our wedding: pre-ceremony day one

welcome to the second post in the "our wedding" series! if you missed the first post detailing our wedding venue, you can view that here. while i know everyone wants to see all the "pinterest worthy" pictures and all that jazz, i want to detail (or at least go over) the happenings of the days that we were in fort bragg. if only just for me so i can remember because honestly, those days went by in such a blur! but don't worry, those pretty pictures will come soon enough!

we set out on our journey to fort bragg on the morning of may 4th. our caravan included my family, charles's family, and most of the wedding party. in our car, it was just charles, jc and i. jc has not been known as the best road tripper so i was a little worried about setting out on this four hour drive. but he did great! stayed awake the whole time (unfortunately) but stayed in good spirits. until we got about twenty minutes out from our destination. the last thirty or so minutes of the drive are through a very windy road up and over some mountains. i heard jc whining so i offered him an applesauce squeezy pouch which promptly got thrown up along with some chicken nuggets all over jc, his bear, and his car seat. that was fun. we pulled over and we managed to strip jc down and clean his car seat as well as we could and make it to our destination on time, just slightly puke covered.




we arrived first and were shortly greeted by our guests. everyone unloaded their cars, rooms were assigned and we started getting to it. like i said previously, we did everything ourselves. if i could have afforded to pay for a wedding planner or assistant or anything like that, i would have definitely paid for it because it was STRESSFUL! it took everything in my overthinking, overstressed out head to not freak out on everyone. i was just so thankful that everyone was super (beyond what anyone would expect) helpful and that our wedding day was finally here!

the weather was being very touchy. having our wedding on the northern california coast, i knew wind, rain and cold weather were all very likely. this day the wind was K-RAZY! so crazy i had to use a "K" instead of a "C". it looked like rain wasn't going to be a problem but the wind, oh man, it was bad. let's just say i was happy to partake in some "after the babies go to sleep" festivities.


to help ease my stress while the babies were awake, we took a trip down to the beach. the beach is a short walk from the house through meadows and fields. very pretty. we also had to decide for sure where we were going to have the ceremony. we had only visited the house once (and a year prior) before this day so our memory wasn't the best. but we found a perfect spot.



the boys help set up the tables and chairs that we rented from a local party supply business. i don't know how we made it fit on that deck but we did it. that was a major issue for me, worrying about how all of our tables and chairs were going to fit. when we picked our venue, we figured we'd maybe have 30 or 40 people who would actually want to make the drive out for the wedding. but more people really like us than we thought! we ended up with close to 60 guests so to say i was stressed about this would be an understatement. but it worked out and everyone had a place to sit!

we ended up having a very impromptu rehearsal dinner of round table pizza and sodas. classy, i know. i was also very worried about how the ceremony was going to work. we didn't have anyone to help direct us so we had to just count on everyone knowing when to go, where to stand, etc. over and over again charles had to be my reminder that it is not that big of a deal. yes it is our wedding but if someone doesn't walk fast enough or stand where they are supposed to, it is not the end of the world.

after the babies were put to bed, i enlisted the help of some of my bridesmaids plus one of the groomsmen's super awesome helpful girlfriend to make our bouquets. then there may have been some drinking. but the bouquets turned out great! keeping them super simple definitely made the difference.


now when i say we did everything ourselves, i mean it. we didn't even have a dj. and i kept putting it off so i ended up staying up way too late trying to go through ALL of our music to make our wedding playlist. the problem was that i tried to include charles in this task. we have similar music tastes but charles doesn't really understand what people want to hear or dance to at a wedding. super sad folk music the whole time? not going to cut it. i stayed up til probably two in the morning and still didn't finish it. i had to work on it the next day while i was getting my hair done! but hey, it all worked out in the end.

going to bed that night was not hard because i was exhausted but nothing could prepare me for the next day's events! check back soon for the next part of the series!

sidenote: most, if not all, of these photos were taken by our awesome friend mike. almost all the groomsmen are photographers and were taking pictures the whole time and for that, i am thankful.

