what Christmas means to me, my love

I LOVE Christmas.  Everything about it, but aside from the obvious family/friends time, cold weather (which is non existant in sweet TX), and Christmas cheer all around, Christmas cards are my FAVORITE part of the season.  I literally wait for the mail lady all morning and meet her at the box.

ok, so maybe I do that because I have nothing else to do with my day....

but honest to God, ripping open those Christmas enevlopes makes my whole day!

 I was SO excited to get to send out Christmas cards for the first time with my new HUSBAND!

**Also, I think it's worth mentioning that I left my computer at my parents and am currently at the library.  Someone is playing "Silent Night" on a organ and a children's play group is singing along (loud and off key no doubt), and laughing, and clapping....it's quite magical!

The Christmas spirit it still very much alive and it makes my heart ever so happy!

Back to it, here is how our card turned out this year...

Future brides: THINK AHEAD!

I brought the lights along to our venue and our photog, Erin Woolsey of ee photograpy, snapped this amazing pic for us. I plan to make a huge canvas to display at Christmas time. I LOOOOOVE it.

I used photoshop for the design and had them printed on zazzle.

This is the back:

below it says "the best is yet to come..."

And here's how I have all our beautiful cards on display. I could stare at this all day long. And maybe I do. or maybe I don't.... (but I totally do!)

I spy a sweet, lazy retreiver!

This year has been beyond special.  So many wonderful things happening to so many wonderful people. Our cards include numerous new babies, new marriages, and happy, happy, happy best friends and family.

These cards comes with so much love and I cherish each and every one of them.  I plan to keep them together each year and eventually (when when the day comes) have our little babes take turns choosing a card/family to pray over at dinner each night during the Christmas season - heck maybe each night all year, that's how much I love these things!

WISHING YOU AND YOUR FAMILY THE MERRIEST OF ALL CHRISTMASES

 FROM THE URBO'S TO YOU!

And really, I do plan and WANT to get back to blogging soon! Until then....

link up with kristen here

color crush

I LOVE neutrals.  Always have,always will.  I can thank my mama for that.

There is no doubt my house will be one neutral canvas. 

Just like my closet, my wedding, and about everything else I put my touch on...

BUUT in all the neutral wonderfulness I love hints of colors here and there.

With the house hunt coming to an end I am letting my mind run a little wild with possibilities.

(inspection today, pleeeease PRAY it goes smoothly and that N High St will be our new home)

And while this picture sums up basically everything about my style and fave colors...

these are some color combos I'm crushing on

all via pinterest

I am so excited to share my "inspiration" pieces for each room!  But I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch! Speaking of chickens.......we'll be getting some of those too!

(and bees, there will def be bees! duh)

*     *     *     *     *

I'm loving that we're one step closer to owning a home.

I'm loving our wedding is only 45 days away. 

I'm loving that I get to spend a weekend with this ginger

and all of our best friends, in our favorite Texas town.

I'm loving the way things are going!

I sure hope you're

{LOVING LIFE}

too!

link up here and here!

must learn

You know what I don't know how to do?

Well that list is quite lengthy...

but what I am referring to right now is blog design.

and photoshop.

and photography.

but really just blog design at this exact moment.

How on earth do you make your blog cute?

I gave it an old college try and this is what I got goin...

I'm not even going to share with you how long this took. It's laughable. Believe me. 

NOW.....

who wants to do this thing the right way? for free.

i'll pay you in cute daily pics of my dog. or choc chip cookies. or miller lite. 

ANY TAKERS???

everything and nothing

What in the world have I been doing? Everything and nothing at all it seems.

So much to update on.  Fun weekends, wedding plans and details, house news, babies, friends, family, life in general....and it's all coming...soon.

For now though you most certainly should follow me on instagram.  

I just discovered this little gem and I LOVE it.  Seriously, I get annoyed more of my friends aren't constantly posting pics!  You can follow me here.

All the going-ons deserve a post of it's own and that they will get but for now this is the number one thorn in my side point of interest.

A house.  This house.

