TBT: Our Wedding....

*One Year Anniversary* 

So we just had our first wedding anniversary on Monday (we spent the weekend in Asheville to get out of the new house and celebrate, so that was VERY nice)!! In honor of our recent anniversary, I thought I'd complete a #THROWBACKTHURSDAY post to share a few wedding ideas and pictures with you!! Sorry it only took a year, but I hope you enjoy it! 

The Destination: We decided on the Beloved Hotel at Playa Mujeres (a few miles north of Cancun), Mexico. It was an all-inclusive resort, which was absolutely amazing.

The Party Favors: 

If you could zoom in, it says: "Don't be blinded by our love; take some shades!" The baskets were rented from the hotel, so I didn't have to bring them from home. One basket contains sunglasses, and the other holds handheld battery - operated fans (This was inspiration from a cousin's outdoor wedding). They were bought from Oriental Trading, and very cheap.

These were also from Oriental Trading. I saved the ones that were left over for the treasure box in my classroom :)

The Guest Book: 

$4 from Walmart. I bought a frame, and will {one day} place our picture in it to put up on the wall. This *amazingly* fit flat in the suitcase and was never ruined! :) 

The Wedding Party Gifts: 

Spanish Phrases for Dummies!! (We were in Mexico...) These were $1 each - impulse buy from Office Depot. I bought like 20 of them, lol!! 

 

Yes, I had to pack one full suitcase for wedding accessories and gifts. They couldn't be assembled until we got there. The girls received custom t-shirts for our morning brunch, the necklaces and earrings to wear for the ceremony, and a cute little personalized poem. I also bought their hair and makeup at the spa, for their main gift, because the jewelry was VERY cheap. They knew about their gifts ahead of time :) but the t-shirts were a surprise. The boys received a "coupon" for one 30-minute jet-ski session with the groom. Yes, that was his idea. That's what he wanted to do. Then, of course, everyone got the Spanish for Dummies book  :) along with a pair of matching sunglasses to wear during the sunny ceremony (I couldn't survive without glasses outside, so I didn't expect anyone else to either)

Everybody's role in the wedding party (bridesmaid, maid of honor, mother of bride/groom) is listed on the front with our wedding date in the middle (7*21*13)

The numbers on the back made an excellent guessing game! It's equal to the number of years I've known that person. My mom=my whole life. LOL. And my number stands for the number of years I've been waiting to be "Mrs. Kramer" (the number of years since we met. lol) and I met the Mother-in-law one year after we started dating (only because she lives in NY)

The bouquets: 

The four girls had a mixture of yellow & white roses with white ribbon. Mine was the opposite - mostly yellow with some white roses mixed in, but with yellow ribbon. I didn't want a white bouquet for me, and yellow for the girls, because then it wouldn't stand out from our dresses. This was the PERFECT blend.

The centerpieces: 

These were *Very* Cheap. I made the print outs, brought the ribbon with me, and cut the bows after we arrived. The white flowers were made from tissue paper, and the vases were pop-out cardboard (All was packed flat, and then assembled when we arrived). That set came from Party City. The yellow flowers are artificial flowers from Wal*mart (99 cents per piece!) Bringing these from home saved me about $600 (at least) versus paying for real floral centerpieces. 

The dancing shoes!

Flipflops: $3 from Old Navy. Stickers from walmart, stuck on with modge podge and extra tape for just in case!

My Something's: I never did get a picture, but my something new was my tiara, which perfectly matched my something old - my grandmother's bracelet and my something borrowed - one of my bridesmaid's earrings that she wore on her wedding day. My something blue was my garter - which was from Walmart. I didn't care that it was under $5 and I knew my husband wouldn't, either! lol

The boy's suits: The boys wore Sean Jean separates (from Macy's). We got them on sale, and each groomsmen (and my dad) only paid around $60 for a matching set of gray/plaid dress pants and vest. They all were kindly asked to wear a white button down, black shoes and socks (just for the ceremony).

The trial hair-do at a local salon: With my wedding being a destination, I did a trial hair style with Taylor Brooks Salon. They were awesome, and I went right after my birthday, so I used my $20 off coupon :)

The blog/wedding website update before the trip: http://sarahanddanwedding.weebly.com/ This site was super easy to use, and I was very impressed with out great it turned out!

