Halloween!

I had a very full week of Halloween. We had our big Halloween carnival at work on Wednesday...which was a HUGE success. We have about 300 kids come..and this doesn't include their parents! PinkBerry was there serving samples of their frozen yogurt, which was a huge hit! We had pizza, the bounce house, a cupcake walk, and tons of other fun games. Our little dancers put on a performance to Thriller...and of course the YMCA by the Village People. What a fun event! All of the staff dressed up too. We had a male Minnie Mouse, Grapes, Marine Barbie, a Fortune from a fortune cookie...and I was a bag of Jelly Beans!

Jelly Bellys (me) and male Minnie (Jeff)

Friday night Joshua and I went to our friend Ashley's Pirate themed mystery party, which was a lot of fun. Ashley is GREAT at planning parties and is a wonderful host. She made these really cool boxes for our invitations and delivered them in person. I was the part of "Mad Rose," the beer wench at the Salty Sea Dog and Joshua was Commodore Clearing. Our costumes were really fun and it was fun to act the part of a pirate...pirate accent and all!

Joshua and I dressed up. The picture below gives a better idea of our full costumes!
Saturday was spent at Ikea, looking for some shelving for our office. We then went party hopping...as Johnny Cash and a Cowgirl! We went out to Rowlett, about 30 minutes from Dallas for Stacie and Matt's party and then came back to Dallas, picked up Chris (Josh's friend from Memphis who is in town working for a couple months) and went to Richard's for an SMU party..which was also a good time.

Phew...Halloween is over..and I can say we are Halloweened out!

Bailey's Wedding

It has been about a month since Bailey and Kevin tied the knot and their photographer's pictures are up! After looking through all of them...and seeing what a wonderful day it was, I was reminded that I hadn't written about it yet!

Joshua and I traveled to Georgia for the most spectacular wedding in September. Bailey and Kevin are a beautiful couple and I think that really shined through during their wedding weekened. They love each other unconditionally, the way all couples should, and you can tell how happy they are to be together.

I was blessed to be part of such a wonderful day and I loved spending the time primping with Bailey. It's hard being so far away and not being able to be as involved as I wanted to be. That time together was so greatd. There really is nothing like being a girl and being able to take ALL day to get ready! hehe. Bailey, not surprisingly, looked absolutely breath-taking. Her dress was just perfect for her. There was this moment right after she walked down the aisle that you could see how astounded Kevin was by her beauty and grace. He was grinning ear to ear. That's what the dress is all about..the shock factor.

Ok..so I borrowed a few pictures from the photographers site to give a little taste of her wedding. The photographer did an AWESOME job of capturing everything in the wedding and the quality of his pictures is great! His name is Steve Barnhart and here is some of his work:

Just a few snapshots of the night. The first one is of all the girls before the wedding. Bailey is holding one of the shoes she had us sign. The second picture is one of my favorites. It is all of the wedding party with the trolley. The guys are on the inside looking out at us while we pose. The last shot is of Bailey and Kevin serving each other cake. Always fun!

Disciple Bible Study

I've been searching for a good, intensive study of the Bible for a while now...and I'm just not good at doing it on my own so I decided to join a Bible study. As a child, I can remember my parents participating in Disciple Bible Study through our church. When I saw that LLUMC offered the class, I was thrilled! We have has 2 lessons so far and it has been so great. It is a 34 week class that leads you through the entire Bible. Each week there is a focus verse and word and this weeks work was Wonder. What a perfect word for the creation story! One can only stand in wonder and awe at God's awesome and mighty hand. It is only our second week and I've already learned so much!

I've read through Genesis several times, but each time it was in a rushed or hurried manner...as I always felt like I knew exactly what it was saying. This time, it's different. We started with just the 1st 2 chapters this week and I took the time to read the words..as well as the notes my Bible provides. It's so incredible to see how Genesis allows room for the Trinity in it's use of words...and I honestly didn't know Adam means Earth and man. I cannot wait to continue on this journey of learning.

Stationary Obsession

Ok, so I have this deep love for paper goods...I love stationary, notepads, day planners..and I LOVE when they are good quality...and of course pretty. This summer Joshua got me this awesome personalized notepad as a belated birthday present from Linda&Harriett, out of Brooklyn. The great things about their note pads: they can be personalized!! My pad looks a little something like this:

with MILLI VINCENT (in navy) at top center.

The great thing about these notepads is that they are pretty affordable and super cute. You can use them as stationary, or for grocery lists. Their letterpress paper products are little more expensive, but that is too be expected.

I used this one really cool site for our save-the-dates, and come to find out, they also do personalized stationary, birth announcements, party invitations, so on and so forth. Love the site, and here is an example of what you can find there:

These can be found under the Business Stationary.

Just plug in your personal information when personalizing.

They also have some great seasonal invitations or greeting cards!

mmm mmm good!

One of my go to recipes for a delicious, easy, semi inexpensive dinner is by Giada De Laurentiis from the food network. When I was in school I was watching her show one day and she made a delicious looking Pasta Primavera. So, over the years, I've turned to it on several occasions for a good meal that will easily impress people. My mom, the best cook I know, told me it tasted "gourmet." Now, props of to Giada, because I definitely didn't come up with the recipe, but it impressed my mom..and it is just too easy. This pasta will only take about 20 minutes once you've cut everything up. To get your taste buds going, here is a picture of the delicious meal and I'll put a link over to the food network site below that.

Pasta Primavera

picture courtesy of FoodNetwork.com