We have been negotiating a deal on this beaut for almost 2 weeks now (I know, sounds insane to me too, small town biz I guess) and we are so, so close but after having 2 other houses fall through the cracks I am refusing to get excited about this one.

alright, I may already have it mentally decorated from wall to wall, but still not letting those ideas go to my head until we sign

As soon as this is done, I can relax and actually get ready for our new life. 

Now that everyone is back to work and summer is officially coming to a close, I am going to make it my job to cross things off my to-do list, and believe me, tackling that to-do list is a full time job in itself. 

Our hope is that by Friday we will have a deal on this house and will get to celebrate with best friends in RP,TX this weekend! And I feel confident saying that the second that happens I will be back in full "work" swing.  But, let's not hold our breath!

I'll leave you with 2 of the 300 reasons why I love the house above....

a HUGE closet

which is next to impossible to find in a house built in the 1930s

and this pretty little pinterest ready bathroom!

please, please, pleeeeease be mine soon!

housewife status

We'll it's official.  I'm a housewifefiance.

This is what I did last week.

Yep, I resigned from the only real job I've ever had. 

unless you count watching the tyra banks show, daytime tv, and raiding the fridge nannying two precious boys in college

July 10th marked the day I became a housewife. Take a look at my new job....

Cleaning...

Cooking...

Working out...

Going to lunch with girlfriends...

Crafting...

You know, wash the dogs...

the usu housewife stuff.

Not too shabby, huh? Especially since the new title will totally make me look like all those girls.

Who am I kidding.  I only wish "housewife" was my actual title. 

Truth is, I'm just straight unemployed...jobless...income-less. 

While I will have all of those duties shown above, those won't be my only duties.  There's just no way I could actually justify being a housewife without any real responsibilities {kids} until then I will be doing something.  Not exactly sure what yet, I only have about a billion ideas up my sleeve, but subbing will likely be how I spend my days until I trick Trav into having a babe.

Honestly, I couldn't be more excited about it all.  There was something so freeing about quitting my job.  I'm sure I'll stay busy but I feel like I'll really get a lot of time to "play" housewife also.

But I must say...as glamorous as being a housewife sounds, it'd actually be a pretty big job. If I didn't have a real job outside the house I would feel like I'd have to keep the house spotless, always have an amazing meal on the table, laundry done, beds made, groceries bought, the list goes on... 

no real job + no kids = NO excuses

Let's be real, that doesn't sound so appealing. At least having some sort of job will give me an excuse to pick up to-go once a week and leave a pile pf laundry on the floor from time to time,  and not immediately load the dishwasher all the time.

On the flip side, resigning was possibly the saddest thing I've ever had to do. A true testament to how much I love T. I absolutely LOVED my job.  It truly was my dream job. I knew I'd be really sad leaving but I didn't know I'd be as sad as I was. 

See this...

I had to shake tears off my paperwork as I handed it to the women working in the office. They surely thought I was out of my mind. I just couldn't stop crying.  As I was walking out people we're looking at me and I'm certain they thought I had been fired. I sat in my car and tried to pull myself together.  Luckily I had a mani/pedi date with my bff Casey.  I killed a little bit of time at Forever 21 adding some new fun accessories to my collection.  Always makes a girl feel better! 

Oh yea, add a smidge of nervous to the emotion list also. Resigning made getting married, moving, and completely changing so many parts of my life become SO incredibly real! 

So in one day, at one time I managed extreme excitement, extreme sadness, and just a little nervous. 

But that's what it's all about! Cheers to new adventures! 

wedding wishes

You know what's fun?? Registering for wedding gifts. 

via

I would like to shake hands with the person who thought, "man it'd be really great if we made a wish list for wedding guests to choose from instead of getting random crap and 100 platters"

That person is a genius. 

It was just a week after being sick with pneumonia so I wasn't feeling my normal perky self but we still managed to have SO much fun zapping all kinds of great things! Travis and I not only agreed on everything we registered for but I think we both truly love it all.

Trav was a scanning pro and I, well, I was good at pointing at stuff.

If you're a total creeper like me and head to bedbathandbeyond.com to judge people's registries (even if you hardly know them) than this is for you...

