Christmas Cookies & Wedding Cakes...

Well, it's certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I spent the day baking Christmas cookies with my mom, sister-in-law, and cousin. We ended up making over 5 different types of cookies (and maybe sampling a few too!) As you can see my mom has quite the collection of old aprons and we've made it a tradition to wear them whenever we bake...it's kinda fun!



Now for the wedding updates...for those of you who don't know, I've decided to wear my Grandma's wedding dress for our wedding. My Grandma Adeline is my Mom's Mom who wore the dress in 1943 for she and my Grandpa's wedding. My Mom and I went to play BINGO with my Grandma a couple weeks back and I asked her permission to wear her dress. She teared up and said "Yes!" I was so happy!

We will do some alterations on the dress to make it a better fit for my style but overall I intend for it to stay as close as possible to its original style! I'm very excited to see the final product!

The same (awesome) woman who will be altering my dress is also making our wedding cakes (yes, we're back to the idea of cakes instead of cupcakes). She asked Paul & I to put together a list of some of our favorite cake flavors...wow...ok...we can do that! I'm excited to see what she comes up with as we've given her some "creative freedom" on the actual cake design.

On the "girly side" of things...I've been working with some former classmates to organize hair stylists for the bridesmaids for the morning of the wedding. I've also ordered and received all the bridesmaids' dresses which is nice to have checked off the list!

While looking at jewelry for the bridesmaids, I had a change of "vision" (oh, how dramatic, huh?) for the wedding color scheme. Originally I had been leaning toward a pink & green color scheme....but now I've settled on a green, blue, ivory, brown scheme. I asked Paul how he felt about my new idea and he said "It will all look brown to me" (due to being partially colorblind)...which I then interpreted to mean "I love it, Kendra!"...Oh, it's nice to have such an agreeable fiance! ha!

Paul is working on deciding what meal will be served at the reception of our wedding. The reception site has a big menu that we can select from and with so many weddings lately, we've been able to sample many of their menu items ahead of time. We hope you all end up enjoying the meal....and cake...and overall, just the whole day! (but if not, then at least you know who to blame for the meal selection! - kidding!)

I finish up my last final exam of the semester this week and then we can focus on enjoying the Christmas season AND getting this wedding planned! It's now less than 6 months away!

Thanks for checking in!
K&P

PS: Did I mention I have another cousin that got engaged? Just last week! Congrats Jake & Gina!

Bye, Bye, Bye...

Update: Paul read the post....and the boy-band, pop songs have been removed...dang.

Probably for the best!

Weddy, Set, Go!

How often do we begin by apologizing for not posting often enough? Too many times...and today won't be different. So, here it is....Sorry. Ok, now let's move on!

This Saturday will mark the start of the "6 months until our wedding count down". I know you all have that marked on your calendars and have been anxiously awaiting it. Well, rest assured...it's almost here!

Hmm...what kind of updates do we have for you today? Well, I will be ordering the bridesmaids' dresses tomorrow, which is pretty exciting...mostly because I was actually able to convince 9 very different ladies that they'll "just love" this dress. I rock! (Now, fingers crossed that they actually will!) I will definitely be happy to have that crossed off the old wedding planning list.

We started our wedding registry...which is pretty fun but also difficult. Our house is not very big...and some of those "small" kitchen appliances just may end up being stored in Paul's closet. (Sorry Paul - ha!)

I've spent several evenings, playing songs on YouTube to try to get our list of wedding songs together. The scene usually plays out like this...

Paul: (while watching football) "Go, Go, Go....NOOOOOOOOOOOO..."
Kendra: "Hey Paulo...do you like this song?"
(song plays loudly over the sound of football announcers)
Paul: (leaning in to hear the announcers) "Yeah...it's nice."
Kendra: "Ok, it's on the list."

I then proceed to add numerous boy-band, pop songs to the list. One of the 2 following things will happen as a result....

1) Paul will read this post and promptly ask me to remove these songs from the list
OR
2) He won't and we'll walk down the aisle to something by N'sync, like maybe this....



Boy, you're in for a show!

Paul & I recently booked our trip to Jamaica for our friends Ryan & Stacy's wedding in January! We're very excited for Ryan & Stacy...and to have such a great excuse to hit the beaches during a MN winter!

I have 3 weeks of class left, 2 huge presentations and a final exam. BUT, after that...it's wedding planning boot-camp. We've got to get the bulk of everything nailed down (tight!) so by the time I head into second semester, we're good as gold or at least solid as silver....we'll take what we can get.

The picture of us, above, is from Thanksgiving! (Thanks Dennis!)

