The countdown begins!

So, These are my wedding shoes! I'm very excited! Not only did I not spend a DIME on new shoes for my wedding, they MATCH perfectly with my colors! I was pretty bummed that my sister didn't want to wear pink, and is now wearing navy, but it looks good with my green and pink, so I'm not to upset. But Since we are very low on cash, I thought I'd use a pair of shoes I already had. I saw these at Payless about 8 months ago, and just HAD to get them. Not only are they my favorite color but they are super cute, and were on SALE! How could you said no? You just can't.

Well, I posted a picture on Facebook and of course my mother had to say something. But it's my wedding and I'll wear what shoes I want to wear! White shoes are so boring anyways! Granted I'm sure I'll want to take these off half way through, I'll push through the pain! Haha! I had a lot of positive feedback on Facebook about it, and Mom finally came around!

We went and bought our rings yesterday. Since he totalled his car, the insurance company bought it from him, and the money came just in time for us to get rings. We were going to only buy him a wedding band, and just use the engagement ring in the ceremony and wait to get my band. But he wanted to go ahead and get it for me! It matches the engagement ring GREAT! And his is Tungsten, it's the strongest medal that they make rings out of. I got the idea from my BFF who bought her hubby in the Army a Tungsten ring, and it wasn't really expensive. So I figured since he'll be going to Afganastan and Iraq at one point, and he's a man, I thought a strong metal would be the best one for him. And he likes it...it isn't too big, we'll have to send it off to get sized, but since we're getting married next Saturday we weren't able to do it just yet, so we're going to do it after the wedding. I might just send the reciept with him to Hawaii and have him do it there, since it takes about 2 weeks to get it in. And I'm sure there is a Kay's in Hawaii. At least I hope so...in order to keep my rings in warrenty I have to get them inspected every 6 months...

We are going to Hobby Lobby to look at cake toppers and the stuff for the sand ceremony. We were going to use flowers on top of the cake, but there was a huge miscommunication with that, and there aren't any extra flowers. If we don't find one we like I'm going to call the lady doing the cake and see if she'll just add dots to the top, to match the rest of the cake!

The flowers look great! His mom's best friend did them and she did a great job! We used silk flowers, and I'm so happy with the way they turned out. Gerbera Daisies and Orchids!

These are my flowers! (that's her son holding them so I could get a better look at the shape, haha..)

It has been very hard planning a wedding from Oklahoma, but I think everything is coming together!

-Mandi

8 Days

I can not believe I'm getting married a week from tomorrow.

I always dreamed I would one day get married. But then I got pregnant, and wasn't with the father of my child. So I did what I thought was best, and placed my child with a loving, caring family. After that my dream to get married died. But I met this great guy and all those dreams came back! And now,  in just 8 days my dream will become a reality!

I never in my life thought I'd find a guy like Steven. He's all I've ever wanted in a man, and SO much more! There are really no words to tell ya'll how much this man truly means to me.

God has blessed me so much. I could never repay Him for all he's blessed me with. I'm just so grateful!

I'd like to say Thank you! To God, and my family and friends, and my son's family.

Kinda bare...

I found a cute site that has a tut for putting your own backgrounds on Blogger. Well I made one using a free scrap kit I found online. I love it, I just can't get it big enough to fit on the background! I'm having to use my computer to design and my zip drive to move from my computer to Steven's computer, bc his is set up online. Kinda wish there was wireless here at the hotel. Oh well.

So, until I can figure it out, the layout will be bare....that was the point of this blog, bahaha!

Engagement Photos

Steven's buddy here in Fort Sill was so kind to take some pics of us...he's by no means a professional, and he used my Kodak EasyShare C743, which is by no means a professionals camera. We found this really cute little church on Post and the sun was just right. The wind however, was powerful and I definitely had a Marylin Monroe moment...I'm very glad his friend was looking away, he could have gotten an eyeful! We weren't very creative and we only took 10 pics, but I think we got the job done!

This has to be my favorite.

I told ya the wind was blowing just look at my hair flying, haha

I look kinda retarded but I was trying to keep my skirt down..I didn't think about the Oklahoma wind before I chose my outfit! haha

I am cracking up because my hair was falling in my face and wouldn't stay behind my ear, and he refused to kiss me since he was in uniform...and I'm sorry about the blinding white legs....ew

This is the one I gave to our mother's for our local papers...

It is so weird to think that our wedding is only 12 days away....there is still so much to do...

Invites!!

So I figured I'd post a How I did it blog on the invites! It was so easy, but time consuming and a little more expensive then I originally thought, but since we were running short on time, we did the DIY kit! I got the kits from this awesome site - Cards & Pockets, we used the Perfetto Pocketfold!

The kit includes the Pocketfold, Card stock for the invites and inserts, Invite Mat and mailing envelopes...you can get RSVP envelopes for extra, but we aren't doing RSVP since it is 2 weeks away...

This is my set up - I went ahead and put the address and return address labels on the envelopes! I think here I am printing the directions page - I had to feed the printer one page at a time...it was a long drawn out process....

