If I Could Turn Back Time

Besides Christmas & New Years, I was very priviledged to celebrate my 2nd year Wedding Anniversary as well! Craig and I were married on December 20th, 2008. I was head over heels in love with my high school sweetheart and at the age of 18 I officially made him mine - I didn't want anyone else to have him! Lucky for me, after 5 years of dating and 2 years of marriage, he still wants to keep me his as well. 

Now, I'm not saying that my Winter Wedding wasn't gorgeous, but on the 20th of December the weather had broken it's record and was -35 degrees Celsius! It was so, so, so cold. Notice that I am wearing my winter jacket over my wedding dress in that picture - and in every picture of Craig, he looks beyond cold and miserable.

I love imagining, creating, scheming and planning weddings. So obviously I have spent quite a fair amount of time planning my "could've been" wedding. The one that I had planned and worked on since a young age. A Garden Wedding, a warm and romantic garden wedding. 

My "dream" wedding is completely opposite to the wedding that I had. I don't know what happened along the way that made everything go opposite from past dreams, but it happened. I'm not hating on my real wedding, but showing off my dream wedding. Maybe you'll get ideas? These are pictures that I have stored away since I was 13 years old. 

If I could turn back time, this is what the Bolen Wedding would have been.

Garden Setting. It would've been an early June wedding. No more than 150 guests. 

My father has instilled a love for anything water in me. The wedding would've had to take place near a pond, small lake, etc. He would've loved having the water present (and not frozen over!)

I guess my 13 year old mind found this scene mind blowing - I still find it extrodinary today.

The theme of the garden wedding would've been Love Birds. One of my secrets is that I love song birds, and when I'm having a bad day I'll open my windows in hopes to hear the birds sing and make me happy again. I would've had bird cages, laced with pink & yellow flowers stratigically placed around the ceremony and reception site.

The reception would've been help immediately after the late morning ceremony. It would be a luncheon style with finger sandwiches, soups, buns, easy desserts, fruity drinks, etc. 

On each table there would be this cool goldish tree with song birds in it, displaying the table number for the guests.

The favours would've been these little bird cages that have a tea light candle inside. On the front would be a little personalized thank you note from the bride & groom.

A perfect example of a garden wedding cake!

Here are some links to the pictures above. If anything caught your eye, then you might be able to search a little further with some help!

The exquisite flower wedding cake 

 The bird cage wedding favours 

Wedding Dresses

And now for the best part of any wedding, the dress. It makes fathers cry, mother's sigh, fiancee's drool and all hearts flutter. The dress that I ended up wearing was a strapless, flowy gown with beading under the bust, like so :

 

I think that this dress is lovely and feminine, but why I fell in love with it, I'll never know! It was nothing like the dream dress that I had always envisioned for myself. 

I had always wanted on Off-The-Shoulder style dress. This particular cut of dress eccentuates the ladies bust and shoulders (obviously...). The reason this appealed to me was because I have one shoulder that has a bunch of freckles on it, and the other is clean! In high school, Craig would tease me about my freckle shoulder and called it "his shoulder" because he liked to tease me about it. So I thought that having that style of dress would also be a little something for Craig, as well as me. 

He still thought I looked hot in my strapless gown, but these two pictures are of gowns that I drooled over for years. I still love them. They are so girlie, fun and timeless. I would probably get my mom to take off some of the frilly's, but still!

 

This one isn't Off-The-Shoulder, but I liked the one strap idea too.

Sigh.

And there you have it. A little piece of my secret desires for a wedding that I've dreamed about for years.  Now to work on Craig and see if he'll get married all over again and have a second full out wedding! That wouldn't be weird, right?

Have a spectacular beginning to your New Year! I'll be scribbling more soon!

Christmas Goodies

I keep doing all of these cool things with my family and friends this Christmas season (Christmas Train, Christmas get togethers, etc.) and I always have the camera with me, but I always end up leaving it in my purse and enjoying my time and totally forgetting about capturing the memories! Ahh! I clearly am not a great blogger - those people are always on the ball!

But besides that stuff, I did do a bunch of Christmas baking for my good friends and put them in really cool old-fashioned tins that I found at the Thrift Store (yes, I washed them first. Well, not Dustin's tin. He can eat dust...Just Kidding...I don't know where that came from...). 

So here are some pictures of my finished creations, and the recipes of the 3 assorted goodies inside each tin.

The design on the tins is a picture of old school toys (nutcrackers, rocking horses,

teddy bears, toy soldiers).

I thought I could make them pretty with red ribbon...I'm comparable

to a Kindergartener when it comes to crafts...

And to give you someting to "aww" over, here are some pictures of my Sam hanging out under the Christmas tree, learning the art of "Present Shaking" from his smart mama. 

I know the Season is going to get crazy, so from my little man, and myself, we wish you a stress-free Holidays! I'll post again after Christmas! Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas. Jesus Christ our Lord came over 2000 years ago to show His love, give Himself for us at the cross, raise from the dead to deliver us from sin and is waiting for us in our Heavenly home! How exciting!! 

I may be moving the blog...

