The Countdown is Over......

Well...it's been so long since I've posted here.....but we did it - we're officially married! My last name is officially changed...I'm officially a WIFE. The strange thing is - nothing is really different - I guess I expected this huge change to come along with being married - and there just isn't one. Of course, Steve is now wearing a ring, which at times looks just plain weird on his hand LOL and my ring is a little thicker now with two bands surrounding the ring itself - but I've had a ring on that finger for so long it doesn't even phase me anymore...my name is different but I haven't really had to use it just yet so I guess I'm not getting the excitement from that. I did get my drivers License changed yesterday and my bank account information changed, applied for a new social security card and will be making more calls to the utility companies and health insurance today - it is weird to look at my license and see the new last name instead of MY last name - it's difficult to even write it at times..LOL I'll get used to it though. The months and weeks leading up to the wedding were crazy and emotional and stressful and I'm kinda sad that it's over now - even though the stress and money being spent were horrific - I feel like I have nothing to look forward to now! We have a family wedding to attend on the 8th of November and then the Holidays and then SIL's wedding in May...but otherwise nothing spectacular to look forward to. I guess I almost feel let down - there was such a huge build up to the 18th day of October - the day I became his wife and I feel like it was such a let down in ways - it went by SOOOOO FAST. SO fast. It was all over before I knew it and then we were on our way home from our honeymoon before I knew it and life returned to normal in a blink of an eye! It was built up for so long and over in a matter of 12 hours. It's crazy! I look back now and wish I wouldn't have bothered with the million little details that I did. I looked forever for an aisle runner - it wasn't even used - we totally forgot about it. I was going to the craft store every weekend for MONTHS to buy flowers and bouquet accessories and the bouquets turned out pretty enough, but I didn't love them - I had so many extra flowers that we had nothing to do with - it was a total waste of money. When it came time to decorate for the reception I felt so utterly overwhelmed - I had not taken into consideration at all what I wanted to reception hall to look like - well I had at one time drawn it all out on a piece of paper only to realize that my dream look would have cost WAY TOO MUCH cash and was just a dream...then I never thought about it again - I kept buying little things for the reception - we'll use this and that to decorate the hall -but HOW would we use this and WHERE would we use that? Nope, never gave it a single thought! Had it not been for my Aunt Becky and Kayla's mom Gloria coming in to save the day and basically supervise the decorations and say "let's do this" it would have turned out looking horrible I'm sure. We were at a total loss as to what to do with it all until they came in the door - I gave them the only ideas I had and they took those ideas and ran with them - turned them into even greater ideas than I could have imagined. In the end the reception hall looked gorgeous and you would have never guessed that I got 90% of the decorations for the reception from the Dollar Tree. It really did look beautiful! Now don't get me wrong - it was truly a magical, beautiful romantic day for Steve and I - I just felt like it all went way too fast for as much as we put into it I guess. But overall we had a very amazing day and we were proud of how it all turned out and happy to finally be married.
I felt like a princess in my wedding gown and then when my hair and makeup were done and I was all put together with the whole get up - I felt truly beautiful! I was a nervous wreck that whole morning and got increasingly more nervous until I spotted Steve standing at the altar waiting for me - then all that anxiety, fear, nervousness - whatever you want to call it - was completely gone. Once I laid eyes on the man that was to be my husband I couldn't take them off of him and I knew that all was right in my world at that very moment in time. Our reception was wonderful, full of laughter, dancing and our closest friends and family. We left for our honeymoon to Panama City Beach Florida the following day and even though it was cut 2 days short by the assholes at Steve's work - we had a great time - we made the most of the time we had there - it was Steve's first time to ever see the ocean and he was in amazement the whole time - it was the 2nd thing he wanted to do as soon as he was awake - the first was me of course! hahaha! He loved sitting there just staring out at the dark sea late at night - just the two of us sitting on an empty beach in our jeans, sweatshirts and bare feet - with his beer and my strawberry daiquiri's - we were in heaven! Once we got home things were crazy again as we had the daunting task of cleaning up all the debris that was hauled to our house after the wedding - returning things that belonged to other people - putting away the massive pile of wedding gifts and getting my things changed around to make my legal name his. It took me 5 days to get this house back in order and be able to finally settle back down into a "normal" life again - and as soon as I did - the daycare kids came back. Being back to work with all the kids here and getting back on that structured schedule has been nice - although the "structured schedule" has been totally out of whack this week! LOL We'll get it back sooner or later. Now I have the never ending task of the dreaded Thank You Cards to finish and mail out. I have been working on those for 2 whole days now and I'm finally down to a stack of 5 remaining to write out and ALL of them to address! I think we're gonna have to put a thank you in the local newspaper as well because we had a couple cards with a monetary gift in them that had no signature on them :) One gift that had no card with it...We were lucky enough to not get multiples of the same gifts though - that saved me having to take tons of gifts back! We only re-gifted one gift - and that was because we had gotten 3 of the same thing at the Bridal Shower - kept 2 of them, took one back and gave the other to my SIL.

So finally (and kind of sadly) all of the wedding drama is over - and now we have the chance to get back to trying to start a family! As much as we have TTC before - without a fully successful pregnancy - I think this time we'll have some better success at it - at least I hope and pray we do....I haven't had a period since August I think?? I'll have to look it's been so long and not something I've given much thought to...so I'll need to make a dr's appt and start all over with the ttc process I suppose - but I'm ready. I'm going to chart diligently - I'm going to eat healthier, walk on the treadmill and Steve and I are both working on quitting smoking - me more than him - my goal is to not be smoking at the start of 2009 - which is only freaking 62 days away!!! and Christmas is only like 56 days away...Oh man!!

I have all my pics from the wedding (well almost all of them) up on my MySpace page. I have too many kids to deal with at this moment to post them here - they are all starting to wake up from nap time! UH OH!! Time to go!

Until Next Time!