Katie and Will, A Good Looking Couple

Wedding Pictures are IN!

We want to give a big thanks to Karla Myers who photographed our wedding! When Kelly and I were planning our wedding, the hardest part, but the part that paid off the most is that we picked everything that we wanted. Many times when you are planning your wedding it's easy to fall into a theme and very matchy matchy colors. For example: My bridesmaid dresses. According to what you find online and what everyone tells you, my outdoor wedding called for either a green dress or brown dress (for the girls). However,  I found the most ADORABLE dresses from lulus.com. I could have gotten the typical David's Bridal satin dress, but I wanted it to be unique.

The last thing we decided on was getting a limo or not. We wanted to get straight to our reception and not drive around after pictures. I mean, it is what I spent hours and days and weeks planning. I wanted to be a part of it too!! However, the limo would have cost over 600$ to get from point A to point B in about a 5 minute drive. At this point, we weren't going above and beyond to save money. We'd saved money in the process just being natural. We didn't stress at all during our wedding about money, because my natural instinct was to say heck no to a 25$ table cloth x 25. Kelly and I just have the frugal bone in our body. So, we decided to say no to the limo and get brought in with the rest of the bridal party on a tractor. It was fitting. Yeah, maybe it was hill jack, but it was us, and everyone will remember that. Do things people will remember and what makes you happy. Not what the norm is.

Thanks for listening. There is a lot more things to say but lets get to a few favorite overall pictures. Be sure to click on the wedding section to see tips on decorations.

Baby Addison

Hello everyone! I'm so sorry it's been a while since I've put up a new blog. I've had to spend the last few weeks concentrating on controlling the morning (all day) sickness. I've been sadly ignoring my blog in the mean time! I promise things will get rolling soon! Getting out and taking pictures of cute kids and cute things have been on Kelly and I's back burner.
Below are some pictures of a baby shower I helped throw for my good friend Staci. Since then, Staci has had a beautiful baby girl, Addison Leigh. Please note, that since the baby shower her name has changed! I'm still going to post the ADORABLE block pictures of her name then; Olivia.

Some simple tips for throwing a baby shower:

-Buy reusable decorations, or kill two birds with one stone and use decorations that you can eat! One simple idea is to hang a line of wire with clothes pins and hang 5$ onezies. If you are throwing the party, Don't be afraid to use parts of your gifts as decorations. Your guest of honor will understand why your gift bag is absent or low on gifts!

-Don't be afraid to NOT pick a theme. There are so many cute ideas out there on the internet. There is no reason why you can't take the "pop corn : shes about to pop!" favor idea, while you have a blow up duckie tub filled with ice for drinks. People will remember all the cute things from different themes. 

-Do try to stick with a color scheme. Since you may have different themed decorations, its best to keep things flowing with the same colors.

My favorite website to "borrow" ideas:

www.oneprettything.com

Go under Archives and find your topic!!
 
Above invitation:
Done by me!! (edited to take out name and addresses)

These are small 4x8 brown paper bags used to store homemade popcorn balls. I love themed baby showers, but I prefer to take all the cute things and roll them into one! For instructions on how to make these bags go to my previous post titled How to Install a Font from the September archives. Those are fonts from Kevin and Amanda.com and the clip art is used from one of their Doodle fonts.

 A few things to remember if you are printing on brown paper bags:

When you follow the directions on how to change the paper size, just type in the size of the bag.

Remember, you don't want to print on the side with the edge down the middle.

Fold the bottom flap the opposite direction, and hold with a piece of tape. Otherwise it will print on the side with the edge through it.

Leave room for the top and bottom margins!

You can use these for just about anything. We used this idea for our favor bags for our wedding too! You can use any size bag!! ALCOR in Miamisburg has a wide range of sizes, however, you need to buy them in bulk, which is still about 7 dollars.

Adorable children's blocks used for decoration through the house. 12.00$ at walmart. Best part: Reusable!

Ryan's 1st bash

Puerto Viejo's cutest animals

I tried to find only a few pictures to post, but these creatures are so darn cute I couldn't resist!!

A Little One on the Way!

SURPRISE!!! Kelly and I are expecting our first baby!!! We couldn't be more excited. We found out Saturday morning (October 2nd, 2010). This is such exciting news because we had thought it was going to be a lengthy process with my previous problems with endometriosis. Instead, it only took a month of trying!

Saturday morning I went to the store and bought a box of three pregnancy tests. Took one and ... two lines POSITIVE! I woke up Kelly and showed him. Then we went and took another one. Positive. It still didn't settle in, so we went to CVS and got the tests that actually read Pregnant or Not Pregnant. We were convinced once it actually said "Pregnant"! We got ready, went to the doctor that day and got it confirmed so we could take advantage of his whole family being together that night. Kyle and Tracey were in town so we thought it was a great opportunity to tell the whole fam. When we went to the Lewis' my heart hurt about the entire time. When I say hurt I don't mean figuratively, I mean literally. Every time we waited on all 10 people to get in the room, my heart dropped. Becky was cooking for what seemed to be the LONGEST time. Once Becky came in, Kramer went out. Once Kramer came in, Tim went out. Finally, everyone was together (about 4 hours later). Kelly passed out cards and let everyone open. We addressed everyone by their soon to be baby name : Uncle Kyle, Great Grandma Barb, Tappy (silly gma name we came up with for Becky about 10 years ago). I watched Becky. She read it and was so surprised.. Really everyone was! It was a great time.

Sunday roled around and my family has started to catch on that I hadn't drank, and why I'm getting the entire family together. I didn't think anything of it, they just had a nitch. Even up until that morning Dad asked me why I didn't have a beer on Football Friday. I had to say I did to hush him. I walked in from Kroger and everyone was there. I knew they knew, but nobody was going to ruin it. So I had to wait to tell them for about an hour because I needed them to be surprised. This meant I had to ignore the whole group standing around the kitchen immediately as I walked in, waiting for an announcement and Dad making comments about babies. Finally, I gave everyone their card. Poor dad really couldn't read it because he didn't have his glasses, but by everyone's reaction he knew what it was. Everyone shed a few tears then mom went outside and brought in something. I was SHOCKED. She knew. She already had a card labeled "Kelly, Tara and Baby Lewis" with a gift of a glass baby bottle, chocolates for cravings, and stretch mark cream! Keep in mind, Kelly and I didn't tell a SOLE that we were trying. She said it was a mothers instincts. I can't wait to have those.

Sunday afternoon, we told Kelly' ENTIRE extended family. Grammy did a catholic blessing on Kelly, the baby and I. It was beautiful. All reactions were priceless. We are super excited for the crib Grammy is letting us use that has been in the family for decades. I believe it was his grandpas. 

Everything went over better than awesome. We are so blessed and wish for nothing but a happy healthy baby. He/She is due on JUNE 11th 2011. We've already had our official doctors appointment and everything is going great. By the time all the initial Dr. Appointments were over, we have taken 6 pregnancy tests! Not including blood work. I needed to take an extra one mid week because I was so giddy.

Fun Facts:

Favorite Girl Name (so far)- Annemarie
Favorite Boys Name (so far)- Archie Graham (field of dreams)
Best Reaction (family doesn't count)- Bree Costello
Looking forward to : Forcing a craving to be Mint Mentos
Not Looking forward to: Possible morning sickness while at school. (or anytime really)
I bet: It's a girl
He bets: It's a boy

Above: My favorite cards: Everyone got a different children doodle's on the top of the inside (thanks to kevinandamanda.com)

Tis' the season for Festivals