The Season for Weddings, I Suppose...

It has been a crazy three months. With my best friend and my brother both getting married within 8 days of each other I've been swamped with wedding work and too busy to keep up with the blog.

Photo Credit: Co-D Photography

I had the privilege to be Maid of Honor for my bestest friend. Most of my duties included doing online pricing research, helping locate some hard-to-find "detail" items, and wrangling bridesmaids.
She had 6 bridesmaids who are some of the coolest people I've met. I got to spend some time with them at both the lingerie shower and her bachelorette party.

When I say wrangling, there wasn't much actual wrangling involved but I did take over answering the thousands of questions they had during the last week before the wedding, especially questions like:

What time do I need to show up?
Where are we meeting?
Are the dresses ready yet?

Our dresses turned out to be kind of a fiasco. We hired a seamstress to make our dresses. We chose a pattern and had a meeting with the seamstress to be measured way back in April. The seamstress received the fabric in May which left her with almost 4 months to work on the dresses, 6 for the bridesmaids and 1 for the junior bridesmaid, the groom's little half sister.

First we found out that there was no way to modify the dress pattern to fit the junior bridesmaid so we had to go find a children's pattern to match our pattern. Then, around the beginning of August we were told that there might be some problems with our pattern because the pattern was for Misses sizes and most of the bridesmaids were Juniors sizes. (It sounded like a bunch of excuses to me but since I know so little about sewing I didn't say anything at the time.) We were asked to meet again to re-measure and fit the pieces that she had already started sewing, but the woman didn't show up when we had scheduled. It took a whole extra week for all of us to meet with her. I was quite upset when I found out she had only made a small piece of the bodice for each dress. This was just 2 weeks before the wedding! We should have been trying on fully made dresses and being fitted for alterations. I mean, the whole reason we decided to have our dresses made was so they would fit us better.

I know every bridesmaid complains about the dress. Bridesmaid dresses are expensive and rarely can be worn more than once. They're notoriously ugly, frilly monstrosities that no woman would ever want to wear again. With this being an outdoor summer wedding we tried to choose a dress that would be cool and comfortable. I think the choice of dress was a wise one. It had a layer of satin with a sweetheart neckline overlayed with lace that came all the way to the neck. The lace was super breezy and as long as the wind was blowing at least a little we weren't super hot. The only problem was that no one's dress fit properly. Some were too tight around the waist, others had areas where the lace was a different size than the satin leaving lace sagging in places, and most of them had uneven hems. The seamstress felt the need to add an extra layer of fabric beneath the satin skirts so that we were roasting from waist to knees, but the most infuriating thing was that she delivered the dresses only 4 hours before the wedding was scheduled to begin! See, I told you it was a fiasco.

Luckily we only had to wear the dresses for a few hours and you can't see the imperfections in the photographs. We all look beautiful in the pictures, especially the girls that managed to get their hair into beautiful updos.

My hair was too short for an updo but one of the other girls helped me curl my little bob and it turned out quite well. For all the complaints I have about the dresses, the wedding was really beautiful. I mean, my bestest friend is gorgeous anyway but when I saw her in her dress I wanted to cry. She looked like an angel!

Photo Credit: Co-D Photography

Bailey was a flower girl and one of the cutest little flower girls I've ever seen. She made sure she covered the entire aisle with petals (unlike most flower girls who just sprinkle a handful every couple of steps) and when she ran out she tipped her bucket upside down and gave a cute little look of disappointment at its emptiness. Then she sat quietly with the bride's mother for the entire length of the ceremony. I was so proud!

Bailey made friends with the bridesmaids as well.

This was the highlight of the reception for me.

Bailey loves to dance and she's not too shy to get out on the dance floor all by herself.

So that's my bestest friend's wedding but it wasn't the only one.

Photo Credit: Sullivan Photography

My brother married the most amazing, wonderful woman this past Sunday. The whole thing happened in Nana's back yard. They wrote their own beautiful vows. I had heard the bride's vows beforehand but my brother's brought tears to my eyes. (He's a writer after all and one of the most eloquent speakers I've heard.) They took dancing lessons and blew the crowd away with their first dance. Yaya and my brother's dance was equally adorable and my new sister-in-law looked so beautiful dancing with her father. I even got to do the cupid shuffle later on in the reception.

