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Friday, August 31, 2012

Becoming a Runner... What?

So, I mentioned in a previous post that my hubby signed me up for this thing called the Warrior Dash. I also talked about how I HATED running and how I was training for this race. I thought I would do an update on my progress.


So when I started training in July, I started with the Couch to 5k program I had found off of pinterest. Every week I worked out three times.This is great because the first week was pretty easy. I jogged for 60 seconds, then walked for 90 seconds and did this cycle for 20 minutes. Every week you increase the amount of running and decrease the amount of walking so that you build up to running the full 3.1 miles for the 5k. Each week seemed a challenge at the time, but now I could so easily run what seemed so hard weeks ago.

Wednesday, I ran the full 5k length for the first time and today I did it again. It was hard and at times I wanted to stop, but I didn't. This was such a huge accomplishment for me because the thought of running used to TERRIFY me. I would shutter when people would tell me about races they were doing, shutter at the thought if I ever had to do that. I remember dreading the first day of ninth grade volleyball practice because of we would have to run a mile.
For me: Running = Torture.

Deciding to try running has been a huge accomplishment in my eyes because I took something that I thought I couldn't do it and gave it a try. It's not so bad and I feel great after I run 5k on the treadmill. If I can become a runner, then anyone can. I am feeling confident about this Warrior Dash... or maybe not... Everytime I watch this video I have mixed feelings. I guess we will know in a week.


Monday, August 27, 2012

13 Months


Little Man is already 13 months! I decided to continue the monthly photos like I did for 1 - 12 months but switch it up a bit. I thought I would just make him stand for the pictures instead so you could see the growth between 12 - 24 months. I grabbed the curtains from his room as a backdrop and made a little chalkboard sign instead. It was a bit more challenging to keep him behind a backdrop instead of in the chair for pictures. Every month I get less and less pictures of him - but I still got a few cute ones. I had to bribe him a few times to get him to stand there, that is why you will see him with a sucker and bubbles in some of the pictures...



Brecken - 13 months:

Learning to do: He is walking everywhere. Pretty much once he hit one, he started walking. 13 months brought speed - he is getting alot faster. Climbing is his new thing - climbing on the couch, on other furniture and onto toys (like his play table or musical table). Momma does not like this new skill. It's scary. He is starting to mimic new words - like Hi, Bye, and Uh-Oh. He does say Ball all the time though. He learned how to kick a soccer ball too - Daddy is so proud.

Loves to eat: He has been obsessed with grapes lately. I think he is going to be a picky eater. He will try things and then spit them out. I still feed him baby food since he gets so picky when he feeds himself.

Loves: Brooms or mops. He has this strange obsession with them. When he finds one - he will play with it for 20 minutes, which with his attention span is saying alot! Maybe he will be a clean freak someday? Maybe not because he also loves making a mess! :) Breck also loves the park and slides. When he goes down a big slide by himself he shrieks with delight- you can't help but laugh. He also loves to get into the pantry - momma does loves this habit either.

Hates: When I disrupt his "adventures" or when we have to leave the park. He hates sitting in his high chair for too long and preceeds to let me know with a high-pitched scream that a boy should never use. He hates being barricaded or trapped. If you do trap him in, you just gave him a mission to find a way to escape.


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Wedding Week: The Details

For the last post of Wedding Week, I thought I would show some of my favorite details of that special day, four years ago. I planned my wedding before Pinterest so all my ideas were my own or came from inspiration in magazines. I think if pinterest was around then, I would have been in trouble! In case if you couldn't tell in the other photos beforehand, my wedding color was black with accents of hot pink, orange and red, along with touches of white. I loved the contrast of the black with the bright colors and it was perfect for a summer wedding.

Candy Station/Candy Bar:
I had seen these at a few other weddings and loved the concept. I wanted mine to be a little different so I made all the candy be in our wedding colors: black, white, hot pink, red and orange. Yes, people helped me sort through the colors of jellybeans and starbusts. There were large bags of yellow and green "discards." We didn't do appetizers before dinner so this was sort of a "predinner treat."

Reserved Signs:
I made customized reserved signs for the reception tables by using a photo program to put the text on the picture. I then glued the photo to cardstock.

The Programs:
Since I did weddings as a part time college job, I collected almost 100 different wedding programs. I knew exactly what I wanted in a program. It was like a mini book! The concept and look was similar to my invitations (that unfortunately I don't have a picture of) and had all our wedding colors on the front.

The Guestbook:
Instead of doing a guestbook, I just made mini scrapbook pages with a simple picture on each page. It made it easy for multiple people to write their well wishes at the same time. I was able to make my own book from the pages.

Favors:
One of the favors we gave were pens. When your last name is "Penz" of course you need to give away pens! (Insert corny laugh) We had our name and wedding date on the pens. Months after our wedding, people told me they used that pen all the time.

I saw these adorable flower cone favors online and my mom and I ordered one. They were beautiful, but at $4 a pop, they were out of the question. We decided to make our own. The black cone section was rolled up scrapbook paper and the flower was from one of those bunches of flowers you can get at Hobby Lobby for half off. We tied a pink ribbon around it with a ring and initial "P." Inside of the cone, we hid some mints. It looked so elegant on the tables on top of the napkin.

Unity Candle:
We chose the traditional unity candle for our ceremony. I didn't like the ones I found in the stores so I just got a plain pillar candle and tapers, pink ribbon and some rhinestone letters in the scrapbook aisle. I then put our initials on the candles. I loved the simplicity of them, but yet they were personalized. 

