Christmas with Virginia

This past weekend we got to have sweet Virginia come and stay with us. I hadn't seen her since the wedding which in all actuality isn't that long but it was still a much needed visit. She opened presents.....

Gave us some lovin...

And we did a lot of baking and took plenty of pictures....

Precious right?

Little chef...

She learned important baking skills like the importance of licking the spoon! :)

We got a little flour on our faces

And she spread some on ours....

It was a very relaxing weekend and we had so much fun loving on that little girl!! 

Around here we are wrapping up our last week of school. Brett and I cannot wait to be on a little break. We are looking forward to spending time with our families, sleeping, and continuing to get our house settled! I am also hoping to make a few changes around the blog when I have some free time!

Oh and we also celebrated one month of marriage on Monday! I am so blessed to be married to him and so thankful that the Lord brought us together.

Happy Wednesday!

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well, we are trying to settle into a routine and our new life as Mr. and Mrs. Our house is coming together and I am realizing how much stuff I have. On Friday we went and got our first Christmas tree together!

On Saturday, we decorated it as well as the rest of our house.

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out and we had a lot of fun doing this together! It has been a whirlwind of a few weeks but we are enjoying every minute of being married! 

In other news, my first graders are crazy right now. I am enjoying teaching but I have definitely got some Christmas craziness going on in my classroom! But, we are almost to Christmas break and next week we have lots of fun things we are doing! 

I also need to give a BIG congratulations to my sweet friend, Katherine. She and Blake are expecting their first child in June!! That is almost as good as a niece when your best friend is having a baby!! Congrats Kat and Blake!! We are so excited for you!!

The Lord has been teaching me so much with all of these changes in my life. I am seeing more and more sin in my life which is never fun but always ends up being good. I have been a bit emotional these last weeks, I have felt sorry for myself, I have been selfish. Bless Brett's heart. It's always good to recognize that sin in my life and I am thankful for His forgiveness. I am learning a lot about striving to choose joy and choose gratitude in each and every situation. 

Last but not least.....I could not be more excited to see this angel TOMORROW!! She is coming to visit us and I am pumped to spend the weekend with her! Also, I don't know if I have mentioned it on the blog or not but, I am going to be an aunt AGAIN!! Linds and Eric are expecting another little girl in April!! Ahhh....I could not be more thrilled!!!

I am off to bed and thankful that tomorrow is Thursday! :) 

My First Week as Mrs. Kittrell

I couldn't have asked for a better first week as a Mrs. We spent the week in beautiful St. Thomas! 

During our week.......

We were giddy with excitement.....

We stayed in a BEAUTIFUL place

We hung out with these guys...

We saw some pretty sunsets!

We dressed up!

We took the infamous ring picture! :)

We saw some of the bluest water!

We spent some time on the beach...

We ate some fabulous food!

We went on a Catamaran dinner cruise!

We talked about our wedding and dreamed about our future!

We were our goofy selfs!

We got to see this most days...

We dug our toes in the sand....

We got a little sunburned!

We saw birds dive bomb.... :) lol

We got to know each other better

We got a little artsy!

We had some fabulous milkshakes at.....

We spent our first week as Mr. and Mrs. Kittrell and loved every second of being together!

It was such an amazing week and we were so thankful to be there! Now, we are back and settling into our home together! It has been a busy couple of weeks but we are most definitely enjoying married life so far!

Productive Weekend!

This weekend was busy and productive. We welcomed October happily! The weather was beautiful and even though we were busy, we got to enjoy the cooler temperatures as well!

On Friday night, Brett and I attended homecoming at UMS. Brett always has to go but I tagged along. The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed spending some much needed time together!

On Saturday, we moved furniture into our future house!! Oh my gracious. It looks wonderful and the furniture made it feel like a home! Thank you to my sweet family who took time to help clean and move things in! We cannot wait to live there together in a little over a month!! :)

On Sunday, the productiveness continued. We stuffed and licked all 366 invitations! We stamped them today and they went in the mail today!! So, you all need to be checking your mail this week!! This was such a huge relief to get these out!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered! :)

Thank you to my sweet mom for helping me lick them on Sunday and thanks Mangs for helping put stamps on them! I am thankful that we are able to get so much done this weekend since it is my last free one until November!! I am excited about a busy October and definitely ready for NOVEMBER! :)

Happy Monday!

Proposal and Engagement Albums

A while back I found a blog that I fell in love with. I was inspired by the albums that she made for her engagement pictures and her wedding pictures. I knew that I wanted to do something similar for my pictures. I was lucky enough to get pictures of the day that Brett proposed. For this album I followed Elise's instructions almost exactly. I even used the same little mini binders that she used. Now, I enjoy creating things like this but the whole cutting it down to size and all of that, I was not a fan of. I just did not have the patience for it at all. I know...I know...not that hard but somehow, I got frustrated. In the end...the album turned out cute. Not perfect but I was pleased. Here are a few of my favorite pages...Sorry about the quality of the photos that I took....

I kept the cover pretty simple. I just used chipboard letters. 

Photos in the book were taken by Judson Meherg...We are so blessed that we have these pictures!

I actually created that book a long time ago but am just now sharing. This one of our engagement pictures I just finished and I am WAY more pleased!! I really love it!! I bumped up to an album that would fit 8.5x11. Now, yes, you do use more ink and since I printed all of these pages at home that is something I had to take into account. I thought it was worth it. I just like seeing the images bigger. I chose a Kolo album/binder and was so pleased! If I do this with wedding photos I will probably use another one of these binders. Here are all of the pages in this album. P.S. the images in the book are amazing quality...my images of the album, not so much. Sorry! All of these images in the book were taken by Bayleigh Murray. I cannot say enough great things about her!!

