Show Us Where You Live Friday-Wedding Flowers & Bridal Party

This week's "Show us where you live" focuses on the bridal party & flowers. It's so fitting seeing that Lou & I celebrated our two year anniversary on Tuesday. Here's to many, many more years! Enjoy! *Pictures courtesy of Bishop Photography*
My bouquet, pink roses and stephanotus. From Off Broadway Florist. They turned out perfectly!

I love this picture

The bridesmaids carried pink Gerber daises & roses.
Flowers during the ceremony
I wish I could have kept these flowers preserved.
At Lorain's Rose Garden, one of my favorite places-Lou & I went here the night he proposed to me.

Our small militia of a bridal party!

The Groomsmen, looking all "Reservoir Dogs"
Playing football w/my bouquet!

My brother, 2nd from the left--has hops! As do Jessica & Zack, 3rd & 4th from the right.

My favorite girls & I sharing a laugh

We did it! :)

3 Words Thursday

Wednesdays with Lou

Is taking the week off! See you next week! :)

I feel as if I've really slacked with the blog lately, although Dominic is keeping me very busy during the day and when I do get a nap from him (it's rare) I have to take advantage of it!! Also, the Big Brother live feeds are taking over my life! These house guests are driving me batty! You should know that CBS is doing an incredible edit job and leaving a lot of important things out!

We have had an exciting week. Yesterday was our 2 year anniversary (look for a post about it in the next 24 hours) and we are looking forward to Camp CanDew this weekend! I'll leave you with a few pictures because if you are like me, you just can't get enough of Dominic! :)

Dominic visited Daddy at work! :)

Dominic & his girlfriends Ryann & Madison (they are both in the same swing)

Matt & Lou "manning" the swings!

Blog Hop: Favorite Photo of Kids

I have too many favorite pictures of Dominic so I just went through them randomly and chose a few! He's just the cutest little thing! :)

This is one of the first smiles from Dominic that I captured on camera

My little monkey!

Taking some pictures on Valentine's Day-apparently Dom has quite the sweet tooth!

Getting messy!

Show Us Your Life-Wedding Dress

Welp, we've run out of rooms @ Kelly's Korner so we're on to new things to share...today's topic is "Wedding Dress". Enjoy! I have better pictures of the detail of the dress but those will have to wait for the "flowers" post. All photos courtesy of Bishop Photography. Strapless, lots of detail in the bodice and trim. I especially loved the train of the dress, but do not have any pictures of it.

A closer look at the detail. You can also see my beautiful veil that was handmade by my sister in law, Anna!

My best friend & Maid of Honor, Becky and I.

Not too much to do with the dress, I just love this picture of Lou, my Dad & I.

Wednesdays with Lou

Big Brother 11

We’re already two weeks into Big Brother (CBS Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday) and the season is just heating up. There is so much going on in the house it’s hard to find a starting point. Here is who I would want in my alliance/clique. I am a fan of Casey, Jeff, and Michelle. Casey is honest and avoids most of the conflicts in the house and would fess up to anything he has said derogatory about the other HG (House Guests). Jeff is hilarious and doesn’t seem to bad mouth anyone really. Michelle also avoids some conflicts in the house but is not afraid to stand up for herself. She has also proven herself to be trustworthy and honest. Both Casey and Michelle went against their cliques on the first eviction which says a lot about the promises they made to their alliance to go against their own clique and take that kind of risk.

I am not excited about Jessie coming back this year. My main problem with Jessie is that he hangs out with Natalie and Lydia non stop. This puts those three on my “Most Annoying People List.” Ronnie gets my award for the HG who overplayed the game. See the spoiler section for more details on Ronnie. Jordan, Laura (probably going home), and Kevin are so far non-factors. And the winner for my most disliked HG is Chima! She is arrogant and starts a lot of drama in the house. She was also way out of line for what she said during eviction ceremony about Braden. I’m very happy CBS bleeped it and didn’t give her the satisfaction of smearing Bradens image over a comment he made on a Reality TV Show that he has already apologized for.

Here is my final four prediction for this season. I have no clue. I don’t see the alliance in power sticking together to the end. Someone from the minority alliance will crack that group and end up in the final 4. It will either be Casey or Jeff. I’ll pick my final four next week. If you have your vote for a final four I’d like to hear it. This season could go in a lot of directions so if you call it now you’re better than I am and we have the Live 24/7 Feeds so no excuses for me.

