A Very Merry Benz-Miller Christmas

Whew! Is it just me or did Christmas go by fast!!!! It's almost a blur to me now. Ed and I had our first Christmas a week before the "Real Christmas" with his family in Eau Claire. Ed and I made a delicious dinner for everyone: Pesto Manicotti with Spinach, along with bread, and salad. Let's just say it was a true crowd pleaser! Yum! For dessert I made White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Actually, it was more like Oreo cheesecake. When I was making it, I accidentally forgot to add the eggs, so I just dumped out the cheesecake, Oreo crust and all, and added the eggs. Then I had to make another crust. I used a WHOLE package of cookies in this thing! So tasty though!

Here's my future family:


My Miller men all got matching blue/plaid pajama bottoms. I thought Ed and his brother David were just precious the morning after we opened presents. They had on matching outfits! Now don't they look like they shared the womb?

I went to Milwaukee the week before Christmas to spend a little time with Ed. We had to order our Christmas present: a queen sized mattress! (We got bedding from my parent's, picture to come later). There is this adorable house across from Ed's apartment. Someday I hope we can have a house this color. They even decorate their little tree out front.



We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my family in Madison. My mom made her traditional lasagna and we ate them on her precious Christmas tree plates. Ed and I actually got my mom two more plates so she would have a set of six so everyone can eat together. We thought we'd be sneaky and add the new plates in the china cabnet so my mom would notice when she got them out to wash them. We even put a card on top! My mom was totally oblivious to her little present. Ed and I finally said something and then the light bulb went off!

As my family knows, I just can't resist a good picture in front of the Christmas tree this time of year. So, I had my dad take a couple of Ed and I in front of our REAL tree. (Ed comes from a fake tree family.... but I've decided that we are going to be real tree people once we're married).




This year we did our presents differently. Andrew, my brother, was spending Christmas eve with his girlfriend, and wasn't going to be at our house to open presents. So, we loaded up Santa's sleigh and brought all the presents to my grandma's house. We had a fest that rivaled Thanksgiving. Grandma made a delicious pork roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, tons of veggies, and the list goes on and on. It was soooo good! I felt like a beached whale! AND we had banana cream pie and grasshopper pie for dessert! My grandma makes the best pies - hands down!


Opening presents was like a free-for-all. We had to open them quick because we had to call England and talk to my family over there. Nicole and I got matching footie pajamas with Sock Monkey feet (oh, and Andrew got Ed Civ4 and he just loves it!):

And here's my Benz family picture for this year:


On our way back to Ed's house, we stopped downtown and walked in this little park. All the trees had lights on them. It was just to beautiful for us to simply drive by and look. It was a little chili out and I'd forgotten my gloves at Grandma's house. Ed let me wear his gloves, but they are so big on my hands, making it tricky to take pictures. But, here's what we've got:


Like I said earlier, Ed and I decided to buy a mattress for Christmas. It's a very practical gift in our opinion. Plus, Ed's old mattress was SUPER old - at least 45 years. Hopefully he sleeps much better now! ;- ) About the bedding, I found it on super sale at Target. I just love saving money! Now all we need is a headboard and a side table.


I'm looking forward to January very much! We have so much wedding planning to do, and I'm hoping that we can get most, if not all, of it done next month. June 4th will be here before we know it.

Love,
The Newly-To-Be-Weds,
Rachel & Ed

Different Acts

So I was looking at flower girl dresses this afternoon instead of studying for a final that I have tomorrow morning (and I'm sure my grade will reflect that...). There are sooo many CUTE dresses out there. I have no idea how we're ever going to pick one!

Our flower girl is simply adorable too! She has been practicing since she found out she was going to be a flower girl! How precious! I have a picture of her out in her backyard 'practicing' for the big. She wants us to get married very soon because she just can't wait! (That makes two of us!!!) I'm very happy to have her as our flower girl! She is my cousin's daughter, and I was a bridesmaid when my cousin was married, making it all the more special.

Now, this is the dress that I just L-O-V-E! Pink is one of the accent colors in our wedding, and there are little daisies on the dress. What a perfect dress for a little princess!

I think it's a natural girl instinct to like every single dress that you see, like this (LOVE the shoes):

And this one is cute as well (I actually think this is my favorite) :

Oh, and this too:

For this very reason Ed and I have decided to have different acts on our wedding day; sort of like in a play. I can start out wearing the dress I've already bought, then change into something else for pictures, and then something else for the reception. Or heck! Why don't we just change every hour to make it easier? This also saves Ed the hassle of what he should wear to the wedding. He can start with something I've picked, and then move on into unchartered fashion territory (like athletic pants with brown shoes- please see picture below: Ed insists that these two clothing items match - I think not!). I love you but this just doesn't work together...

This way we can just keep changing things up! AND our flower girl too! How will I/we ever pick a dress? Please comment!

All my love,

R.

This one goes out to my wonderful friends!

Wow! What a week full of my crazy family, Ed's family, turkey, babies, and ENGAGEMENTS! Getting engaged must be the new trend! My longtime roommate got engaged last Tuesday night, and this past Sunday Ed's sister got her ring too! Congratulations to both them and their other halves! I love you all!

Oh, and I just happen to be in both of their weddings! Although, I will be the "matron" of honor, not the "maid" of honor. I must be getting old....

