GUESS WHAT?!?!?

PROOFS ARE UP! (the 2nd set)
YAY!!!!!!!

I seriously couldn't be more happy! And it couldn't be at a worse time.

I have a HUGE deadline at work (took a 2 minute break to post this) so I can't PLAY with my pictures right now! I am not posting them until I have the actual negatives because my maneuvering doesn't do Kim the justice she deserves. She did an incredible job!

But I will give you another sneak peek (understanding of course that this image is distorted from my manipulation).

Now I can be happy!

Whew, where did the weekend go?

Since I don't have any wedding pictures to post, STILL, I'll just bore you with my busy weekend.
I went to an office friend's birthday dinner Friday night. Matt went to Atlanta to our nephew's 2nd birthday party. I stopped at Blockbuster on the way home and rented girly movies that I would otherwise not get to see- P.S. I Love You and What Happens in Vegas (is that the name?). I fell asleep pretty early on in P.S. I Love You but I'd read the book so I wasn't upset that I missed anything and would have to try again Saturday.
I got up pretty early and went to Home Depot. Miss Xena has become quite the wanderer.


She has been disappearing into the woods for 15 minutes at a time. So, tired of arriving late to work in the mornings and freaking out at night, I decided to "build a fence". It's one of those little iron garden fences- she won't put any effort into getting through it- she just needs something to block her way. They didn't have any black ones, just green and pink so I bought some spray paint too. It took me all weekend but it's up. We'll see if it works!

After spending the entire morning spray painting (my glasses lenses, my fingernails, my forehead, etc) and not being anywhere near finished with my "fence", I decided to go watch the UA vs. LSU game at the Henderson's. Wow, was I nervous. I mean, being #1 the week before going into THAT stadium was not exactly what I would call ideal. BUT, they managed to win. ROLL TIDE!!!

On another Bama note, People has a photo of Sara Evans and Eva Longoria (theirs is without Jay) at the game last week. (Most of you probably won't see it in People unless you have a subscription because it has Obama on the cover and you wouldn't have purchased it.) They were wearing #7 Bama jerseys with Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Barker on the back. I have to admit when I saw the email picture floating around last week (see below), I was kind of impressed with being in Bryant Denny with Gabby Solis...but the writers at People are idiots- I mean, do your research PEOPLE! They captioned the photo they used with "sporting Alabama wide receiver Will Oakley's number". OK- maybe it is Oakely's number now, but that isn't exactly why they are wearing the #7 jersey!!! Geez.


Sunday I helped give a baby shower for my friend April. Her little fella's name is Trent. I ordered the cake from Batter Up and was so nervous that it wouldn't look as good as a Cake Designs cake. But they (unlike Cake Designs) did EXACTLY what I asked for; it matched her invitation PERFECTLY and the white cake with cream cheese icing was SO YUMMY! I will definitely use them again!

Beth made the diaper cake centerpiece- isn't it fabulous?


My only regret is that if I had known about that CUTE fabric, I would have had them do the T in baby blue to go with Beth's centerpiece fabric instead of the aqua stripe in the invitation.
Isn't April looking WONDERFUL???

This week will be WORK, WORK, WORK, checking for proofs, and painting the rest of the fence!

Have a great one!!!

P.S. Matt is home safely and Football has taken the TV back! I sure did miss him!

Miraculous

I just wanted to encourage everyone to read Jay Wolf's journal entry on Katherine's Caring Bridge site from 10.29.08 if you haven't read it yet. I've known from the beginning that her survival was a true modern day miracle, but the details of the surgery confirm it. The link is in my blog list section.
God is so good!

BOO!

We had a great time at the now annual Halloween bash at the Steen's.

They go all out for this party and it is worth it!

Matt and I went as Colts. He was Receiver #11 Anthony Gonzalez and I was a (much more covered up) Colts Cheerleader.

The food table is probably my favorite part of the decor. There were Eyeballs (Sweet and Sour Meatballs) Bat shaped chicken salad sandwiches, Brains (jello mold), ghosts (white chocolate nutter butters), "finger" cookies and carrots, snakes (ham crossaints) jello shots, and some pregnancy friendly punch (there were quite a few soon to be mommies there).