The silly father/daughter dance routine: Since I have been a "Daddy's Girl" since Day #1, I knew I need to do an upbeat song to eliminate tears. So I started with a slow-dance (instrumental version of the Dirty Dancing Song: I've Had the Time of My Life), and created a custom choreographed dance to a custom set of clipped songs. So our slow-dance quickly transitioned after about 30 seconds, and we broke the ice with "Do You Love Me?" (Now that I can dance... HEY!) by the Contours, and a few other fun dance songs including the Cotton Eyed Joe and the Chicken Dance, ending with "We Are Family" as our finale. It was the best start to an amazing reception, and it really set the mood for the whole night.

The songs that I requested for everything! First dance, perfect! Cake song, perfect! Bouquet toss, Garter toss, Walk-out songs, perfect, perfect, PERFECT! I honestly started thinking of songs WAY in advance. Fortunately, my sister-in-law got engaged a couple of weeks before us and she had her wedding in March. Her music was so awesome throughout the entire ceremony & reception, that I thought about the songs for my wedding the entire 9-hour car ride home. And I continued thinking about it during every jog that I took. I tuned into particular Pandora stations (oldies), thinking songs may pop up that would be perfect. On spring break, I officially started organizing a list on a Google Drive document, that could be updated on my cell whenever and wherever I was. I also started searching daddy-daughter dance routines, and formed the entire ensemble myself (with a little help from a friend ;) hehe).

Piece of Advice:  Honestly, they say that wedding planning is REALLY stressful, and time consuming. For me, it really wasn't that bad. I maybe had 30 emails back-and-forth with my planner, and never spoke to him on the phone. He broke the process up into bearable sections. I would think and plan ideas in my head for weeks before I got back to him. When we finalized one decision, he would pick something else. Yes, it was a LOT of decisions (which is difficult for someone like me), but I did have a vision in my head, and I took my time (it took all 7 months to get everything straight), and it really came together in the end. 
The most important thing is to visualize your perfect day over and over. The more visualizing you do, the more it comes together, and the more you enjoy it when it all does come together. I envisioned my dream day every morning when I woke up, when I went to work out, and when I went to bed. I am so glad that everything worked out perfectly, but I don't think I would have been so pleased if it wasn't for all of the planning I had done in my head.

Our photographer made a very awesome slideshow of all of our wedding pictures, and you can see that video here:

So after everything, I don't think anything could have POSSIBLY been more perfect for us. I wish I could re-live those moments over and over again. Every girl (and guys too, I suppose) deserves that happiness on their wedding day! Please let me know if you have ANY questions about my planning, budgeting, or wedding that I didn't cover here (I started to slack with the details at the end, but thanks for sticking with me)! I'd be HAPPY to help, and especially happy to help make others' dreams come true, like mine did at the Beloved Hotel on 07.21.2013 ....

One of those days...

Everyone has those days.... 

....The kind of day where it's just one thing after another.

Well, I haven't had a day like this since I could remember. Although it really wasn't too bad (it could have been much worse), I can definitely use some chicken soup :).

It all started before I could even get out of the house this morning. And then I knew that something was up when I turned on my Pandora station (to cheer me up) and of course it only wanted to play songs from the early 2000's that I've just heard wayyyy too many times, which really started to annoy me. Then, when I gave up on Pandora (only because I have the free version, where it would only let me skip a certain number of songs), I tried playing a new upbeat song, and somehow it didn't want to work.

Well, finally it did work (just in time, because I pulled into the school parking lot before it was half-way over), and I completely forgot that my day started out rough. I skipped into school remembering that breakfast was served by our PTA because of Exceptional Children's Week :). They served catered Chikfila, and I couldn't be happier (especially since I haven't had those Chicken Mini's since high school!!). It wasn't until later that I realized that this was just one of those days that was just not going to stop.

For instance.... I forgot something VERY important at 9:00 (making several people very angry) * I made a student cry at lunch bunch * the power went out 10 minutes before dismissal * my student's bus happened to be late, and then...... when a rescue bus DID come, the database was still down (from the power outage) * so we couldn't print out the bus info for the sub bus driver.

So on a normal day, we dismiss at 3:20, all students and staff gone by 3:50. With the new dismissal (added 30 minutes to make up from the storm) that started yesterday, we dismissed at 3:50, and should have been gone by 4:20, but the bus didn't come until 4:30, and didn't leave until 4:45.

WHEW!