Still my beating heart....

I realized today that we are getting married in LESS THAN 200 DAYS!

Wow! I can't believe that! Technically, it's 199 days, but whose counting? Normally I'm not a countdown person, but I think I have the right to count down to my own wedding, right?

It just goes to show you that time really does fly by...

Seven and Counting

As of last Thursday, it's seven months until our wedding. Well, actually, it's a little less than that right now. I wish I could just skip ahead in time to June. There is just so much to get done between now and then! Not to mention that I'll be graduating two weeks before the wedding! Yikes!

As some of you may have heard, I was offered the music therapy internship at Cedar Community in West Bend. It's a nursing home/assisted living - the perfect place for me. The only bad thing about it is that it's about 45 minutes from where Ed works. Because I'll be starting my internship after we're married, we've decided to live somewhere in the middle and just commute. Ed really gets the short end of the stick because he'll have to be dealing with rush hour traffic every day. We were talking about that this past week and he was saying that he'll probably have to wake up around 5:30/5:45. I have one thing to say about that - I'm sleeping in ! That's just a little bit to early for me!!!

Another cool thing that I discovered this week is that I can add Ed to the blog and he can post things too. If you see anything about sports popping up you'll know the source. I actually have to give a lot of credit to Ed because he as been absolutely wonderful! I got a really bad case of the flu last week and wound up staying in Milwaukee two extra nights. Ed, being the perfect fiance that he is, took care of me. This doesn't happen very often for us because we live so far away from each other. Dr. Ed nursed me back to health and now I'm all back to normal.

The save-the-dates are in full swing now. Thanks to everyone who has helped out with them! They look great! I'll put a little picture of them at the end of the post. I should be able to focus on wedding details once this semester is over and I have a little bit more free time.

Until next time,

~Rachel

Extra, Extra!

Now I think that I'm really getting into the meat and potatoes of wedding planning. But I'll get to that in a second... first things first: Last Saturday Ed and I had our engagement pictures taken, which was probably the most fun we've had in a long time. Wedding planning is exhausting and sometimes it's just nice to spend time smiling at each other for an hour while the photographer says how adorable we are. After our photo shoot, we went out for Italian and them walked down to the Monona Terrace, where we got a great view of the city! I actually just got our copy of the engagement prints in the mail today, so they should be up soon. I'm going to try an upload them to Picasa. Knowing my computer skills, this could take a while. I promise to have them up soon!!!!

Anyways, I have also found the dress that I will be wearing when I say "I do" to the love of my life. People, this is an engagement blog, so I have every right to be a little sappy every once and a while. I'm really glad that I have this out of the way too. Just another thing to check off of my list.

Now, here are the things I still have to do: Finalize the guest list; book a block of hotel rooms; sample cake; discuss the menu; DJ; flowers; centerpieces; invitations, and SAVE-THE-DATES!

So, I'm really on the ball as far as invitations go. My future Miller family and I started slicing and dicing on Sunday. I estimated that we would need to make 130 save-the-dates, but now it looks like we're going to need somewhere around 150, just so we have a couple extra. Now, my plan is to have these out by the first weekend in December. Yikes!!!!!!

Some people are starting to wonder WHY I want to make my own invitations, versus ordering them from one of the many places that sells PRE-made invitations. I have my pride and I love making things myself, so therefore, I am going to tackle this beast and all my invitations will be made with love, because I'm only getting married once and I want everything to be just so. Whew- that was long!

Anyways, I just needed to vent this out. Thanks for listening.

Love,

R.

Invitations anyone?

First of all, I absolutely LOVE the website splitcoaststampers.com. If your crafty senses are tingling, you should defiantly visit this site. Here I found the inspiration for my wedding invitations!!! Of course, I'm not attempting this massive feat of paper-craft alone; my godmother, Donna, has been so kind to assist me and give me creative advice. She's also a Stampin' Up demonstrator, so she has great ideas! I couldn't think of a better person to help me out with this. ; - )

Here's some pictures for you to get a little preview of what I've got up my sleeve. Our wedding colors are going to be orange and yellow, with a little bit of pink thrown in to brighten things up. I really want to use a lot of bright colors at our wedding. I also want to use a lot of gerberia daisies. What a better way for me to take the flowers that we will be using and put them on the invitation! So, without further adieu, here's the pictures that inspired me:

Ok, so here's how this is going to work: The top picture has all three colors that I'm going to use. The bottom picture is how the invitation is going to look, but not with those colors, of course. It has a pocket on the right where you can put the rsvp, directions, and accommodation information. In place of the black bow there will be a beautiful two-toned white ribbon. The center of each flower will have a pewter colored brad. Let me say, these are really large brads as far as brads go. Getting back to the flowers, they will be made up of three different colors layered upon each other: pumpkin pie, daffodil delight, and melon mambo. Fun names, right? I have no idea yet how many of these flowers I need to make, but it's going to be a TON.

As always, let me know if you have any ideas! Exciting news: I'm going wedding dress shopping tonight and tomorrow! I think once I get that first dress on it will really hit me that I'm getting married. I don't think I can talk too much about my dress on my blog, because I don't want to give Ed any hints of what I'll be wearing. For all he knows, I could be wearing pants!

~Rachel