There were some fabulous costumes. Everyone gets so creative. Elvis and Priscilla came, Mickey and Minnie, The guys from Talladega Nights, "Miss" Talladega (she was preggo) Julian McPhillips- "the People's Lawyer", the Geico Caveman, Snow White, an outlet and a plug, a cartoon character milkshake, a VERY pregnant bride, a pregnant "Miss Elmore County" in a full length gown, the Tooth Fairy, Twister, Jailer and an Elmore County Prisoner.

My favorite couple of the night was Matt's "dear" friend, Jason Head...he came as MATT ALFREDS and Lindsey was Peyton Manning because Matt is his biggest fan! Jason wore a UK hat to symbolize Matt's love for KY basketball over a "bald" cap and he painted a beard. He also carried the Alabama hugger from our wedding since we are Alabama football fans and wore a suit and tie like Matt's wedding suit and tie. His opening line was "Go Cats, Roll Tide, Drink UP...here's my card". (Matt is a DUI defense atty but doesn't ask people to drink up I promise)

I was in tears! Matt handled it well, it was a complete surprise though!

Here is a picture of Matt on our wedding day:

Isn't that hilarious?

We got up this morning (very carefully) and went to Tuscaloosa for the Homecoming game against Arkansas State. A 35-0 victory for the Tide (thank goodness!). And Texas just lost....will we be #1???? Good gracious, if we are I hope our boys just noticed how fast #1 can fall...

Matt and I after the game:

Mama and I:

Still waiting on proofs...

Waiting ... Patiently!

Still waiting on our reshoot proofs. I must say that this has been a much easier wait (since we have seen our first set of proofs). I haven't had much time to blog lately, I've been working a good bit of overtime.

We've been enjoying the football season so far. The Colts have had a rough start and we thought they turned it around last week and then today's game happens. What the heck is wrong with 'em??? At least the Tide are not breaking our hearts. Yesterday's game against Ole Miss was tough to bear- the 2nd half anyway! Geez.

This was at the first Alabama home game vs. Tulane, not a thriller but it was fun! Matt asked if I was pulling for Georgia when we left the house. I tried to explain, there aren't that many cute options in Crimson.

I finally got some time to take a quick trip to Headland to see some really cute kids...

Emme had her first taste of PEARS while I was there.

Eb decided he had some major work to catch up on Saturday afternoon. He had all of the neighbor kids in tow! (and their Yorkie)

Emme supervised...

Sunday lunch at Cracker Barrel after church. It was such good family time.

I promised a Honeymoon blog not too long ago, and I will get to it eventually...I was sorta waiting until after the final wedding blog to do the honeymoon.

I must also add that my pictures are well worth the wait. Our photographer really is something special and I DO highly recommend her to everyone!!! It's not her fault I don't have much patience. Not too long ago I would have prayed for patience; BUT recently some ladies I was speaking with about praying for patience informed me that I would be asking God for a test in patience if that is what I prayed for. Is that TRUE??? It's hard enough for me to wait for anything as it is...

Sneak Peek

Well, it's official!

I am now Mrs. Alfreds!!! Yippee!!!

I didn't want to post snapshots, I'd rather wait for the professional photos, but that seems to be taking an eternity to happen! Not to mention that due to Fay, we are having to do Day After shots for the outdoor pictures. Maybe we will have those by Christmas!!!

So...I thought I would post some sneak peeks here to at least update the blog!

This is a shot from our "after rehearsal dinner" (there was no formal rehearsal- who needed one for no wedding party???) given by Matt's parents at Wynlakes. It was beautiful and the food (what little I could eat) was FAB. I was so incredibly NERVOUS because HE was nervous! Otherwise, it would have been a cakewalk!! MR. Big and Carrie didn't do me any favors either- Rhea told me not to go see that movie and I went anyway!

Notice the pearls...I had purchased what I had been told was an authentic pair of 60 inch baroque pearls from ebay for $30!!! The guy at the jewelry store told me they were real freshwater pearls. Which meant they had ridges in them- not ideal but for $30 who could beat it??? I was SO proud.