Parking Wars – A&E

My new favorite show on A&E is Parking Wars which follows the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA). This show is hilarious and very entertaining. I’ve been to Philadelphia once and drove around for over an hour trying to find a parking spot. Everyone lives downtown so parking is very sparse. My favorite part of the show is the Boot Patrol and the Meter Maids.

BIG BROTHER SPOILER

Last night on the Live Feeds Ronnie finally got confronted by EVERYONE in the house on all the lies he’s been spreading. The barrage of questioning was lead by Russell after Ronnie made up a story that Laura told him Russell was drumming up votes to keep her. Ronnie told this story to Chima, Kevin, Lydia, and Natalie who all but Natalie were all regretting the decision to put Jordan up as the re-nomination. They all regretted not putting Russell up. *Ronnie was laying down the track to make Russell next weeks target* Natalie told Jessie and Jessie confronted Russell about the story Ronnie told. Russell confronted Ronnie and then confronted the rest of his alliance. This led to Laura to confront Ronnie in front of everyone that she never told Ronnie the story he told his group about Russell. Ronnie wouldn’t defend himself which led to his retreat into the HOH room. With Ronnie gone everyone started sharing stories of the lies and schemes Ronnie had set up. This lasted for about 2 hours. Also, another good spoiler, Jessie and Casey know each other and are secretly working together. They don’t act like it but have short private conversations very rarely and will each try to steer their separate alliance against nominating each other.

Blog Hop Tuesday-Favorite Recipe

I am the first to admit, I get MANY if not most of my recipes from the Internet or just throw things together! So I really don't have many recipes to make...I did, however, want to share something that Lou & I made together that we were very proud of! Lou's family had a Gingerbread House competition one year for their family Christmas party (how lucky am I to be a part of such a fun family!?) and being the competitive duo we are..we went all out...AND WON!! Here are some of the pictures.. Our house, on a rice crispy treat base, with shredded coconut used as snow.
The roof "shingles" are made of Loorne Doodle cookies (this took a while and was very heavy) and the trees are actually upside down sugar cones decorated with the leaf tip of a frosting applicator.
The "backyard" of the house..we kinda lost creativity here. I love the "christmas lights" along the roof made with candies.

The BEST part. We cut out windows into the gingerbread and melted Jolly ranchers in there to make a stone glass appearance. Although you can't see it-we put a battery operated candle inside the house so that you could see the light flickering from the window. I also liked the pretzel shutters.

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Look Who's Talking!

*We are not participating in this week's Kelly's Korner activity because it's titled "Child's Birthday" and I don't want to show any spoilers of what I have planned for Dominic's 1st birthday (in less than 4 months...::tear::). *

Before Lou & I had Dominic we vowed that we'd never, EVER speak "baby talk" to our baby. We said we'd always speak to him or her using real words and the correct words for most words. I'm pretty sure Dominic was about 5 minutes old when he heard his first "cutsey wutsey". Before we left the hospital to head for home he had heard a variety of new words such as poopie, wittle baby, come to think of it..any word with a /w/ sound in front of it...wittle, waby, wove etc. It didn't take us long to completely forget our sol um vow.

Eight months later, not only are we still speaking in baby language, but we have made up our own songs -usually set to the tune of an 80's song w/our own words...an example of our work includes such hits as "Don't you...peepee on me" sung to the tune of "Don't you, forget about me", and of course our own words! Here's our personal dictionary.

Beets: feet

Na-Nights: Dominic's pajamas

NumNums: food from Mommy

BaBa: Bottle

Soothie: pacifier-that he only chews on now

There are plenty more...What kind of baby talk do YOU have to share? We are always up for expanding our vocabulary!!

3 Words Thursday

Trying new foods!

Wednesdays with Lou

Time Flies

I cannot believe Dominic is already 8 months. Brooke wrote about this the other day so I thought I would put in my two cents also. I can barely remember what life was like before he was born. Brooke and I give Dominic so much time and attention and have developed some really good routines. He has been so much fun to watch grow and develop.

Each night after dinner during the week I take Dominic for an hour so Brooke can have a break. This is the only alone time Brooke gets and it’s much deserved. I’ll take Dominic on a bike ride to the pool or to the park to go on the swings. We’ll also run errands to the store or stop off for visits. I wouldn’t trade that hour with him each night for anything in the world. When we get home from our little adventure I give Dominic his dinner and we all play for about 15 minutes before it’s time to get Dominic ready for bed.

We spend time together on the weekends as a family and both enjoy playing with Dominic and taking him on trips or to run errands. I’m excited for what our future holds with our Family and watching Dominic get older but I am constantly reminded from those with older children to enjoy this time while it lasts. I do my best to stay in the moment with him because before I know it he’ll be a year, then two years and time will fly by just as fast as these first 8 months have.

Bike Fiasco

On my blog post last week I mentioned my bike broke while riding in the metro parks. I took it to a bike repair shop to see what was wrong and how much it would cost to fix it. The part that broke on my bike was $20. The bike “specialist” also recommended a tune up which cost $60 and would include installation of the broken part. I also needed a new kick stand which was $10 so now we’re looking at $90 before tax just to fix my bike. Keep in mind we bought mine and Brooke’s bike for $130 on Craigslist so pretty much $65 for each. My options were to spend $90 to fix a $65 bike or spend $90 to buy a new bike. I opted to fix my bike because there were no guarantees a new bike wouldn’t break just like this bike did and my current bike would also get a tune up and would work better than a new bike since according to the “specialist” all department store bikes are not put together properly. I got my bike back in a day and it’s working better than ever.

Move to Wednesdays

If you stopped by our Blog yesterday for Tuesdays with Lou you were probably surprised to not see my post. That is because we found “Blog Hop” which is on Tuesdays. There are different themes each week and will give us something new each week to participate in. Also moving my blog post to Wednesdays allows me to write it Tuesday night instead of Monday which is nice to get that extra day to prepare something. Even though I have an extra day don’t expect anything different then Tuesdays with Lou and welcome to Wednesdays with Lou! Just as fun, just one day later.

BlogHop: Three things you didn't know about me!

We are participating in the Blog Hop again, this week's theme is "Three things you didn't know about me (us). I chose an interesting fact about both Lou & I and then added a tidbit about where we live. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by! :)

Brooke won the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right while on college Spring Break in 2002!

**I've been asked what I won so here is the breakdown of my appearance on the show**

-Contestants Row-won 2 Gliding Rocking Chairs w/ottoman

-Played the dice game with the chance of winning a Dodge Neon..I lost. I rolled a 2 & 5..it ended up being 1 & 6. I played the odds though!

-Spun .95 on the big wheel! Yes it's heavy!!

-Showcase showdown I won:

Dining room table, VERY large buffet, $3000 in China, a SunRoom from 4Seasons, Honda Waverunner and A year supply of calcium supplements. I feel like I may have forgotten something in there as well. Oh and to note: You can NOT take cash in place of any of the items.

Lou is the youngest of TEN children!!

This is the view from our neighborhood of the Charles Berry Bascule Bridge, the 2nd largest bascule bridge in the world.

8 Months Old!

I can hardly believe I'm typing this...Dominic is EIGHT months old today! This first year just seems to flying by! I never really got used to saying he was seven months old and he's already a month older! He changes every single day and will all of a sudden do something completely new out of the blue! Here is what Dom's been up to this month:

*When placed up on all 4's he will stay there strong and rock a bit, then propels himself forward which results with him falling on his face.

*He holds his own bottle easily and likes to feed himself.

*He's VERY interested in food, always grabbing at what we have on our plates..or what's in our cups.

*He can sit like a pro! <--he's been doing this but now he's content just sitting and playing with everything within or out of reach!

*He loves to jump and bounce! Some days I think he may jump right out of his jumper!

*He's talking and blabbering away. Now he's begun to really yell! He says "Dada" when Louie's in the room and what I believe to be "GeeGee" when the doggies are near him.

*Scoots on his "bottom" to get places.

*When he's standing and we hold him by his hands he will take lots of steps and even run!

There's so much more but this post would just get too long! hah!

3 Words Thursday

First, I have to apologize for forgetting about last week! Oops! I'm back and this weeks 3 words have to do with something Lou & I both are SOOO excited about starting back up TONIGHT!!!

