in the morning, i'm making waffles...

this past saturday morning, nathan and i had no where to be early, so after sleeping in, i had a hankerin' for some waffles. we love lazy saturday mornings with homemade waffles, and it had been too long since we had last made them. so, i whipped out my handy dandy cookbook and got to work.

now don't get me wrong, i love a good eggo with peanut butter, but if i'm getting out the waffle iron, the only way i roll is homemade!

the recipe i use is a loose interpretation of the better homes & garden's new cookbook one.

yes, i write in my cookbooks and leave future me notes. its a good thing too, because everytime i see them i'm like, 'o, yeah!'

of course, its pink

you know me, all about some le creuset. this piece was a christmas present from my aunt...everyone needs a good batter bowl!!

so here we go. first, i mix about 7/8 cup of whole wheat flour with 1 tablespoon demerara sugar (or brown sugar), 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt. to that, this time, i added 1 tbsp flax seed

and about 1/4 bag of walnuts

in a separate bowl, i mixed 1 egg with 7/8 cup milk, 1/4 cup of oil and a big splash of vanilla. 

then, i make a little well in the center of the dry mix and pour the wet stuff in all at once.

and stir, preferably with a big pink spatula :)

finally, into the waffle iron it goes.

and thats it! these were super hearty and kept us full for quite a while! also, this recipe only made 4, but i think you could think it out to get 6. the original recipe is for 12, and i half it, but i think its too thick. perfect for us though!

while i was making waffles, nathan ran out to starbucks to get us some drinks to go with. we chose to have some quad shots, 1 pump sugar free vanilla, whole milk lattes.yum!

this was my waffle...i like them with just a sprinkle of powdered sugar and some whipped cream

after such a yummy breakfast, we headed out to piedmont park to hit up the local green market and enjoy some sunshine. 

check out this shot of the city- isn't it beautiful? i love this view

nathan's sister sarah gave us a call and happened to be in the area, so she came over and met us and her and nathan joined a pick up game of ultimate frisbee. i lounged under a tree (it was HOT) and snapped some pics.

its days like this one that make me love the city and love living here.

starbucks

i am a huge coffee fan. pretty much everyone knows that. one of my favorite simple pleasures is a good mug of freshly brewed coffee, topped with some good thick whipped cream. ahh. so good.

tonight, nathan and i ventured to our favorite date spot (well, one of them anyways)- Starbucks! we often frequent here for date nights (partly because we have gift card money and of course because we just like their drinks). tonight, we took with us books to read while we sat and enjoyed our drinks of choice (for nathan, an early grey tea latte, and for me, a decaf pour over coffee in a for here mug with of course, whipped cream). while nathan read lewis' the great divorce, i dove into the latest starbucks book- onward, by howard schultz.  i hope to share my thoughts on it more as i read more about it, but needless to say, it is quite interesting. as i was sitting in this starbucks store, i couldnt help but notice the very things he was talking about. the book is about how he came back to being the the ceo of the company in 2007, and the struggles and changes starbucks has survived over the last several years. i invite you read it and join me in a discussion about some of the things he mentions.

i will say, as a customer, it impresses me that the ceo of such a large company cares about things like the smells that permeate the stores- to the point that he even formed an aroma task force! from the consistency of the brewed coffee to the different business practices he encourages, mr. schultz really cares.  i think thats pretty cool. so check it out- i'll be posting some more thoughts on it as i get into it!

our wedding - part 1

after recently doing some heavy reading on younghouselove, i was inspired to blog about our wedding and all the details that went into it. i loved loved loved our wedding. shoot, i love any wedding! planning our wedding was one of the most special times in my life so far, and i left no detail unnoticed. so, if you're interested, keep reading! i've broken it all out (partly for yall, but also because its fun to remember!).

first, allow me to brag about my awesome husband. i'll blog about how he proposed later, but needless to say- it was awesome!

central park, NYC!

nathan proposed on march 19, 2008 and we decided to tie the knot on may 16, 2009- giving us just over a year to plan the big day. now, just so you understand why we had such a long engagement- i was going into my senior year of school, and didnt want to miss a day in the dorm. i graduated from berry on may 9, and the very next weekend married my love.

as i started planning my wedding, i wasnt entirely sure what i wanted the "theme" to be- honestly, i wasnt even sure about colors. all my friends assumed that i would go for pink (i'm known around these parts for my obsession with pink & brown), but as i looked around on theknot.com , i feared a scene that i described as looking like "a baby shower threw up on a wedding." no offense, or anything :). so after doing a lot of brainstorming and research, nathan and i agreed that it only made sense to have our wedding be about one common love- coffee!! the more i thought about it, the more confident i was that rich browns, accented with creams and ivory and a light pink, would be perfect!

