Peppermint Tea & Christmas Movies

Good morning bloggy ladies :) Have a good weekend? I started getting a little bit sick half-way through my weekend, but that didn't stop me from enjoying a little bit of my two days away from work anyways...

FRIDAY
I know I made buffalo Bleu cheese turkey burgers for dinner, but other than that, I seem to have forgotten the rest of the evening. I assume it involved a Christmas movie and a bit more decorating of the house, but I'm just not too certain. My, what a short-term memory I seem to have...

SATURDAY
Woke up and made myself an egg sandwich for breakfast, and then waited on my Mama and sister to come pick me up. Then we went down the road to the fair grounds, for a big giant craft show, called Market Days. It's huge and awesome, and there are lots and lots of different vendors, from all over Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. My mom and sister both bought quite a few things. My mom got us both a cute little gingerbread house (that smells like cinnamon!), and Meg got lots of random things. I got a present for my family's Secret Santa exchange, and a Christmas ornament to celebrate mine and Jeff's first married Christmas together!

After we ate lunch there and walked around a little more, they dropped me back off at home with my bag full of goodies. Jeff and I then spent quite a few hours cleaning up around the house, and working on our second bedroom. That room has kind of been the "dump zone" as we moved both of us in over the last few months, and it was quite a disaster. However, the twins are coming here for 9 days, and that's "their" bedroom, so we need to get it cleaned up and ready for them! It's nowhere near done yet, but we got a lot done.

I had woken up feeling a little strep-throaty, so by 4 pm, I was exhausted and just needed to sit down and rest. Primrose came and cuddled up with me on the couch, and I ended up taking quite a nice little nap. While I was asleep though, Jeff ran out and picked up some Chinese food, so when I woke up it was dinner time, which was great and so yummy. We spent the rest of the night just laying on the couch, cuddling our doggie, and watching Christmas movies on Netflix. One of which, I would recommend if you're into Christmas music - "The Mistletones." It's an ABC Family movie, and it's really cute :)

Oh and then of course we watched my amazing Seminoles woop that Blue Devil bootay! National Champs here we come!!!!

SUNDAY
I woke up feeling even worse than the day before, and even though it was only 8 am, I couldn't go back to sleep. So instead I  watched another ABC Family Christmas movie :) This one was also cute, so check it out if you're into that kind of movie - "A Christmas Kiss." I got a little stir-crazy, so I did very minor cleaning around the house, and put away some clean dishes. I quickly ran to the grocery store for just a few items, and then spent the rest of the day back at home again. After a very late lunch, I threw together some soup really quickly, and let it simmer in the crock pot all afternoon for dinner. I was thankful for this super yummy recipe of mine, because it's so stinking easy to put together, it was even a cinch while not feeling so great.

This recipe actually debuted on my blog an entire year ago, so if you're interested in the recipe for Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup (and you should be interested because it's delicious), then you can check out that post here.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and staying hydrated with lots of water, hot peppermint tea and some cran-apple juice. While Jeff blew off the leaves in our entire yard, I worked on some wedding recap posts and rounded up some pictures from our honeymoon in Cancun. (Those will all be coming soon, finally!) We watched "Robin Hood," Jeff fell asleep on the couch at 7:30, and then I watched the newest episode of "Once Upon A Time," while writing this very blog post. I went to sleep not much longer after that to try to get some rest and get better before beginning another work day.

So even though I was feeling kinda sick and yucky all weekend, there were still some bright spots that managed to peek their way through :) Now if I can just get rid of this icky-ness and get better, things will be all good! Happy Monday again ladies!

Much Love,
Halie

*Update* I was too sick to go to work today, so I'm at home still. I'll be going in to my doctor later, to make sure it isn't strep throat. Ugh, gross...

Pilgrims, Paula Deen Rolls & Potatoes

Good morning ladies, and Happy Monday. Are y'all back at work now after a four-day weekend like me too? It's kind of rough, but instead I'll just focus on being thankful for the time off that I did have, rather than whining about being back today. And so today, I'd of course like to recap my special Thanksgiving holiday with my family!

