Show Us Your Life - Wedding Party

This week at Kelly's Blog for Show Us Your Life the theme is Wedding Party and flowers.

I had always pictured my bridesmaids wearing floor length dresses, but after we decided on a July date I felt like tea length dresses would be more appropriate.


I had originally wanted my wedding colors to be brown and green with some pink, but after I found these dresses with the perfect color of pink it ended up becoming brown and pink with some green.


For the pink in my wedding I didn't want just one pink, I wanted to incorporate all pinks, bright, light pastel, etc. I love the light pink of the sash on the bridesmaid dresses.



Girls with their bouquets:
I love this shot of the bridesmaids, peeking into the sanctuary to watch a video that Luke and I played before the ceremony got started.

My favorite picture of the whole wedding party: My bouquet: So beautiful!I love this picture, it shows how bright and vibrant my bouquet was and how Luke's boutonniere matches and the rose petals in the aisle. I just love it. Thanks for looking!

All wedding photography by Jesse Reich

Show Us Your Life - Wedding Dress

Kelly over at Kelly's Korner does Show Us Your Life every Friday. Last week was show us your dress.

It's obviously way past last Friday, but I decided to go ahead and participate.

I wasn't going to do it because

1. I have done several posts with my wedding pictures already

and

2. I have wedding pictures in my header, which I will be changing soon since it has now been 1 year since the wedding, I feel like its time for a change.

So I didn't want to bore people with my pictures, but I for one, could never grow sick of looking at pictures, and I have enough wedding pictures to not post the same ones over and over, so I decided to participate.

My dress was everything I had ever imagined. I had this picture saved on my computer before I was ever engaged of what I wanted, and although it is a different designer this dress looks almost identical to the dress I had saved. I wish I could wear it everyday!

Love this picture. It shows the bouquets on the left side and is a great shot of my dress:Close shot of the detail of the dress:The back with my mom trying to bustle it:Back shot before bustled:The back bustled: One of my favorite pictures:

All wedding photography by Jesse Reich

I'm a Winner (sometimes)

I'm usually not very lucky when it comes to bloggy giveaways but in the last month I have been pretty lucky.

The first giveaway I won was from Whitney's blog. She sent me a box FULL of such fun stuff! I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was some good stuff.

Then last week I won a giveaway on Brown Girl Blog's. These great Thank You cards from Purple Lemon Designs. Aren't they adorable?!?

Thank you to everybody who has hosted a giveaway. They really make the blog world fun!

Blogoversary!!!

This day two years ago I decided to start a blog.

Who would have known that the next year it would be the day after my wedding anniversary. Crazy!

I had been reading a couple of blogs for awhile - I would name them, but to actually acknowledge that I would read these blogs daily without actually having my own blog would be a bit creepy, so I will just keep that between the ole Internet and myself.

Anyways, I had been reading some blogs and knew that it was something that I would enjoy, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to start my own blog or not.

I didn't really know what to expect when I started a blog, all I knew was I am a sucker for these type of things and I enjoy writing, I decided that was all I needed to know - thus, 'The Life and Time of Megan' was born.

2 years later I am still blogging, but now I have a new name and lots of new stories to share.

I also have a ton of new friendships that I am very thankful for.

I have made some awesome friendships through this little blog and I am thankful for all of you that continue to read and continue to be my friend, no matter how silly I might sound sometimes!

I won't be around a computer much this week so my commenting will be slim to none. Hopefully next week I will be back to my regular commenting self!

Happy blogoversary to me! It has been a fun two years!

Weekly Weekend Update - Anniversary Weekend

This weekend we celebrated our One Year Anniversary!

I know that everybody says it, but seriously I can't believe it has been one year already. It feels just like yesterday when we drove away from the reception and began our life together as husband and wife.

Seriously, crazy.

This weekend we had a couple of weddings to go to in Luke's hometown so we headed out on the road Friday afternoon.

We arrived in town just in time to get some of the best pizza ever. Because it was our anniversary weekend we decided that calories don't count and are non-existent.

Which would explain why we woke up on Saturday morning and headed to the donut shop to get some chocolate donut holes.