we celebrated our engagement at starbucks- no joke, our first stop!

while deciding on that, mom and i started trying to figure out where we wanted to get married. since i was a berry girl, my dream was to get married at college chapel with a reception at ford

beautiful, huh? 

but alas, ford was already booked, and we couldnt find another venue in rome that would meet our requirements. see, we had also decided in the midst of all this that we wanted a huge wedding- we invited over 800 people and ended up serving close to 400. so, we moved on from rome and started looking in the atlanta area. after a site visit, we decided on the beautiful evergreen marriott nestled inside of stone mountain park.

they had a perfect lakeside pavilion for the ceremony, and the perfect balance of coziness yet elegance for the reception in their ballroom. so, we started planning our "destination wedding" around the corner.

first up: invitations. i wanted something unique. beautiful.  i found a great company with an online store that i worked closely with to make them exactly what i wanted. they were exquisite.  i went for a folded card with a hand tied bow, and  two enclosure cards- a reply card and a directions/accommodations card.  sandy at invitationpie.com was an angel- she worked with me patiently over email and changed everything i asked to create some beautiful, one of a kind invite that i am still proud of. later, she also helped us with our programs & favor book marks, which i will get to later.

sample, from the website

all the parts

not pictured here, but i hand tied dainty little pink bows on each one! this was quite some work . also, i and i wish i had taken a picture of it, i hand addressed every single invite. it took hours- we sent out  i think 350 invitations. but i was glad to do it.

as the replies started coming in, i kept up with rsvps and dinner selections with a combo of theknot.com and my own monster excel spreadsheet. i love excel. its my hero.  seriously it was like 20 worksheets and each one had color coding, checklists, and much more. if anyone wants to see it, contact me and i'll happily send it along.

so with invitations out, we started planning the weekend- because see, we had decided that although it was a celebration of our union, it was even more so a celebration of all the people who had played a part in helping us become the people we are today. so mom and i worked closely with nathan's mom to plan everything. 

first up, our wedding party. boy, did we have a great crew!  made up of our family and closest friends, we had a large group of folks we love. nathan's three sisters and two brother, along with one of my brothers and my sister , made up the base of the group. to that, we added friends from our childhood, high school, and college. we each had 8 attendants- which was a lot, but there's not one person we would have cut. we wanted these people beside us on our day.  for our groomsmen, we picked out some nice and simple tuxs, complimented with a chocolate brown vest and tie. they looked so sharp!

and for the ladies, i picked out a lovely brown tissue taffeta knee length dress. i thought this dress looked great on every girl. 

and the final piece of attire that i must brag about- my dress!

i loved loved loved my dress. after a few days of dress shopping all around atlanta, i stumbled upon this dress at the same store that my mom bought her dress from 20+ years ago.  on a bright, sunny summer day, mom, ash, and i waltzed into bridals by lori

in the sample,  in the store

my dress was a rivini  layered lace dress and it was perfect. i didn't want to take it off. 

so that's that. with our bridal party picked out and prettied up, and my dress ready to go, it was time to move onto the rehearsal. we worked with mrs freeman to plan a perfect night-before bash. because we were all staying at the marriott (and by all- i mean us and about 100 of our wedding guests) we had all night to enjoy a laid back gathering and prep time. after a quick rehearsal in the pavilion, mrs. freeman hosted an awesome back deck dinner party, followed by a pool party. this laid back, familial gathering gave us a great opportunity to socialize and celebrate with our favorite people- with whom we knew we wouldnt have much time to do the next day.

it was a great party, complete with mason jars of daisies and a bluegrass band. the pool party was fully equipped with tin buckets full of sodas and a candy cart with starbucks bags to fill to take back to the room.

which leads me to our welcome bags, which we pre-placed in each hotel room. while i don't have a picture of these, they were one of my favorite little details that we did.  full of bottled waters, snacks, gum, maps, and some treaties for the little guys, we wanted all of our guests to fill welcome, relaxed, and definitely not go hungry!

the day of the wedding, we hosted a great bridesmaid luncheon in the hotel room. as my girls and i got ready together (we had someone do our hair and makeup), some of my other favorite ladies surrounded us as we snacked on chicken salad, chicken tenders, cheez its, and berries with fresh whipped cream.

lunch party!

ash!

