Wedding Wednesday

I realize that my one year anniversary is just around the corner, but I still consider myself a newlywed!  My wedding day was one of the happiest days of my life and the wedding itself was more than I could have ever imagined. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to do a "Wedding Wednesday" section to share the details of all of my wedding festivities.

Today, I want to share pictures from my rehearsal dinner.  My mother-in-law and some of her friends did an absolutely wonderful job putting this all together.  The dinner was held at a place called Lee's Catfish and Steakhouse.  I know, I know....it sounds awfully redneck, but it was absolutely perfect!  Lee's is a great low-key, laid back, restaurant that has great food, a large banquet room, and live music.  Carey is your typical outdoors man so my mother-in-law chose a fishing theme and decorated accordingly.

Galvanized buckets with the favors.

These are the adorable cookies that were given as party favors.  Obviously, I'm from Texas and Carey is from Arkansas.  Can you see the little silver beads located in Northeast Texas (where I'm from) and South Arkansas (where Carey's from)?  Now, do you see the yellow heart in Northwest Arkansas?  That represents Fayetteville--where we met and fell in love.  How.Cute.Is.That?!?!?!

My new family!  Terry (my mother-in-law) is on the right, MawMaw (Carey's grandmother) is in the middle, and Janet (she doesn't have a formal title, but she's Carey's mom's very best friend and is a HUGE part of our lives--she and her husband, Jim, are the absolute kindest souls you will ever meet!).



A nice shot of how the tables were set up and some of the decorations.

My mom and dad!  Love them soooo much!

Carey with his Dad (Pat) and his step-mom (Mandy).  I love how happy they look in this picture!  It's just proof of how wonderful this entire weekend was!

I love his picture of my sister (Whitney/Sister/Sissy) and her husband (Nate....aka: Nater, Brother, but he's known to most as "Sweet Nate").  Don't you love candid photos that catch such sweet moments?

Yes, I realize that this is a MOST unflattering picture of me, but that pretty much sums up my emotions for the entire night.  Carey and I took a moment to thank everyone for coming and this was the moment when I was trying to thank thanking my parents for everything that they had done for Carey and me, and for making my wedding so special.....buuuut, as you can see I barely made it through my speech without losing it.

Another amazing candid my photographer caught.  I absolutely love this picture with my parents in the foreground looking at Carey and me.

Yes, you don't have to tell me....CUTEST.PICTURE.EVER....I know!  This is Carey holding one of our flower girls, Presley Kate.  She loves her "Cousin Carey" and my amazing photographer caught them in action.

Well, that's all for the rehearsal dinner.  Next time on "Wedding Wednesday" I'll feature pictures of the actual wedding day!

Toodles,

Erin

My Dirty Little Secret

I have a confession to make.....I, Erin Antoon, am addicted.  I'm addicted to torturing myself.  Let me explain.....

....I torture myself by online window shopping for things I cannot afford!  I do this for a lot of things--clothes, shoes, home decor, jewelry, and even makeup!  Clothing is where I spend most of my "window shopping" time so I thought I would share with you a few of my current obsessions.  I just want to clarify that I do not spend a lot of money on clothes.  Those of you that know me, know that I am an EXTREME tight-wad and very rarely have on an outfit that isn't mostly from Forever21 or Target.  I love a good bargain!  BUT, I also appreciate beautiful designer clothes--a girl can dream, right?!

I have an extreme love affair with Rebecca Taylor. While I do not own a single piece of clothing from her line, I consistently find myself drooling over her things online.  Here are a few of my favorite pieces right now (all of these images are from www.shopbop.com and you can click on the images to view or purchase!)

Seriously?! How cute is this dress?!? I would totally rock this to a wedding or a fancy party with a great pair of strappy heels.

Capes are huge right now and this cape is beautiful!  I love that it has that military look to it (also huge right now) and my favorite part is that it has the belt that can cinch in your waist.  While I love the cape trend, it can sometimes make you look larger than you really are....the belt on this cape would totally remedy that.

I have the luxury of being able to wear jeans to work everyday (don't be jealous!) and my go-to wardrobe this winter has been skinnies or jeggings with boots and a flowy top.  This would definitely fit in to my rotation of flowy tops!

Ohhhhh Rebecca, how you torture me!!!  The color, the cut, the ruffles....what's not to love about this coat?!?  Oh yeah, the ridiculous price tag! ha!

What a perfect little dress.  Not only can it go from casual to dressy with a shoe change, but it can also go from spring (with a cardigan), to summer (no cardigan), to fall/winter (with tights and a jacket).  I'm picturing it on a fun Saturday lunch date with the girls with strappy gold flats, a neutral palette makeup, and flowy waves. OR, throw on some fun wedges, darken the eye makeup a little and give your hair some bouncy curls and you have a great outfit for date night with your honey. Got a wedding you need to go to?! No problem...grab your go-to strappy metallic heels, give yourself a great green-black smokey eye, and pull your hair back into a soft, curly up-do. All you need are some banging earrings and you are good to go!

Sooo, my apologies if I have now gotten someone else hooked on this, but I felt like I needed to confess my little secret.  Maybe one day I will be able to afford these beautiful clothes, but until then, I will rock my thrifty outfits with pride!! 

Toodles,

Erin

Our First Home

The hubs and I officially became homeowners on December 10, 2010 and it was such a great day!  We had decided to wait until Summer 2011 to start house hunting, but the interest rates got so low we thought it wouldn't hurt anything to go ahead and start looking.  We had been looking for a few months and were about to give up when our realtor took us to this house. As soon as I walked in the front door, I knew I had to have this house!

This is definitely a house that we will be in for awhile, and start our family in.  It's four bedrooms, and three baths--one of the bedrooms and bathrooms is a bonus room above the garage.  It has beautiful hardwood floors and wonderfully tall ceilings.  There are a few things that we want to change over time, but for the most part, it's perfect!  So, here's a tour of our house--these pictures were taken before we painted and moved any furniture in. I will definitely be posting more pictures as I finish decorating the rooms, but it's a slow process and each room is only partly finished.

Me and the Hubs on closing day!!

For some reason, the only picture I have of the entire front of the house is the one I took this week after it snowed.

This is the view of the living room as you walk in the front door. I'm thinking about changing the tile around the fireplace eventually....who knows....I'll probably change my mind 100 times before we actually get ready to change it.

The view of the dining room and front door from the corner of the living room.

Kitchen!  We plan on replacing the counter tops with granite and putting a great glass tile on the back splash. We've also been throwing around the idea of glazing the cabinets.  This isn't happening anytime soon, but it's definitely on the list of "Things to Change in the Future"!

Looking at the breakfast nook from the kitchen--please excuse the horrible picture quality.

Master Bedroom--this picture doesn't show it very well, but it's actually a pretty big room! I love it!

Master bathroom.  Yes, this room was FOR SURE painted before we moved in. This room is also the next room on our "To Do" list--we plan on changing out the brass fixtures. 

Guest bathroom....and me in the mirror. Ha!

Another picture of the guest bathroom.  At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about the wallpaper, but it's grown on me and I'm liking it more and more everyday.

One of the guest bedrooms downstairs.  This one has two closets in it, which you can see in the picture above.

This is the closet on the left in the picture above this one--the closet on the right has the hanging bars and a few more shelves. This picture doesn't show it very well, but this is actually a huge closet--I fit a full size desk in the bottom of this closet. It has officially been declared my "craft closet" and I could not be more excited to put it to use!

The other guest bedroom is the same size, but with just one closet.

This is the bonus room that is upstairs above the garage.  Since Carey works from home this is his office and it is also our workout room. 

The back deck (with the previous owners' furniture and grill still out there, ha!)

And, finally, the back yard!  No, that's not our dog....we took this picture and the one above during the inspection when the previous owners still lived there.

This is our dog child, Bradi:

Well, I hope you enjoyed our house tour.  Until next time....

Toodles,

Erin

My Newest Obsession

In our new house, we have beautiful, honey colored hard wood floors.  We also have a beautiful, ebony colored "child" who sheds like it's her job!  If you've ever had hardwood floors (or tile for that matter) and an excessive amount of dog hair, then you understand my frustrations.  Sweeping with a regular broom did nothing but stir up the hair....I couldn't vacuum because it would scuff the floors......I was warned not to try to Swiffer because it would ruin the finish on my floors. **Sigh**  What's a girl to do?!

Enter, my mom!  Let me start by giving you a little insider information about my mom.  Mitzi (that's my mom) is the queen of all things cleaning!  At any given time, you can walk into her house and eat off the floors and give her baseboards a white glove test (which she will pass with flying colors).  She also has wood floors and a shedding dog so when she found out about me having wood floors in my new house, she introduced me to the greatest.invention.ever.....the Rubber Broom:

Sweepa Rubber Broom

Click here to purchase

This beautiful creation dominates the dog hair in my house!  Instead of having long, straw-like bristles like a regular broom this is made of short, densley packed rubber bristles.  The rubber bristles form a wall as you pull it across the floor, but the key is the static charge that builds up at the same time.  Nothing gets past this bad boy....no dirt, no hair, no pesky little dust bunnies!  It even has a squeegie on the opposite side so it can be used to clean wet floors. It can be used indoors or outdoors....on wood, tile, and even carpet.....wet or dry.  Seriously, I can't say enough about it.  If you have wood or tile floors you need one of these brooms!

Now, if my rambling didn't convince you, maybe this will:

Yes, that is dog hair.....don't judge! Ha!  Okay, that's all I have for today.  Hope you enjoy your new rubber broom as much as I do.

Toodles,

Erin

On My Nightstand

Welcome to the first edition of "On My Nightstand."  I read a lot and love it when people tell me about good books that they have read so I wanted to do the same for others. I do most of my reading at night before I go to sleep and my book always stays on my nightstand so that's how I came up with the name for my book review segments.

Now, just fair warning, I am in no way claiming to be a great book critique and I must also warn you that I read a lot of (as my husband calls them) "trash" books. Not "trash" as in "trashy romance novels"…I mean "trash" as in, "not necessarily going to make you grow intellectually" kind of book.  The reason I read a lot of these books is because my brain has to work hard all day at my job, and I like to read for entertainment….I don't always want to lay down in bed, and snuggle up with a book that is going to make me question everything about myself and cause me to have "I Can't Turn My Brain Off Insomnia."  I read to relax and wind down….therefore, most of the books I read are just for fun.

The first book I chose to tell you guys about is Caught by Harlan Coben.

"Caught"

I read my first Harlan Coben book back in college and was a little surprised by the book. It had a sci-fi twist to it, but I absolutely could not put it down. I am so far from being a sci-fi loving girl that it's not even funny, so I was shocked that I enjoyed the book as much as I did. Well, over the years I have read a few more of his books (no more sci-fi, and they were all good….you can't go wrong with any of his books, check him out!), but none of them, in my opinion, hold a candle to Caught. Mr. Coben is known for this edge-of-your seat, can't-put-it-down, gotta-read-one-more-page kind of stories and he does not let you down with this one. If you like a good mystery novel, this one is for you. Your head will be spinning until you turn the last page.

Below is the summary of the book on his official website (www.harlancoben.com):

"17 year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.

Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate—and nationally televised—sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounters her latest target. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined.

In a novel that challenges as much as it thrills, filled with the astonishing tension and unseen suburban machinations that have become Coben’s trademark, Caught tells the story of a missing girl, the community stunned by her loss, the predator who may have taken her, and the reporter who suddenly realizes she can’t trust her own instincts about this case—or the motives of the people around her."

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first edition of "On my Nightstand." Until next time…..

Toodles,

Erin

Guess Who's Back....

....back again....Erin's back....tell a friend!

It has officially been over a year since my last post which is absolutely ridiculous. I thought that starting a blog during the wedding planning process would be a good way to keep track of the fun stuff I was doing so I could look back at it one day and remember all the crazy times. Well....I was wrong! Planning a budget-friendly wedding while living 4.5 hours away meant a lot of travling and a lot of DIY projects. I got overwhelmed to say the least, and I neglected the blog....obviously! Ha!

Well, lots of things have changed and I'm a little more settled so I thought I would give it another try. You may be wondering what all has changed (or you may not care at all...in which case, poo on you because I'm gonna tell you anyways!). I'm married now (for over 7 months!), the company I was working for in Fayetteville, AR relocated to Houston, TX which meant that hubby and I either had to dust off the ol' cowboy boots and move to south Texas or this girl had to get a new job! So, I got a job as a financial analyst at Windstream Communications which is headquartered in Little Rock, AR. We had always talked about moving closer to family after we got married and started thinking about having kids, and the move to Little Rock puts us 2.5 hours closer to both of our families. While the move had to happen sooner than we had anticipated (we haven't been married very long and we certainly aren't thinking about kids anytime soon!), we still think it was for the best. Leaving Fayetteville was bittersweet--I had been there for 8 years and it had become home to me...that's where Carey and I met, and where SO many fun memories were made--but, we were also excited about what the move to Little Rock meant to our future. Luckily, the hubs works from home (I know, lucky dog, right?!). He can live anywhere within his sales region so the move didn't effect his job. So, less than 2 months after our wedding, we packed up and headed south.

Another excited change is that, in just two days, Mr. and Mrs. Antoon (that's us!) will officially be homeowners!!! We are closing on our first home this Friday, and we are beyond excited. We have really been blessed and the good Lord is certainly smiling down on us right now. I'm sure the new house will be the subject of many blog posts in the upcoming future as we have a lot of fun things planned!

Well, that's pretty much it on what's new with me. I will try to keep updating the blog on a more regular basis. I hope to share lots of stuff with you guys that's more exciting than just what I did that day...must I remind you that I'm a financial analyst?! I'm sure most of you might be shocked to hear this, but that doesn't really make for very exciting days! Ha-ha! I love to read, cook, and craft so I will be sharing my thoughts on books I read, recipes I have tried, and crafts I attempt.

Check back soon!

Toodles,

Erin

"My Ashleys"

Okay, so it's been over a month since my last post...that is NOT ok!!! I guess I'm not too good at this blogging thing yet. I'm going to get better though!



Tonight, I went to dinner with "My Ashleys." Two of my very best friends are both named Ashley, and I met them for dinner and we chatted for 3 hours! It was way overdue and SO much fun.

I guess I should start by explaining that we never call either of these girls by their first names. I'm not really sure how this got started, but I guess we just decided that they needed nicknames so we wouldn't get confused with two Ashleys in our group of friends. So, for the past 7 years they have been known as "Lass" and "Post". And now, I would like you to meet My Ashleys...

Ashley On The Left = "Lass"
Lass and I both majored in accounting in college so we spent A LOT of time together, and I'm not sure if I would have made it through Senior year without her--she definitely kept me sane! She is such a wonderful friend and I really can't imagine life without her. Lass just got married in May and was such a beautiful bride! Sadly, she is moving in about three weeks... =( Her husband just graduated from law school and has been accepted into a Tax Law program in Gainseville, FL. I am so excited for the two of them because it is going to be such an adventure, but I'm SO sad she will be so far away!

Ashley In the Middle = "Post"
There aren't enough words in the English language to describe Post...she is just an all-around AMAZING person! She is that type of friend that you could call in a time of need and she would drop everything to be with you. Post is getting married next March, and I am soooo excited--it's going to be a beautiful wedding. Once she gets married and settled down in her new home, she is going to start her own event planning business. She is such a go-getter and so creative--she will do so well with it!

Both of these girls are absolutely amazing, and I couldn't live without them. They are definitely two of my forever friends. I love them so much!