This year we went to my Aunt Suzanne and Uncle Keith's house, and it was the first year that I brought my very own contribution. The last couple of years we've hosted at my parents house, and so of course I've helped out with all of that. But this year I chose and made my own dish to bring over, and it was a hit! I made this Loaded Mashed Potato Bake, and it was delicious.

The rest of my family all made amazingly yummy things, and we had probably one of our best Thanksgiving meals ever. Seriously - it was sooo good. We had all the usual's - turkey (two ways: roasted and deep fried) dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, broccoli casserole, the yummiest Paula Deen's Cloverleaf rolls, and a couple other sides too. And as a special southern treat, my uncle made up some venison as well, which was also yummy.

Sliced and deep-fried turkey. Definitely one of my favorites of the day!

My sister was unfortunately not with us, because she was with her husband and in-laws in Alabama. We definitely missed them, and it was so weird not having them around for the holiday. However, this was actually the first year that Jeff and I have celebrated Thanksgiving together (actually with each other - we've he's gone out of town the last couple of years to see family), so it was so great to have him there with my whole family as well!

I have so much to be thankful for, and special meal with my family was of course a great way to celebrate that. We had so much fun eating all together, and then going through all of the Black Friday ads as well. We told lots of stories, and had lots of laughs, and we just generally enjoyed being with each other on this special day. I'm thankful for a lot of things, but my amazing family is definitely up at the top of that list!!

My cousin and I got to do the wishbone - sadly he won.

Parents :)

Me and my pretty Mama

There were of course lots of other happenings from the last four days, but it's entirely too much for just one post. So the rest of the weekend recap will follow tomorrow (or the next day, depending on my blog-motivation), and then later I'll share some pictures of our first Christmas and tree together, in our own little house! Hope y'all had a great weekend as well. Looking forward to reading y'all's Thanksgiving recaps as well!

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - Happy 23rd Birthday to my "baby" sister! Doesn't quite seem possible for you to be this "old" yet, but apparently you are! Hope you have the bestest day, Little! I love you!!

Practicing Gratefulness

I truly do have so much to be thankful for. More than I'm even aware of really - things like life and breath and family are sometimes taken for granted, although those are sometimes the things that deserve the most thanks! God has blessed each and every one of us in so many beautiful and unique ways. And the sad thing is, we often don't even realize it. God loves us enough to place amazing things and people and opportunities in our lives, so is it really too much to ask that we remember to thank him for those things? Of course not. So I want to take a just a bit to highlight just some of the blessing I'm thankful for this year...

I am thankful for:
My husband, and our new marriage.
Adorable step-sons.
My loving and supportive parents.
Siblings who I not only get along with, but genuinely like/love being around.
Our new doggie, Primrose.
Promotions (over the summer) and more new responsibilities (again!) at work.
Sweet family members.
Caring and thoughtful in-laws.
Being able to run or ride a bike, pretty much whenever I want to.
Our cute little rental house.
A forgiving Savior.

I love making lists like these. It makes me truly take a moment to stop and think about all the wonderful blessings in my life, and appreciate each one of them. This list in reality is a lot longer than just these eleven things. In reality, I have hundreds of things I'm thankful for - but these are some of the ones that mean the most to me. I definitely encourage y'all to think about all the wonderful things in your life that you have to be thankful for! And it doesn't have to happen just on Thanksgiving every year! You can thank God at any time, any day of the year. Just show the guy some appreciation for all He's given us!

I wish each and every one of you a Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you have a great holiday with family and friends! I for one am very much looking forward to a few days off work, sleeping in a little bit, spending time with family, and of course lots of yummy food!

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - I just randomly found this quote, and I loved it too much to not include it....

“. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.” 
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

Primrose Joins the Family

Here I am with my first "real" post back in blog-land, after quite a bit of a hiatus. And I know, I know.... I'm sure you were all hoping that I would jump right in with wedding recaps and what-not, but I just can't dive back into the blog-pool straight into the deep end, before I wade around in the shallow end first. Plus, I haven't actually gotten the professional photographs back yet, so I'll wait for those before sharing all of the wedding stuff :)

So today, we're starting out with our newest addition to the family - little miss Primrose!

Last Saturday morning, we were sitting on the front porch drinking coffee, and I said all I needed to make it perfect was a little furry friend sitting all warm and cozy in my lap. So I grabbed my laptop and starting searching Craigslist. I ended up on the website for the animal shelter, and before we knew it, we had added that as a stop on our list of errands for the day.

We got there around 3:30, and found out that if we donated blood before 4 pm, we would get a voucher to waive the adoption fees! So Jeff went in to try, but couldn't while on antibiotics. Fortunately for us though, they gave us the voucher anyways! We saw a couple of cuties, but once we saw this one, we knew pretty much immediately that she was a good choice. We had them take her to the little dog-walk-section, and we fell in love with her fun little personality!

So we decided to make her our own little baby! She's a 2-year-old Dachshund mix, although we're not really sure what the mix is. It could be a little bit of Beagle, it could be a little bit of Jack Russell, but who really knows?! She's already been spayed, but sadly she is heartworm positive. Luckily for us though, the shelter has an assistance program for dogs that are heartworm positive when they're adopted, so we get a discount on her treatment at a "partner vet." Jeff dropped her off this morning actually for her first shot, then we have to take her back in a month for a second shot. Then after that she will be perfectly healthy!

She is seriously one of the sweetest little dogs ever. She absolutely loves cuddling and getting petted and scratched. She loves sleeping all curled up on my chest on the couch while we watch a movie, or between my legs at night in bed. She walks right by your side both inside and outside, and doesn't even like to be alone to go to the bathroom. She doesn't eat much, but that might be due to the heartworms. She does however love marshmallows as treats! And she also jumps up on top of her crate trying to get to the kitchen table ;)

First family picture, right after adoption :)

She's been a perfect fit for us so far, and I can only imagine it will only get better and better as she gets more used to us! We both love her so much already, and I'm so glad we have our own little fur baby. She's the first dog that's ever been "all mine," and she's the greatest little doggie. Oh, and this is another thing I get to mark off my 30 Before 30 list, of "have my very own pet!" I am so excited to have my own baby dog to love and play with and have as a part of our little family! So very glad to have found this sweet baby girl - our little Prim! :)

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - Yes, her name is from one of my favorite book/movie series, "The Hunger Games." It's perfect for her really, because she is quite prim & proper. It's pretty funny so far :) But in spite of it being from a favorite book of mine, it also starts with my favorite letter, so it was perfect. And of Primrose Pullen has a good ring to it, right?! :)

Paint-Splattered 5K Finisher

YOU GUYS!!! I ran my first 5K last weekend!! I've been training for this for the past nine weeks of the summer, by running "longer" distances three times a week, and just one mile two times a week, meaning I ran at least five days a week. I got up at 6 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday in order to follow Hal Higdon's 5K novice training plan, and ran before work three times a week. It was not always fun, and sometimes I hated it - but obviously I'm so glad I did it, and completed a huge accomplishment for me!!

For my 25th birthday, I created a 30 Before 30 list, and I had included "Complete a 5K." I had every intention of doing that, I just didn't know that it would get done before my next birthday! So now I get to cross that off my list! Oh, and for my summer bucket list, I get to cross off "train for a 5K," now that I completed my training plan and the actual race itself!

I had only run the actual 5K distance about two or maybe three times before the race, but I knew all along that I wanted my goal to be under 40 minutes for the race. My couple of training runs had come in under that time, so I was pretty sure I could do it on race day as well...

My wonderful fiance, amazing parents, and sweet Granddaddy all came to support me in my first race. And then my awesome aunt and uncle surprised me and showed up too! I had such a fantastic cheering section! They were at the starting line, then they walked up to one of the color stations, and then found a new spot at the finish line, so I saw all of them three times on my run. It was such a great feeling running past them, while they screamed and cheered and clapped, and of course took pictures. It was like my own little fan club and paparazzi! 

