giving in to peer pressure

Three things have helped make me realize just how much I miss blogging.

1. My obsession with Pinterest. On my iPad, on my iPhone (the app update is heavenly and much needed), and now I've found my way to my ancient desktop computer. The "Pin It" option for my internet browser's toolbar is genius. Want to see what makes my heart skip a beat? Follow me. :)

via luna and chloe. 

2. Seeing fabulous friends absolutely ROCK the blog word. I'm serious. I highly recommend you check them out. The Messy Gal is trying her hand at crafts and cooking (and doing a darn good job at it!) and Ashley over at One Fine Day is showing the world her favorite things, which just so happens to coincide with many/most/all of mine. Click, bookmark, and enjoy.

The Messy Gal

One Fine Day

3. The last thing that really pushed me back into wanting to blog? My mom. "You know, you haven't updated your blog in awhile. I keep checking." Thanks, Mom. :)

Hello, lovely!

Well, despite my absence, I haven't forgotten about my blog. Technology has been my hinderance and my hero. The ol' laptop has definitely seen better days. I've done everything to try and save her, but she's hanging on a thread. Being without a reliable computer hasn't been fun, BUT, it gave me a really great excuse to finally ditch my old school cell phone to upgrade to a fancy pantsy phone with internet capabilities! Yay! I gave into temptation and bought an iPhone 4 and I'm lovin it. And thank goodness for an app that allows me to edit my blog! So...I'm back :)
Quick update on life: things going well! Tough school year. A few (too many) difficult students and a heavy workload have made things stressful, but I still love my job and I'm thankful for it every day. Speaking of stressful, wedding planning is going well, slowly but surely. So far we've booked our ceremony/reception site (and catering), officiant, dj, and our photographer (which I am soooooooo excited about! Will dedicate a post to that later!). And I think I might have found my dress! So things are moving along and we're excited. Is it June yet? :)

April, May,... July?

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm a bit of a planner. Not that I shun spontaneity, but I appreciate knowing what's going on. I sat down last week and started filling out my calendar for the summer. Weddings almost every weekend, Matt's golf tournaments, appointments, etc. As I finished filling in May, I flipped the page and found myself starring at July. Wait....July? I know they say that the summer goes by quicker than we'd all like, but May is now followed by July? My discounted calendar that I "scored" from Target is, surprisingly, missing the page for June. I'm all about scoring a sweet deal, but a heads up would have been nice. Thanks, Target. (p.s. Don't worry, I still love you.)
Now that summer break has officially started, I'm trying to make the most of my extra time. First of all, I don't even know how to handle "free time"! I've always been so busy that now that I have an ounce of free time, I'm not sure what to do with it! I'll be honest, the past several days have been laaaazy, but I'm ready to start tackling the to-do lists that I have been putting off all school year. Task number one?

Start planning our wedding.

It's been fun, browsing through magazines, pulling out pages that catch my eye and arranging them in my wedding planning binder. I don't want a huge, extravagant wedding. In fact, in an attempt to turn a huge wedding into something more intimate, Matt and I recently decided to look into having our wedding in Florida! Living in the middle of the U.S., I've always wanted a beach wedding, but never thought I could do it. Matt said 'Why not?" and I said "Yes, please!". I'm also hoping that a destination wedding will help me give up some, if not all, control. If I had to plan a Midwest wedding, I would be in charge of everything and I would, inevitably, stress myself out to the point of no return. My dream is to tell a wedding planner what I want and to show up with a smile on my face and be happy with whatever happens. A girl can dream, right?

It's beginning to feel a lot like...summer

 

(via)

I know I disappeared for awhile, but any fellow teachers out there know that April/May are CRAZY. State testing (ugh.), field trips, assemblies, parties, and other daily interruptions in the normal routine/schedule (the result: kids are out of control). I feel like I've been running a marathon for the last couple of weeks and finally I'm at the finish line. Our last day of school with the kids was Thursday and it was bittersweet. I loved LOVED my class this year, and I am really going to miss them (especially when I'm told I was dealt a rough hand when it comes to my class next year), but by the end of the school year, everyone is d-o-n-e and ready for a break. 

