I'm a member of a site called weddingbee. I think I mentioned this in one of my earlier posts.  I think when the time comes, I'd like to blog my wedding for them. (they only choose a few people every once in a while) 

    The thing is, they are going to come here and read my blog. Now, part of applying is that you actually write in your blog. Like two to three times a week. Clearly this is a problem. Because lately its been like two or three times a MONTH that I blog here. I think what is going on.. is that I've hit a planning plateau. There's only so much I can write about before running out of things to write about, and  I don't want to get all super repetitive. 

    So I think I might give it a break for now.  There hasn't been much going on with the wedding besides trying to get my deposits down so we can actually do it. lol.  I think once we get into the new year I will be able to blog more steady. I have somt DIY projects I want to work on, and some decisions that will have to be made at that point.

    If anything happens between now and then, I will come and write about it.  For now, I think I will focus on my wedding website and keep looking at awesome inspirational photos to share with you eventually.

    Thanks for reading!  <3
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Getting Healthy 08/15/2011
 
    Dieting Sucks. I'm just going to throw that out there.  Watching what I eat sucks, counting calories sucks and most of all quitting fountain coke sucks. 

    I do NOT want to be a chubby bride. All this happy weight I put on has got to go. Even if I wasn't getting married, I'm tired of looking the way I do. When I moved to LA about a year and a half ago, I was like a size 13/14 and felt freaking awesome. I know that not your normal skinny size, but lets be honest, if I were a size like 8, I would look kinda stupid. I was down to 180lbs. Now fast forward to today. I'm back to a size 16.. almost an 18. (bleh!) and my weight well... lets say those 40 lbs. that I lost before I moved came back. You do the math. 

    Granted, the past year has been pretty rough on me, with the medical crap I have been going through. It's hard to lose weight when you can hardly move. When walking hurts, when lifting something more than 5lbs hurts, when the incline to your driveway hurts because theres a small bump up to it, when you aren't sleeping because laying down hurts, getting up off the couch hurts, getting out of bead hurts, washing your hair hurts, then trying to blow dry your hair makes you hurt. For petes sake.  If I wasn't too hurt to move, I was damn sure to tired to move. Standing up to do the dishes was the worst. A lot of times, even breathing hurt. Sneezing or caughing? Forget it. I learned how to hold it in so I didnt feel like my chest was going to explode. 

    You're probably like holy cow Kari! I didn't know all that was wrong! Well. Yeah, I don't want to be all complainey. I'm putting it all out there because for whoever reads this, shit happens. Life happens. Gotta deal with it, and move on. 

Anyway, I got a little off the point of this post there..

    About 6 months ago, I decided to cut back on what I was eating. I figured if I can't really get up and moving, this is one thing I can control. I have basically stuck with it all this time. Of course, it's not hard to cut back on things when you're only cooking for yourself. It was a good start though.

    I also finally found a medicine that helps me be able to move without wanting to die and after 7 doctors, I have found one who def. helps get me through the days easier. A chiropractor. On top of that i joined the gym. Not that I can do much there. But I am doing water aerobics, which is fabulous because it's easy on my joints and for the most part helps my range of movements and flexibility. Its awesome. 

    Three weeks ago, I was feeling motivated and decided to give up fountain coke.  ::sigh::  I LOVE fountain coke! I know a lot of people lose weight by giving up soda, and plus it's just healthier. Well. I gave myself the 3 week short term goal to not drink ANY soda what so ever. I got through the 3 weeks with out one slip up.  You know what makes me angry though?  I did not lose one pound. I know, I probably need to do WAAAAAAYYYY more than just cut out the soda, but a girl can hope right? It was almost like cutting out the soda was pointless. All I did was miss the greatness that is fountain coke. 

    Well as of yesterday (Sunday) I have started a NEW three week challenge.  On top of not drinking soda, I have also decided that I will be doing my walking DVD every night. At least 3 of the 5 miles.  Even the nights I do water aerobics. Something has to give! 

    Except I didn't do my walking last night. (whoops!!) I was too busy being sucked into the rest of the 4th Harry Potter book. (dont judge!- me and my seeeester are reading them together!)  One minute it was 6:30 and next thing I knew it was 11:00 and Lance was calling to tell me goodnight. lol. 

    Speaking of Lance, thank goodness for him! He's been super supportive about all this. Although, I think he hates it when I call myself fat, even if I say I'm chubby. He listens to me complain about the lack of coke and even tried to get me to NOT have coke at the end of my last three week challenge. HA! Who was he kidding? I gotta work towards something. Well something other than weight loss. That day of coke was like... the grand prize. lol.  

