On March 8th, 2012...

For our five-monthiversary, I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips on top.


I put a candle in one and we blew it out together on the count of three.


Happy five months (almost 6 months now!) to us! :)

Some things I love about my valentine

Photo taken at our wedding

:he always tells me that he loves me
:he is willing to scratch my back and give me back massages when I ask (even though he doesn't always want to)
:he takes out the trash
:he likes to cuddle
:he makes the bed
:he makes me laugh
:he is able to calm me down and say exactly what I need to hear when I'm upset
:he vacuums the apartment
:he makes up the best nicknames for me
:he talks to our baby every day and is going to be the best father
:I get to be his forever valentine!

Zelda Fitzgerald once said, "Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold." and I know that's true- each day my love grows for Jesse and I am so blessed to have him as my eternal companion. He helps me to be a better person and I'm grateful I can spend the rest of this life (and eternity) with him. I often tell him "I love you much more than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow."

I hope you all have a wonderful day and celebrate those you love!

A few more engagement photos

As I mentioned before, these were taken around Keeneland. Sara, the photographer ended up with about 800 photos by the time we were done. She edited them down to around 220 for us to pick an engagement photo from...and now I'm showing you these ones. I wanted to post more but didn't want you to be subject to too much gushiness! I'm only thinking of you afterall.

Enjoy...

We call this one "Professor Jesse"

Getting ready to put a flower in his hair

"Behind bars" (notice the police cars behind us...)

The one we chose for our engagement photograph...?

We thought it was a good representation of Kentucky.

Preview...

We went to Keeneland this past Saturday and had our engagement pictures taken by the lovely Sara J. We took some near a police car while we were behind "bars" (i.e. jail), and took some by horses when they tried to eat us. A few of them were a little cheesy, but some have to be, right?

Here is a preview...

For our very first date, we went to The Mad Potter and painted these...Cletus and a flower pot. Who knew we would end up getting married!
She posted a third one, but it's just a close-up of the second one.

You like? More to come!

This and that

Remember how in this post I said that my mom is making my wedding dress?

Well, when I was home this past weekend we had a little thrift store journey where I found a dress that fit....but was very big (meaning made me look very wide) and in need of some adjustments in several areas...cutting and re-sewing in others. We left the store with out it.

After I came back to Lexington, my mom called with an idea....to possibly combine the dress that she is working on and use part of the dress that I found to make a new dress for my wedding.

My mom went back to the store to see if the dress was even still there. It was in someone's elses hands!! Ahhh. But then she put it back and my mom grabbed it and bought it, where it was 25% off the listed price! since it had been in the store so long!

The dress? Oh, here's a picture....see how big (poofy) it is?
+ other pictures from home:






In other news, I'm starting to be a big ball of stress...less than two months left to go and so much left to do! Ahhh. Jesse reassured me last night that things will be okay. Take a deep breath and start on that to-do list....

And we did see Harry Potter pt. 2 on Wednesday July 20th for our date...(first ever date in a movie theater with him!) Even though I'm not a super, super crazy H.P. fan I really liked the movie and I've read some of the books. Any way, it was good and I might have cried just a little bit.



Ok, here's a video that will (hopefully) brighten your day:


My favorite quotes?
-the brain is like a wrinkled bag of skin filled with warm water, veins, and thought muscles
-the probe probes the brobe
-leave the pea be

Enjoy! And happy Thursday.

(All pictures taken by my sister!)

Update

I travelled home to Columbus this weekend (Jesse didn't go because he had work to catch up on) to try on my wedding dress! My mom is putting a lot of effort into making it and it will be beautiful...though I can't gain any weight!

I'm starting the process of getting my passport for our honeymoon! Jesse just needs to renew his, but I have a few more papers in order to apply for mine. Where are we going you ask...?

Rome, Italy!!

I'm so excited to marry my love and then honeymoon with him in Rome!

Here are some places that we hope to visit while we're there:












(Photos from National Geographic and Google).

Cute

To everybody who commented on my last post about my engagement story...

Thank you!!

You're very kind and I'm very excited. My days (and nights) have been busy thinking about and planning (with Jesse's help of course) our wedding.

Oh, we have a date(!!):
Saturday October 8th in the Columbus, Ohio Temple.
We're having a late morning sealing and then reception after.

116 days!

********************
And here's a text that made me love him even more, but it might make you sick. I'd apologize for sharing it, but I'm not sorry:

Jesse: "Ohh, you're so sweet"
Me: "Sweet like honey or sweet like sugar?"
Jesse: "Like honey because you're the bee's knees :)"
Me: "Aww, since you're the cat's meow what does that make you?"
(I was going to say ..."tuna?" but I didn't cause that would have been kind of mean)
Jesse: "Catnip because I'm irresistable :)"
Me" "haha true, true you are irresistable"

********************
I love that finace of mine!

(Jesse was told by a mutal friend that we're like 80 year olds with those nicknames).

Any questions?

Jesse's Girl

I had been wanting to go to the Arboretum to look at all the new plantings for a long while, but Jesse kept saying we would go later. (Jesse is a horticulturist at the arboretum...not sure if I mentioned that or not).

So, on Wednesday June 1st...he said we would go out to dinner and then would take a walk through the Arboretum where he would show me all the new plants. I was excited, not even suspecting what was in store!

Before this, I had been a little concerned because driving home from my parent's house over Memorial Day, he was really, really quiet- which was so unusual for him. I asked him about it twice before and he said he was just thinking...

So we went out to dinner on Wednesday at an Italian restaurant here in Lexington. It was very good food! I brought up his quietness one more time and asked him was he was thinking about- his answer was "stuff". I pushed it a little further with, "what stuff?" He said: "I'll tell you later" and he laughed. He seemed fine after that.

We finished up dinner and drove to the arboretum. We held hands as we walked and he pointed out all the new plantings over the arboretum since the last time I had been there. He had done a lot of work and it looked beautiful! At the garden area, we ate a few strawberries and a raspberry each.

Then we went to the rose garden. The arboretum has thousands of roses which are beautiful and smell heavenly. He showed me several of them and pointed out the names as I admired each of them.

A few minutes later, we walked over to the rose arbor which was filled with climbing roses. We sat on a bench, holding hands and talking for about 15 minutes.

Jesse then got really quiet...I was starting to get just a little concerned again...

when he says:

"Natasha, I have a question to ask you..."
"Ok"
"but you can't cry until after I'm finished..." and right then I knew it was coming!

Then he got up off the bench and down on one knee and took something out of his pocket and told me that he doesn't have much, but everything he has is mine...and...

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes!!! Yes, I will"

and then we kissed.

Inside the box was this:



Afterward we sat and smiled and laughed and talked about plans and held hands.

And that's the story I'll tell for the rest of my life when someone asks how my husband proposed to me!