Later that afternoon we headed to the first wedding.

Here I am with my husband of one year after the wedding: Please forgive my husband's shirt. He literally un-tucks it between the ceremony and reception of EVERY wedding we go to, he acts like wearing a tucked in shirt is the most uncomfortable thing in the world. It's a good thing he doesn't have to do it for his job everyday!

After the first wedding we went home and changed for the second wedding. It was just a reception because the couple got married in Hawaii, so it was a very casual event.

I wore a new dress I got a F21 (yes I got over my bitterness towards them and I am shopping there again). I LOVE this dress. I wish I had it in every color! So cool and comfy. Just my style!

Today (Sunday) is our actual anniversary but it felt just like any other day. We decided not to get each other gifts because we are going on a trip, so instead we gave each other cards.

Luke's cards always make me cry, he always has the sweetest words, even though he has to read them to me because I can't read his writing!

After our cards we had a piece of our year old wedding cake.

My mom was in charge of storing the cake after the wedding and she took her job SERIOUSLY. She researched exactly how to store it so that it would taste the exact same as the day it was made.

It took me about 5 minutes just to get to the actual cake. There were several layers of foil. A picture of it after I unwrapped it:Inside the box the cake was wrapped even more, but we finally found it! It was so good! Really good! Luke had two pieces....I just hope we don't get sick tomorrow.

It was a great weekend! I am so thankful for the past year and thankful for my amazing husband!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Growing Up Is Hard To Do!

Yesterday my sweet, sweet husband informed me that I had gone over my allotted clothing allowance for this month.

To which I replied:

Oh. We are still doing that budget thing?

He was not amused. Not. At. All.

I understand that having a budget is an important thing.

And I understand that we are saving money for a house.

But c'mon, we are about to go on vacation and I need new vacation clothes!

I'm not the only one who gets new vacation clothes, right?

Why do boys not understand the need for new vacation clothes?

And it is July, which means it is almost August, which means it is almost time to go back to school shopping.

Oh wait, I'm an adult. I don't get to go back to school shopping anymore.

Growing up is hard, especially when it involves less shopping!

Dead Weight

It was during college that I really moved close to God. It was there that I learned what it was to experience a real relationship with Him and what it was like to know Him personally.

There were dry times, when I wasn’t as close to Him as other times, but I never strayed. I always maintained a personal relationship.

A year and a half after I graduated from college Luke and I got engaged and I was immediately thrown into this crazy engaged/wedding planning world. We set our date and I had 4 months to get everything ready.

Which, if you are familiar with the wedding world 4 months is not a whole lot of time. It was extremely stressful. My world suddenly became wedding, wedding, wedding, and everything else took a back seat.

And sadly, this included my relationship with God. So sad, but so true.

The wedding came and went and now I was a married woman. A wife to somebody.

A WIFE.

This was the biggest role in my life to date, and instead of spending time preparing for the spiritual aspects of becoming a wife I prepared for the outer aspects of becoming a wife.

During the engagement time I would ‘feel bad’ about not spending time with God, but I kept reminding myself I just needed to get through those four months and then I would pick up with God where I left Him. Ouch.

It did occur to me several times through those 4 months that maybe my life wouldn’t feel so chaotic if I spent a little more time with Him. Possibly, my tears weren’t tears of not knowing what color flowers to order, or crying because the guest list was about 200 more people then I thought it would be, but tears because I was missing a relationship that had been so vital.

After marriage it was not so easy to pick up right where I left off. Spending time with God did not come as easily to me as it once did, and suddenly I found myself relying on my husband to ‘handle’ all the spiritual aspects of our marriage.

I mean, he works in the church; he’s closer to God anyways right?

Wrong.

I can’t tell you what a strain it put on our relationship for me to put this kind of weight on my husband. It wasn’t fair, and it certaintly wasn’t necessary when I was well equipped to walk right along side him. I mean that was one of the main reasons he married me (aside from my witty charm of course).

So over the past couple of months I have been trying to pick up where I left off with God. I know that he never moved and I was the one who moved.