    Hopefully in a couple of months I can report SOME sort of change in my body. I don't so much care how much I weigh, more of just how I look. Although, I DO need to lose weight in order to be healthy. I'm just not all obsessing about it. 

    Well this post was way longer than I thought it would be, and ha
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    Job transitions..  bleh. Well we have decided to push the wedding back, yet again.  I told Lance this is theeee last time I am changing it. Next time we have to do anything this dramatic again, we are just going to elope.. and not tell anyone about it until a few weeks after.  lol.

    So anywho. Now the date is set for September 21, 2012.  I am less than thrilled about it. It took me long enough to get excited again when we changed stuff last time. So I dont even know what's going to happen now. Hopefully in a few weeks my spirits will lift and I won't be so disappointed.
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    I also added a junior bridesmaid to the mix. Lance's sister Lauren. I wanted her to be involved and felt like this will be the best way. She's super cute and spunky and will make a good addition to our bridal party. 

    Thats all thats new really. As soon as I get back to normal, I'll come back and keep updating.
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    Holy crazy last few weeks!!  This wont be super wedding related, but will explain my absense.

    Since the last time we talked.. or well.. the last time I wrote... I finished up on all of the stuff for Kristine's shower. Which wasn't too much, just some last minute things. Lance was home for a couple days, packed and repacked my bags to go home to Michigan. 

    Went went home to MI for 12 days- during which I visted people, went with my mom and brother up north, took my grandma up north, had a me & Zach only day, drank slurpees (Plural!), had an awesome steak sammich (mmm Tony's), went tubing with my prego sister, Zach, and James, had Kristine's baby shower, and spent time with my family, unfortunately had a relative pass away, very glad I could make it to her showing, got my hair done, got to have drinks with my good friend Celeste, went to my friend Kim's wedding, finally got to hang out with Laura... (Phew! I'm getting tired just reading all of this!) Needless to say after lugging around my backpack and duffle bag for so long, (especially on the way home. I had a FOUR hour layover in Minnesota!) I was just so tired! Frankly, I was glad to not have a project to worry about- still am really. So I just chilled out. For a good long time. 

    I've been doing my water aerobics, and seeing my chiropractor, and feeling pretty darn good though. Lance was home when I got home from MI, which was awesome, even though it wasn't for very long. He should be back again by next weekend. We are going to go down to NOLA to celebrate my birthday! (YAY!)

    As far as the wedding goes. Honestly, not much has changed. I am hoping the lady at the venue will hold our date- as we have yet to put our deposit down.  I know she said she wrote our names in for June 15th, and that is what I have been telling people as far as a date goes. (I'm still trying to get Lance to elope, but he just won't do it. lol)

    Good news though, Lance will be getting his CDL when he is home this time around. That means it won't be too terribly long before he is off on his own, which means pay raise, which means all of our wedding stuff is gonna get knocked out before the end of the year.  THANK GOODNESS! Worrying about these things is not good for me. lol.

    Not so good news... I feel like I may be second guessing my dress choice. UGH! What is wrong with me?! I think it is because I look at the pictures, and she took them from and upward angle, so they make me look short and chunky.  It's throwing me off! I want to like go back to the salon and try on different dresses and see if I like one better.  I know that is a bad idea though, so I've been avoiding it.  The last thing I want is dress regret though. I keep seeing the dress pop up on wedding bee too. Makes me feel unoriginal. However, none of my guests stalk weddingbee like I do, lol. So chances are, they haven't even seen the dress yet.

    Anyway, that is really all there is to this post. I'll be going now, but I promise I will write again soon!  (seriously)
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    Like the whole theme (or feel) of our wedding. I never really thought we had a "theme", but now that I think about it, we kind of did! It was a casual, laid back, outdoorsy thing we had going on and it was pretty awesome. It was still kinda fancy but not in a super formal way.  The guys were gonna wear suits, stuff wasn't going to be all bedazzled and blingy. It was going to be outside on a bayou! (which still makes me sad we cant do this)

    Now with this venue change... its a little fancier... I'd like the guys to wear tuxedos, the ceremony will still be outside, but the inside reception wont be outdoorsy like before. My dress, how I want to decorate, my jewelry, etc. will all be more fomal. It will still be slightly laid back, because thats just how we are. (or well how Lance is, which helps calm me right on down. lol) 

    I can still use some of the stuff that I had planned on for the wedding we were going to have in LA, but now I am unsure of how many tables we need, if I have to get more candle holders, I already know I can't get any more flowers for the centerpieces because I have been to Michaels and they are out. So I have 8 that I made already that I have to find out what to do with them. I might have to get more frames for my table numbers... but I am starting to wonder if I should worry about table numbers at all now? Do I want to do a seating chart?  I just don't know.