The bride and groom's cake.

I was asked to make cupcakes for the wedding and they turned out so perfect! I spread the work out over three days to allow for sleeping time but I still had a couple of hours of work to do when I arrived at Nana's. I chose to frost and decorate them on site to avoid damaging them while transporting them. My brother asked for pumpkin spice cupcakes and raspberry white chocolate cupcakes so I made

a pumpkin spice cupcake with spiced cream cheese frosting and

a raspberry cupcake filled with white chocolate ganache and topped with white chocolate buttercream frosting, a raspberry, and raspberry syrup drizzle. The bride's cupcake choices were strawberry and banana cream so we had

strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting and a sliced strawberry flower on top and

vanilla cupcakes filled with banana pudding and topped with whipped cream, sliced bananas, and Nilla wafers.

And of course Bailey got a chance to show off her moves again, this time with Li'l P.

It's been a long few months with lots of work. I'm glad it's over but I'm so excited for both of the newlywed couples! (And also a little jealous as my bestie just returned from her honeymoon in Savannah, GA and my brother and his wife are living it up in Hawaii this week.)

Now that all of the wedding stuff is over I hope to get back on a normal blogging schedule, starting with some of the recipes that I managed to make and photograph during my break. I'll be returning to my weekly menu updates as well as the Wishlist Wednesday posts. I can't wait to get started! Keep an eye out this week for at least two more posts.

An Apology for my Absence

There have been a few glitches with the blog lately and tons of activities keeping me busy, so busy that I couldn't get anything done on the blog. So I would like to apologize for my apparent absence. I had lined up a pair of posts for each week of April and scheduled them to post automatically but something went wrong with the scheduling and they never posted. I'm not even going to try to catch up. I'm just going to write off the whole month as a vacation and attempt to get back on track.

Some exciting things have been happening around me. My bestest friend is getting married in September and I'm the maid of honor. I've been working furiously to help get her wedding together. I've mostly been doing online research for dresses, shoes, cakes, nail salons, wedding invitations, etc. Basically I do whatever she asks me to.

Also, my brother got engaged! I'm so excited for him! He and his fiance have so much in common and they're so happy together. Plus, I couldn't ask for a better sister-in-law. It turns out they want to have their wedding this September as well and I've been invited to be a bridesmaid. Again, it's exciting! I've never been a bridesmaid before, let alone a maid of honor, so all of this wedding stuff is kind of new to me. I mean, I've been engaged for going on 11 years now and I'm still not married so that shows you how much I think about weddings.

I've been asked to do some cupcakes for my brother's reception so I'll be testing recipes over the next few months. Recipe testing is always fun! I'll probably be trying a new recipe every few weeks and I'm planning on having the whole family taste them on the weekends and on Mondays. Of course I'll definitely have my brother and his fiance taste them first.

They want four kinds of cupcakes:
1) Raspberry White Chocolate
2) Pumpkin Spice
3) Banana Cream Pie
4) Strawberry

Obviously I have a handle on the strawberry cupcakes since I've been making them for over two years and I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to do for the banana cream pie (a vanilla cupcake with banana custard filling and a whipped cream like topping) but the raspberry white chocolate and the pumpkin spice have been a creative dream for me. I had about eight variations of different combinations of raspberry and white chocolate but I finally decided to go with a raspberry cupcake filled with white chocolate ganache, topped with white chocolate buttercream, and garnished with a fresh raspberry and drizzled with a raspberry puree reduction. I've already done the test batch on them and they turned out amazing! For the pumpkin spice I'm going to do a pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting. It should have the flavor of a pumpkin cheesecake with the texture of a cupcake.

Okay, so here's the other huge piece of news: My dad, Admiral, and his long time girlfriend finally got engaged... and they're getting married in less than two weeks! I'm extremely happy for them. I really do adore her and they obviously love each other. And luckily for me I didn't have to help with any of the planning for this one (because I definitely couldn't handle that... how do wedding planners do it?) so all I have to do is show up for the ceremony. They're getting married in Townsend so it'll be really beautiful with an excellent view of the Great Smoky Mountains, one of my dad's favorite places in the world.

