Casey and I have been enjoying going to the beach to swim. The image and words above are my own. How has your summer been?

Long time no see

Casey and I are doing really well. We have a new baby kitty who is our absolute true love and he is such a darling.

He is very naughty which is a characteristic i ADORE. I love how sneaky and mischevious he is. He gets into trouble pretty much every chance he gets and I wouldn't change that about him for a second.



He is also very loving and tender and sweet. Once when I was sick with a fever and shivvers, he slept on my belly to keep me warm. He loves to sleep on my face and he loves to be around us. He is such a funny little guy.

He loves to eat and is always hungry. Eating is his favorite thing to do, so much so that he sticks his paws in our dinner so he can have a little taste of what we're enjoying (which I have to admit is a little gross. I for one don't LOVE having litter box paws in my meal). He loves spinach, ice cream, soup and cereal. We made him popsicles out of wet catfood and he loves those too :). Last night we had to take his food away at 10:00 PM in order to prepare him for his vet visit this morning. He was very angry and told Casey so. And this morning he woke up and ran out to see if his food was back and I heard screams coming from the bathroom when he realized it wasn't! He LOVES his food. I can't wait to spoil him with delicious cat food. :)

Our baby boy loves to be playful. He goes crazy for his feathers on a stick and any other toy that simulates a flying bug or bird. He also is fond of hide and seek and tag, which is how I ended up with this


Which was awful and all, but then it turned into this! ......















Can you believe it? a black eye! That second photo is it covered with makeup too. I had gotten up at 5:00 with Casey to make him his lunch and was just crawling back to bed and under the covers. I felt Pumpkin crawling slowly up my body but I thought he was just snuggling in until WHAP, his claw got stuck in my vein! My poor baby boy is so apologetic. He ran into the bathroom and sat in the corner with his eyes down FOR 20 MINUTES until I came and got him and told him it was okay and he was forgiven. I got so many sweet kisses from him that morning!

I love how smart he is. He has such a mind of his own and he is so cute to watch playing by himself. He loves to play with hair ties and he spends hours playing with the little plastic divers in our bath tub. He loves to be with us no matter where we are and he is so curious. While Casey is in the shower he jumps up to the bathroom door knob and tries to twist it to get in to see what Casey is doing in there.

Our kitty is such a sweet baby. We love him so much and we are so blessed to have him! I am thinking about him a lot today because he is at the vet getting neutered. I feel so horrible for my baby. A lot of people have been saying it's good payback for giving me a black eye but that isn't how I feel! I feel like I have deliberately made plans to make today the worst day of my baby boys life. I have planned for him to be terrified at the vet and wake up dazed and wearing the cone of shame. I feel so deceitful! My poor little one. I cant wait to have him back home with me. Only 3 and a half hours to go until I can rescue him! :)

I love my boys and I love my life. My husband and my kitty are such wonderful things to come home to each night and I just love and appreciate them both. I hope they both know that!

New Year

I am so excited for this new year! Casey and I have so many many wonderful plans of all the things were going to do together this year. We have plans for vacations, things to build, things to buy, things to make, things to eat! I love plans, even if we never actually accomplish what we're planning, it's so fun to be on the same page with someone about your goals for the future.

Being married is way better than not being married. I didn't think it would feel that different - Casey and I have been together for almost 6 years and it seemed like we knew each other REALLY WELL. I am learning new things about him every day!!

Here are some hints about our plans. See if you can guess! :)

We got married :)

And if you're a friend in real life, you can see photos on facebook.
We love being married. We love our little apartment and we love each other and we really really love Jesus. Life is good.

Lately I have been into couponing. I've been trying to save more than I spend at the Grocery store.
Last week at Ralphs, I spend about $13 on about $100 of food! The bug bit me.