    By having our wedding in Michigan our estimated guest count went from around 125 to somewhere between 165-185. Not that this bothers me all that much. I love my family and I love my friends. The more the merrier!  It's going to be one heck of a party and that makes me very excited. 

    Now that we are having the ceremony outdoors on the grass (opposed to the deck that it would have been on before) I won't be able to do my monogrammed isle runner like I wanted. I really don't want to trip over it if it gets clumped up on the grass. 

    The weather could be tricky too. April in Lousiana.. absolutely gorgeous. Not all hot and not cold.  June in Michigan... unpredictable. Probably pretty warm but.. who knows. It could just drop down to 60 for no good reason. 

    We also won't get to take pictures under the live oaks! BUMMER!! I am sure I can find someplace to get some really pretty pictures, but this was going to be my favorite part of it. Oh well. I kind of have something in the works to have a couple pictures taken when we get back.  (another reason to wear my dress! YAY!)

    All in all, the changes we have to make are not major problems. Some of it seriously makes me a little sad though. Regardless of where we have it, what it looks like, or how much sparkle it has, the fact is - Lance and I will be husband and wife..and THAT my friends, is awesome.
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    Due to us having to change the venue (read:state) of the wedding, we found out that 2 people in our wedding party can't be in the wedding anymore. It's a definite bummer, but also not something I can do anything about.  We lost one groomsman, and one of our flowergirls.  
    
    It sucks because the groomsman we lost is one of Lance's good friends, and now we have to try and find someone to stand in where he would have been. Out of the two other choices that we have... one doesn't like wedding ceremonies, and the other Lance hasn't seen in ages. 
    
    I was talking to someone over the weekend about it (my grandma I think) and I told her that we could just have his best man escort Kristine on one arm and Laura on the other. lol. She said worst case scenario I could just have my brother Zach stand in. Which really isn't even a "worst" case, because he's my BFF and all. He just seems more suited for a Junior Groomsman or something, he's only 11. 
    
    I decided NOT to try and find another flower girl. I'm sure Miss A will do juuuust fine, and totally rock the flower girl thing the whole day. We DID decide to have a ring bearer though instead. I am not sure if I mentioned in an earlier post that we weren't going to have one originally.  
    
    Enter the cutest little cousin in the worrrrlllddd. Mr. Eli. My cousin Erin's son. Last Christmas, kind of out of nowhere, he came and sat on my lap at my Aunts house and just stayed there for the longest time. It was almost like a snuggle from him.  A month or so ago when everyone was at my moms up in Michigan he got on skype and was like  "hi curry!"  haha. Love it. So he's going to ham it up in a little tux and it's going to be awesome.
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    I've been avoiding writing because I haven't been my normal chipper self. I feel like maybe some how you (whoever you are) would be able to hear it as you read. That's probably nonsense, but it's what I am gonna go with for right now. 

    This way I am feeling is not the result of one specific day/incident, but more of a collection of everthing that has been happening over the past 5 months or so- I can pinpoint more of it in the last month and half though for sure. A lot of it I can't and won't get into on here because it's not something I want to share with everybody and their brother, but Lance being gone (haven't seen him since May 9th) and having to change the wedding all around really aren't helping the matter. It's like I get mad at EVERYTHING. Which just isn't how I am at all. 

    I'm also seeing a chiropractor twice a week and trying to exercise more so my neck and back can cool it on being in pain all the time. (Also something that hasn't been helping my mood)

    Bear with me! I will have more stuff to talk about, and more news for you guys coming up soon for sure.
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...for some baby shower goodness!

    So a few months ago we found out my seeester is preggers. YAY! Do you know what this means?! I get to throw her a bitchin' baby shower! It also means I get to take breaks from the crazy wedding planning that is going on. I started planning right away. Even though we didn't know the gender or anything, I couldn't wait. Once I get excited about something and it involves planning I gotta get it done.. like NOW. lol.

    I decided that it would be much more fun to just have it at a restaurant in Saginaw. Instead of renting a hall, making all the food, setting up tables and chairs, cleaning up afterwards and having a crap-ton of food left over.  Plus when I figured all the costs, it was only about $75 more dollars to go this route and to me, thats worth it. To my momma too, cause she's involved in all this as well. 