Luke does such an amazing job at leading our little family spiritually that it is so easy for me to sit back and let him handle all of the aspects of it, which is NOT how God intended it and is bascially pretty lazy on my part.

And lets face it, I really don't want to be a spiritually dead weight that Luke is dragging around. That would be no fun at all. Even if I do have Rocky-like-Jumping-roping-skillz.

Yet again another topic I wish there were books about.

I decided to Jump Rope

Sometimes I go through spurts where I just truly desire working out.

It is weird but it happens every so often, so when it comes I try and take full advantage of it.

This week has been one of those 'desire to work out weeks' so tonight after dinner I decided to pull out my ole trusty jump rope and burn a few calories. I was on a pretty good roll and took a minute to stop, open the front door and yell to Luke:

"Hey you should really come watch me, I have some swift-jump-roping-moves just like Rocky"

It was at this moment that I realized our next door neighbor who we have never spoken a word to after living by each other for a year, was standing outside her door was now looking at me.

So I of course broke the ice by saying:

"Hi, I decided to jump rope tonight"

To which she replied:

"Oh, cool"

I'm pretty sure we are on the road to becoming BFF.

After my strenuous, 5 minute workout with my jump rope I decided to go on a quick jog/run.

I started jogging outside and realized that the heating was kicking my butt so I jogged straight to the treadmills our apartment offers for free (a perk to living in the ole APT).

It seems that I always go through a season of life where I try to become a 'runner' but I always end up as a 'walker'. It is very frustrating to me.

It may be that I just don't have enough will-power but I think I have never gotten into the 'routine' of jogging (this does not count my freshman year when I was obsessed with it, this is post obsession)

So I have a question for all my friends that have found a good routine.

When do you like to do your jog/run?

Morning? Afternoon? Before dinner? After dinner?

In the past I have always done it after dinner, but sometimes I feel like it isn't the best time.

So what works for you?

Also, I HAD to stop and get a diet coke on the way home from work, but I let the ice melt so then it was like half water/half diet coke. So it still doesn't count right???

Weekly Weekend Update

This weekend was filled with a whole lot 'o' nothing.

Friday night Luke and I went on a date night. We went to one of our favorite local Italian restaurants because we had a $50 gift card. Nothing better than a free dinner with the hubs!

Then we rented Benjamin Button. I am sad to say that I fell asleep halfway through the movie.

For some reason on weekdays when I go to bed I sit there WIDE AWAKE until around 2am but on Friday's I ALWAYS fall asleep around 10:30. So weird.

Saturday was filled with shopping, jogging and trying not to think about Diet Coke.

For some reason in the past year I went from a diet coke every now and then, maybe 3 times a week, all the way to 2-3 DC's a day. Something is seriously wrong with that amount of consumption of Diet Coke.

So in an effort to get the ole metabolism back up and kicking I thought I would try and get rid of the diet coke habit.

I have only gone crazy a couple of times. Including a stint in the kitchen where I debated whether I should run to the local convenience store to get a quick diet coke fix, back and forth back and forth for about 10 minutes until I finally just grabbed my purse, sunglasses and keys and told Luke I would be right back as I went flying out the door like a mad woman.

I made it all the way to the car, when I then decided it was ridiculous and I could go one day without a sip of a diet coke.

When I walked back inside Luke simply rolled his eyes at me. He understands and embraces my craziness.

The good news is I did find a month old diet coke in the back of the fridge that had about a tablespoon of liquid left.

It was disgusting.

And a quick shout out to all my Harry Potter peeps, I totally love the first book. I am almost done with it and I can't wait to read the rest of the series, I heard it just gets better and better.

I couldn't decide what system I wanted to use while reading the books I had 2 choices:

1. Read the series all the way through and then watch the movies all the way through
OR
2. Read the first book watch the first movie read the second book watch the second movie and so on.

I think I decided to go with option 2. Any thoughts on this?

Hope you had a great weekend!

Because we all love Randomness

1. This weekend is our first weekend in 4 weeks to not be out of town. I don't remember what it is like to be at our apartment on a Saturday morning.