I love both albums but especially the larger one. A couple of differences in the text of the books....For the proposal one, I basically told our story of how we got engaged. It even was almost a letter to Brett..I called him "you" throughout the book. I started doing that for the engagement album but scratched the idea. I decided to go through 1 Corinthians 13 with the text on the pages. I also added a couple of other passages of scripture as well. All in all, LOVED creating the pages in Photoshop! I really loved the digital scrapbooking and that I got to decide how the pages were going to look. 

Thanks for listening to the rambling. I just thought I'd share how I decided to create everything so that these pictures were all in one place! 

In other news.....65 days until I am married. Gracious....hurry up! :)

Happy Monday!

Hello and happy Monday! I hope this one has treated you well! I just wanted to check in quickly and briefly share a few pictures of a couple of photo projects I have been working on. I planned on creating an album using the pictures that Brett's roommate took of our engagement day and that album is just about complete! Only about 6 months later!! I also decided to create an album of the pictures that Bayleigh took of us! I have printed everything at home and each album is going to be completely different! 

I am loving the way they are turning out and cannot wait to share more as soon as they are completed!! I have a few other posts planned for this week before Thursday because I am heading to New York for the weekend. Gosh, that sounded so ritzy...haha. While I may not be going to the big city.....I'm heading to Buffalo, New York to be apart of a wedding of two very special and dear friends and I cannot wait!! Again, I will share more on that later as well!

Hope your Monday was great!

Double Digits

99 DAYS!!!

If you ask us....that is something to scream about!!!

Joel Brett Kittrell, we are getting so close! I can't wait to marry you boy!

Have a good weekend friends!

Wonderful Wedding Updates

Well, we are 106 days away from the day that we will say, "I do." There are days when I feel like the time is dragging along and then other times where I blink and the countdown has drastically decreased. Thankfully, it has gone more quickly than I would have thought. I am so prone to be discontent but by His grace, I have found that I have been more busy and my mind hasn't been on the countdown. I want to enjoy this process of planning. God has orchestrated this time of seven and a half months for me to plan and I don't want to waste it or wish it away. 

But now, an update.....plans are moving right along. Camp Grace is where we two will become one and then party after we do so! Our photographer will be Alisa Lynn. We now have a florist and I have met with some close friends about the more specifics of our decor. This is definitely going to be more of a DIY event. The girls dresses are being made and are a pretty blue color. They will have some brighter flowers that will hopefully add some pops of color on that day. The only other big vendors we haven't booked (but are on the verge of booking) are our DJ and our videographer. 

The big to-do the past couple of weeks has been deciding on who will make our cake so naturally, my mom, matron-of-honor, and I ventured out to three different cakes shops to taste some cake. Here are some photos of the cake tasting. (sorry for the poor quality....just brought the point and shoot)

Matron of Honor is pumped about cake tasting....

Some places rolled out the red carpet for us.......

Some didn't......

Not impressed....uh oh...

Third and final.....

Sent us home with three different mini cakes!! Very impressed...haha

Mangs loved it...

Yum...we have a winner!

Even Pudge approved...

So...Cakes By Judi is what you will be tasting on November 12th and I don't believe you will be disappointed! 

This is happening people! Only about 3ish months left until I am Mrs. Kittrell!!

And after two weeks.....he comes home today!! EEK!! So excited!! 

Have a fun weekend folks!

What You May Not Know.....

Well, my sweet fiance is out of town. He is in Birmingham and has been since last Sunday. I know that in reality 2 weeks apart is not long but, I miss that boy! Thankfully, I will see him on Friday but I felt that it was appropriate for me to do a little post in his honor. So...without further adieu....

Here are some things you may or may not know about Brett....

1. His first name is Joel and I happen to love that.

2. Brett is funny. Very funny. No one can make me laugh like him.

3. Brett knows just about any and everything about sports. He can name people who played and coached long before he was born. He loves to play them and loves to watch them. It's a love/hate thing for me with how much he loves sports.

4. He is so smart. That boy  knows a little something about everything it seems. I am thankful for this because I know that he is so wise and loves to read and learn about anything!

5. Brett is a servant and works incredibly hard. He is willing to do just about anything for anyone.

6. Brett has never met a stranger. Ever. He can be found making friends with walls.... :) haha. jk. But seriously....he wants to be your friend too. No lie.

So....with that said... You should probably get to know him because he is basically awesome.

Oh....and I happen to be marrying him in 110 days. 

Engagement Pictures

At the end of May, Brett and I had our engagement pictures done. I knew when I got engaged that I definitely wanted Bayleigh to do my pictures! I met Bayleigh through Katherine and have obsessed over her pictures for a long time. I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted for engagement pictures and she did such an amazing job! It was hard to choose what to share so there are a lot of pictures but I don't ever upload anything to facebook anymore so I figured this is how I would share! 

Enjoy!

Outfit change! :)

Love this shot! 

Brett was such a good sport! I kept telling him thank you during our shoot and he just kept saying..."This is your day!" Thanks sweet boy! So....that is why he got this shot....he wanted one with the no swimming sign..go figure.... :)

Why are you smiling? haha...

Our relationship during football season.... :) haha. jk

"Grow old along with me....the best is yet to be!"

I love you!

All of our photos were taken at the place where we will say, "I do" in just a few short months! We had a beautiful day and that plus the location made for some pretty amazing pictures! Praying for beautiful weather on November 12th too!!

Thank you so much Bayleigh! You did a great job!

Have a great Fourth of July!