15 Day Challenge: [Day 9]

[Day 9]: Describe the best day of your life to date.
So, there is really no way for me to widdle my life down to one best day. Thus, you will get a few (they are in no certain order) :)
#1Definitely the day my hubby asked me out. We had gone to see our church's Youth Music and Drama's production of Les Misérable and IHOP afterwards. We had ridden together with his sister and brother-in-law to both places which landed us back at their place around 11 pm. I'm not really sure how the conversation started, but Ben and I had a good hour and a half long convo standing outside our vehicles. I will never forget how as we hugged to say goodnight, he held on to me and asked me to be his girlfriend. That made for the best day ever and it started at 1230 AM :)
#2Our wedding day

SO. MUCH. FUN. (not to mention I have the sweetest :) can't you tell by that pic?)

We had plenty of laughs (I handed our pastor a ring pop as Ben's ring at first and it got the best expression, caught by our photographer), some sweet, sweet moments, and a lot of fun dancing away. Then we drove off in his awesome '87 GMC Sierra Classic (also a great moment our photographer captured) and headed for our Honeymoon. Oh and by the way, if you have a wedding in Baton Rouge, The Gatehouse sets you up for reals! Great job on everything AND they send you away with awesome food. Ben and I were sad we couldn't bring the leftovers on our flight with us :( Ahhh...special day. Married my best friend, which still amazes me considering we had only known each other for a little under 2 years by that point.

#3

March 13, 2012. Funny how when not pressed for the date I can remember it but anytime I call the peds office I stumble :) That would be the day sweet Zoë Grace graced us with her presence. I'll never forget the doctor holding her up and saying "It's a girl!" Funny I remember those words sounding really slow because I feared being one of those people who had planned for a girl after a sonogram saying such only to be told it's a boy in the delivery room. She was (and still is and always will be) so precious to me!

Here she is just minutes out of the oven :) Love my baby girl so much!

And there you have the three best days of my life thus far. I'm sure I will add to them but I'm also sure I could never just pick one.

The Wind of Excitement

Yes, it is quite exciting in my life right now. I just bought the bubbles for the wedding and counting down the days make my smile larger and cheeks rosier (yes, I blush quite easily). There is nothing in the world that would stop me from marrying Ben.

I say this only because as Ben and I were eating dinner at my parents last night, my dad decided to pop the most random question: "So do you guys want to back out? Cuz after this point there is no turning back." Oh if you only knew my father. He wasn't being 100% serious but at the same time, I think he was trying to scare Ben, make sure Ben really wants to take this on as a man. Apparently, both our faces showed complete bewilderment due to the unstoppable laughter which bubbled out of my mother. She said we both had the same expression, which in her words was, "What kind of question is that?".

Ben and I have discussed a lot together, drawing us closer and uniting our team more. Knowing that I will be marrying my best friend in 40 days only to begin the rest of our lives together is extremely exciting to me. I have had several people ask me if I'm ready or if I'm scared, and honestly, I'm not. I don't know if it's because of the fights Ben and I have worked through or the strength in our communication, but whatever the reason, I have no ifs, ands, or buts about saying "I do".

I believe it is safe to say that after 9 months of dating and 9 months of engagement, I am spending my last month as a single woman with my "head in the clouds" or "on cloud nine". Ironically, I have spent little time in that "feeling of floating" place. And it scared me quite a bit as people kept talking only of how exciting dating was or how everything was "just dandy" and they hardly fought. Looking back, I am glad it happened this way. Ben and I have such a strong foundation that most people build in their first year of marriage. Thus, I'm hoping our first year will be what most people experience during their engagement.

No matter what, I'm excited about coming home and knowing my best friend will be there!

The dress is out...portraits are Monday :)

I am THRILLED!! I am currently letting the train of my dress down so it can hopefully pull a few wrinkles out before Monday. What is Monday?

Bridal Portraits (and day 54 on the countdown :D)!

I am getting so excited just thinking about being married to Ben. Everyone keeps asking us "where are you going to live?" and "what is he going to be doing?", which are both hard questions to hear right now because we have no answer.Waiting on God's timing has never seemed more difficult, especially due to the fact we wish it was already completely planned out. Yet despite all the difficulties we are facing right now, I'm glad it has not dimmed the excitement of the moment.

Plus, so many people talk about how the first year of marriage is the hardest because it changes the dynamics and because the engagement is usually spent with your head in the clouds. Although I'm sure Ben and I will definitely encounter some difficulties, I can honestly say that we have worked through so many differences over the past year and worked hard on our communication, our first year of marriage will probably be similar to the "head in the clouds" effect most people experience in the engagement. It makes me excited thinking about it, mainly because I have sought counsel from many people who expereienced a lot of fighting throughout the engagement as Ben and I have and they have all said their first year was great. Not without its difficulties, but not what most people experience.

I do have to say I'm beginning to think it is the only positive to a long engagement. Neither Ben nor I wanted a long engagement originally, but then he decided "why wait?". I have actually been an advocate against it, even after we got engaged. But the longer it is and the more we have worked through and experienced together, I have found that the time together has been a great asset to our relationship.