2. For our anniversary my MIL gave me this great Vera Bradley bag. It will be perfect for our Disney trip. I had no idea other people gave you gifts on your anniversary but I will take it!
3. I watched '16 and pregnant' last night and cried the whole time. They are so many emotions involved in adopting.

4. It is 80 degrees outside. Somebody get me a parka and some earmuffs. I don't know how to handle this.

5. I joined a social site for Mom's about a year ago because they had a message board devoted to gossip about Jon and Kate and I wanted the scoop that bad.

6. I have officially started Harry Potter. Hopefully I like it better than Twilight. So far I do not seem to be a fan of the supernatural world.

7. I have been having the craziest dreams lately. I'm talking weird weird.

8. I am going to try and not eat any sugar during the week and reserve it only for the weekends. This will be the greatest test of self-control EVER.

9. I loved reading all of your comments on yesterday's post. It seems that so many of you were in the same boat as me and we wish that annoying questions would just disappear!

10. Hope you have a great weekend!

Waiting While Dating

There was a time when I felt like God was calling me to write a book.

I have said it many times before but I will say it again, Luke and I dated a long time before we got engaged. Five years to be exact.

For some reason there is a huge misconception in the Christian world. The misconception is that if two God following believers are dating then they should get married ASAP. I don't know where this misconception came from, or why it developed but it happens and we fell victim to this misconception many times.

The very first year we started dating (we were 19) I had a couple of people just assume that we were getting married that next year. This happened to scare the heck out of a young Indian boy who shall remain nameless for this story.

So here I was 4 years later still dating the same boy and still not married, so I went out on search for a book to help me get through my trying time. Man life was stressful.

Alas, after searching countless book selections I found that there was no book devoted to Waiting While Dating (that would have been the title of my book).

There were books for girls waiting for a man, there were books about staying pure while dating, there were books for engaged couples, and there were books for married couples but there were no books for people who were dating, but still waiting for God's timing.

It may seem silly but at the time it was a very big and real deal to me.


So I decided that God was calling me to write this book.

So I truly attempted to write this book.

I never got past the first chapter.

Not because I got engaged, no, that did not happen for another year or so, I never got past the first chapter because I realized that maybe it wasn't God that was calling me to write the book. Maybe I was just wanting to get a point out, and I didn't need to write a whole book for this one point.

Do not ask a girl when she is getting married, or why she hasn't gotten married yet. That is something that is between the two people dating, and the one thing they do know is to trust God. To you it may seem like just one quesion but you may be the fifth person that week that has asked her that quesion and asking her isn't helping things, its pretty much just annoying.

That would have been my book, Waiting While Dating. I still love the title.

Yesterday a couple of you mentioned that you were going to 'steal' my idea and do a picture for every month for your anniversary. Don't worry it wasn't my idea, I stole it from Steph! She did it and I loved it! So steal away! :-)

A Year In Pictures

I cannot believe that this our anniversary month. At times it seems like this year has flown by, and at other times it feels like I have been married to Luke forever....in a good way of course!!

I'm not one to get all mushy in public, but I have to say that Luke is the most amazing, patient, laid back, fun, husband ever and I never would have thought that I deserved somebody like him.

Our actual anniversary isn't until the end of the month, but I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the last year and see what we have been up to each month. One picture for every month.


July:
Ready to get married, marriage license in hand!!!! Which by the way if anybody has seen our marriage license please let us know where it is, we can't find it!

August:
The last part of our honeymoon was spent the first week in August. It was the best trip. Our very first trip all alone. I was a little afraid that we would get lost or stuck in Mexico, but alas we made it out alive and still married! Woo hoo!September:
Just learning to get into the swing of things. Luke was quickly picking up my facial expressions (side note, look how long my hair was!!!! Why oh why did I cut it)October:
Homecoming at our Alma Mater where I happen to work. This was my first big event to plan, and I survived it! Luke came up and volunteered at the event. Such a good hubby!November:
In Mississippi for a football game. It was coooooooooollllllllld.December:
Tacky Sweater Christmas Party. These are both my mom's sweaters. January:
Our photographer used one of our wedding pictures in a state bridal magazine, it came out in January.February:
Celebrating Luke's birthday!March:
Trip to Red River, New Mexico
April:
Trip to Washington DC
May:
Battle of the Band's where Luke's band got first place.