Ok, Blogger is being completely ridiculous and I haven't been able to work with it forever weeks now.

At first I thought it was just a glitch and decided to wait it out, but after spending coutless hours Googling for help, talking to other bloggers, nothing is getting better - and I don't know how to fix it!

So I might start working on another blog, close this one down and pretend like Spectacular Scribbles never happened. Ugh, now I have to do that hard part all over again, picking out a new Blog name. Oh well. That's life!

So I will keep you, my fantastic friends and family who keep up with this blog and with my crazy family updated on my new blog and where to find the adventures and stories of Team Bolen.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's almost here! It's almost here! 

I've been slowly but surely decorating our little apartment while trying to juggle and very cranky, teething baby and bake a bunch of holiday treats for our friends (which I'll show on a later date). Honestly, I'm too tired to write, so here are some pictures of my home and little video of Sam being a Christmas Goof.

I have these cute little snowmen placed all over. I love these little guys!

My mom bought me this nativtiy set from Mexico. One of a kind, baby!

And after Sam was done gazing at the lights, they went on our tree!

It's not quite finished yet because Craig forgot a whole bunch of 

our ornaments over at his parents place...

 I'm off to do more decorating and baking - Lord willing that Sam won't be a big butt and let me do all the things I hope to accomplish :)

One of those days...

Ha! So I just did that thing where I write out a huge blog post, am pleased with it, editing it, and then accidentally close the browser and lose everything. 

But I can't even be upset - because of how my past couple of days have been, it only makes sense that that would happen to add to the mix of chaos. 

This is me:

 

Let me take you on detailed adventure of my life in the last 36 hours...

1.) Craig's work Christmas Staff Party is tomorrow night, and being extremely excited to go I had a very pretty outfit all picked out and ready to be shown off tomorrow. Until I made the careless mistake of washing my top with a pair of jeans that still had my chapstick in the pocket. Thus leaving spotted stains all over the top, rendering it useless. It's not that bad, but noticeable. So now I'm back to the drawing board (a.k.a my closet) to figure out what to wear...Which is a big thing for me that takes lots of time and patience (of which I do not have right now).

2.) Sam gave me yet another bad sleep last night. Up every half hour because of gas, or boredom, or whatever...But when I try to nap when he naps during the day I end up feeling sick and more tired than if I just stay awake. Ugh! Never having anymore children. Never!

3.) I've been fighting with the people at the Post Office for a week now, arguing with them about packages that I should've recieved ages ago but never did. They kept assuring me that my packages weren't lost and I just had to keep waiting. I was terribly rude to many of the people trying to help me...And alas, yesterday the courier came by with several packages for me and a great big grin on her face and I felt so awful for how I had acted to her co-workers. I hate being proved wrong so much. So, so much.

4.)  This season of The Apprentice is almost over, and they decided to split the huge climax episode into 2 parts. So I watched the first part today and am so bitter that I have to wait another week to see who wins the task. I'm gunning for Clint, because he's smart, creative and a gentleman all around - plus he's a Christian, so I'm a little biased on that...But whatever.

Anyways...

I am most definately dreaming of a Pink Christmas this year. I don't know why, but at the current moment I am wishing I was a bachelorette who could decorate her little apartment in pink and white for the holidays. Craig would kill me. He thinks we shouldn't even have a Christmas tree! He most likely just wants a shrine of guns, antlers and steaks in the corner where the tree would go. Boys!

Oh, I almost forgot! I'd like to also use this post to showcase my fabulous cousin's blog over at Beautiful Inspirations She is currently putting up recipes for Christmas treats and they all look delicious! It's perfect timing because I'm putting together little sweet-treat baskets for my friends for gifts this Christmas, so I can't wait to try out all of the ideas she's sharing with the blog world. So go and check out her blog, again the link is: Beautiful Inspirations

Well, I must go and try to put together that outfit for tomorrow. Wish me luck! I hope that you are having a better week than I am! TGIF,  right? Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Born To Be My Baby (oh, Bon Jovi)

Tappin' My Toes

I've been a fan of Sara Bareilles for a while now (even before her hit "Love Song" became popular!) and so of course I'd love her new single that is playing on the radio these days. This music video is so cute, original and creative. I love it! 

I'm going to be a little bit busy these next few days with Youth stuff and Christmas-y things! That's why I am just posting a quick little video to showcase this song to you. 

Blog again soon!

Brothers

Craig and I always talk about how Sam & Hogan are going to be the best of buddies...But we never expected their brotherhood to blossom this early!

Sam can't sit up on his own yet, but he perches himself on my lap or the couch or wherever Hogan is, reaches his hands out towards him and starts petting his fur, letting Hogan lick his fingers and the barf off of his chin (that part is really gross, but I let it slide. It saves me cleaning a million wash cloths...)! 

So I set them up for pictures. These aren't natural by any means, in real life it's way cuter. But by these pictures you get the idea.

 Sam had his hand wrapped around Hogan's leg before the picture took!

"Hey! Where are you going man?"- Sam

The infamous puppy kisses!