our wedding: the venue

welcome to the first part of a series of posts detailing our wedding that took place on may 5, 2012. i've been disconnected from blogging lately but am ready to come on back. so i thought instead of posting 1093849 pictures in one post, i'd break it up into more manageable chunks.


our wedding venue was definitely not your conventional venue. it was actually a rental house that over looked the beach in fort bragg, ca. we knew from the get-go that we wanted to have our wedding in fort bragg. we got engaged during our "babymoon" where we road tripped from sacramento to british columbia and back. on our way down the coast, we drove through the beautiful northern california coast line and we knew we had to have our wedding there. unfortunately, fort bragg is a good four hour drive from our hometown. with this in mind, we wanted to have the ability to house our wedding party so they wouldn't be bogged down with the added expense of finding a room. we all know being in a wedding can get very expensive and i kept that in mind with every decision that we made. we had a hard time finding a house that would let us have a wedding there but nye ranch pulled through! there was no "staff", just a house, so we did everything ourselves. we had to keep a pretty tight budget for this wedding. while i don't have a hard figure, i'd say we definitely kept it under $5000 but we were only able to do so because we have awesome family and friends who were all down to help. i would definitely recommend this type of venue to someone looking to have a laid back location with room for people to crash. but you have to keep in mind that to have that "laid back" feel, you need to put in a lot of work yourself!




our venue really set the tone for the wedding style. the home has a very rustic, country feel but being on the coast, it was very green and lush as well. i chose navy blue and kelly green as our wedding colors to complement the natural colors already present at the venue. the property also housed a barn and resident llamas (alpacas? i can't remember) who we probably kept awake during our crazy antics during the reception.




we had our wedding party and a few family members arrive one day prior to the ceremony and help us set up all the tables. the house easily slept our ten person wedding party, a couple strays, a couple babies and ourselves. our wedding was relatively small (50-60 guests including the bridal party) so we were able to easily have our ceremony take place on a bluff overlooking the beach and the reception on the back deck of the house. there was also a small grassy field with fire pits that definitely got some use during our chilly reception.



i love this house so much, i'd love to be able to go back just for fun!

check back in a couple days for more wedding posts!

cake pops!

So I've had nothing but cake pops on the brain for the last couple weeks. Ever since I saw Little Miss Momma's tutorial, to be exact.

The big day finally arrived. Here are my little cake pops in waiting.

Forty-one little cake pops all in a row. Well forty cake pops all in a row, plus one little guy off to the side.

The equivalent of one or two cake pops may not have made it before this little monster got a hold of them.

So here they are, in all of their glory... the final product!

I've got to thank the fiance and his mad photog skillz for making these look super great. Because while they may not have been as pretty as the ones in the tutorial...

Baby man loved them all the same.

<3 Melissa

countdown to JC's birthday party: 18 days!

Ahhhh I can't believe how fast this party is coming up! I feel immediately organized and completely unprepared all at the same time. Basically, I have a lot of ideas but I'm unsure how it will all work out together.

First things first, JC's birthday present(s) from us. Keep in mind that we did not buy JC a Christmas present because the pressure to give him the best present ever was too much for us. I've started making him this ADORABLE mama monster and baby monster set. I promised I would share some knitting adventures so here ya go.

{linking up to 'I Spy-Handmade Edition' on Little Miss Momma}

Those would be a pair of mama monster feet. I'll give complete project deets once it's all finished but I'm using the leftover yarn from JC's Where's Waldo halloween costume. Sorry all the links are from ravelry, if you don't have an account. Even if you don't knit, if you like perusing some awesome stuff, make an account. I'm sorry ahead of time for the incredible waste of time you will encounter. Anyway, I'm actually a little bit farther along on this than I was when I took this picture a couple days ago. I've kind of lost my knitting mojo for the last month or so. I just haven't had any time but I'm trying to make some. Besides this, I'm still not sure what we will be getting him. Maybe something like this, or this? I know he would have the time of his life with a cardboard box but I really want to get him something special. 