What I didn't take into consideration in my training though, was that it was going to much hotter from 9-10 a.m. during the race, as opposed to 6-7 a.m. when I usually ran. And it. was. super. hot. So hot in fact, that at one point, I had pretty much given up on thinking I could finish in under 40 minutes. My goal changed to "Just finish, Halez - just finish." 

The other tricky thing was that I didn't have my phone with me, mapping my distance. I was afraid it might get messed up, so I didn't keep it on me like usual. So I had no idea how far I had gone, since there were no mile-markers on the course. (At least none that I saw...) I did however wear my Polar heart rate monitor and watch though, so I could time myself. So I was burning up, and had no idea how much was left, but I kept on trucking. And when I hit that last color station around 35 or 36 minutes, I kicked it up a notch, and ran the rest of the way, just hoping it wasn't too much further.

Once I realized how close I actually was, I picked up my speed just a little bit more, and as I crossed under the finish banner, I stopped the timer on my watch as fast as I could. And to my astonishment, I then looked down, and saw I had made it in 38:45!!!!

I finished the race with a fair amount of color on me. Not really much at all. But then I went over to the stage for one of the celebratory color parties, and that's when things got crazy. We all counted down, then we each threw a color packet up in the air, and danced and jumped around in a colorful powdered haze for a few minutes. And it was so much freaking fun! When I returned back to where my family was waiting for me, my Mama kinda shrieked and laughed a little, and immediately got the camera back out. Because after this awesomeness below, I came back looking like this.....

Check out the sweat-concentrated areas around my lips. That's just lovely, right?!

Then I had Jeff follow me around for a little bit, being my personal race-day-photographer, snapping all kinds of pictures here and there. What a great future husband I have :) He got an awesome one of me jumping up in the air with the color party happening behind me, but some large woman decided to get all up in my way, so she ruined it. Jeff's going to Photoshop her right on outta there though, and then I'll share that awesomeness with y'all. 

This was something that even just a year ago I wouldn't have thought I would even try, nonetheless actually finish. And hello - not only did I finish, but I actually had fun too! I am honestly just so stinking proud of myself. I've always hated running, but crazy something happened in February, and I just gave it a try one day. Now, just a little over six months later, I ran my first 5K, and I would actually call myself a bit of a runner. What kind of craziness is this?!

This was a great first race for me to do, because it's kind of given me a little bit of a taste to try out more now. I think if I do find other races to run, they'll need to be sometime fun or different or unique - not just a boring, serious race. I've heard rumors that The Color Run will be back in Tally in March, and if that's true, I'm signing up faster than you can imagine. It was a blast, and I would love to do it again!

Much Colorful Love,
Halie

Oh, and P.S. - I also painted my nails kinda cool for The Color Run. I tried out a new tutorial for paint-splatter nails, and it turned out pretty decent. It's not my favorite mani I've ever done, but I didn't hate it. And it started growing on me even more as I wore it. I think I might try it again, but just with only two colors, instead of six. But for this super colorful event, six colors was absolutely necessary.

P.P.S. - I'm linking up with Glitter & Gloss for Mani Monday, and Sami's Shenanigans for Weekend Shenanigans!

Pinstagram Summer

I took the last couple of days off from blogging, but I'm still alive and kickin'. It was weird not coming here and writing a post, and still weird throughout the day with no comments to read and emails to respond to, or check on my stats too many times....but it was also good to just breathe a little bit. I'm not here with any sort of writing that would win any prizes, I just want to share a few of my Pinstagram Summer moments from my life recently. It just seems like so many more things Instagram-worth happen during the lovely summer months, and I've certainly been sharing my share of photos lately....

1 / Beautiful sunrise on an early morning run

2 / Super cute trinkets and sweet note from my friend Megan in Tennessee

3 / Big Easy Snowballs with my family

4 / Wedding invitations ready to be taken to the post office!