I am just so thankful that I have a job next year. As I said goodbye to a fellow teacher that lost her position, I couldn't help but feel like I dodged an erratic, unreasonable bullet. I think back to this time last year when I was packing up my classroom, not even sure if I'd be teaching ever again. 

But this year, the picture is much clearer. I spent Friday and Monday cleaning my classroom, but not because I wouldn't be returning. I wanted to get things organized and neat for next year. (I would stress about it all summer if I didn't get some cleaning done in there!) It feels good to know that I'll be coming back in August to prepare for a new school year. I love my job and I am just so thankful...

a few of my favorite things

1. Bringing the outside in. I know my daffodils won't last forever, so I snipped a few and brought them inside. Thank you, $1 vase from Wal-Mart (the ONLY thing I bought that was not on my shopping list. That must be a record for me...)

2. Wearing a bright, cheerful polish. Kind of outside my comfort zone, but I'm going to blame it on the sunny weather. I bought this color awhile ago and I never wore it because I thought it would be too bright for me. I was feeling spunky this morning so I grabbed it and gave it a go. Three coats and lots of patience later, I've got happy hands.

3. Filling out a new month on my calendar. My attempts to color-code started to rub off on Matt. He gave me the green pen and told me to fill in the pay days. haha

april showers bring...

Talk about April showers! Tornadoes touched down in the area and rain/lighting/thunder/wind/hail resulted in me resorting back to childhood. I called my mom so she could comfort me. Unfortunately, the conversation led to her telling me to get to know some neighbors with basements in case a tornado does rip through my neighborhood. Anxiety level, plus 25. Thanks, Mom! haha (just giving you a hard time, Mom. Thanks for the chat. I needed it!)

Matt is out of town with his brother for a few days, so I'm home alone until Wednesday. It's feels super strange without him here. I'm also a bit of a scaredy cat. Tornadoes and hail the size of baseballs (true story) definitely didn't make me feel any better about being here by myself.

Completely unrelated side note, I've spent my morning playing around with my blog layout.I added some pages up at the top. I definitely have a lot of work left to do on it all, but I've been avoiding today's to-do list all morning. (typical!)

I hope everyone had a great Easter!

 (via)

spring surprise!

We bought our house in November, so we had no clue what kind of trees and flowers were planted in the yard. As the weather has been warming up, it seems like we find a new surprise every day. A tree next to our house is in full bloom! My mom said it's a tulip tree, which I've never heard of (as a certified brown thumb, I know very little, anyways!), but I'm so excited because it's gorgeous!

pretty purple wedding

I've been really enjoying the beginnings of planning for our wedding. It won't be until next summer (late May/early June 2011), but it's been super fun getting ideas. Am I stressing out a little bit already? Of course I am, but I'm still enjoying myself.

How gorgeous are these flowers! I'm thinking this is the color palette I'm going for...variations of purples, fresh green, and white.

(via)

springing forward

What a nice weekend! Matt and I had some friends over on Saturday. Matt got to play with the grill, his newest toy. It's still pretty chilly out (dear Spring, I'm totally ready for you to get here and stay here!), but it was much nicer than last weekend. We got the grill out and had friends over last weekend, too. First day of spring. Perfect day to grill, right? Umm, notsomuch.