I've been crocheting like crazy for weeks. I have four projects with fast approaching deadlines that I'm trying to complete ahead of schedule so I'm not scrambling to finish them at the last second. For the past five or six years I've neglected crocheting in favor of knitting because I seem to knit faster than I crochet, but it turns out that I actually crochet quite fast when I get in a rhythm. I've been spending my mornings from about 8:00 to 11:00 crocheting while Bailey watches cartoons and even though I know I have a schedule to keep it's been very relaxing.

The knit-along and crochet-along projects turned out interesting. Good interesting. The knit project was (as I predicted) a lot like a patchwork quilt. Each piece had a different, new stitch. There were cables, daisy stitches, eyelet cables, mitered squares, a tweed piece, log cabin squares, corner to corner striped squares, and the last huge piece for the center was called a whirly square. They were all put together like a puzzle and sewn together and then a border was added. I'm extremely fond of the whole pattern. It looks amazing all pieced together. Well, mine isn't finished yet, but I've seen some from the other knitters I met through the knit-along and even though no one used the same colors I did I can see what mine will look like and everyone's looks beautiful.

The crochet-along was really neat because there were so many more crocheters than I had expected. I made a ton of friends and the people who managed to finish theirs (especially those who finished each clue within the week it was assigned) have earned huge respect from me. I kept getting further and further behind (it's hard to work with granny squares with Bailey because she carries pieces off while I'm working) and then of course all of the new projects came up. I have my squares ready to join together I just have to weave all of the ends in first. As soon as all of my other projects are completed I'm going to get back to the crochet-along and finally have a new throw for the couch.

I guess the whole experience has taught me that I can't follow a schedule or meet a deadline but the mystery part was fun, seeing a new piece of the puzzle every week and working new stitches I'd never done before.

It looks like I missed two Wishlist Wednesdays so hopefully I can get one up before the end of this month. If not I'll do one huge Wishlist in June. The next one will probably include some of the interesting wedding stuff I've been researching. My new wedding assignment is to plan the lingerie party so I might add a few of the fascinating discoveries I've made about heart shaped cookie cutters. (Spoiler: You can make both bikini tops and bottoms with the same cookie cutter.)

I also have about 20 post-it notes full of recipes that need to be photographed and posted. I modified my pizza dough recipe, found a few Starbucks copycat recipes that are really spot-on, tried a really great new pork recipe from Budget Bytes, and I have a few recipes that I still need to update either because I've made improvements or because the photographs are lacking in the original posts.

I will get to as much of this as possible as quickly as I can. There will be at least one new recipe post this week and an updated menu (since the last menu I posted was a month ago) so be prepared for the blog to kick back into high gear!

Are New Year's Resolutions Cliche?

Did you make any resolutions for the new year? I've made a couple. For one, I'm giving up soda... again. I do this every few years and usually it lasts about six months or so. I'm not addicted to soda or anything, it's just so much more convenient sometimes. I mean, water would be convenient (and I love water) but I really prefer it filtered and extremely cold. I'm the crazy woman who always orders extra ice with my water at restaurants.

A Few of My Favorites: 2014

Welcome to 2015 everyone! I'm excited for this year but the end of 2014 has been so busy I've barely had a chance to enjoy it. So I wanted to take a look back at a few favorite meals from the past year. I figure since I did 6 reader favorites, I'll do 6 of my favorites. I'm only including 2014 for this post but you can see my favorites from 2013 here.

Let's get to it!

1) Island Pork Tenderloin

Pork tenderloin is quickly making its way to the top of my favorite proteins list. It's so easy to make, so tender, so juicy, so flavorful... I could go on and on. This tenderloin in particular has tons of flavor. There's a spice rub (that includes cinnamon, I mean, come on, how often do you get to use cinnamon on meat?) and then a brown sugar/hot sauce/garlic glaze that is just out of this world, and the whole thing only takes about 30-45 minutes to get on the table. It goes with everything. I love it with seasoned rice and fresh steamed veggies but it also pairs well with heavier sides like mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. And bonus! The leftovers are incredible, especially when topping a salad.