5 / Gorgeous, random hibiscus flower in the middle of our azalea bushes at home

6 / Finally got to play Cards Against Humanity, and had a blast

7 / Free chocolate ice cream cones at Bullritos, somewhere in Georgia

8 / My wedding shoes are in that box!!

9 / Chipotle salads are really freaking delicious, and don't even need the dressing

1 / Putt-putt night with Jeff and the twins

2 / Beautiful blue skies and corn fields in the middle-of-nowhere-Georgia 

3 / Movie night with my man 

4 / Love my amazing photo guest book I made using Shutterfly!

5 / Drink break during a long day of running errands and shopping

6 / Sweet Bath & Body Works haul from their semi-annual sale

7 / Pretty flower/plant-thing from my coworkers, before moving to my new job

8 / Love summer days spent at the pool

9 / Matchy-matchy family for the twins' Superman-themed 7th birthday party!

And for you bloggers who stopped using Vine the minute Instagram got video, you've been missing out on (barely any) videos made by yours truly. But when I do remember to make a video on Vine, they're kinda cute :) Or at least I think they are...



So that's all I've got to share with y'all today. I may not be back to every-day-blogging status again for a while as wedding planning gets crazier and crazier, but I will still be here when I can be. And then hopefully I'll be able to resume my regular blogging schedule again in just a couple more months! Thanks for sticking around here with me though! Bloggy friends are such good friends :)
Much Love, Halie

Planes, Grains & Automobiles

Monday morning - we meet again.... and this is a seriously exhausted Monday morning at that. This weekend was so crazy busy, I got very little sleep, and I could have definitely used an extra day just to recover from it. So let's just head straight into our normal recap, shall we?

FRIDAY
Jeff's parents took us and the boys to see the new Disney movie, "Planes," and it was really, really cute. Good job Disney for making another heartwarming movie that brings a tear or two to my eyes... But really, it's a great little movie and we all enjoyed it :) After the movie, we got the rest of the boys' stuff packed in the car and ready to go for the next morning.

SATURDAY
Got up bright and early for our drive up to north Georgia to meet their mom. We grabbed breakfast from Chick-fil-A, and then hit the road. A couple potty stops and five hours later, we ate lunch, and said our goodbyes to those super sweet little boys. We are so thankful we got to spend six full weeks with them this summer, and we just had so much fun with them!

We then made our way over to Atlanta, to visit Jeff's best friend/best man. We went to a cookout at one of his friends' house, and had lots of fun. All of his friends were really nice and welcoming, and didn't make it awkward for us even though we knew no one! After a delicious dinner (grilled chicken and sausage made by an awesome guy from Australia) and some homemade ice cream, we all played Cards Against Humanity. It was my first time playing, and I loved it! I want it for myself now of course. There were 12 or 13 of us playing, and I actually won with five black cards! Holla!

SUNDAY
Woke up bright and early again to head home from Atlanta. We splurged again and got Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, and it was oh so yummy. We took a different route home from ATL than we normally do, and we loved it! It was so gorgeous. We saw so many fields of crops and things, and it was actually really interesting. (We ended up Googling how corn and peanuts are harvested, and we learned something new while we drove...)

A couple of potty stops, some gorgeous back roads of Georgia and about four and a half hours later, we made it to my Grandparents house for a big family lunch! We celebrated my Aunt and my Papa who both have August birthdays. I later worked on addressing the envelopes for our wedding invitations, then we had our first pre-marital counseling session. We stopped by Publix to grab a bit of groceries and pick up a Redbox (since we had a code for a free night!), and then spent some time just resting at Jeff's house...while I addressed some more envelopes.