The Cake:
I wanted a traditional cake but I wanted it to be a little different. It was a 5-tier square cake with swirls on three levels and ribbons in our wedding colors on the other two layers. It looked exactly how I had imagined! I ordered a "P" online for the top and the two picks by the "P" were actually hair accessories. Baby roses lined the bottom of the cake for an extra touch.

The Centerpieces:
These little trees were on many of the tables at the reception. My mom and I found these little trees on sale at Pier 1 after Christmas. They were originally silver and gold and after countless cans of spray paint, they were black. They were a little too plain, so we added little clumps of pink silk flowers to them for an extra touch.  

These were the other centerpieces on tables. My mom found the vase/candleholder combos on sale at Younkers and we sprayed the bases black as well. The florist put small bouquets of flowers inside. The vases had curled colored wire in the bottom and some shoots of black twirly sticks.

Here is a shot of one of the tables. It was a white tablecloth with a black over lay. I loved the touch of orange, pink and red with the colored floral ribbon in the centers of all the tables.

The Placecards:
I did placecards for the head table and reserved tables only. I drew the initial of the person's first name letter with a glue pen and then stuck pink and orange beads to it. This project definitely took some time!

The Front of the Church:
 I talked about this a few days ago but thought I would include it in the details as well. I loved the front of the church. We rented a trellis/arch and draped some black fabric through it. The trees were from my friend's wedding. She did the work of finding branches and small trees on the side of the road and screwing them together. The church threw them away after her wedding and my dad rescued them from the dumpster and sprayed them black and added candle holders and candles. The two stands of flowers were arrangements done by my florist. There were two in the back of the church as well and they served two purposes: ceremony decorations and centerpieces for the reception. I think my favorite part of the front was the pink spotlights we rented. They just added a fun ambiance.

The Aisle:
Since there were several aisles in the church I blocked off the middle aisle for wedding party only. I used white drapy fabric to connect all the pews. We put down the aisle runner and added pink silk flower petals. My church let me borrow their candleabra and we wrapped them in black ribbon and had the florist add a little arrangement on each one.

The Flowers:
The vibrant colors of the flowers together were amazing against the bridesmaid's black dresses. They were rose bouquets with some sprigs of twirly black sticks.


 I absolutely loved my bouquet. I had my heart set on some peonies in my bouquet - but August is not the time for them to bloom. I had hydrangas instead, along with the roses, and they looked amazing as well. I got some little sparkly accessories in the wedding aisle of Hobby Lobby and the florist added them into my bouquet. They added so much.


One of my favorite details of the day was on my bouquet. I cut out a small picture of Todd and mounted it on cardstock. I punched a hole, added a ribbon and tied it to my bouquet. I had a small picture of my man on my bouquet. Throughout the day I would look down and smile. This was what it was all about. After months of hard work, planning and making countless crafty things for this wedding, it came down to this day.
The day I vowed to spend the rest of my life to my best friend.



Thursday, August 16, 2012

Wedding Week: The Reception

 So if you missed the last two posts about our wedding four years ago, you can read about the ceremony here and the pictures here. I am reminiscing about our wedding since it was our anniversary yesterday. More on what we did for our anniversary later... let's get back to our wedding day four years ago.

We had left the reception and now were in route for our reception. We arrived at the reception and took a few more pictures and got ready to make our entrance. We had our grand march and our wedding party made quite the entrance with cartwheels or strange dance moves they came up with.




The catered dinner was great, I was just too excited to eat that night. Throughout the night we heard many speeches from our family and friends. We had it be an "open mic" so any of the guests could tells stories, give advice, or sing a song (which Todd's Grandpa did.) It was touching to hear all the kind words.. well there were some embarrassing stories in there as well. We did the typical cake cutting, bouquet toss and had our first dance to Big and Rich's song, Lost in the Moment. After many hugs and thank-yous we left the reception.
     

   


It was an incredible day. I just want to give a shout out to those that helped or were part of our special day four years ago. Every helping hand made this day what it was for us - a day we will cherish forever. So thank you for your help and support for our wedding and marriage.

Tomorrow I will be back and show some details from our wedding.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Wedding Week: The Ceremony

In honor of our 4th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow, I talked yesterday about the the pictures at our wedding. Today I am back with photos of our ceremony.  It was held in the auditorium of the school I grew up in. I went to chapel weekly in this auditorium, participated in music concerts, DARE graduation, and high school graduation. It held alot of significance and was the perfect place to say "I Do."

The front of the church was decorated with a trellis, flowers and trees we fished out of a dumpster after a friend's wedding. We painted them black and added candles. We also rented pink spotlights to illuminate the background and it added a cool effect.



 Before the ceremony, I gathered with my bridesmaids and my mom and mother-in-law in the room I went to preschool in. We took pictures, ate some food, and they gathered around me and prayed for me, Todd and our future. It was a heartwarming time in the last few moments of me being a single lady.  


 Then came the processional. The grandparents, parents, bridesmaids, ringbearers and flower girl went down the flower petal and candleabra lined aisle. Then came my turn.


 I remember the rest of the ceremony, but at times it seems like a dream. It was something I imagined in my mind so many times, but now it was happening. There in front of our family and friends, we promised to spend the rest of our lives together.










We paraded through a sea of bubbles as husband and wife to the limo that would whisk us away to the reception. Stay tuned. Next up in about the reception.