Night owl

Last night Dominic did NOT want to go to sleep. He is usually in his crib at or before 8:30 pm every night. Welp, around 8:45 Dominic was looking up at me laughing and talking away. We attempted to rock him, gave him the pacifier, and letting him cry himself to sleep. We tried the light show, lullabies, singing the ABC's...basically the full arsenal that we have proven successful before. Around 10:15ish we decided that we needed a break too so we brought Dominic downstairs and just let him play. He was having so much fun yelling and playing with his rings. At promptly 10:45 Dominic started to rub his eyes and get fussy. I picked him up and he laid his head down on my shoulder and ker-plunk, out like a light! Hopefully tonight he's back to his schedule..I think we realized that we depend on him sticking to his schedule more than he does! Of course I took pictures of our little stinker!

Playing with his rings

Daddy's being goofy too! What is with the boys in my house!?

Blog Hop Favorite Picture

Today I am trying out a new blog activity. I was to post my favorite photo. Now, that's just too tough because ALL of my pictures of Dominic are my favorite so I just added a picture that always makes me laugh. Dominic in his Ducky hat. I believe he was around 3 months here. SO CUTE!

Tuesdays with Lou

Bike Ride

Dominic and I met my brother Pete at the metro parks for a bike ride Monday evening after dinner. It was a great ride on a very smooth and nicely shaded trail. The metro parks are great and are a hidden gem of the city. Dominic enjoyed the ride and somehow managed to take a little nap too. I don’t know how he could nap riding on the back of the bike but he did it. Right near the end however my bike broke. The gears somehow discharged itself from the back wheel so when I turn my pedals the wheel won’t even spin. Hopefully I can get it fixed soon because Dom and I are logging some good miles in the evenings and weekends.

MJ Ghost?

For the record let me start by saying, I do not believe in ghosts. I’ve heard people’s stories and would be interesting in hearing yours if you have one but I just won’t allow myself to believe it. Once I start to believe it then I allow it to be something I fear. So, I never take a ghost story serious and hope that if I don’t believe I won’t ever encounter one. This clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj9DgeLmzac, is from Larry King the other night. If you don’t want to go to the link there is a shadow of someone walking in the background, Michael Jackson perhaps? That is what they like you to think but in all reality it could be a multiple of things or it could be an edited video to include a ghost like image. It’s an entertaining video but still who really wants to see a ghost, not me. I don’t think it would be fun at all. It would be a great story sure but still not something I hope to ever experience first hand.

Lottery Dreams

I’ve always had a feeling I’m going to win the lottery. It hasn’t happened yet of course but still. I can’t help but day dream about winning every time I buy a ticket. I instantly come up with a multiple of ways to spend it and who I’ll share it with and what kind of lifestyle Brooke and I would have. I think the best part about winning the lottery would be not having to work again and being able to live my life like a vacation or a really really young retiree. I can imagine Brooke and I finding a couple hobbies to do together during the day to keep busy. I also think I would manage a small portion of our fortunes in the stock market and day trade to keep busy. We would also do a lot of volunteer work and find some local charities to support.

I don’t think we’d get too big of a mansion but would have all the nice standard rich people toys, boats and fun cars. We wouldn’t have a whole fleet of cars like sports stars or celebrities but maybe 3 or 4. The décor in our house would also be top of the line and we would have a big pool with swim up bar. I’d like an indoor/outdoor pool but I think Brooke would prefer the outdoor pool. We would also have one or two vacation homes which we would spend a little time at and also make available to our families for their vacations as well. I can also see us investing in commercial real estate to try and maintain our wealth. Even though the odds are I’ll never win the lottery it’s nice to think about once in awhile. If you ever day dream about winning or know what you would spend it on I’d like to hear it so I know I’m not alone.

Big Brother

Attention, Big Brother fans the show airs on CBS starting this Thursday at 8pm and is on Thursdays, Sunday, and Tuesday. Both Brooke and I love this show and will probably blog about it. We also follow it online but will try to keep spoilers out of our blog. If you haven’t seen the show before I highly suggest you give it a try. It’s nice cause it’s on 3 nights a week but don’t feel like you have to commit to it that many days a week cause they always have recaps before each show to keep you updated.