Christmasing

Lots of brides save their bouquets by having them freeze dried or preserved, and some even just dry them on their own and keep them in a safe place. I knew that 1) I didn't feel like paying hundreds of dollars to save my bouquet (I wasn't in love with it to begin with, but that's a different story) and 2) I'm not a "flowers" kind of girl, so saving the bouquet wasn't too important to me. But I knew I wanted to keep some of the flowers for memories and because, despite the fact that I wasn't too attached to them, I would be upset with myself down the road if I got rid of them.

After we got home from our wedding, I layed out at least one of each of the flowers I had in my bouquet and let them dry over our honeymoon. In August, we went to the beach with Chris and Shannon, and Shannon gave me a photo Christmas ornament to put them in! I kept the white satin ribbon that my bouquet was wrapped in, some of the lace from my dress which was cut off during alterations and added to the bouquet wrap, and also some of the pearl pins that held all of it together. After I had the ornament in hand, I just sort of went at it arranging and rearranging all of the different parts to make this...

I set it aside in a safe place and in the months following summer, I knew I wanted to make some more wedding ornaments that we could have forever!

I've seen all over Pinterest the "wedding invitation ornament" and I decided to tackle that one. Sometimes I can be pretty crafty, so I just kind of made it up as I went along, and I kept getting happier and happier with the result. 

I started by gathering one of our extra invitations, all of the paper that we used to mount it, the envelopes we sent them in, the return address labels we used on our RSVP cards, our favor bag, a stamp, and the orange we had hanging around the wrap that held the invitation together. I sat down with my paper cutter, a cake pop stick, and a pen and went for it!

I used the pen and the cake pop stick to curl the strips that I had cut. I used almost all of the text from the invitation itself including our names, my parents' names, the location, and the date and time.

I took 2 of each of the orange, the stamp, and the favor sticker and put them back to back so that the blank backs wouldn't show in the ornament.

The empty ornament! Ready to be filled up.

As I started putting strips in and shaking it up to let them mix, I noticed our names hooked up and wouldn't UN-hook. How cute?!

The finished product! Ready for the tree.

While we were in Bermuda, the first port on our honeymoon, we gathered some sand and seashells (shhh-- don't tell customs!) that I wasn't sure what we were going to do use for... But after making the other ornaments, I decided it needed to go into an ornament as well. I attached some pretty ribbon and a hang tag with the date that we were there to jazz it up.

Here is what our ornaments look like hung up on the pretty tree!

I am so happy with the final results that I'm considering having them out all year long. I'm so glad I saved so many things, because pictures can only do so much. Having actual tangible things from such important events displayed in our home is so special!

And now, a picture of our Christmas tree all decorated and lit up... Complete with 2 different "A" ornaments (I'm thinking of collecting them, "A" is such a great letter!).

I must say, I do love our tree.

A November to remember (so far)

Ok, so this post will contain a tiny bit from October... But "A November And Some Of October To Remember" didn't seem like such a fun post title, so a little squidge about Halloween will kick off this tribute to one of our best months so far post wedding/honeymoon!

For those of you who don't know, we loved Breaking Bad. We watched every episode, some of them multiple times, and would discuss them often with each other and fellow fans. We both agree it was one of the best shows we've ever watched, so naturally, when the series ended this year (and I stopped crying), we decided to represent the show at Halloween!

We thought and thought about how we could turn the show into a couples' costume, and decided that being Walter White (as his drug-producing alter ego Heisenberg) and blue meth (his signature drug) would be the best representation.

Of course, we needed to make Matt "bald," so here are the before and after photos with his bald cap. I was going to take some progress pictures but it turns out the glue for putting these things on is pretty strong, and anything I touched was stuck to me immediately. 

It took a good 30-40 minutes for the entire thing to be done, and I'm not going into the business of applying bald caps to people any time soon, but I think the result was pretty good!

We went to a Halloween party with our honeymoon friends Justin and Gina in New Jersey.