Super busy, and super fun. We had a great weekend, but we are definitely both exhausted. I skipped my run this morning so that I could sleep until 7 am, rather than 6 am, and just that one hour wasn't quite enough. I'll run tomorrow morning though, so I can start week 6 of 5K training! Tonight and tomorrow we will be busy working to get our invitations stuffed and ready to go, so that we can get them sent out by no later than Friday! Ahhh, so exciting! They turned out great, and I can't wait to show them to you in a couple of weeks, once they've been sent and seen :)

Hope you lovely ladies are having a good Monday so far. I'm looking forward to working on wedding stuff tonight, and making what Jeff has named "Adult Bagel Bites" for dinner! I'll try to make them kind of healthy-ish, and count the calories, but they're just gonna be so yummy!

Much Love,
Halie

Planning, Dresses & Purple Pens: Some Favorites

I got up this morning (even when I really super didn't want to), and did my early morning run of 2.5 miles. And it felt rough. But at the end, I felt good because I have now completed week 5 of my 5K training, and we're just under a month away from race day! Holy crap that's crazy! But I'm excited and ready and I can't wait to have a blast actually running a race...weird!

Today, in honor of completing week 5, I'm sharing five of my current favorite things for "5 Fave Friday."

ONE - Cute, snuggly little boys. Every night for the past two weeks, I've been reading a book to them out loud, and every night they come and snuggle up next to me, and sometimes fight about who's turn it is to sit closer to me. And it's just so stinking sweet. It kinda makes my heart almost burst it's just so sweet. I really do love them, and I'm incredibly blessed to be able to inherit these these precious boys as my step-sons!

TWO - Gems with Friends. It's one of those Zynga games for your phone (like Words with Friends and all those others), but this one is definitely my favorite of all of those. And I'm more than a little obsessed. The problem is, almost no one I know actually plays it, so all of the 'friends' I play with, are just anonymous opponents. So some of you lovelies should get it and then we can play together :) My username is Halez88...

THREE - Buying new dresses, in smaller sizes. It seems like almost all of my clothes are now at a point where they're just getting too big to still be worn. And hello - obviously that's exciting! But my favorite is buying new dresses for work at Target, and instead of buying an XXL (I have a couple of those from a few  years ago), I'm now buying just an L. Definitely a favorite.

FOUR - Wedding planning. Duh. I was going to try not to talk about wedding planning on this list since I talk about it in just about every other post it seems like...but I've got serious "Bride Brain" right now. Soooo #SorryImNotSorry, but planning my wedding is definitely a favorite.

FIVE - Writing in cursive. I know that's a really weird one, but I'm just trying to share 'the real me' with you guys, as nerdy as that real me might be sometimes...But seriously. I started doing it a couple of months ago, in order to practice my cursive handwriting, so that it would look pretty when I hand address our wedding invites. Well now, I just do it all the time! And I really have gotten better, so at least I accomplished my goal of improving. I'll be addressing the envelopes next week, so hopefully I make each one look so pretty!

This awesome purple pen is also my favorite....

And that wraps up five of my most random favorite things right now! Hope you guys liked this little glimpse into some of my weirdness ;) Sometimes I try to keep the weird stuff to myself, but sometimes I just gotta let it out and share it. Today was obviously one of the sharing days. Don't hold it against me though, mmkay?

Tomorrow we take the boys back to their mom, and we won't see them again until our wedding. (Whoa that sounded weird and crazy.) It's been a great six weeks with them this summer, and we've had so much fun together! We have to wake up super early in the morning to hit the road, then drive five hours to North Georgia. Then Jeff and I will head over to Atlanta, to spend one night at his best friend/best man Adam's house. Tomorrow is also our two-year anniversary! But we're putting the celebration on hold for a few days, and we'll go out one night next week. Sunday my whole family will get together for lunch to celebrate our two August birthdays, and then I'm hoping to get some wedding planing or wedding crafting done in the afternoon/evening.

Definitely going to be a busy weekend, but I'm still of course looking forward to it! Hope y'all have good Friday's, and fun weekends as well!

Much Love,
Halie

Promo's, Proposals & Letters

Dear Weekend: It's so nice to see you. Think you can work out a special deal with Mr. Sun for us here in Florida? It's now rained 21 out of the last 24 days, and that's wayyyy more than enough. Move on. So let's have a nice, bright, warm, blue-skied weekend for once this summer? How does that sound, hmmm?!?