This week I spent $45.96 on $244.85!
They are doubling coupons up to $1 off until 11/25, and a lot of things are on sale for $1.99, so it is pretty easy to get lotsa stuff for free! I got

1 Maruchan Yakisoba
5 Smart Ones
4 Uncle Ben Long Grain Rice
4 Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa
8 Green Giant Boxed Frozen Veggies
2 Cheerios
1 Apple Cheerios
1 Cinnamon Toast Crunch
3 Bisquick
3 Cake Mix
3 Frosting
1 Chex Mix
2 Fat Free Pringles
1 Refrigerated Buitoni Noodles
1 Box Butter
3 Popcorn
2 Pillsbury Grands
2 Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
2 Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls
2 Tropicana 50 Orange Juice
2 Tropicana 50 Blueberry Pomegranate Juice
2 Reddi Whip
2 Knudsen Sour Cream
2 Caramel Apple Dippers
1 Silk Soymilk
1 Olay Bodywash
1 Secret Deodorant
2 Scope Mouthwash
1 Colgate Total Toothpaste
1 Crest Toothpaste
2 Always Pads

And my receipt is about three miles long. It's crazy to me that some people pay $250 for all that and that I used to be one of them!! Never again! We believe our money is a gift- no more careless spending! :)

progress

It's been a nice long time since I last said anything, and I have no idea if I have even accomplished much else. Lets see...

I'm going to wear this necklace:


With a pair of vintage diamond earrings from my aunt.

I kind of want to wear these shoes:


And I am thinking of something like this for the rehearsal dinner (I already have the gray shoes)

Rehearsal Dinner? by nootlebot featuring Minnetonka shoes

We're honeymooning in Hawaii! We've both never been there. We're excited! and we're going to a luau and I just might eat the apple piggy because it will be my only chance to try one in a very long time.

Casey and I are having a big huge garage sale this Friday and Saturday at my house in Orange. Email me if you want the address (natalie.rich@csu.fullerton.edu)! I would love to see you and all proceeds are going to pay for our wedding!!

things

We met with out minister yesterday. We talked about everything that could possibly be included in a ceremony and which things we could have or not have and there are many decisions that we need to make about those types of things. but not yet.

We now have wineglasses from craigslist to go with our champagne glasses. We had a wonderful save the date making party with most of the wedding party, and we've almost booked a photographer.

PHOTOGRAPHY IS SO EXPENSIVE. but we found one that will fit our budget! Her photos are lovely and she seems very sweet. Hopefully we'll get to meet her soon! If you're in southern CA, you should check out voirvenir.com!

We bought our guest books. They're vintage scrapbooks from the mid 19th century. We're having two - one at the ceremony and one at the dinner reception. The ceremony one is for most of the people we're inviting, but the reception one is for just our family (because they're the only one's invited to the dinner reception). At the dinner reception, we are going to have an instant camera and glue and pens set up so that each couple, person, group, or whatever, can decorate their own page of the guest book, put a picture of them from that night in their spot, and give us a wonderful memory!

Casey and i are so sick of college. But we graduate this semester! I am trying so hard not to be a negative nancy about going to school but it's very hard.

And we've been engaged for almost FIVE MONTHS. isn't that crazy!? It doesn't feel like it has been that long.

We've been collecting vintage unused stamps to put on our invitation envelopes. Hopefully we'll get enough soon enough! We obviously don't want to pay anything higher than face value for them but if you're lucky on ebay and at yardsales, you can get them for less than face value and save money on postage AND have cool looking stamps! win-win situation if you ask me.

flower change!

We went to meet with our florist yesterday (well, she's not OURS quite yet, we still need to book her). She was very sweet (I love that all of our vendors have been just lovely people!) and gave an amazing deal on the flowers.
For [averysmallamount], we're getting
- 1 brides boquet
- 7 bridesmaid boquets
- 2 mothers corsages
- 1 grooms bout
- 7 groomsmen bouts
- 2 fathers bouts

yay!
Here are some inspiration pictures. I am looking for some nice pictures of flowers over/around a white arbor. I have a couple but I'm not so sure about them. Anyway, on to pictures!


I like this one, they used the flowers as centerpieces at the head table during the reception (just swiped them right off the arbor and stuck them in vases).




Boy bout inspiration

flower girl.. if we decide to have one. If we do, we'll probably make this ourselves.

MY BOQUET! isn't it so so pretty?! It will be modified to include cream daisies.

yikes, i would be so afraid of being crushed by flowers.

this one is okay.


I like this idea but it wouldn't work for us.

I like how simple this one is.

girls bouquets, except without that big ugly white gerbera daisy or that other flower. they will mostly be green, tied with a coral ribbon. They might have some yellow/ other colors in my bouquet, and the groomsmen's bouts will match.
YAY!