At that point, I blamed everything on the full moon (I certainly checked when I got home, and it's not, but it really seemed like it was!!) The part that really got me down was that I couldn't help but feel like EVERYTHING was all.my.fault. I hate that feeling! (Especially when I know I can't possibly be responsible for the power going out, the bus being late... etc. )

Well.... so when I got back to my desk, I pushed my to-do list out of the way, and did something relaxing. :)

Do any of you use picmonkey.com? Well I'm addicted. I can't remember who's blog I was reading that introduced it to me, but I read someone's tutorial on how-to-do-something-rather (I just can't remember!) and I've been hooked since. Also, on Sunday night, I was reading Kristin's post (from A Teeny Tiny Teacher) about organizing her desktop, and I was like:    :-o    This is what her's looked like:

Click the picture to go to Kristin's post!

Isn't it beautiful?! I knew instantly that I must have one!! So I followed the links that she posted from Mrs. M (from Color Me Kinder) which led me to Heather (from Moritz Fine Designs) and I saved Heather's template so that I could make one later. And then I went to bed. That was Sunday.

So as I was sitting at work this afternoon thinking what I could do to unwind, instead of packing my things and going home, I got started and made my own :)

I started with Picmonkey.com. I clicked on "EDIT" and uploaded the wedding pic that I use as my current background on my work computer. I didn't even have to worry about creating a canvas and figuring out the resolution size, because I already knew that this size worked as a background for my screen (You may want to look into that, though if you're not sure! Just follow Kristin's tutorial, or ask and I'll help you out).

Then I faded it by sliding the "contrast" bar under the "Exposure tab." (I apologize for not having step-by-step pictures! I'm still figuring out how to use my Snipping Tool with my Chrome app on this Windows 8!)

So then it looked somewhat like this: 

I added some overlay labels, laid them out (I found that 8 fit on my picture), and I clicked on the gray color, and faded them so that my picture below could still shine through.

After sorting through my messy desktop, I listed out the categories that I would like to have (it worked perfectly that 8 boxes fit, because I wasn't sure if I wanted any in different sizes like Heather's template).

Then, I added some pink banners, text boxes, and the decorative corner overlays, and WAH-LAH!

So, it turned out like this: 

I am 100% in LOVE with my new desktop :) After I saved the picture to my computer from picmonkey.com, I right-clicked on my desktop, went to "Properties," and uploaded it to be my desktop picture. You can check out Kristin or Annie's post to learn how. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know, and I'd be glad to help you!

Here is what it looked like after I finally saved it as the background and got everything all organized:

Isn't it like a breath of fresh air? It's so amazing :)

So after all, I got to sit back and look at the Happiest {absolutely best} day of my life... and I suppose my day sort-of evened out after everything. Hopefully I can get through the remaining 46 extended days (51 total) without another day like this! (*Fingers crossed*)

*On another note, ................does anybody watch How I Met Your Mother? I've only been hooked on this show since last January, but I REALLY loved last night's episode! I can't WAIT till the finale! 

Until next time,

~Sarah :)

**PS: Can anyone figure out my question from my March Currently??? The answers were: "Grey and Yellow" ....... The pictures above may give you a HUGE clue!!    ;)

Liebster Award Part II:

It's THROWBACK THURSDAY!!! Hoorrrayy!

I've been very productive lately, and I thought that I need to get back FINALLY into the blogging world to share some great stuff that I've been working on lately! Last year, I had a self-contained position where I just had TOO much on my plate to ever blog about it. It was a great year, but it was a struggle to keep up.

Then, this year I hit the ground RUNNING (literally). I moved during the same week that I was supposed to be packing for my wedding and honeymoon, I came home from my honeymoon, and immediately (I mean the very next day) started working at my new job!

So I left this...

to come home to this...

And I will say that adjusting to A) a new school district B) a whole new staff C) a completely different position, and D) all new students ....was pretty time consuming! Add in learning your new name to the mix - my brain was a little chaotic there for a little while - not gonna lie. It's no excuse!! But I've also been trying to be a decent newlywed wife and spend some time with my new hubby this year :)

So either way... it's no wonder that I totally forgot about Heather! Heather is an awesome blogger from A Special Kind of Place :) She's also a resource teacher, so I have lots to learn from her.