It turns out, only one person at the entire party watched Breaking Bad, and thankfully, he was very into our costume. We had to explain it to everyone else, so we are glad that social media allowed us to share it with our friends who actually do watch the show. We were a little let down until Facebook and IG got a hold of our hard work!

Ok, now we can move onto November!

This seriously was a really great month, and the best part is, it's not even over yet. So we have at least another week of awesomeness ahead!

First of all, Matt's younger brother Chris (the middle brother) proposed to his girlfriend Shannon! We love Shannon. We really do. I am so thankful that she and I have gotten to be such close friends, because I can't wait to call her my sister, to have her as an aunt to our children, and mostly, to know Chris has found the girl for him!

A wedding is projected for summer 2015, so we have a little while... But of course, it will somehow fly by!

Matt and I went to the wedding of a good friend of mine from high school, so we got to get all fancified and ate so much yummy food. It was also the first wedding we've been to where we were listed as this...

...so that was pretty cool!

And of course, no wedding I attend is complete without a picture of the cake!

Next up was Matt's birthday. Since it was a Wednesday, we didn't get to celebrate a whole lot, but that didn't stop me from attempting to make Matt feel special all day!

Matt gave up cookies this year, and I make a "compost cookie" that he absolutely loves. It's called compost because it has just about everything in it-- oats, cinnamon chips, pretzels, potato chips, butterscotch chips, coffee grounds-- you get the idea. Because he won't eat cookies, I decided to turn his favorite treat into a brownie (some might call this cheating, I call it genius). The result was this, and it was gobbled up quite quickly. Can you tell we like the edges?

Here is the birthday boy, in all his glory, doing what he does best: making people laugh.

The family Matt works for generously gifted him with tickets to a Flyers game, which we were so excited was scheduled for the day before our dating anniversary: double celebration!

But not before we got to celebrate his birthday with my fancy gift!

Matt loves this restaurant called Seasons 52. It is a restaurant that prides itself on all-natural foods that are cooked without butter and also not fried, just fresh. The menu changes every season, so since we were still in "fall," we got some really delicious food. I called ahead a few weeks in advance and set up a special menu for us, which Matt didn't find out about until his actual birthday. In fact, the actual selections I made were kept a secret until they were right in front of us! Since he is so indecisive, he loved that. And so did I ("Babe, have you decided yet? Ok how about now? Umm, yet?").

We ended up with a plum tomato and mozzarella flatbread, a steak and cremini mushroom flatbread, a spinach salad with thai shrimp soup, sea scallops, cedar plank salmon, and pork tenderloin. They were all incredible.

And of course, dessert was devoured. We had pumpkin pie, key lime pie, carrot cake, and chocolate peanut butter cake. Aaaaamazing (although yes, I will still say with 100% confidence, my carrot cake is better)!

They gave us personalized wine glasses, which was pretty awesome, and overall, we had a seriously wonderful night. The service, the food, the atmosphere-- it was a perfect celebration for Matt's 25th birthday, and I wish we could go there every weekend for dinner!

Last up was the Flyers game and our anniversary. The game was so much fun-- they won 4-1, we had great seats, and it was so nice to have a night during the week to spend together, especially so close to such a special day to us.

 And of course, the obligatory sports stadium photo:

For our anniversary, I put together some pictures from our previous years. On our first anniversary, we went to see a 3-D movie, so of course we took a picture of us with our silly glasses. Since then, we've taken a picture either on or a few days before our anniversary so that we would always have photos to remember what we did, what we looked like, etc. It's funny, we look exactly the same, seemingly not having aged at all. I'm hoping that's a good thing and a good sign that in another 6 years, we will still look underage, haha.

And to finish up, Matt was passing by my work on our actual anniversary (11/22), so he dropped some flowers and bamboo off for me. All in orange, naturally!

If you've stuck through this long enough, thanks! I'm going to make it a point to blog much more in the coming year, because I know we have exciting and important things coming up (don't get too excited) that will need to be shared!

Plus, I'm so excited to share the Christmas decorations I've been working on to showcase the amazing year we have had! Oh boy, Christmas... Who can even believe it's coming already??