Thanks for checking in!
K&P

PS: Hope you're ready...Paul's been practicing some pretty crazy dance moves lately...who knows what kind of choreographed routine he'll work up in the next 6 months? Just consider yourself warned. (He's going to love this post! - ha!)

The Wedding Party!

TWO posts in ONE day....what's going on!?!? Ha! I've been told by some disgruntled followers (my coworkers!) that we need to get better at updating the blog more often....so we're working on it! You'd think that seeing me 5 out of 7 days a week would be enough....some people!!

So, let's talk wedding...it's time to meet Our Wedding Party!

The Ladies...

Matrons of Honor:
Joleen (Kendra's sister)
Lynn (Kendra's sister)

Bridesmaids:
Kara (Kendra's sister-in-law)
Megan (Paul's sister)
Gina (Kendra's cousin)
Sarah (Kendra's cousin)
Traci (Kendra's college friend & teammate)
Amber (Kendra & Paul's good friend)

Flower Girl(s):
Madison (Kendra's niece)
Baby M. (if a girl!)

Personal Attendants:
Natalie (Kendra's college friend & teammate)
Krista (Kendra's college friend & teammate)
Gretchen (Kendra's cousin)

The Men...

Best Man:
John (Paul's good friend)

Groomsmen:
Matt (Paul's good friend)
Pete (Paul's good friend)
Chuck (Paul's good friend)
Mark (Paul's brother-in-law)
Chris (Kendra's brother-in-law & Paul's good friend)
Jeff (Kendra's brother)
Eric (Kendra's brother)
Jesse (Kendra's brother-in-law)

Ring Bearers:
Joey (Paul's nephew)
Brady (Kendra's nephew)
Benjamin (Kendra's nephew)
Baby M. (if a boy!)

Ushers:
Kyle (Kendra's cousin)
Brian (Paul's cousin)


That's 29, counting Paul & I!! Sounds like the perfect wedding party to us!

Ta-Da!

Our house is (almost) done!!! I hate to say it's completely done because frankly, it seems as though it will NEVER be completely done! However, I can say confidently that this particular project is about 99% done! I've included some before & after pictures in this post! We're pretty proud! Seriously, sometimes I go outside just to sneak another peek of it - ha!

Thanks again to all of our friends & family who helped us get this massive project done!

House Update #2

Hey all,

Again, my posting is delayed, but for good reason! Paul & I (with the help of many friends & family) have accomplished much in the last couple of weeks.

We're so close to finishing up our house remodel!! (Phewf!) After the first weekend in November, we should be completely finished! Check out the updated pic I've included in this post. We are only waiting on the new shutters we ordered, one more window in the front, some trim and the new gutters! We can't wait to be finished!

Last weekend, we also celebrated Paul's 32nd birthday....by doing work on our house! Lucky guy! We did break early so we could enjoy a huge feast of Mexican food, cocktails and fun with a bunch of friends and family!

Paul & I are just about 7 months away from our wedding and have much to do yet! We're planning on finishing up the house first, then refocusing our efforts back to the wedding planning. I do think we'll begin the great "dress hunt" in the next month, which will make for some fun times for all the women involved in the wedding!

We're looking forward to a quieter weekend of handing out Halloween candy and perhaps eating some ourselves too! Back to working on the house the following weekend and hopefully wrapping it all up then...just in time for winter!

Hope you are all doing well!

Happy Halloween,
K&P

Old House, New Tricks!

Well, where have we been? Didn't I say I was going to try harder to update the blog more frequently?? hmm....well, allow me to explain...

This past weekend, Paul & I started our HUGE home renovation project! Now, some of you may be saying "But Paul & Kendra don't know how to remodel a home...", well you're right...we don't....BUT our family does! We're so fortunate to have the help of many skilled handymen (and women), cleaner-uppers, and cooks who helped make our weekend go more smoothly!

We aren't done yet, but we got a good start. We now have 4 of the 8 new windows installed, 1 of the 3 new doors, and about 1/4 of the house sided. We'll continue on with the efforts this next weekend and if there's still more to finish, we'll continue the following weekend. After that, we'll get new gutters put on our house too! Our goal is to have the outside of our house completed before Halloween so we can hand out candy together on our first Halloween in our newly remodeled home!

If you haven't heard - this weekend it also began to snow in MN! This morning we woke up to even more snow that continued ALL day, so we may be wearing our snow boots next weekend as we work on the house! Such timing, we have!

We hope everyone is enjoying Fall (without snow!)....We'll post some "AFTER" pics of the house when it's ready!

Stay warm,
K&P