June:
Me and my cute love!July:
This past weekend at the wedding.So there it is, a full year of Luke and Megan. This was fun to look back at the past year at all that we have done. I am so thankful for my husband and all of the ways that God has blessed us this past year.

Feet and Big Brother

It is with great joy that I let you know that twelve people googled the phrase, 'make ugly feet look good' and it brought them to my blog.

For some reason the good Lord gave me ugly feet and I never knew why, but now I feel like they serve a purpose on this earth.

I never knew what the purpose was of my ugly feet, but now I know it is to help others accept and love their unfortunate feet, as we come together and try to figure out how to make them look good.

Which I have realized is impossible, no amount of foot lotion and no beautiful color of polish could make these feet look good.

Apparently I blog about my feet alot because the 11th most googled phrase to get to my blog is: Toenail Trauma. First of all what is going on in America that people are having to google Toenail Trauma? Mine was a story about cutting about my own leg with my own big toenail which is completely normal. What else is going on out there......

In other non-feet-related news, I can now officially quit complaining about summer TV. July is here and that only means one beautiful and magical thing. BIG BROTHER IS BACK BABY!!!!!

Big Brother is my absolute and most favorite reality show ever, even beating out the women of New Jersey who I have come to love so much.

I can honestly, and sadly proclaim that I have watched every season of Big Brother. There was only one season that I didn't watch it in its entirety and that was because I was in the hospital getting my lung glued to my chest wall. I think we can let that season slide. However, I did tune in for the end of the season, even though I can't tell you who won.

I also had the pleasure of getting Luke completely hooked on this show. It happened the third summer of relationship and he has never turned back.

In fact last week I didn't even tell him that Big Brother was premiering, I felt like it was a special little surprise I could give him. So at 7:00 on Thursday night I turned to CBS and there was Julie Chen in front of us in all of her glory. He seriously squealed like a little girl. BIG BROTHER IS BACK BABY!!!!!

It's the little things in life.

Or in this case the ridiculous and scandalous things in life.

Whatever works.

*For those who asked I got the dress in the pictures on yesterday's post at Maurices and the shirt at Forver 21, yes I said I was going to quit shopping there, but who was I kidding? That shirt was like $12, who could pass that up?*

Weekly Weekend Update

I always get a little sad for Weekly weekend Updates. It means that the weekend is over!

Like most other weekends this summer, our weekend officially kicked off on Thursday night. Thursday night we packed up and headed to my hometown. Luke was meeting his band to practice for a couple of hours so I naturally hung out with my family. I got to spend lots of time loving on Maxton, who would clearly rather love on the animals than me:Friday night Luke's band had a show at the River Walk. It was a really neat set-up and lots of friends and family came out and joined us for the night. I hope his band gets to play there again next year!

My handsome rockstar husband:

One of my blogging friends Lindsey came out with her husband Ty. He took this picture for us. It was his idea to put the band in the background. We thought it turned out great!Some of the friends that joined us for the night:

Kara and Gabe with their cute little boy Isaiah (Kara is holding Maxton) The Heatly Fam:My Fam: (minus Haley)Saturday Luke's cousin got married so we got all dressed up in about 1128 degrees and went to a wedding. It is hard to feel cute when you are sweating profusely, and I don't even sweat!

Maybe I do sweat, because every time I say something about sweating, I have to follow it up with, "and I don't even sweat!" Maybe its time to retire that statement. So sad.

Inside before we walked out into the inferno:The Tree Fam:

I grew up with a family that is primarily girls. I never ever knew it was so difficult to get boys to take a picture. All I wanted was a cute picture to use for their Christmas card. I was sorely outnumbered on wanting to do this. My sisters usually jump at the chance to have their picture taken.Saturday night we headed back home. I get so sad when our weekends end on Saturday night. But I am thankful that we had a great weekend with family and friends!

Hope you had a great weekend!