our save-the-dates

i am a big proponent of not spending extra money where it is not needed. i know that just because something has the word "wedding" or "baby" in front of it, the cost is jacked up. and i know a lot of these items are created to make us think that we NEED them for our wedding or baby and can't live without them. when in reality, people got along without these items for hundreds of years and they got along just fine.

save-the-dates are one of those items that seemed to have appear somewhat recently that everyone NEEDS to do for their wedding. it NEEDS to be included in the already super expensive wedding stationery that goes out to your friends and families and inevitably ends up the garbage. BUT, since we are having a "destination" wedding (i always feel silly saying that because it is just a four hour drive from where we live) and a lot of our family live out of state, we decided that sending out save the dates was an important element to include to make sure everyone can get time off as needed, schedule and purchase plane tickets and so on and so forth.

since we have a very tight budget set for our wedding (hello buying a house and we already have a kid and i don't work outside the home), i had already planned on designing and printing our save-the-dates myself. i was so excited when i found wedding chicks and their FREE wedding printables. yes, FREE. and they are super cute! i instantly fell in love with the bunting printable (hi i am melissa and i am obsessed with bunting and birds). when i plugged in our names and it spit out our save-the-date, i liked it but i wasn't so much in love with it anymore. i wasn't a big fan of the original font or color scheme. thanks to my newly obtained photoshop skillz, i was able to use their same basic idea but change the color of the bunting to match our wedding colors (kelly green and navy blue) and change the font to the other thing i'm obsessed with, lobster two. i used it on our christmas cards too.




so there it is, in all of it's glory! now, we just have to print and mail them out. i feel like such a failure because i really wanted to send these out with our christmas cards (because, remember we are on a budget and postage is expensive) but we weren't able to get our engagement photos in time and then christmas happened, you know how it goes. so my goal is to get these out on friday. so if you're invited to our wedding, check your mailbox next week!

you'll also see that we have an official wedding website, melissaandcharles.com through wedding wire. you can check it out now if you want but there isn't really anything there yet besides a countdown to our wedding which gives me a mini panic attack every time i look at it.

yay, one more thing to check off the wedding to-do list!

wordless(ish) wednesday: the world through jc's eyes

charles and i have joked many a time about getting a helmet cam and strapping it to jc's head just so we could see how he sees the world. we also joked about doing this to the cat and the dog but that's beside the point. jc got his little mitts on the flip cam the other day. and the result is this hilarious video of him running through the house, trying to evade my takeover of said flip cam. he actually took a bunch of one second videos but because my man has mad video editing skillz, we have one forty second video.



{Linking up with The Paper Mama, a little king and i, and then, she snapped, Supermom, Live & Love Outloud, 5 Minutes for Mom, jenni from the blog and Baby Baby Lemon. Whew, that's a lot of linking up.}

the writer's block, i haz it

so i figured instead of sitting around in my writer's block stupor, i would actually WRITE about it and see if that helps me get out of my funk.

my biggest issue is that it's not that i don't have anything to write about, i actually have a lot that i want to write about. i'm just not sure where to start or which topics to include. when i first started this blog almost a year ago, i really thought i wouldn't have many readers beside the family and friends who just want to see cute pictures of jc. but over time, i have actually accumulated a fair amount of active readers (hey guys!) that i don't know in real life. so now i feel all this pressure to actually write some worthwhile stuff! but it's good pressure! i want to write worthwhile posts!

so i've got some ideas rolling around in my head. this blog has primarily been an outlet for me to share pictures of jc and talk about milestones that he has come across. i'd like to continue doing this but also include some of the smaller details that happen everyday. some of the funny/interesting stories and encounters we deal with on a daily basis. sometimes i forget about them or just tweet about them and never mention them again but i'd like to share more of them with you.

i'd also like to start sharing more about me on this blog. i am, after all, the one who writes all this. now, don't get me wrong, there will still be plenty o' pictures and stories about the little dude but especially with our upcoming wedding and home purchase i'd like to share more about those things. i know a lot of you guys are in the same boat and it can help to hear what other people's experiences are like in similar situations. so i'm going to try and share more about that.

i've been thinking about sharing more crafty posts as well. i don't know how well it will be received but i've been toiling around with the idea of posting some how-to knit videos and tutorials. i know you can find them all over the interweb but i've got ideas about how to make them better. would anyone actually be interested in that? charles is way more excited than he should be to help me make videos so i might just do it so we can do them together!

i have also decided to start my own side hustle. i've been a mark cosmetics representative but have not really pursued anything with the company. in an effort to help out with some of the bills over here, i'm going to give it a real go ahead. don't worry, i am not going to be posting on here and bothering you guys with "hey buy this!" or "check this out!" but do check out the sidebar over there------> for a button soon directing you to my mark eboutique. i also may start a separate blog with videos and tutorials just about mark cosmetics. i dunno. we'll see. until then, you can check out my mark eboutique here and let me know if you have any questions about anything. you can order anything you need through the eboutique and it will be shipped directly to you. we don't have to live near each other for me to be your mark rep!