I guess the other big part is kind of combined, at least in my mind, decorations and food. Charles is in charge (heh, Charles in charge) of the main food but I am in charge of what really matters, dessert. We are going to have his party under a big gazebo in a park right behind our house. The gazebo has four tables, all of which I plan on using. One table will be at least mostly dedicated to desserts. I plan on making some toadstool-esque cupcakes like the ones found here and my big undertaking will be creating S'more cake pops like the one's found here. These should both go well with the overall woodland theme of JC's party. I'm still looking for a creative way to display both of these items. I also found a few really cute figurines at the antique fair on Sunday to use to decorate the dessert table.

Sorry for the 2341243134 toys in the background. I only spent about $14 for all of these and I think they will add a unique touch to the decorations. I have already purchased this banner for general decorating purposes. It's unbearably cute. I will also attempt to create some tissue paper pom poms to hang up around the gazebo. 

I'm still hung up on what to have for favors for the kids that are coming. Surprisingly, there will be quite a few little ones but they are vary widely in age. A favor for a five month old will not do for a ten year old. I'm probably going to make a special onesie/shirt for JC. Basically do an applique like this one but make a big number "1" or something like that instead of a bunny. I want to haul JC's high chair out there too so he has some place to eat his cake (ooo that reminds me, I'm not sure if I'm going to make him a special cake or just give him one of the cupcakes...) so I'm debating about whether or not to decorate that too with a special banner or something. 

Sorry, this post kind of just turned into a stream of consciousness of my party planning brain. This is the first big party that I'm going all out on since I am able to devote a little more time to it. Luckily I'm doing a lot of it myself, so it shouldn't be too expensive. If you care, I will be keeping everyone updated on any new party planning activities/crafts and I will definitely do a comprehensive post after it's all said and done. If I make it that far and don't have a panic attack.

Birthday planning and doctor's appointment

Urrrr I really wanted to post about our Bodega Bay trip but Charles has the external hard drive that has all of our vacation pictures so I'll have to do that tomorrow if I have time. But we did a couple other things so far this week that are worth posting about so I'll catch everyone up on that stuff.

On the way home from Bodega Bay on Tuesday, we decided to stop by Land Park and take some pictures for JC's birthday invitations. Side note, I really can't believe that I am already planning this kid's first birthday party, it's insane. Anyway, I'm going to do a woodland theme for his party so I wanted a picture of him amongst some cool trees. I think we got our shot, but here are some pictures that didn't make the cut but are cute none the less.

 

This kid loves the camera so much it's ridiculous. He was having a mini fit in the car right before we got to the park and as soon as the camera came out, it was all smiles. Land Park is one of my favorite places in town and it was fun to hang out even if it was only for a little bit. It was a nice ending to our Bodega trip before Charles had to go back to work. 

On Wednesday, we took JC to a doctor's appointment to check his weight. When we went in for his nine month check up, the doctor expressed a mild concern in his weight. He's always been small, which is normal because he is a preemie but he followed the normal growth curve and is of average weight and height for his adjusted age. At his nine month appointment, he had dropped off this curve slightly so just to be sure his doctor wanted us to come back in six weeks to weigh him again. So in we went and luckily he is back on his normal curve. At nine months, he weighed in at 15 pounds 10 ounces and six weeks after that he weighs 17 pounds 3 ounces. So he gained more than a pound and a half in six weeks. I'm not surprised, knowing the amount of food that JC chows down. He's such a good eater and he will try anything. I made him an omelette for breakfast today (which is a HUGE feat for me considering the first time I scrambled eggs was last week) with two eggs, bell pepper, tomato, green onions and cheese. He ate about 3/4 of it and a piece of toast. I was so proud of myself for making him a good breakfast and I was so happy that he liked it. 

I'll try to post about Bodega Bay tomorrow I promise!