cousin casey

during the bridesmaid luncheon, my grandmothers, mother, and godmother presented me with a new twist on a traditional poem of gifts. i hadn't even thought about my "something old, something new," but of course, i come from a family that is a lot like me- always thinking about the details. so, in one of the most touching times of my life, they one by one presented me with some treasured tokens for the day:

mom and grammie- with my, something old

you cant see it very well, but my something old was my great, great grandmother's 14k rose gold wedding band. both my mom and aunt carried it in their weddings, and it was beautiful. this was presented to me by my grammie (mom's mom)

something new- new pearl earrings to wear from my mom

something borrowed- my godmother's garter. i had been very firm about not wanting a garter, and everyone thought i was crazy. i did wear this, but i did NOT have it tossed :)

and this is when i really lost it. unbeknownst to me, my mimi had sewn two blue bands on the underside of my dress. my papa, my dad's dad, had passed away in february from Alzheimer's. the two bands were to represent her and papa's presence. in honor and memory of papa, i also wore the pearl ring that he and mimi gave me as a high school graduation present. 

so that leads us up to the pictures beforehand and the wedding itself. we had a great photographer- mr. kenny wesley. a family friend of ours and an excellent photographer. unfortunately, right before we were to start taking pictures, a massive storm broke out. great. good luck though, right? so we started out taking pictures inside- at the fireplace in the starbucks in the hotel (yet another reason we selected this place). finally, the storm broke and the sun came out and we got to move out side. see the next post for more about the wedding itself!

cake pops

about a year ago, i was introduced to a new concept that i loved- cake pops! i learned about these when my best friend ash and i were attending the wilton cake decorating class at our local michaels (which, by the way, was great fun!) cake pops are awesome. the possibilities with cake pops are endless. so basically, a cake pop is a ball of crumbled cake, mixed with icing, dipped in candy melts. yes, they are super rich and super unhealthy. and yes, they are WAY cute.

from bakerella.com, the creator & founder of all things cake pops

cake pops have been quite the rage. all over the blog world, in pinterest, in stores, and i've even heard that there is a cake pop truck in some parts of the world.  my favorite coffee shop, starbucks even has them now.

three flavors! tiramsu, rockie road, and birthday cake

my personal favorite, the tiramisu with a big for-here cup of cappuccino. yum! and, at starbucks, each one is under 200 calories- a steal! :)

about a month ago, ash and i decided it was finally time for us to try our hands at cake pops. we had exchanged pictures of them, she even bought bakeralla's cake pop book, and we had talked about how fun it would be. a girl in our lifegroup was pregnant and we were planning the baby shower, so we thought it would be the perfect time to showcase our work. the theme of the shower was a safari/monkey theme, matching the bedding of the baby boy's room. after surfing the web and looking through the book, we decided to make 2 different cake pops- the lion & the monkey. we followed the directions from the book, and had everything ready. here's some pictures detailing our adventure in cake pops:

our workspace all ready for us! i baked the chocolate cake the day before, and early that morning, we mixed in the white icing and rolled out the balls, putting them in the freezer for a bit then moving them to the fridge. its hard to tell, but that is a big foam rectangle that we had pre-poked holes in for the sticks to fit in. also, we had all of our decorative elements pre-portioned out in cupcake liners- a tip we picked up from bakerella.

here we go! ash dipped the stick first into the melt, then quickly inserted it in the ball, then dipped the ball in our peanut butter flavored candy melt.

lions first, these are drying, waiting to be decorated by me

and here is the finished guy, drying off. here's the details- for the mane, we used reeses peanut butter chips. we attached them with some of the peanut butter candy melt for the eyes, we colored a blue dot with icing onto a large white sprinkle, which we also attached with the candy melt. the nose was a brown m&m cut in half, and then we drew on the mouth with icing.

ta-da!

the monkeys were much harder. we dipped them in plain chocolate flavored candy melt, then before they dried, as  soon as ash lifted them from the candy melt, i shoved in two giant peach colored sprinkles for ears and two reeses chips for eyes. them, once dry, we affixed an unmelted peanut butter candy melt as the nose (they were a little splotchy when we took them out of the bag and not totally smooth, so i took my thumb and rubbed them ever so gently until they looked right). to that, we added a brown rainbow chip, and drew on the mouth, and to the eyes, for pupils, a dark sprinkle. these didn't turn out quite as good, but we think it was because the balls were too cold when we dipped them (the chocolate kept cracking from where the balls expanded from the heat)

needless to say, they were a hit!

so there you go. they took a lot of time- about 6 hours just to dip & decorate, but they were such a hit at the party. i definitely couldn't have done it without ash. we have often dreamed and talked of opening our own bakery someday. mostly just dreamed. we make a great team, and its such an honor to have her as a best friend!