    We got the menue squared away and the date and time set with the restuarant. Now I just had to wait. and wait and wait for the baby to develop its parts. I wanted to get started on invites reaaaaallly bad. I'm also really impatient.

    I said from the begining... "Teenie (thats what I call her), you're gonna have a baby girl. I just know it."  And guess what?!  She IS having a girl.  Score one for Aunt Kari! She's going to name her Olivia. Sooo cute. I found this on wiki answers:

   ETYMOLOGY: The name Olivia, pronounced oh-LIV-ee-ah, in its Latin context means "an olive tree or branch". In English it means "an elf army." The name Olivia is a symbol of fruitfulness, dignity and beauty. Extending an olive branch in today's culture traditionally signifies an offer of peace. 

    I told Teenie, "I shall call her Liv, my little elf."  hahaha. I can't wait to meet this little lady. She's gonna be so stinkin cute. I have also already called dibs on the baby at Christmas. All of the people in Michigan can see her all year round, I only have when I am home, so basically... they can kiss my big toe. lol

    Anywho... on to these invites!!  I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.
    Teehee!! They are Owl themed. I love them. I'm a little conceited... I think I am awesome, and these are awesome, and this shower is going to be awesome... I just sent these out yesterday. I forgot to seal them at home so I had to sit in the post office parking lot and lick 38 envelopes. It was gross... I'm just sayin.
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All ready to go!!

Goodbye my lovlies!! You were a true labor of love and I hope your new owners admire you as much as I did. 
    I'd be a little sad that my project is over and out of the house... but I still have 8 more to make. HA. These are ones going to our families in CA and FL- who are definitely just as important, but I was burnt out.. and my paper cutter broke, and I ran out of double sided tape, and ran out of the cards about books (see poem below)..ugh. LOL. I just needed to take a break. I am going to finish the rest tonight though, and mail them out tomorrow.

    I dont have a picture of the little cards I put in, but they were business card sized and had the following poem on them:
Although cards are nice,
they're read once or twice,
A book is a treasure
forever and ever.
So instead of a card,
to be put aside,
give the baby a book,
with your name inside!
    I would love to take credit for that darn cute poem... but I found it online. I figured though, that cards are nice, but just get thrown away. Reading is FUN! Let's force that on her early! HAHAH. I am kidding. I do think books are good for kids though. So it seemed like the right way to go. I didn't tell Teenie about that part, she will see it when she gets her invite in the mail!

    I did have some stuff left over from the first batch of invites, so I made a bunting to go across the gift/cake table...
See. I told you I was awesome.  haha.  ; )
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    I was originally going to get some cupcakes for the shower, but we left the cake situation up to Teenies future step mother in law. So now I have 24 cupcake picks that I need to find a place for. I am not sure what I will do with them yet. Maybe get some cupcakes anyway.  I am sure we will find a place for them!
    All that is left to do now is get some little prizes, and make the diaper cakes and we are all set. I ordered the special menu the other day from vista print and it should be here by the 13th! All I have to do for that is punch two holes in the top and tie a ribbon through.  My mom and brother are going to help with the diaper cakes once I get home, so that will be fun. Plus the less I have to take in my suitcase the better!

    I will post more pictures after the shower! Including ones of the diaper cakes. yay!
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Just trying it out for now...

Its kind of cheesy... but I kind of like cheesy.  ; )
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-We almost have a new date!  June 8th, or June 15th. Both Fridays.

-We DO have our venue picked out- Swan Valley Banquet Center

-We DO have a decision made on our DJ- Rusch Entertainment

-I DO have my wedding dress picked out- See the 'dress diaries' tab for the story!

-I DO have the person who is making my cake- My grandma's friend Irene.  Technically she doesn't make wedding cakes anymore but said for me she will! (YAY!)

-I DO have a special form of transportation to get to the ceremony site (Just found this out today!)

-We DO have our photographer- Same one that was going to come to LA!

What's left?  I need an officient, and flowers.  I think that's it for the big stuff. Correct me if I am wrong. lol.

I also need to rename this blog!!! Cause there is no more "I Do on the Bayou"- There are OBVIOUSLY no bayous in Saginaw, Michigan. lol.

Things have been kind of crazy with all the changes and plus I am planning my sisters baby shower right now (maybe I will post a blog about that so you can see all the stuff I did!!!)

I will be home at the end of June so I will make sure to take pictures of the Venue and post them for you to see.

Keep checking back for more updates!!   = )
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