a note from MRS A ...

So a lot has happened since my last post...

some 7 months ago (!)...

a new job (with a rather crazy commute)...

a new home..

a trip overseas...

a first christmas ...

parties and new year celebrations ...

but best of all ...

we finally got married!

It was a beautiful (and fun!) day ...

he cried (as soon as the first bridesmaid started to walk down the aisle)...

I laughed at rings that wouldn't go on! (while the groomsmen took photos on their iphones)...

he promised to ' trust you when you think you are right and respect you when you actually are!' (and made everyone laugh) ...

we stood under a pretty tree and promised forever ...

and got really excited about being newlyweds ....

we played lawn games ...

 

while wearing fun socks ...

and raced around the vines in golf buggies ...

 we frolicked in fields (it involved me being passed through a barbed wire fence in my wedding gown to get in people! but so worth it for the shots!)

 

we kissed a little alot ...

the girls looked beautiful ...

the guys looked 'smokin' (it's a groomsmen joke...)

we had the most fun in an amazing photobooth ...

(and got the funniest responses from our guests!)

and ran through sparklers (quite possibly more than once...)

and rode away in baby brother's cute little vintage car

(complete with tin cans) ...

then the Mr and I ran away to Thailand ...

we rode elephants and fed monkeys and rode in long tailed boats and lazed around and ate - oh how we ate! That breakfast buffet was +10 kg GOOD ;) !

And now I am back..  back to blogging people!!

I have things to make, things to share, a new (teeny tiny little) house to decorate and a sweet little life to lead as a MRS! So stick around as I share our 2011 moments

oh it's good to be back :)

ps. all these photos are a mixture of our wonderful photographer Christine and her amazing second shooter Kellee, who helped out last moment  - thank you Kellee!
you can check christine's take on the day here and here and Kellee's over here.

pretty.

No words today (hopefully soon) but here are some more of our favourite engagement photos... they make me smile.  A little over 4 months to go till the big day. I can't believe we are getting so close now - I still have SO much to do! Remembering to breathe and lift it all up to the Lord (or at least trying to) :)

seven sushi rolls.

Some days you just need to stay in your jim jams until 3pm and make sushi... lots and LOTS of sushi. Because when things have been busy and stressful it's sometimes good for you to step back and do something you enjoy. Something simple and relaxing and ... delicious! And sometimes you need to spice it up a bit and make bacon and egg sushi rolls. Because all sushi is healthy right??!
It's been one of those weeks.. months...
I am trying to get back to posting here regularly I really really am ....
I have month old posts half written and no words to finish them off.
Hopefully soon.

Until then enjoy this link to Bakerella's Red Velvet Cake Balls Like I have been.
And her cake pops too
Aren't they cute?
I am hoping to make a few of these for our wedding :)

here there and everywhere...

So I may not have been here blogging lately but it's been busy busy over here.  I've also been popping up in a few other places over the weekend. Check out our engagement shoot feature over at Polka Dot Bride and find out 'what I think of when I think of England' at my guest post over at the lovely Cassie's blog. I think you should definitely stop by this sweet spot and say hello to this lovely lady who lives in a dear little cottage in a lovely little village in England. (I think it's so sweet how they call their town a village :) While Cassie and her hubby are having the time of their lives on holiday in the beautiful island of Gozo, in the Mediterranean (totally jealous here of course!) She has asked a few talented ladies to write some guests posts for her. So come on over and check out all the fun entries from these very talented ladies! - Still feeling so chuffed to be included in this category! You might be inspired or find a new friend and then you could tell me what your 'English dream would be' ...

date night.

Because I don't want to ever forget this special date night...

Last Wednesday night was date night. yipee! Date #3 of this book and a special night together to celebrate 5 years of getting to know one another, 5 years of sillyness and fun and 5 years of falling in love with one another. over and over again.We giggled and laughed and gave each other 'hi 5's 4 5!' and really got to talk - no distractions. Just me and him being young and silly and in love. That was probably my favourite bit. And that M - we'll he went out of his way to make this a special night for me. I'd been having a bad start to the week (so may changes and big unknowns happening here at the moment) and he announced that he was taking me out to dinner and we were going to celebrate this occasion in style. With a real fancy dinner at a very lovely and posh restaurant. Which was actually a beautiful old manor style house which has been converted into a restraunt. And my main meal - well lets just say I was really sad when the last mouthful was gone. It was that yummy! When he picked me up and I got in the car that night there was a little wrapped present (with a bow) sitting on the front seat for me. He had brought me these babushka measuring cups! I so SO love them!

 Then after dinner as we hopped back into the car he handed me a small bank statement for a recently opened account. He had started a special account to save up for my one day kitchen aid mix master with some monies already set aside for it. it was a really really sweet gesture! and oh how I really love that boy :)

In other news our engagement party has been featured on the new party inspiration website catchmyparty.com. A new site where you can upload images from your own parties and find inpiration from other peoples too. Jillian from catch my party found our engagement party online and asked me if she could feature us - well of course! There is also a little feature over on their blog... Thanks for loving our party so much Jillian we are honoured to be featured on your website!

featured (again)!

How fun is this? Our high school sweetheart love shoot has been featured on the UK wedding blog Beyond Beyond. Where they feature "preposterously beautiful and gorgeous thingymebobs that are so damn good and eyecandytastic that we wish we made them" Oh how fun to be included in that category! It seems like they really love our wedding photographer too - and who wouldn't!?

Part of the reason we choose Christine was her use of light and bokeh and she has more than lived up to her reputation in these beautiful shoots. And little did we know we'd get such a sweet friend out of the deal too! I'm so hoping one day she can teach me to shoot like that and also that I can talk the Mr into having her capture all our special 'life moments' too ... I'm working on it Christine ;)

and hooray now I have another wedding inspiration blog to follow, cause we all know I need another one of those like a whole in my head! ;)

highschool sweethearts

Yay! The rest of our engagement photos and story are up on Christine's blog. So go and have a looksie! We're so happy with how our school themed love shoot came out.