My Pie Adventure

Let me give you a little history-- I am a terrible cook. Ok, that's a lie. I can make a killer baked ziti, taco casserole, or Crock Pot chili. But I can't look at a fridge and cabinets with random food and think "yes, I know exactly what to make." Matt? He's the king of that. He can look at what I think are bare cabinets and an empty fridge and end up with an incredible meal. I am so thankful for that, especially because the majority of the time, what he ends up making is healthy as well! 

When we have kids, they will say "my dad makes the best _______!" But I want our kids to say "my mom makes the best carrot cake/pumpkin pie/oatmeal cookies!" Of course, they will only eat those things for special occasions (we hope), but I want to be that mom. All of that being said, back in the spring, I decided that I wanted to try to conquer the pie world. And by "conquer the pie world," I meant that I wanted to make a pie 100% from scratch. Not a pre-made crust with a so-so filling. I mean an awesome crust with a delicious filling-- something that when people ate it, they thought "wow, Lynn can make cake AND pie." I decided to add pie "things" to our wedding registry, and my girlfriends at work giggled at my desire to make pie. I made a deal with them that if they got me the pie supplies, I would make them a pie after the wedding.

Well they did. I got the pie plate, pie shield, pie chain, and apple peeler from some of my coworkers, so I had to hold up my end of the deal. Yes, it was almost 4 months after the wedding, but fall seemed like the best time to make a pie!

I first did some extensive crust research. That might sound silly, but as it turns out, the "perfect pie crust" is pretty sought after in the baking world. I found some key pointers and went to town. Unfortunately, I decided to blog this adventure after the pie crust was already made, but maybe that's a good thing so my secret stays safe with me! 

After preparing my crust and freezing it for a couple days, it was time to choose the kind of pie I was going to make. I ended up choosing (with the help of my girlfriends at work) a pumpkin apple pie with a streusel topping, found three different recipes, made my own adaptations, and got to work. 

This picture is to showcase the wonderful birthday present I got from Matt-- my label maker! I was so excited to label things that I went for my baking supplies first. 

I let my frozen crust thaw, rolled it out, placed it ever-so-nicely in my pie plate, and secured everything with my pie chain. Actually, back up a bit. The first attempt at putting the crust in the plate was a disaster. I almost lost hope, but decided to ball it up again and start over. Attempt #2 was much better than attempt #1. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of attempt #1. It was not funny at the time, but funny now that I know how to do it right! Anyway, a pie chain helps to hold the crust down while it "blind bakes" so that it doesn't get air bubbles and puff up. Blind baking just means that the pie crust gets baked a little bit before the filling goes in. This pre-baking insures the bottom of the pie isn't soggy.

I then peeled my apples and prepared them with some spices, butter, and sugar.

Then it was on to the pumpkin filling, which I was happy to adapt to be more than just what comes out of the can. This had some extra spices, evaporated milk, and eggs to make it more like a pumpkin custard.

Then, it was on to the streusel topping. Let me just say-- this was so delicious. I never knew how simple streusel topping was to make, and I'm so glad that I tried it! I will be using the recipe I found for future pies, definitely.

Then it was time to start assembling the pie. The apples went in first, and the pumpkin custard was poured over top of them. What I liked about the pumpkin custard was that it was pretty runny, so it was able to work its way into the spaces between the apples. I attached my pie shield (which prevents the crust from browning too much while baking), baked the pie for a little bit until the custard set up, and then put the streusel topping on. Since the pumpkin layer was so watery, the topping would have gotten too soggy had I put it on right away.

After an hour, I was pleasantly surprised at my finished product! I will definitely say, my crust baking skills need some work, but that's ok. I was happy with my first try, and the fact that it wasn't a complete disaster was a plus for me!

And of course, when I was done and cleaning up, I realized I will never get my pie chain back in the box it came in again. Ever. It will have to stay in a baggie for eternity! Haha. 

The next day was the final step in my pie adventure. It was time to use my favorite taste-testers and get their feedback. These girls love when I say "I'm going to bring in such-and-such," because it usually means they get treats that last a couple days at work!