You can click her button above to go visit her blog! Anyway, she had nominated me for the Liebster literally the DAY AFTER Katie did! I have totally forgotten about it, but I remember now, that I had to write not one but TWO apology emails to these amazing ladies, explaining that there was NO WAY I could sit down and blog any time soon. I was hoping to get back into it after I moved, and got back from the wedding, but ... well... you know. (If it makes you feel better, many of my Thank -You cards from wedding gifts were at least about 3 months late!!)

So I thought this (being Thursday) would be a great time to turn back time and reflect on Heather's Nomination. Since I've already nominated 5 bloggers, I'm just going to add my answers to Heather's questions! So here they are! :)

1. What is your favorite memory?

The day ... or I should say WEEK ... that I got married. :) I couldn't imagine a better experience. My whole heart smiles EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I think about it.

2. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Apart from ...my husband? .....Ummmm, I really don't know. Meeting new people make me nervous sometimes!! I think I would be too shy to meet a celebrity!

3. What would you do if you won the lottery?

Buy a house. The #1 thing on my mind these days.. more about that in upcoming posts.... Secondly, I would spend a good chunk of money on a cause that would benefit children in some way. Probably Autism Speaks, or something. And lastly, I would be sure that my dad is taken care of for the rest of our lives.

4. What is your favorite movie? 

Favorites are so difficult. But our PTA asked us this question this week, and I answered with Pitch Perfect. It was the only (recent) movie that's had me dying of laughter (can't believe it's already more than a year old...), so I think that was a good choice!

5. Who inspires you to do what you do?

My Dad. He always told us growing up: "30% of people live to make the world a better place. 70% just live in it." Honestly, I made those percentages up. I can never remember what he told us. But seriously, how many people have desk jobs and clock out at the end of the day, and don't think about work again until they walk in the office the next day? NOT teachers, I'll tell you that! I chose to teach children with special needs about a month after I graduated from high school. As soon as the idea hit me, I KNEW it was the right choice, because it would improve the lives of families who struggle with everyday difficulties that come with having a child with a disability. There are so many children now with disabilities, that I knew it would be rewarding and make a difference at the same time. :) When times are tough, I always remember what my dad always said!

6. How many different jobs have you had in your life?

Too many to count. I started working at Coldstone at 16 years old, a pizza place at 17 (that's where my husband and I met), Ruby Tuesday throughout college, a school in Evans County, a couple of day cares (as summer camp counselor, and a Pre-K paraprofessional for a short time), and two different positions at a Richmond County School, and now here. But everywhere in between, I have been a nanny, baby-sitter, tutorer, ABA interventionist, and worked for my Dad here and there. And I feel like I'm missing a few....

7. If you could be a flavor of pie, what would you be?

Well, I don't like pie. I would say apple pie, but I think I'd much rather just be a slice of cheesecake :)

8. How many countries have you visited?

More than I know. All over Europe as a baby (which I don't remember, of course), and Italy in 1st grade, Mexico a few times, Bahamas many many times, and other Caribbean countries (from a cruise). I think that's all.

9. What is your best advice to a new teacher?

You will not survive without building relationships/ collaboration. I build relationships with families starting on open house (by bringing cups, juice, chex-mix, and cookies) and checking in via phone within the very first week. I also do a "Glow and Grow" during conferences, so it's mostly positive. Lastly, I meet with other teachers, therapists, and administrators to bounce ideas off of each other to help the kiddos. It's REALLY tough, but I try to meet with every teacher once per week. I build it into my schedule before and after school. And if we have nothing to catch up on, it's good to chat and vent every once in a while :)

10. If you could live in any time era other than now, what would it be? 

I'm not exactly a fan of history, and honestly don't care to live in any other era than this one. If I had to choose, I definitely wouldn't want to go back further than the 50's. I used to watch That 70's Show! I'd LOVE to experience growing up in the 70's. Plus, I grew up on Oldies. I'd be the kid that listen's to the radio 100% of the time.

11. What is the best thing about teaching? 

The very best thing about teaching is enjoying what I do. I get this feeling almost every day, and at the end of the day, it's not about who progressed in what, it's about ME accomplishing my lifelong DREAM of making a difference in the world. And if I have fun while I'm doing it, and if I'm able to share my knowledge with other teachers and parents, I'll say that's gotta be the best feeling. I may have suffered for 4 years throughout college, and endless nights working at a restaurant to afford it, but either way: I made it through, and it was TOTALLY worth it :)

Have a great night! Until next time....

~Sarah

PS: Stay tuned for some sneak peaks at what I'm working on, as well as a description of what I do these days :)