WELL...my surprisingly romantic fiance who KNEW what I was doing when I purchased what I lovingly referred to as my "Ebay pearls" takes me aside at the dinner and CUTS THEM OFF OF ME with a butcher knife from the kitchen!!! OMG!!! Freaked out! He immediately replaces them with a pair of the most BEE-U-TEE-FUL pair of smooth 60 inch pearls from Cronier's- not ebay!!! What a guy! He has never purchased ANY jewelry for me in the 5 years we have been together (until my ring) KNOWING full well how much I LOVE IT!

Sweet huh? Needless to say, most of my nerves vanished at that point. I mean, would someone that wasn't going to show up at the church do something like that???

Here is a shot of the inside of Children's Harbor Chapel (no outside shots obviously due to the torrential rain-trees were falling). Jackie Gaut from Dana's Floral Design is FABULOUS! Highly recommend her for ANYTHING you need! So creative and such a joy to work with!

Close up of the wreaths (a little fuzzy):

And this is my bouquet:

Best part is...it will look JUST LIKE THIS FOREVER! (another fuzzy)...Which comes in very handy now that I have to redo pictures!!!

On to the Reception...

This is my table of "signature" drinks, Yummy Pomegranate Martinis (thanks for the introduction, Jennifer) :

I must add that the flowers above were from the Rehearsal Dinner and were provided by Al of Al's in Cloverdale. Thanks Rhea!

Up next...YUMMY cakes from Peggy McKinney of McKinney Cakes:

The bride's cake was a recreation of the design on my Swoozies reception invitation.
Didn't she do a great job? And it was OH SO GOOD!

Matt's Cake:

The top layer was his favorite yellow cake and the bottom was the crowd pleaser McKinney peanut butter fudge!!!

Here are the John Bonham replica drums that were on his table:

And finally, the basketball game that I purchased so that the guys would have something fun to do- it was a hit, lines waiting to shoot all night!:

They could also play corn-hole (?), a.k.a. tailgate toss with Matt's new Colt's wooden game and poker if they wanted.

There were also many GREAT photos taken in the make a memory polaroid section:

Anyway...until I get better shots, this is it!!!

Next up...HONEYMOON!

Uno, dos, tres!!

Hola Amigos!

3 days to go!!!(was that all Spanish up there or a mix of Spanish and French? I took both and tend to mix them since I never mastered either)

Can you believe it?

I can hardly contain myself!

THREE days until I am Mrs. Matt Alfreds!

Woo wee!

ABOUT LAST WEEKEND...

Went to Birmingham this past weekend...

this is how it ended:

Poor Whitney! I sabotaged my own weekend! The five of us took 1 car to Bham. Before we got ready to go out, I decided it would be best to go ahead and blow up my air mattress. It, of course, would not blow up in the room, so I had to go to the car and use the car adapter. WELL, I took Whitney's keys while she was in the shower, ran to the car with Robyn, and attempted to move the car closer to the hotel- so they would not see me blowing up the mattress since we said there would be 4 guests rather than 5! I stuck the key in the ignition, nothing. Tried and tried.

Uh oh, wrong key- it was Whitney's hubby's DODGE key! So, simple enough, I put Whitney's Trailblazer key in...NOTHING! Many attempts later, we read the manual. GUESS WHAT? There was a security function that DISABLES the fuel system if the wrong key is inserted or the ignition is "tampered" with! YES... I single-handedly disabled Whitney's fuel system. Which was SUPPOSED to reset itself after 10 minutes. TWO hours later, locksmith arrives. He is so young that he can't even grow facial hair! He "looks" at the car, proceeds to read the exact section of the manual to us that we have read NUMEROUS times. I let him know we managed to read it ourselves, prior to calling for help. GOH! SO, 2 more hours later we settle for a tow and a cabbie named Bruce! Such a nice guy! We missed dinner at Twenty-six, settled for the hotel bar...

THEN... we went to the Rare Martini courtesy of Mr. Bruce and had a BLAST!

What is it with me and THE BAND????

Whitney's car wasn't towed until Sunday morning-we caught a ride with a couple we knew that just happened to be celebrating their anniversary and had a Tahoe...7 sets of luggage, seven adults, lots of Summit loot and we are on our way home!!!

WOW! I need a vaca- fo sure!

Can't wait to see my peeps Saturday!!!