A month of firsts

December 2013 for us has meant...

 

Our first Christmas together in our own home. Being able to wake up together without feeling guilty about having picked one set of parents house to wake up in is going to be a great feeling

Our first Christmas as a family. Me and Luke and Beau. He is just going to love all the wrapping paper and his new toys

Our first Christmas tree together. Usually Luke says Christmas shouldn’t start until after his birthday on the 14th, but he let us buy a tree on the First of December! And let us put it up the same day too!!!!

Our first attempt at making scotch eggs

Our first [and only] Christmas as fiancé and fiancée. I still am yet to get used to calling Luke my fiancé. I expect that once I begin to use the phrase naturally we will be married and he will be my Husband. Eek.

Beau's first training session with the whistle

The first December where I have been sad to see this year end. Well the latter half of it. We have been through some tough times together at the beginning of the year, which really tested our relationship, but we have come out strong and the last 6 months of this year have been brilliant. So easy, full of laughs and happy times. But next year is full of more exciting times for us and I just can’t wait. For want of a better phrase ‘2014 is our year’.

Wedding and Absences

I've sadly neglected my blog recently. I seem l have lost my inspiration for unique posts and I haven't wanted to conform to the usual 'Christmas is Coming' posts that I read day in day out. Not that I don't love reading them, I do!

Naturally wedding planning has taken over my life, but I haven't wanted to blog about it and bore you with the details. Which I am about to do now ;)

I apologise for the formatting of this post, clearly blogger hates me for neglecting.

My life these last few weeks have revolved around dogs, weddings, and Christmas. I did all my Christmas shopping back in October, but until last night hadn't wrap a single one. We've had Luke's parents' dogs to stay with us so our house has been like a kennel. Beau is getting ever so tinkerish, biting and chewing everything in sight. He even took over the remote control last night! He loves the bath, so much so that I have to schedule my hair wash for when Luke is around to distract him from jumping in. 

I also took on the mammoth task of making all the wedding invites. I wanted them to be handmade but look professional so naturally they've become time consuming and my poor little cuttlebug is feeling the strain. Then there's the prospect of demolishing the house in the new year and thinking 'how are we going to build a house and plan a wedding at the same time?' so I have been trying to plan as much as possible before demolition to ease the pressure. 

So, after a stressful, tearful, exciting 5 weeks, we've set a date, picked the venue, booked the church, booked the caterers, arranged a tasting session, picked and booked a band, cut out 230 birds, 115 squares of lace, bought 25 rolls of double sided sticky tape and made a grand total of 7 invites. Out of 70. We'll get there ;) I have also picked my dress and am going back this weekend to hopefully buy it! There is a list as long as my arm of other things to do. You cross one off, and add on 3 more! I'm just so grateful for Luke and his helpful nature, bless his socks he has spent a fair few hours cutting out birds for the invites!

We've spent a lot of time together [making invites] but we only realised last week that we hadn't celebrated our engagement on our own, so we had Dad round to dog sit and hopped into Birmingham for some christmas market fun. 

There have also been many tears [all on my part, obviously]. Who said planning a wedding is the most exciting time of your life?! Obviously I am SO excited, but I have learnt some things whilst planning. There are certain people that have to be invited. The family you've not seen for years but who cannot not be invited. The friends you haven't seen for years that you don't feel you should invite but have to to save a ruined friendship. The plus ones of people you've never met, so their other halves don't feel lonely. I have written the guest list out so many times, there have been many promotions and demotions. I tried to take a stance of 'if you've not bothered with us then I won't invite you' but even that can't work. So my guest list is bulging at the seams and I don't even know how!! Any other wedding planners having this problem?

On a Christmas note [it would be rude not to], I persuaded Luke to let us buy and put up our first ever Xmas tree on Sunday as he usually won't allow it until after his birthday. It, together with the cinnamon candles we've had burning, have made the house feel so cosy and festive. 

Wow I didn't want this to turn into a moaning post so I'll leave it there with a few snapshots.

Any tips for wedding planning would be much appreciated :)

Puppy Love

These last few weeks have been like having a baby.

Despite getting engaged, Luke and I have had no time whatsoever to ourselves, but the puppy makes up for that and the time we do spend 'as a family' is wonderful

So far this week he has:

- nibbled my toes, slippers, socks, tights

- made friends with Luke's parents' dogs

- fallen in the pond. Twice. [this was through no fault of us as owners, he just got very excited and forgot to look ahead]

I won't write too much more, the photos will tell the rest

Christmas is coming

from here

Maybe it’s the fact that Saturday night TV treated us to not just one but TWO Christmassy adverts courtesy of John Lewis and Coca Cola.

Maybe it’s that I have done all my Christmas shopping  already and it’s all just waiting to be wrapped

Maybe it’s that I have bought all of our Christmas decorations for our first Christmas in our home together

Or maybe it’s that on Thursday the German Christmas market is coming back to Birmingham

It comes every year, around this time, til just before Christmas. The stalls stretch further than your eyes can see and it is packed with people eating German sausages and drinking hot mulled wine. As I work in Birmingham, with stalls directly outside the office door, it gets quite annoying. The ‘quick pop over the road to grab a sandwich’ becomes a half hour session of hustle and bustling and queuing.

Beau had his injections last week which means we can take him for walks soon, so although my days will be filled crowds and noise, it means that Luke can bring him in to meet me after work and we can treat ourselves to some hot toddies and a pulled pork roll (or two), making the hustle and bustle not all that bad.What do you have planned for the run up to Christmas?