Updates

In case you haven't noticed there are a few updates to the page. I've added some new features to help readers navigate the page and to highlight some of the most popular posts.

There's a search bar at the top left corner where you can type in what you're looking for and get a list of matches or near matches. Also, along the top of the page under the blog title is a sort of index to guide you to a particular type of recipe. For example you can click chicken and you'll get a list of all of the dishes that include or feature chicken.

Vacation Bible School 2014

Overall I'd say Vacation Bible School was a success! Bailey got to enjoy some time with other kids, play on a playground, eat snacks, and learn about Jesus. She even did some crafts, though I'm pretty sure she had a lot of help with those.

When we got there Monday night the nursery class was packed! They had only assigned two adults to the nursery and twelve kids showed up. So instead of just dropping the kids off my cousin and I stayed and helped out in the nursery. The up side of that was I got to watch Bailey play with the kids and she felt comfortable because I was there with her.

A Sad Day

My heart is broken today.

I haven't mentioned it before because I was trying to keep the blog happy and upbeat but my Grandpa has been in the hospital since April. The doctors found a tumor on the lining of his brain that was 4 inches wide. They had to do surgery to remove it.

Is there something in the air?

There definitely is something in the air here in Knoxville. It's called pollen and it is absolutely evil!

I have horrible allergies. It seems like I'm allergic to everything from dust to pollen and lots of things I've never heard of people being allergic to before. I must have super sensitive skin because I break out from deodorants and soaps and lotions and even hypoallergenic sunblock!

It's My Birthday!

It's my birthday!

I was still up at midnight last night and cracked open a Black Cherry Mike's to celebrate. I rarely drink unless I'm celebrating something, but my bestest friend gave me a few of these delicious black cherry flavored "beers" for my Easter gift and I thought now might be a good time to enjoy them.

My Crazy, Planning Obsessed Mind

I've spent nap time (and the first few hours of bed time) the past few days on Pinterest and some of my favorite blogs searching for recipes to use for new recipe night. This is a crazy thing to do because I've already planned my menu as far ahead as the end of May! And because I have over 300 recipes pinned on Pinterest that I have yet to try.

A Few of My Favorites

I've already shared with you what the reader favorites from last year are, but I didn't get a chance to put my two cents in. I tried approximately 50 new recipes last year, some I liked and some were just okay. I was proud that I only had one total screw up.

I learned a lot about cooking in 2013. I practiced bread-making and now I have it almost down to a science. (I've actually only had one bread failure.) I learned how to cut up a whole raw chicken and how to make stock. I made my first homemade pudding. I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to plenty of new recipes this year. (I'm super excited about maybe learning to make cheesecake since Dad's girlfriend is so good at it.)

Bath Paint

How do you allow your child to learn about messy things without making huge messes that are hard to clean up?

You teach messy lessons in the tub of course!

Today we had one of those lessons. It's one we've actually had before. I found a recipe for bath paint on Pinterest sometime last year and I've been letting Bailey paint the bath tub ever since.

My Big Little Girl

I will be the first to admit that I don't do everything right as a parent.  Some things I don't realize that I'm doing wrong.  Like it took me 3 months to figure out that all I had to do was tell Bailey to push and she could put her arms in her sleeves all by herself or that if I say "Step in," she will just step right into her pants like a big girl.

I mostly let Bailey do things by herself.  She's a pretty independent kid.

How To: Stop Being a Lazy Bum After Almost a Month of Allowing Yourself to be a Lazy Bum

Long title, I know.  I'm just being a little silly though.

I really have been a lazy bum.  Somehow my laundry has piled up (in that odd way where I haven't actually put away the clean clothes I washed last week so the new dirty clothes are in a pile where the laundry baskets usually sit while the clean laundry is in the laundry baskets), I have neglected the dusting, I've neglected the dishes a lot, and last week I never even made it to the grocery store!