This is what one of the slices ended up looking like. I was so happy that it looked so picture perfect!

This picture is after we had eaten half of the pie already. I thought it was a really cool picture, and you can see how the pumpkin made its way through the entire apple filling.

As you can see, my taste-testers enjoyed themselves, and they all gave their honest feedback with regard to the crust and the filling. Thankfully, it was all positive, and I don't need to change too much to make my crust perfect!

All in all, I am calling my pie adventure a success. I will say, pies are not easy by any means. They are time consuming and involve a lot of careful steps, but it is so worth it to see the end product. I am hopeful that our kids all agree that when Matt and I combine our strengths, we make one killer dinner and dessert combo!

28

It's funny, I typed the title for this post and it took me about 15 seconds to realize I had typed "27." Does that happen to anyone else? Do you forget how old you actually are and sometimes have to correct yourself? No? Please say yes... It will make me feel less silly.

Anyway, last Thursday the 26th, I celebrated my 28th birthday. It started off great as my wonderful husband sang to me a few minutes after we both got out of bed at 4:30am. I also saw in my e-mail that I had a Groupon waiting for me from Matt that was good for a massage at a local chiropractor-- so excited about that one! I stuck with my Thursday morning routine and went to my 5:30am indoor cycling class, and was greeted in the lobby by the man who normally bikes next to me in class (the only person in the entire YMCA who knew it was my birthday), who exclaimed to everyone listening that it was my birthday. It was slightly embarrassing, but I got a free orange Y lanyard out of it, and the woman at the front desk gave me a "happy birthday, Lynn" over the PA system. So that was fun! I also got a phone call from my mother-in-law mid-morning and she had her class sing to me (she's a 7th grade social studies teacher). The girls at work left me a sweet (literally) gift on my lab bench that consisted of my favorite wine, my favorite candies (Milky Way midnight, Laffy Taffy, and Peppermint Patties), and 5 free RedBox rental codes. Overall, it was a great day at work, and it only got better from there!

I told Matt all I wanted was to hang out with him in the evening. He brought home Chipotle for dinner (a favorite indulgence around here) and we watched an episode of one of our favorite shows. He then gave me another gift which was a label maker. I was so excited about that one! It's funny the things that make you excited as you get older. I used it right away and made a label that simply said "lynn," and I stuck it to the back of my label maker. More on the label maker later this week (yes, I'm really that excited about it)...

I had also told Matt that I really wanted to try a new pizza place for my birthday dinner. I chose Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza and we invited our friends Tony and Colleen to come with us. 

We got 3 pizzas: plain, mozzarella/tomato/basil, and sausage/peppers. They were absolutely a-mazing. I knew this place had gotten good reviews, but I was even more pleased than I thought I would have been. We will definitely be going back to Anthony's! I still can't get over how good it was. 

On Saturday, Matt had a flag football tournament. He had invited our friend Justin to come play, and his wife Gina was going to come watch. A little on Justin and Gina: we met them on our honeymoon (which was also their honeymoon)! We were standing in line for our catamaran excursion and fell into conversation with them after they got in line behind us. Needless to say, after the 3 hour excursion, we knew we would be seeing them after we got home. They live 45 minutes from us in Jersey, so we went to see them on the 4th of July. 

Gina and I had fun watching our husbands play, and although they lost, they still had fun! After we got home, the 4 of us went to one of our favorite places here in West Chester (Más) and hung out til almost 1 in the morning.  

On Sunday, we had a pretty relaxing day, although all weekend we were in and out of the house that we were house-sitting at, so we spent some time relaxing at someone else's house. The family has a really cute dog named Gracie who needed to be tended to while the family was away for the weekend. She is such a sweet dog and just loves to play and run around. We ended the weekend by watching the series finale of Breaking Bad. Don't even get me started on the bittersweetness of that one-- but it was a great way to end my birthday weekend!

Overall, 28 is looking to be a pretty good year, and I thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to wish me a happy birthday!

And now, to leave you with a picture of Gracie, because she's just too cute.