My Big Brothers Wedding!

This past weekend, my older brother got married, finally!! haha  Just kidding, he's only 28, that's not too bad.  Anyway, he's my only sibling and I didn't even get a sister when I got married, so now I officially have a Sister-in-Law!  Here are a few pics, enjoy!  Hubby and I were both in the wedding and we had a blast!

Congrats Brandon & Natalie!!

Aren't they gorgeous??

Hubby and I with the Bride and Groom

My beautiful Mother and I!

Wedding party..... I didn't have a better pic than this

My wonderful parents

Hubby and I dancing the night away!

Jesse and his BIL

The Newlyweds dancing.  Isn't my brother handsome??

Jesse's parents came to the wedding! It was nice to see him!

Taking a quick break from dancing!

It was a very fun night and everything was beautiful!   Thanks for letting us be apart of your special day you two!  I hope you are enjoying the start of your honeymoon!!

2 years ago today

This man asked me to be his wife :-)

 With this ring:

I said yes :-)

 And I couldn't be happier :-)

I did it!

After 14 months of marriage, I've finally ordered wedding pictures!! :-)  Just a small victory over here at the Crane's, as I've been putting it off for some time now! (14 months to be exact!)  It's a process as I'm sure a lot of you brides know! And the fact that my photographer didn't use a digital camera (don't even get me started), we have less pictures to go through, but we don't get to see them online! :-(  So anyway, I'll be happy in the moment for now and forget the things I cannot change!

Update on how Thanksgiving went at our home to come later this week.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I've officially started decorating for Christmas, as I can see, many of you have as well!  Isn't it great?  I love Christmas!!

Happy Monday! :-)

Happy Anniversary!!

Today is our 1st Anniversary!  I cannot explain how quickly this last year has flown by!  It's incredible.

I once heard the quote: " I hope the day you get married is the day you love each other the least".  I thought this was very powerful and o so true!  Your wedding day is and should be the most important day of your lives (obviously until children come, maybe or maybe not.). 

Each and every day when my husband comes home from a long day at work and he kisses me hello, it reminds me just how lucky I am to have found the true love of my life, my best friend, my companion, my soul mate, my partner in crime, my wonderfully, lovable, generous, forgiving, honest, hardworking, amazing husband!

I've decided to make a list of things of 10 things that my husband does that I love:
1)  He never leaves the house in the morning without coming back into our bedroom to kiss me goodbye.
2)  He always comes home happy (no matter what kind of day he had)
3)  He always kisses me hello and goodbye everytime he comes home or leaves.
4)  He always wants my opinion on everything he does, whether he thinks I understand it or not (engineers!)
5)  He would rather show me anyday how much he loves me than speak the words.  He once told me that actions speak louder than words and why shouldn't it apply to love?
6)  He knows how much it means everytime he says those three little words to me, so he does say them
7)  He knows I usually cal, e-mail or text him once during the day while we are at work.  If I don't, he finds it odd and calls, e-mails or texts me.
8)  He would rather stay at home with me and cuddle up to a movie than go out, any day.
9)  He is goofy and will do anything to get me to laugh.
10) He loves me regardless of my flaws.

With that being said, here are a few wedding pictures none of you have seen:

Jesse~  Thank you for all that you do.  Marriage takes work, compromise, and love, none of which are lacking from our relationship.  I never knew I would be so lucky as to have found you and to have fallen in love with you. My life would not be complete without you and I am so thankful that you are in my life.  I cannot wait to celebrate many more years with you by my side as my one and only, my husband.  I love you more than the day we got married and tomorrow, I will love you even more.  XOXO

Show us Your Life... Families, Ceremony & Cake

Well, I've posted here and here about our wedding. This post is all about family, the ceremony and the cake (and a centerpiece)

My wonderful family! (Minus Nat-my future-sis-in -law!

My new in-laws! (LOVE THEM!)

Our Beautiful Outdoor Ceremony

Us!

With this Ring, I thee Wed

The Kiss! Yes, Hubby did have his hand in an inappropriate place, but it worked :-)


We're Married!!! Mr & Mrs!

That's right, Just married! (My friend Pam made this!)

Our Cake, I wanted simple and loved it! (O and it was delicious!)

One of our centerpieces. I'm very simple and I always think, Less is More.

Thanks for stopping by our wedding, next I'll post about the reception!!

Show us your life........... Wedding party & Flowers

So, awhile back I did a post on My Wedding Dress So, I figured why stop there!?!? I know that everyone else has already finished most of their Wedding posts and I'm a little behind, but o well!

I had three bridesmaids. All of which were wonderful!
I loved my flowers! I had pink Gerber Daisies and they were perfect!

Here we are again

The guys thought they looked cool in their shades
We had 3 groomsmen and 2 ushers

Aren't they handsome?

Here we are after the ceremony ready to get on the trolly!
Shades and all :-)

Our wedding party was such a blast! We had a lot of fun. I wish I had more pictures to share of all of us, but my photographer was probably my least favorite part of our whole wedding.... Yeah sucks doesn't it! :-) O well, we are over it.

I'll show off our families, cake, ceremony pictures, and reception pictures next!