 We have an uncovered patio, so Matt brought out the Mizzou tailgating tent. It was snowing/sleeting sideways, so he had to put up the side panels. Good ol' Missouri weather. Friday night it was about 70 degrees. The next morning we had a good 2 inches of snow.
 But did we still break out the grill? Yes, sir!
This weekend brought us more appropriate grilling/bbq-ing weather. Matt tended to some ribs and chicken for hours, using hickory wood to smoke the meat. The results? Success! We cooked a ton of food and I'm surprised how little we have left. Maybe it's because Matt was eating on it ALL evening long. haha
We got to spend this afternoon with my mom and my vovo (Portugese for grandma...that's how we roll in my family). We enjoyed a nice lunch and a little shopping. After they left I found a little surprise on my bedside table. Mom secretly bought me a book while we were at the bookstore and she had Matt put it next to the bed. What a great surprise! Makes me want to get into bed already :)

Another thing to make the weekend lovely? Daffodils!We moved into our house in Nov/Dec, so everything's been dead and brown. It's been so fun watching things bloom that we didn't even know we had! In the front we have daffodils coming through the ground. A couple sets of them have already started blooming! Everything else is still brown, but it's so nice to have some pretty signs of life. :)

Here's to you, March!

Dear March,
Hello! I celebrated your arrival today in my classroom as if it were a national holiday. To be honest, it's not that I'm such a big fan of you, March, but more like all the things that you bring! The beginnings of SPRING! Ice melting, touches of green finding their way out of hibernation, outdoor recesses (thank goooodness. The kids need it), the sun still being up when I leave work, rain that doesn't freeze, light jacket weather, birds outside my windows. Lovely. So here's to you, March.
With love,
Kristina


And how about these adorable Lion/Lamb cupcakes to celebrate March?

 

(via Martha Stewart, of course.)

I said yes!

It's been a week, so it's about time I FINALLY post about it. I'm so happy/excited/giddy, I want to shout it off the rooftops!

 

WE'RE ENGAGED!

Last Sunday was filled with feelings of love and lots of cold medicine. I was really REALLY sick on Valentine's Day. Spent all day in bed with a fever and a nasty cold turned sinus infection. I didn't want to ruin our V-Day plans, so I finally got up the strength to get out of bed and get ready for our nice dinner at our favorite steak restaurant here in town. After stopping mid-primping process to regain my strength, I slipped on my heels and I was finally ready to go. As I was buttoning my coat (and putting a handful of Kleenex in my purse in case the cold medicine failed mid-dinner), Matt pulled me aside, said uber-sweet and romantic things, got on one knee, and asked me to marry him. 

I said yes. :)

Of course, I cried like a little baby....like a little baby with a head full of snot. (eww) I couldn't breathe through my nose, so I'm sure my cries sounded/looked ridiculous. Matt laughed, rightfully so. I'll never forget his laugh. It was the best part!

Dinner was super nice. Matt had made some special arrangements to have GORGEOUS roses brought to our table by our waiter. He had to pull some major strings with his florist, which he later told me was a big factor in the fact that we were still going out to dinner even though I was sick and nasty. haha 

After dinner, we came home and I promptly returned to my sweats, took another dose of medicine, and crawled back into bed. Not the most romantic end to the night, but I couldn't help it! Despite feeling horrible, the night turned out great. After I posted about it on Facebook (technology is lovely), Matt and I got so many responses from our friends and family and it truly felt great to hear from everyone. 

We're so unbelievably happy and excited and we can't wait. We're thinking the wedding won't be until next April/May/June, which gives me plenty of planning time, money saving (and spending) time, and time to get my butt in shape! I've already been flipping through wedding magazines and browsing websites to get ideas. I'm such a girl. :)

  

(Don't mind my chipping nail polish and goofy fingers...)

  

 

p.s. I just noticed a fiber from my sweater snuck into the pic of my ring. Sneaky! I'll take a better picture tomorrow :)

dear matt

i love you.

i love how you make me feel.
i love how you kiss me on the forehead.
i love how you make me laugh and smile (even when i don't want to).
i love how you cuddle with me (even when you don't want to).
i love how i still get excited to see you when you come home.
i love how you remind me that everything is going to be alright.
i love how you love me.
i love how i love you.
i love you.

xoxo,
Stina