My baby brother made this old school looking chalkboard for me specially for the shoot. I showed him a photo of my idea and he just went for it - I never knew he was so handy with tools. But I did know that he an absolute sweetie!

We left the board blank for some shots so we could Photoshop words in and for this shot M stuck down some thickers to replicate the idea of those boards they use in school photos. You know the ones they place in front of the kids in the front row that say the school, teacher, class and year... I've no idea what their called?!

And now I have a cute chalkboard on which to write notes to the Mr ... you know romantic things like "dishes need doing please hun" and "meatloaf is in the fridge" ;)

I particularly can't wait to get this one of M enlarged - I think he looks pretty dreamy :)

thanks again Ms Pobke!!

xx

prepared

M and I are excited to be heading down to Sydney tomorrow to meet with his Uncle Ken. 

We love Uncle Ken - he's very fun and silly, is awesome pastor and come November he is going to marry us.

We're excited to have him be such a part of our special day, that we will always be able to have the pastor that married us in our lives and that he is one who means so much to us.

Tomorrow we will start our first session of our pre marriage course 'PREPARE'

+ Uncle Ken is going to fix all that is wrong with Morgan!
As I, of course, am pretty much perfect ....

we're off to a great start huh ;)

hehe

Good thing the Mr knows I'm just joking here! 
A lot of our married friends and family have highly recommended pre marriage courses to us as an excellent tool for heading into marriage with + we're excited to begin.

 I will let you know how it goes.

Also talking about recommending ...
we are really loving this book and our dates and would recommend it to engaged couples for sure. Not only do you get to go on ten fun dates along the way but you will also discuss a lot of things before marriage - dealing with conflict, each others expectations of marriage, household chores, traditions and working out how your differences can actually balance each other out and make you a much stronger couple.
Also in the current Kt + M library is this book, which I'm really enjoying reading at the moment too.
:D

Kt hearts Pobke...

Christine Pobke + Pobke photography that is ;)

Last Saturday M and I were lucky enough to meet up with our very talented wedding photographer Christine.

Christine came all the way from Canberra (mostly) just to meet us + snap our pictures - how lucky are we? This is the first time we had ever meet face to face! Having only ever talked via Skype or email before & there was plenty of excitement both sides. I mean this girl is both fun AND makes you look like a superstar ... and we think we're pretty fun too ;)

The first time we met she squished into the back of our car with all, I repeat ALL of our props - not even sitting but lying across all our stuff camera cradled in front of her totally excited to be there - I knew then and there I was going to LOVE this girl!

Plus she also helped me get changed in a field, saw my undies eep! and kept on taking photos when I would say 'ooh what about this' + 'one more?!'

yup she's pretty amazing and if you live in the ACT or NSW even you should check her out!

Christine found an amazing field in Centennial Park, Sydney for our engagement photoshoot - I loved it. So much so that I think we will have to go back there and picnic one day!

As we met at highschool and are very much high-school sweethearts we added a little bit of  an old school theme to our photoshoot - school books, old suitcases, chalkboards and an amazing old school desk Morgan picked up from his neighbour THAT MORNING!

totally made the shoot!

Only bumma was forgetting the cute apples we took ages buying that morning in the car during our shoot - the ones with the perfect stems. But they did fill up hungry tummies on the way home.

Look guys the twister quilt !

oh and a mention must be made to my amazing makeup artist Melissa of Melli Cosemetics who did my makeup trial earlier that day. 

I would also really really recomment Mel - her makeup is an artform and you can tell she just loves her job and has a real passion for makeup!

We had a lot of fun trying different ideas and effects until we were both happy with the result and knew it would match in with the wedding theme perfectly.

oooh and I got my foundation airbrushed with a gun too - so fun!

I am just so happy I got to use my trial for something fun too!

Here is our sneak peak Christine just put up!

Thank you Christine we love the and are so excited to see the rest!!  ...

(plenty more to come!)

featured!

Guess what?! 

Our engagement party has been featured on the Australian wedding blog 'Polka Dot Bride' today. We are so excited and stocked. You can click here to check it out for yourself. Thanks so much for the lovely write up Ms polka :)

ps. Have also arrived safely in LA and can't believe I'm not at all jet lagged and am already fitting in with US time. what the?! You can check out this ladies post to see how much fun were having and whats making us crack up (besides those cute kids of course).  And how I keep saying things and Leslie's all - "umm what?"

And yes, seriously the toilets really are super low here!! lol

will catch u up soon. But right now we're off to the cheap fabric shop for some shopping fun :)

a date.

Four our minus 1 year anniversary Morgan took me up to Wine Country to celebrate. We had lunch at the vineyard where we are having our wedding reception and sampled the food and wine - well I sampled the wine, cause he was driving this:

borrowed (with permission of course) from the parents.

And I thought you might like a little sneak peek of outside (I unfortunately didn't take any snaps of the  inside)...

the courtyard, where we hope to have the evening dancing (weather permitting)

the view.

the chicken shed. 

They use the fresh eggs for the meals and also the veggies from the veggie patch :)

Canapes on the lawn will be served here.

outdoor seating. I can just imagine this at night with all the lights on :)

After lunch we played in the vines.

and that was fun!

over lunch I caught the Mr-to-be starring and smiling at me in a total look of love

and I very much melted on the spot

And I realized ONCE AGAIN

How much I love this dear boy!!

I also realized something else that day ..

I have really deep armpit cavities!
like REALLY deep!

mmm sexy!