Show us your life.... My Wedding Dress

I went to two bridal stores in search of "MY dress". The first store was a flop, I didn't want to wear something that wasn't perfect. I had a few dresses that I thought "This could work, it's not my favorite, but it could work." The second place we went was in Manchester, IA at a small little boutique and off the top of my head I cannot for the life of me remember the exact name! Anyway, my dress was the 2nd dress I tried on that day. I knew I wanted strapless, little beading, and a small train. I'm only 5'0" tall, so a long train would only make me look shorter! I originally didn't want a veil because I didn't think it suited me, though I tried one on with my dress and decided it made it look complete. I actually looked like a bride! I took the veil off after the first two dances of the night (Bride & Groom dance and Father, Daughter dance) Make sure to head on over to Kelly's Korner to check out more wedding dresses!!

1 Week Down, 3 to go!

So, back to school I go.... Again tonight. Ugg this being away from home is really getting to me. This class though, is by far, the easiest of all of our classes. It's laid back and structured very differently than all of the other classes. It's all about developing curriculum for School Counselors, I can actually apply exactly what I have learned from this class to my everyday counseling when I get a position. When the class is finished (this Friday!!), we will walk away with 22 different lessons for counseling different developmental ages, along with a variety of different activities, books, ice breakers, ect... to use when we are in the field. I can't wait to begin my counseling career, only one more year to go!

As of June 2010, I can officially get a counseling position with my Class G license, contingent on the fact that I graduate w/in a year with my actual license. So, thats the goal! Then, I'll be able to work and get paid while doing my practicum.

I feel so relieved no longer being a first year grad student, that's for darn sure. I've enjoyed reading all of your posts, sometimes I get behind but I'll eventually get caught up.

In other news: I FINALLY got some of our wedding pictures developed to hang up around the house. I still have yet to order from the photographer, but at least I've got something up.

Hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was spent working on homework, cleaning the house (a little) and doing some laundry. We also grilled out a delicious dinner last night, here's what we had:

Grilled chicken
Grilled Asparagus
Corn on the Cob
Bottle of our favorite wine

Out on the back deck, listening to music and enjoying the beautiful weather. Just what I needed before I head back to class for another 4 days away from home.

Until I have a chance to write again, have a wonderful week ladies!!!

Are you kidding me??

So, it's been about 3 weeks since I've blogged, but we've been soooooo busy! It's only going to get worse.... Here's how the next 8 weekends look:

• March 28th & 29th- Finally some free time at home, but the hubby is doing overtime, so I'll be on my own!

• April 4th & 5th- My best friends shower & bachelorette party in my hometown

• April 11th & 12th- Friends wedding & Easter back home
• April 18th & 19th- I have class all day on Saturday and Jesse will be on his annal motorcycle run, which I do not get to attend this year :-(
• April 24th-26th- Back home to celebrate my brother's birthday
• May 9th- Best Friend's wedding May 10th- Mother's Day
• May 16th-17th- Wedding back in my hometown
• May 22-25th Going to the Indy 500 with my family (My uncle is a engineer on the Target car, so it's pretty neat to watch once a year)
• May 30th-31st- Finally, another weekend at home!!! :-)

Then June starts, and class starts..... Class M-Th 3.5 hours away from home, stayin on campus and taking 2 semester classes in two weeks each..... Not what I call exciting, but whatever I can do to get my masters and finally my dream job!!

Since we have so much going on in the next 7-8 weeks or so, I may not be blogging much. It's hard to keep up, though I still enjoy reading everyone's blogs. Stop over at my favorite blog, This Young House

They are amazing and have so many DIY projects, I just wish I had the time! :-)

Work is calling my name, though today it's been hard to get to work. It's gloomy and very rainy. These are the days I just want to stay curled up in bed with Bear right beside me. Jesse is already at work, so that's not an option.

I know we all have our days at work.... But sometimes, it's so frustrating I can hardly stand it. I don't mean to be complaining, because that is just what I'm going to vent to you about. I work with this one particular "person" we will call them "Z". Anyway, Z is amazing great at COMPLAINING! yes, complaining. All Z does is find reasons or things to complain about, and it drives me up the wall! It doesn't matter what it is, the day, a color, a sandwich, a wrong order, a co-worker being late..... Stuff that is none of Z's business, but Z likes to stick their nose in it anyway! Do you have anyone like that at work? It's hard to get through a day sometimes... Im not sure what Z's problem is, but I wish that they would get some help. We're thinking maybe they are Bipolar because Z's moods go from manic to depressed in about 10 minutes. It's odd and very hard to deal with here at the office. I wish Z would realize that it's bringing everyone else down with them. Maybe that's what they want though? Misery loves company! Haha

Have a fantastic Tuesday!! :-)

Wedding Bliss.........

So, I'm finally getting around to posting a few pics from our wedding..... First, I have to tell you a little about it. We were married on October 4th, 2008 in Iowa. We had our wedding outside at an Arboretum (sort of like a Botanical Gardens) I looked at the weather daily {read: hourly} for about the entire two weeks before the wedding! Needless to say, that only made matters worse. I even bought pink & black umbrella's to match the wedding party for pictures in case of rainy weather. Well, it was suppose to be 58 degrees and a 60% chance of rain... Yuck right? Turns out, the day of our wedding it couldn't have been more perfect. God had truly blessed us with the perfect day. It was 64 degrees and sunny with blue sky's!!! I knew right then and there that He was watching over us! With that being said, the girls weren't too cold and the guys weren't too hot. *PERFECT*
So, here are a few pictures for you all: