20 Little Fingers and 20 Little Toes are Home

Xavier Seth "No pictures please no pictures!" 

Big sister Lizzie Holding Xavier like a Champ! 

Bailey Rae "What did you say?? I'm sleeping here!"

Happy Thursday :)

Wedding Wednesdays: Version 1.05

And here is another edition of Wedding Wednesdays!!! (get ready for a long post!)
(in a game show mood)

So this past weekend we went to go see another wedding location! And our final wedding location because we have made our decision!!!

This last location was beautiful! And there was a wedding going on so it was great to see it all set up! The wedding coordinator was a doll and so helpful!

Here below are some pictures....

Before going in! First venue where we went by ourselves.

The outside

The welcome station....that turns into the goodbye station after the wedding

(filled with fruit, cookies, drinks....etc.)

There was a wedding so I couldn't get a picture of the cocktail hour or the ceremony site, but the cocktail hour is to the left of the picture and then you cross the bridge where the ceremony site will be on the right of the picture. Indoor cocktail hour behind you in this picture.

(didn't really like that the water under the bridge was an orange color. It would ruin pictures)

 The indoor cocktail hour (kind of reminds me of the first place)

The reception hour. 

A table in the reception where they have the centerpieces you can use if you want. 

So after looking at the four places we went to.....we have narrowed it down to two....
Below are the list of the pros and cons and then our final decision. It was actually a really hard decision because the last place was beautiful!! (and it was 5 seconds from the beach!!) But, we talked the whole car ride about it and came to a decision :

So the contender in the left corner:

We will call this one "The Barn"

Pros:
Amazing Price
Outside Ceremony
Outside/Inside Cocktail Hour
4 different areas to get married outside
Plenty of places for pictures
Inside Reception
Amazing food!
5 hour open bar
Gorgeous bathrooms right outside reception
Lots of parking
Top rated by theknot.com
Get to use the bigger ceremony/cocktail hour/reception area I want!!
Our guests would have their own entrance so not to be disturbed by another wedding
Really nice wedding coordinator

Cons:
1 hour and 1/2 away from us
Flowers may not be planted by May 11th next year
No gardens by ceremony site
Wedding coordinator is a man (could be a possible con who knows!)
No welcome or goodbye treats
No centerpieces to use

The contender in the right corner:
We will call this one: "The Garden"

Pros:
Extremely sweet wedding coordinator
5 seconds from the beach
1/2 hour away from us
Areas for pictures
2 areas to get married outside
We would be the only wedding that day
Outside ceremony
Outside/Inside Cocktail hour
Inside reception
Welcome and Goodbye treats
Can use their centerpieces
Will print place cards, menus, table numbers etc.

Cons:
More expensive
Rehearsal would be on a Thursday (hard for my out of town bridesmaids!)
Flowers might not be planted by May 11th next year
Inside Cocktail hour is not very convenient to outside cocktail hour
Not a lot of parking
A lot of add ons to menu (means more $$$$)


In the end our final decision is...........................








The Barn!!

The last one we saw "The Garden" was actually a contender and Shea really liked it. I did to, but I told him I feel like if we picked that one I would be thinking about "The Barn" the whole time.

So we have picked our wedding venue!!! Whoooo hoo!! That's a big weight off our shoulders! Now we just have to go try the food on June 3rd and then put down our first deposit! Eeekk!! Soo exciting!

This Friday we are going to meet our potential photographers!! Lets hope we LOVE them!!

Happy Wednesday :)

Recipe : Pork Chop Primavera

Okay so first and foremost: 2 of the quads are coming home today!!!!!!

Yayyyy!!! So, excited to see them today after work :)

Xavier and Bailey will be home today.

Chloe and Avery will be coming home end of this week or beginning of next week!

Let the chaos begin!!

Okay now back to your regularly scheduled program......

Okay so last week or so I really wanted to cook.

So I told Shea to go on my email and pick a recipe I had saved.

I usually find these recipes on Yahoo Shine meals of the week.

This one is found from here.

It was extremely easy to make and took around 30 minutes.

And was also good enough to become a repeat recipe!

Which will be much needed when Shea and I move in together.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 slices of bacon - cut into 1 inch slices (can use turkey bacon for less calories)
• 12oz trimmed fresh green beans
• 1 cup red or yellow cherry or grape tomatoes
• 4 pork chops (1/2in thick)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
• 1/3 cup apple butter (don't sell that around here so I got light butter instead)

I photographed my steps better this time around!

1. In a 12-inch skillet cook the bacon over medium-high heat until crisp: remove.

Reserve 1 Tablespoon drippings in skillet. Drain the rest on paper towels.

2. Meanwhile (while bacon is cooking), in a 2-quart microwave-safe dish cook beans in water, covered, on high for 4 minutes. Drain and set aside.

3. Add a little butter and the tablespoon of bacon drippings to pan and brush pork chops with the soy sauce. Brown chops on both sides.

4. Add butter and 1/4 cup water to pan. (looks gross but it all melts together) Reduce the heat.

Simmer, covered for 5 minutes.

5. Add bacon (cut into 1 inch strips), green beans, and tomatoes to pan. Cook covered for 3 to 5 minutes (until sauce thickens). (My sauce didn't thicken that much because I put the bacon drippings in to late! Still turned out fine!)

6. And then serve! Makes 4 servings if you just add two more pork chops. (it was only two of us so I just used 2 pork chops)

Finished! Sorry for the lack of presentation..Shea was so hungry he went right in before I could snap a picture haha! But he enjoyed it and wanted more!

Really good meal and Shea LOVES pork chops so he was very happy! It says it's a salty fat free meal even though it didn't feel fat free but who knows it was still good and I would make it again!

Thanks Recipe.com meals!

Happy Tuesday!

Strawberry Pickin'

So, we had another crazy weekend!! Friday night Shea's mom was very sick so we had to bring her to the emergency room. It was scary, but I am glad she is okay and has the right medication now!

Saturday we went to go see another wedding venue and I think we have finally made our choice! But, you will have to wait till Wednesday for that :) And, then because we were so close to the beach we went to the boardwalk to walk around a bit. It was so nice to just relax and sit by the beach and eat!

Then, Saturday night we helped my mom out with stuff she needed to get done, but I will talk about that another day. But, in between all the helping we took a 40 min break to go to a carnival with my brother and his girlfriend. Which, probably turned out to be a mistake because we got so dizzy and sick after. Why are carnival people so crazy and creepy?? 

The guy for the below ride made it go crazy fast and had are heads bobbing up and down, and the guy on the second ride made it go so fast that I almost fell out 5 separate times!

No more with carnival rides!!

But, Sunday finally was a lazy day helping my mom out and doing some activities :)

It is always the start of summer for me when it is strawberry picking season! Shea and I have ben trying to go every year, and we go a little crazy on all the strawberries we pick!

After a good rainy week it is the best time to pick! So, we headed out with my brother and his girlfriend to go pick! All the strawberries were so ripe and a beautiful red! 

Then, we washed the cars played some wiffle ball and made food for a BBQ at night. All and all it was an unexpected fun Sunday with family. Aren't those just the best??!

Happy Monday :)

Friday's Letters

Dear Shea I am so wearing the shirt you got that says "Shea - Grad 2012" on your graduation day! I will be the embarrassing one in the crowd :) Dear Weather keep up with this amazing sun and 80 degree weather!! At least for the weekend! Dear Pool you open this weekend!! But that means like two more weeks until we can actually use you! Yay!! Dear Wedding Venue don't even try in this game....you lost already. Dear Pandora stop with this weird songs coming up on my playlist! People are going to walk past my office and think I'm crazy! Dear August you want to hurry up already so I can go on vacation? Please...? Dear Wedding stop being expensive! I have a budget to stick to! Dear Raspberry Lemonade you are soooo good! I am going to have to buy a juicer and make you everyday! Dear Work stop going slow! It's Friday I want to go home and enjoy the weekend! Dear Shea lets go to the beach tomorrow after the wedding venue since we will be close and I miss it!

Linking up with Adventures of the Newlyweds

Revel

So, on our busy Saturday after wedding venue looking....My brother's gf, Erica, had a BBQ party at her parent's house (no pictures of that)

....while at the party my brother Joe asked Shea and I if we had any plans for the night. We said nope and then he said lets go to AC! (Now, the last time we went to AC was in January when Shea proposed so I was excited!)

So, then began our impromptu trip to Atlantic City that night! And, I have to say I had a blast! Mostly because we went to go see the new casino called "Revel" and it is amazing looking!!! It's only been open since April 1st so not everything is open yet (they are still building some things), but what is there already is breathtaking!!

I will let the pictures speak for themselves....

Shea and I :)

 My brother Joey and his girlfriend Nicole

Don't mind the drunk girl taking pictures on the couch...she yelled at us as we walked by with something to the effect of..."don't hate me cause I'm pretty"...followed by..."he was cute"....

My brother's longtime friend Frankie trying to jump into my picture haha! As you can see no one wanted to walk with me because I kept taking pictures haha! Who cares I have to blog! 

Even the escalators were gorgeous! 

I kept telling Shea this should be our headboard for our bed...lights included 

Yes!! There was a taco truck inside the casino!

The taco truck menu! It's a light-brite! Soo cute! Those hexagons were made out of bottle caps.

Tacos and nachos!! The avocados on the tacos were a little ripe but other then that these were amazing!

Nicole and I at the Taco Truck

 The bathrooms were crazy gorgeous!! It took you like five minutes to find a toilet since there were rows and rows of sinks! But, I made Nicole pose haha!

Sooooo much fun!! Will defiantly be back again soon!

Happy Thursday!

Wedding Wednesdays! Version 1.04

Ooooooo the wedding venue....Didn't I tell you that you had a high bar to live up too??!!

And this was not just because I had a bias opinion already because of my love for the first venue.

It was legitimately BAD.

Sad but not really because I LOVE the first venue sooooo sooo much!

 

Where the ceremony would be...see those ugly brown chairs???!! Those are the chairs they use when they run out of black chairs!! Sooooo gross! and would totally ruin pictures!

They were also setting up for a wedding later that day so i had to give them that,

but really I was not happy.

More of the ceremony space...pretty with the waterfall but the ugly white table needs to go! 

The tables...some round some long??? Weird and unappealing! I am a fan of round tables thank you!

The ledge that the wedding planner puts out candles...

she kept talking about the lights and candles at night...

but I told her our wedding was during the day...

so we would not see those candles....ever

Stop promoting something I won't see!

The water fall thing...pretty but it's not turned on all the time and it looks ugly when it's not.

Didn't even take a picture of the dance floor it was a sad excuse for a dance floor.

No indoor option if it rained....

Wedding planner was mean and distracted the whole appointment.

Never once told us the $/person. Had to read that in the parking lot.

$115 a person????? You are joking right......

No tasting of food till January of next year!! You are kidding right??

Kept talking about what other people did with centerpieces and the ceremony...

Did I hire you as my decorator?? I forgot??

Started talking to random people during the appointment and ignoring us.

Food didn't even sound good.

After the ceremony all guests have to move over so they can move the chairs into tables..

no thank you.

Restaurant for place stays open during wedding.

So you get the added bonus of having random people come through your wedding.

Bathrooms were tight and looked like a bad camp experience.

Sorry but no thank you...

if she was not going to be attentive at the appointment she certainly would not during the wedding process. Very disappointed after seeing this. So glad I went to the good venue first!

Going to see one more this weekend and hopefully making our final decision! Can you guess what my decision is.......

Happy Wednesday!!