so, after that long post about nothing really, if you made it this far PLEASE let me know what you think! i hope you guys all have a great weekend!

our week (or so) in iphone photos

this has been one of those weeks where it felt like i did a bunch of stuff but i don't really think a whole lot got done. everyone in the house is sick so we are all tired and grumpy. i'm always reading all these blog posts about sick kiddos who get all cuddly and want to watch movies all day. ummmm, how come jc is not this way? he just gets SUPER whiny, likes to throw himself on the floor for no apparent reason and is just generally unhappy. i would give my pinky toe to have him just cuddle with me. oh well, he is at the end of his cold (i hope) so hopefully he'll be back to his normal self soon. until then, jc's bedtime routine will involve j&j vapor bath, baby vaporub, extra stories and his humidifier.

there were some highlights this week though. i have been trying my hardest to keep up with my get organized resolution. i feel the time ticking to moving time so i'm trying to just get rid of all the junk we've accumulated after living here for the past three years. jc and his bestie really tested my patience with their mess making but you have to pick your battles. jc wasn't trying to bite damian or pull his hair. they were playing together nicely. i really couldn't ask for more than that. i had to take lucy back to the vet for a two week follow up appointment. i know i mentioned on twitter, but i don't think i did on the blog; our cat had stones in her bladder. it was looking like we were in store for a very expensive surgery but luckily, with some special food, all of her stones are gone!! so exciting! jc has started taking me on these adventure walks. i just let him lead the way and we go where ever he wants to go. it's really a lot of fun to just walk along side him and check out our neighborhood from his perspective. we FINALLY got jc's hair cut! after two failed attempts i was convinced i was going to have a little hippy baby forever. but he watched his dad get his hair cut and then proceeded to shock everyone by sitting like a perfect angel while he got his hair cut. my jaw was on the floor. today we went to a birthday party at a taekwondo studio. it was so cute, all the kids got to wear white belts and got karate kid-style headbands to take home. the older kids got to learn some sweet moves and the little kids just got to run amok in a room with a padded floor. it ended with jc passing out in the ten minute car ride home.


















next week i hope to work on my "learn to sew" and "read more books" resolutions. hope everyone's having a great weekend! linking up with a good life and life rearranged.

house hunting update!

a couple months back, i mentioned that charles, jc and myself were officially entering the home buying market. and we finally have some real forward momentum to talk about!

so on our last house hunting adventure, at the end of a day where we looked at EIGHT houses, we found a house that charles and i both loved and was in our budget. the house had just been put on the market so there weren't any offers yet. in this market, if you find a house you like that hasn't had some sort of mystery flooding or sink holes in the backyard, you better jump on it. and that is what we did.

we put an offer in and the bank put in a counteroffer. we accepted and the bank signed off on the purchase agreement today! now there are still a couple hurdles that need to be jumped over before this is all official and whatnot but we are so so happy!

now i'm trying REALLY hard to not count my chickens before they hatch, but i can't help but scour pinterest for home decor/renovating ideas. this house has a pretty good shell but all the floors need to be replaced, everything needs to be repainted and it needs a good cleaning. i've already been busy pinning all sorts of ideas for the house. i even got charles to pin a few things! if he wasn't so anti-social media, he'd totally be all about pinterest. here are a few of our pins that we're obsessing over.

Source: google.com via Melissa on Pinterest

i'd love to have something like this set up in the foyer of the house. one of my biggest pet peeves is (which i am totally guilty of doing also) when people enter the house and just throw whatever they have in a pile in the entryway. i'd love to have a cubby/hook for each person in the house.

Source: lumberliquidators.com via Melissa on Pinterest

this is one of charles's pins. we'd love to have this color flooring in the two front rooms of the house and perhaps the kitchen.

Source: outdoorrooms.com via Melissa on Pinterest

the house already has a pergola set up in the backyard and we would DEFINITELY do lights like this hanging above. i love the ambiance it creates.

if you want to see more of our house ambitions, check out my pinterest page. hopefully i'll have more good news on the home buying front to share soon!

our last bit of 2011 via iphone

here's a glimpse at some of the little moments that made up the last couple weeks of 2011. there were birthday parties, our trip to tahoe, christmas celebrations and jc just being his generally cute self. including leaving me speechless in his new harajuku mini romper that is auntie kimberly got him for christmas. i died. twice.

linking up with a good life and life rearranged

resolutions!

so here we are. a new year! who doesn't love the chance to have a fresh start? i know that in these parts, january 1st, all the christmas decorations NEED to come down. as excited as i am to put them up (i still manage to wait until after thanksgiving!) i am equally if not more excited to take them down. it definitely isn't as fun to take down the decorations, but it's nice to have my house back. it's time to get down to business. we've had a couple months of fun, but now it's time to do work.

i shared the mid-year resolutions i made a few months ago and the progress i made on them in a post a couple days ago. so now i will share what i hope to accomplish now! again, i like to give myself a little break on everything because while it is time to get down the business, it's no fun to feel down on yourself all the time because you aren't living up to some expectations that YOU set for YOURSELF. give yourself a break sometimes. really, it's ok. anyway, here we go! (in no particular order)

1. exercise! eat better! drink more water!
this is the obligatory new years resolution but i really need to get on this because i have a wedding in five (EEEK!) months that i don't want to look completely disgusting for sooooo. i was doing really well a couple months back and totally fell off the wagon right around thanksgiving. but i am so ready to get going again. i started jillian michael's 30 day shred and am 2 days in so far. and i already feel a lot stronger and my endurance was better, just after the first workout. i haven't decided how involved i will get the blog on my weight loss progress. it is nice to feel like i have some accountability, but i also can get really down on myself when i don't have any progress to share. so, we'll see.