Dear Nike Running: Looks like your GPS was pretty accurate this morning - finally. And I like the overall feel and use of the app so far. So I'll test you out with a few more runs and see how everything is. If all goes well, looks like I'll have my new running app! (Oh, and week 3 of 5K training is now done!) The problem will be when I get back to bike rides though, because then I'll need a new app for that. Any cyclists out there with a great app recommendation to track bike rides?

Dear Mama: I hope you find a mother-of-the-bride dress this weekend on your trip to Atlanta! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed, and sending lots of good vibes up your way :)

Dear Shutterfly: Thanks for awesome, random promo codes that allow me to make an awesome photo book for 50% off. Now we will have a super cute photo book to use as our wedding guest book, and I can't wait to see how it turns out! Send me that bright orange package quick, because I'm so excited to see it!

Dear Lacey & Josh: I'm so excited for you guys - and I'm so glad I was able to be there to witness the proposal! Happy to have friends like y'all to share special times with!

Dear Angie, Jenni & Lacey: We need to come up with a team name for The Color Run! I want something cute or awesome or funny, or just something really cool - but I have no idea yet what that will be. Y'all have any ideas? Anyone else have any ideas? As soon as we come up with a team name, then we need to get ourselves registered before it get's full, so let's get moving on this!

Dear Work Day: Let's scoot through this as fast as possible, if you don't mind. It's nothing personal, I'd just really like to be done with you sooner rather than later. So don't just linger on and on for no reason. Feel free to just fly on by faster than a fancy car on the Autobahn. Thanks so much for your cooperation.

Dear Readers: I love y'all and wish you the best Friday, and an even more best weekend. Happy smiles and internet hugs to all of you! :)

Much Love,
Halie

People Watching & Weekend Happenings

This Monday morning seems to be going a little rough so far... nothing specific has really happened, but it just seems like one of those morning's that are a little bit off, a little bit blah. And so I just feel kinda out of it right now. And I'm also kinda in a hurry today to get this blog post out, so we're going with the ever-so-popular, picture-heavy, light-on-words kind of post today to recap the weekend.

FRIDAY
Dinner with parents, sister and brother-in-law at the new Texas Roadhouse that just opened here
Dessert with all of them at Big Easy Snowballs, and people watching at Lake Ella
Movie rest time with my parents at home, and fell asleep in the living room around 10:45 like an old lady...

I know it's blurry, but I just wanna include it anyways, so oh well....

SATURDAY
Picked up MY wedding dress!!! And it looks gorgeous, and I love it soooo much. Only minor alterations needed and it will be absolutely perfect!
Lunch at the mall with my Mama, and then shopping for a few hours
Did some Pinterest research and Google-ing for wedding stuff
We tried out a craft project for the wedding, and got an idea of how to do it, but it will need some improvements still
Once Jeff and the boys got home, we had pizza at their house, then went and hung out at Lacey's for a bit for the kids to play together

For the wedding, we'll use book pages instead of sheet music, to fit with our theme...

SUNDAY
Helped Jeff teach Sunday school at his church, and hung out during their Children's Church hour
Helped get lunch with with Jeff's mama, then we had spaghetti for Sunday family lunch
Took the boys to the pool to meet Lacey & Josh, but by the time we got there it was cloudy and gray
Hung out there anyways, but eventually went back to Lacey's to grill hamburgers and just hang out for a bit

I love coloring pages and crayons

I'm feeling really tired and kinda icky this morning, and would so much rather still be in bed. But alas, that can't happen and instead I'll be at work in training all day instead. I did still get up and run 2 miles this morning, and honestly I'm surprised that I made it through the whole run! Hopefully I start feeling better soon, or else this is going to be a long, rough day.

Hope y'all had a good weekend, and that your Monday is off to a better start than mine is!
Much Love,
Halie