bake for 6 min. on a greased or paper lined cookie sheet. Don't overbake-watch carefully.

Frosting

2 1/2 C. Sifted Powdered Sugar

2 Tbl. Butter, melted

3 Tbl. Milk

1 Tbl. Lemon Juice

2 drops of Lemon Extract

Stir together till smooth. Frost cookies and enjoy!

I'm going to try and make more cookies as soon as these are devoured! Cross your fingers that we can have these as our wedding favors. I read that our reception site won't allow your guests to consume food on the premise that has been made somewhere else. I hope I can still bake these!

Oh, and for those of you who are aspiring bakers, I bought the coolest cookbook yesterday. Again, I was at Jo-Ann's getting things for the wedding. I found myself with a 50% off coupon, but everything in the store was on sale! I had to search hard to find something. Low and behold I found this baking cookbook that I have had my eyes on. It's called Anyone Can Bake from Better Home's and Garden's. It's amazing! I already know how to bake, but it has really cool directions with pictures on how to do virtually EVERYTHING related to baking. The recipes are great because they range in skill level. I think I fall somewhere in the middle, so this is perfect for me!

There's also a cooking version, Anyone Can Cook, that I ordered on Amazon last night because I liked this baking one so much! Ed and I love cooking together, so I'm looking forward to getting this in the mail tomorrow!

The newly-to-be wed,

Rachel

Ring Pillows

We officially have a ring bearer! Ed's cousin's son is going to do us the honor! He just happens to be the same age as our flower girl, so everything will work out just perfectly. Now I just have to pick out a pillow design. Therein the problem lies!

I really would like to incorporate our daisy theme into the pillow, but I almost think that it makes the pillow look too fun. I am also in love with the idea of doing a lace pillow. I'd just have to find the right lace pattern and then lay that over a colored piece of fabric so you'd be able to see the lace.

When I went to the fabric store today I was very discouraged because I couldn't find any fabrics in the colors I wanted. I had gone there with my list of things: yellow fabric to go under the centerpieces; ivory for the flower girl basket; lace for the ring bearer pillow.... I didn't buy any fabric! Now, I didn't want to become bride-zilla in Jo-Ann's, so I took a deep breath and continued on with my shopping mission. I left the store with a daisy cookie cutter that we're going to use as a part of our favors.

Both Ed and I think that Pablo would do a good job as a ring-dog, but I don't think that will happen. One can always dream!