Anyway, all this to expound on thoughts I am continually chewing as my bridal portraits are coming up and the countdown is getting mighty low on the number scale!!!

If you happen to think of us, please, please pray we will continue to trust and follow God's guidance as we are waiting for Him to open the door with one of the jobs Ben has applied for. Also, please be praying for living quarters. We are pretty certain we know where we will live if we have yet to hear of a permanent job for Ben, it's just working out the logistics, taking the time for everything to work out and waiting on God's timing.

My Prince Charming

Yes, he is completely 100% MY Prince Charming. He didn't come with perfection, but I love him just the same with all his imperfections. I know in my last post I hopped on my soap box with tiring of etiquette and what people think of it. I love the comment my sister left. And I completely agree (thanks, Linds)!

And with that, Benjamin and I have completely enjoyed planning this past week. We have weeded through several different tunes, some of which I don't even know why people would use as a reception song. It was a lot of fun just listening to the crappy, fun, "why on earth do you want a song talking about this at your wedding" tunes. It was a great stress reliever and, although I had yet to read my sis' comment, a great reminder of this is OUR wedding. And whether or not someone else would do exactly what we have planned, it is what we want to do to celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives together.

We also have ordered the invitations.....and I am SOOOOO excited about them! First of all, I was able to get something I really, really liked, which was not originally how I was going to pick. Price ruled my thoughts, thus I wouldn't even allow myself to look at something if it was overbudgeted. Then I realized, along with Benjamin, we were not going to have to order as many invitations as we thought originally. With that in mind, Laura, our wedding coordinator, told us to start from the beginning. "I don't think you picked any of these because you just loved them," she said, "Let's go through this again. You shouldn't have to think about whether you like it. This is a flip through because you're supposed to love it right when you see it."

So we started glancing at the invite samples as Laura quickly flipped through pages. There were a couple we like but they were waaay too expensive, and she agreed. So we kept flipping. We made it through one book without really just loving anything out of it. So she pulled out another and began flipping through that. About half-way through, she had barely flipped a page when we all made a statement about it at the same time: "OH WOW! I really like that one!" I said, "Hey, what about that one?" Ben said, and Laura, with her fingering pointing at the design said, "This is really pretty. Oh and look at the way the worded the invite to the reception." Needless to say, those are the invites she sent the order out for yesterday.

I'm just loving how everything is falling into place and am so excited and building with anticipation as the day is drawing near. I just am enthralled that I am going to be spending the rest of my life with my best friend. I know I'm currently on cloud nine with my realization of doing what we want for the wedding and the idea of being with him every day, but I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I am not disillusioned into thinking we will never fight, we won't have our hard moments, its going to be "happily, ever after". Trust me, we've already had a couple nasty fights and had to come together to work through them. But as awful as I feel after, and I know he's apologized and told me he feels the same way, there is always this feeling of, "Wow! To work through this disagreement has only brought us closer together." I'm not saying, by any means, I want us to fight more so we can grow; I think we can grow together without it as well. I just know that being committed to each other no matter what may happen in our lives or what we may argue about makes me enjoy the rainbow after the storm.

And right at this moment, I just was thinking about us but more so him because I know that no matter what it takes, he is always going to do everything he can to take care of me. His dad is currently replacing my brakes, and of course Benjamin is along side him working as well. Well, when Dad #2 (that's what I will refer to my father-in-law as) popped my hood, we discovered that more acid had built up on both my + and - receptors on the battery. he said he would clean it and then started telling me about these felt pads you can place on the battery which help with build up because of some chemical in them. Of course I figured I would just get them later, however, my Benjamin just walked in the room and told me he had put some of those pads on the battery. I then said, "Oh, you guys had some here." "No," he replied, "I went to go purchase them so it would stay clean."

No, not perfect, but DEFINITELY my Prince Charming!

Not all Kicks & Giggles

Wedding planning is hard. It is quite overwhelming as well. I know most people say I've got it together because within just a months time several of my large to-do's were either set in stone or well on there way to being done.

I guess my struggle isn't with what to pick, trust me: I'm OCD and picky picky picky. I know what I want, how I want it, and why I want it that way. I also know a lot of what I want is extremely different from the norm and tradition. I have had so many different people tell me "You can't do it that way", "That's not right, you have to do it this way", "It would look much better if you did it this way", "That doesn't follow etiquette", etc. The thing is, I'm not really looking for someone's approval on following etiquette nor am I truly worried if everyone else "just loves it". If it's what I want and Ben likes it too (yes, I have been blessed with a man who actually cares about what to pick and what things look like, although I'm not 100% sure of the blessing yet :P), then it is what I want to have.

I just am not in a mindset of being able to completely understand why etiquette must be followed. I'm sure there are some areas of etiquette I will actually be following, only because it's what I like. However, I just have never quite understood it fully. I'm sure some situations call for it, and maybe in those I must conform. Part of my misunderstanding lies in who on earth set it up and decided everyone must follow? I guess I should do some research in that area. I am open to at least learning about it, although I can guarantee it will not change the choices I have already made in regards to my wedding.

I know I am completely rambling. I guess I have just been extremely frustrated with some of my plans and started thinking about etiquette and where it came from. That's pretty much my existence right now.