   Just chillin'

A boy and his dog. Nothing is as sweet. It's just as they say: Worms and snails and puppy dog tails - that's what little boys are made of! 

It's so wonderful that Hogan just turned 1 year old; meaning these boys will be together for a long time, Lord willing! I like this picture, and although the dog in the picture is a shepherd I like to imagine it's Sam & his pooch.

 Man's Best Friend

 

I Heart Victoria's Secret

This makes me happy, and causes me to dance around my bedroom while folding my mass amounts of laundry.

 

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a lover of Victoria's Secret products - especially clothes. They have great value and quality and every year I save up my money to get a couple of sweaters or whatever else suits my fancy. Next time I'm going to get jeans, because they make jeans especially for girls with long legs! Yes! No more flood pants! 

This time around, I got my winter coat from VS. Here is the coat featured on the site:

It's great little double breasted wool peacoat. Comfy cozy and a great price (the best part)! And here's me in my little number that I got a couple of weeks ago. I try to find excuses to go outside so I can wear it.

 

Me and my little pink camera. I can be such a girl sometimes. The jacket doesn't have dirty specks on it...That is my bathroom mirror...Which I didn't know was that dirty until the picture was taken. Guess who's cleaning the bathroom while the baby sleeps! 

So I'm still loving the coat and I suggest that you go and check out Victoria's Secret over the next little while and buy something for a friend or a sweetie for Christmas! Great deals going on right now! (I should be a VS spokesperson, no?)

 

The Little Things

Oh, I could just eat him up sometimes! I hope my mom

see's this...I should go give her a call...Hi mom!

"Super Hero's Assemble!"

I've been losing it lately! I swear, this whole parenting thing makes you so scatter brained it's crazy. I know it's no excuse - but I'm blaming not making a blog for a while on the craziness. 

On Saturday the 20th I hosted a Superhero theme Murder Mystery Dinner party at our apartment. 8 of our great friends came over, decked out in spectacular costumes and ready to figure out whodunit. It worked out perfectly, because the 20th was also the birthday of one of our friends, so the dessert was a birthday cake in his honour. 

The whole evening I was so busy narrating, preparing food, setting up stuff and trying to solve a murder that I didn't take that many pictures of my amazing decorations or all of the food that we ate...I'm sorry! I can't even explain it all because it's not as cool as seeing it in real life. So, I apologize, you'll live :) Next murder mystery you'll get a more 360 view of everything.

But the pictures I do have are still fantastic and hilarious, to say the least. 

My character was Electra, so I sported some very cool & borrowed

super hero gloves from a friend and had a red lightning bolt on both my 

cape and shirt. Standing with me is my bff, Blair a.k.a. Shiver (who in 

the game was my frienemy...it was hard to act bitchy to her all evening!)

Eric (in red) as The Red Wonder, a Rap Artist by day and a Super Rap Artist

By Night! With him, the man in black, the birthday boy himself, Dustin a.k.a

Mr. Fabulous. With a chiseled jaw line and strong chest like that how couldn't

he play Mr. Fabulous? Haha! 

Eric, Craig as The Jester & Crispin as Nerdon (who was the murder victim in the end!)

Halfway through the night Craig thought it would be funny to give himself a mustache

with my mascara? 

 MJ as Blue Blaze - a sexy lawyer by day and Superhero by night.

We all bugged her for not having a cape, which she retaliated by saying

"Justice is my cape." 

Touche.

Jesse as Gonch, and his fiancee Erica as Ginch. Everyone wanted

Erica's gold spandex...So good.

 Mr. Fabulous figuring out the crime (the murderer was Blue Blaze!)

And winning the grand prize - a huge chocolate assortment. He was pretty happy.

That's a good birthday if I've ever seen one...

 And here we are! The most epic Superhero picture ever.

It reminds me of another Superhero group picture I've seen....

This one perhaps? Just count the similarties!

It was such a good evening and it went so smoothly. The whole game (3 rounds + plus mini games + eating) took just over 3 hours! I was so nervous it was going to be like, half an hour, and then really lame and awkward...But everyone gave great reviews and now Blair can't wait to throw one when her and Michael move into their house in Salmon Arm in only a few short months! So exciting!

Get ready for more busy-ness in the next couple of weeks - especially with Christmas nearing! One more month exactly!

I promise I'll behave myself and be better at posting blogs :) Until then, God Bless!

Tight & Bright

On Friday evening, my very brave, creative and hilarious Youth girls got together to get dressed up in our brightest neon tights, dresses, wigs, etc. and go out to take some funny pictures and spend some time together over appies and pizza at East Side Mario's. We got a lot of stares...And these pictures will explain why we got those stares.

Oh yes, baby, that is a chicken hat on my head ^          

 We invaded the Centenoka Mall....

And these are some pleasant pictures of us at East Side...Being dorks.

I am so blessed to have such awesome girls that are apart of the Youth Goup. They are quick to bring their friends out to events, quick to help me with anything I need and quick to being loving and patient with their girl friends!

It was most defiantely a success Girls Night and I can't wait to do it again! ...But maybe less bright...My eyes still hurt...