Judge away!

Trav may have fallen in love with a $400 freakin' lamp at PB and I'm a little embarrassed about such an unnecessary big ticket item but he was being such a good sport, I let him scan that baby. 

here

here

here

and I threw this in for good measure...T may or may not know about this one...

here

Now we just need a stinkin' house to put all our goodies in. Hear that house fairy??

QUESTION TIME:

Should I register for the Dyson Ball?? Just seems a little pricey for a flippin' vacuum buuut it's what all the wives use, right? There must be a reason. So tell me, does it live up to the hype?

dress obsess

I got it! My dress is in!

{It's taking every ounce of will power in me to see the dress hanging and not put it on. I want to wear this all.the.time.}

The first week of my summer, after semi recovering from pneumonia, my mom and I met my future MIL and SIL in Austin to pick up my dress! 

Let me just tell you how amazing this shop is. If you're a Texas bride it's worth the trip to Unbridaled. Suuuch a cute boutique.  They have a great selection of unique gowns and designers. The girls working there are also so super sweet, and very "Austin-cool".

{There's also a really awesome fabric store next door, which is an added bonus!}

I was having some serious anxiety before hand. Shortly after ordering my dress I thought I may have made the wrong choice.  I kept comparing pictures of myself in one dress I fell in love with (that fit me perfectly) with the one I actually purchased (that didn't fit at all) and I had convinced myself it was completely unflattering. The sweet stylist who dealt with this crazy, unsure bride was so great, answered all my emails quickly, and assured me it was the perfect choice and that it was totally normal for me to feel a little nervous about the choice. 

 **Future brides....delete ALL pictures of past dresses once you've made your choice!** 

Reality was though, the second I saw the dress hanging I knew it was exactly what I had envisioned. I was incredibly worried that I would hate it once MY actual ordered dress was in my hand but I loved it when I tried it on the first time and thankfully...I am now totally obsessed with it! 

After getting the dress nipped and tucked it will be everything I have ever wanted.  It is definitely the perfect dress for our day.  I am so excited that it is what I'll be wearing when I marry T! 

I am dying to give you more info but I'm going to resist. You should however, head over to Ivy & Aster's site and feast your eyes on some major eye candy.

such stunning dresses!

We went ahead and ordered the veil and sashes too {I decided to go with 2 for a two-tone double layer effect} 

Alright, alright, I give in! I'll give you a sneak of the sash I chose.

This sash will be layered over a wider taupe colored satin ribbon.

LOVE, LOVE!

Normally I would end by saying something along the lines of "now hurry up October 5th!" but I'm actually really enjoying these last few months of wedding day prep and Houston fam/friends fun before I settle into married life. 

be there

Our save the dates have been printed, addressed, stamped, and mailed!

{they were actually mailed over a month ago but because my blog skills have been seriously lacking this is far overdue}

I LOVE how they came out!

My friend Amanda at Swoon Design (who still doesn't have a website or etsy) was able to take my -very specific- ideas and turn them into reality! This is what I sent her.

see that little horseshoe? that was my favorite touch!

See, told you they were specific.  And I got to be honest, I absolutely LOVE the work Amanda does and am so thrilled to have someone I know and trust to do these fun touches for me but when in my mind I have something so very specific I have a hard time seeing something that isn't exactly how I pictured it.  We all do this right?  Gosh darnit, I want to learn Photoshop! I think it's about dang time! 

Well, here is the amazingness Amanda interpreted from my drawings.

 Clearly I need to add "learn photography" to my list along with photoshop. This is not ok. 

And upclose.

 I didn't notice until after printing that my ear is sticking out through my hair, guess I sent the wrong pic...ooops!

Not exactly like my sketch but she did an amazing job! The printer even printed multiple for her business to show as examples! This is the perfect "first impression" for our wedding.  I couldn't be happier! 

I was so obsessed with the little horseshoe detail I incorporated into the sketch that we decided to make it a "brand" for the whole wedding! I seriously love it! 

Get it? A horseshoe is a "U"...for Urbanovsky...and luck...gah, love it! 

"Lucky us!"