2. read more... books that is, not blogs
if you count blog posts, i read all the time! buuuuuut otherwise? notsomuch. i'd like to think that i can do the whole 52 book challenge but i know myself WAY too well and know that that is NOT going to happen. maybe 26 books? that would be 26 more than i read last year. i've started reading water for elephants on my ipad (which, bytheway, i am totally becoming an ipad/e-reader snob) and i am really enjoying it. and i have a handful of other books that i've been meaning to get around to but you know how that is.

3. knit more
i shared in this post about trying to get my knitting groove back after a few months of losing my mojo. i think i officially have it back after knitting two gifts for christmas. i fully intend to get 'er done in the knitting department.

4. organize and get rid of stuff
this is actually being kind of forced on me. with our impending move looming on the horizon, we need to go through all of our hoarder piles that we've accumulated over the last two years and purge! i told myself that i would try to go through one thing a day and get rid of what i don't use anymore. so today, i went through the two huge bins of baby clothes that i've had in my closet and re-organized it.




jc helped by looking really cute. now everything that i want to keep is labeled and i got a bunch of stuff to send off to a friend with a younger baby. but we definitely still have a long way to go.

5. learn to sew
this is on my list from last year. now that i have a new, not broken sewing machine, i am ready to actually do this! with the help of my fourth resolution, i will hopefully have a cleared off workspace here in the near future and we can get this started.

i think that pretty much sums it up. got any resolutions this year? i'd love to read them! it gets me all motivated and such.

a look back at goals i set six months ago

ok, so a few months back i decided to make some "the year is halfway over" resolutions. i thought now would be a good time to reflect on what has come of these goals and add some new ones to the bunch.

here are my previous goals:
1. Make a conscious effort to be healthier. i feel like i can cross this off my list and not feel like a liar. because i DID make a conscious effort for a good period of time during the last few months. if you were a reader a couple months ago, you may have noticed my buff mama monday posts...and that they suddenly and abruptly disappeared. i don't really have a good reason for that. i got sick, didn't go the gym for a while, then when i was ready to go back, i learned that they had closed down. sooooo, i stopped working out. but i did go for a couple months, so i'm counting this as done.

2. Take a graphic design/web design class. i can most assuredly cross this off my list! i took a graphics communication class at the junior college that was bascially an intro to photoshop. i learned a lot, including that graphic design is not something that i will be pursuing further. i'm so happy to have acquired the photoshop skills that i did, but i'm ready to move on.

3. "Finish" JC's room. this definitely did not happen. not too long after i made these goals, we learned that we would have to be moving at some indefinite date. so the idea of decorating a room that we would be packing up soon, lost it's steam. but i do have full intentions of taking this back up once we move into a new house.

4. Learn to sew. my old sewing machine never got fixed, so therefore it stayed bootsy. but, there is a glimmer of hope at the end of this because i got a new sewing machine for christmas!! yes it is still in the box but only because i'm not sure where to set it up for now. again, a problem with living in a house that you won't be living in for much longer. i'm not ready to commit to a space, but once i do, it will be done!

5. Open an Etsy store. so this is a complicated one. i did it, for sure but i am officially closing up shop for now on aquamarine vintage. i thought i had a good combination of vintage goods and hand knit goods. the shop wasn't a complete failure because i did sell everything that i listed, it's just that i didn't list very much. i was unable to set aside enough time to find goods to sell or knit anything to sell. so this is done but i am done with the shop. i do have ideas for a new shop but am not ready to break ground quite yet.

6. Start saving money for a down payment on a house. i'm not going to cross this off because we didn't really make a conscious effort to save anymore than we already had set aside. here we are, six months later and we are REALLY looking at buying a house but don't have much more to show for it. we'll be able to do it, but we just are not going to be able to put more down.

7. And last but definitely not least, plan our wedding. welp, the wedding is not completely planned but is definitely further along. do i still want to throw up when i start planning the wedding for longer than 20 minutes? a little bit. do i still beg charles to let us just elope? sometimes. but we are getting further along. we have a date set, a venue reserved, a photographer hired, and most of our bridal party picked out. so we are getting there.

all in all, i'm pretty happy with what i accomplished. i gave myself the freedom to not feel tied down by my goals. if the goal was no longer important or relevant, i didn't have to beat myself up for not pursuing it or finishing it. i am ready to continue pursuing a couple of these and adding more to the bunch; i'll post about them tomorrow! happy new year everyone!