It took me a minute to figure out how to get 2 direction inserts per card stock but I did it - getting 2 invites per page was just not going to work - and so I had to do 2 inserts per page in order to get more - and I even used a couple of the pages where they had messed up - but there was still some good space - haha

Here are all the pages I messed up - some of them got reused - I'm frugal...and didn't want to run out of paper or inserts! haha

Here is the invitation cut out - i trimmed it more and got rid of that green border...I made this and the direction  layout on PS CS4 - I got the font off of a font website and the brushes off of a brush website - which ones I have NO idea... but if you google I'm sure you can find many sites to get these things!

Here are the Pocketfolds w/ the invite mats and the stickers I used to seal the Pocketfolds & envelopes because I couldn't get some of them to seal..I was going to get some tape, but luckily got them all sealed! PHEW...

This is what the inside looks like - the colors are Watermelon (pink) and Clover (green) - the site matched perfectly with the David's Bridal colors in the same name!

Here it is sealed and ready for the envelope!

And lastly the finished product - See the lovely American Flag stamp - NEVER send a man to get stamps for wedding invitations with out being specific in what kind of stamps you want...but I guess as he pointed out - he wanted a touch of 'him' on the invite - so we're paying tribute to his service in the Army...oh and the return address labels have a bride & groom on them, they're headless...didn't notice that til after I had printed out 2 pages of them! hahaha

(please excuse my pale white legs...those should become tanned and pretty once we are moved and settled in Hawaii for some time! Sorry to blind ya'll)

Army....

We went to work on Steven's Out Processing today. The Army gave him a list of things he has to do before he can PCS to Hawaii. Well, we first went to Transportation, we were going to get cleared and set up a pick up date for all our belongings. Well he left his orders in the Hotel room so we couldn't set up a date, and he wasn't in the system so he couldn't be cleared. The lady told us to go to Family Travel to see what all needs to be done for me to go with him. They said that the most important thing was to get married...duh - that way the Army will pay for me. But we've got to get married, get me in DEERS & get an ID card, and I have to get medically cleared. The latter part takes at least a month, maybe longer. I can't go to Hawaii until I'm cleared, and he doesn't have enough leave to wait for me to be cleared, so it looks like he'll be in Hawaii for at least 2 months before I can go. BOOOO! And we're not even sure if he'll be cleared to go in time. He only has 12 days of leave, which means he has to be in Hawaii by Nov. 8th. And if he can't get things taken care of then it'll be a while...it's so crazy...just another way the Army likes to screw you....

On a happier and lighter note - we got the invitations in the mail the other day, and we got paid today so we went and bought supplies for putting them together! I already glued 100 invite mats to the pocket folds, my fingers are watermelon pink from them! I'm going to print out the invitations and directions tomorrow while Steven is in class, he informed me that he will need the computer tomorrow after class. And we have to go to the freakin' commissary on pay day...neither one of us wanted to do it today, so we'll brave the storm tomorrow. I told him once we're in Hawaii we will be trying to do our grocery shopping a week after pay day as to avoid running out of food, money and having to deal with the crowds.

I'll post pictures when I'm finished! I can't wait to get them in the mail. I know, I know, they should have been mailed WEEKS ago, but with no job & money it makes it hard to get things. And when you didn't have more than 6 weeks to plan it makes it damn near impossible to do. Anyways, I'm gonna go do some stuff online...Steven got two new video games today and he's playing. I'm hoping he won't play for much longer, I'm tired and still not feeling real well.

Oklahoma where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain...

So yesterday I made the 907 mile drive all the way from Chattanooga, TN to Fort Sill, OK. 14 LONG hours in a car, alone, sick SUCKS.

But I made it safely and in one piece and not tooo late! I did however get lost on Post because I could NOT read the stupid road signs...They're brown w/ white wording and it was dark & raining and the signs are placed on the same thing as the lights. So I couldn't read the names of the roads until I was passing under them, if at all. You are not suppose to talk on your cell phone on post, but I was so lost I put it on speaker phone and called Steven. I also went either right at the speed limit or under it as to not get pulled over, and the phones backlight turned off, so they wouldn't see a light and be like, oh lets pull her over - hahaha...

We have to find some place to take my wedding dress to get altered. But there is a row of them right outside the gate, so we shouldn't have a problem. We'll take care of that tomorrow or Wednesday. We also have to wait until Wednesday to get things for the invitations, which all the supplies for the actual invititations are here and I didn't look at the white paper inserts but I'm sure everything is good. Everything else looks right. We have to get a paper cutter thing, glue and stamps..oh and ink and a USB cord for the printer. YAY! I was hoping to have them in the mail by Wednesday, but it'll be more like Thursday or Friday.

Anyways, just a little update - gonna chill out with the boy!

Love ya'll!
Mandi

New Blogger

So I've made a new blog, I'll still post on here, but I think it is important for Steven and I to have an outlet to update our family and friends about what is going on in our lives since we will be so far away from them. If you would like to follow us, here is the link: The Negley's in Hawaii

WOAH

OMG I'm such a slacker....not only have I slacked off on my online blog, but I've slacked on my journal to my son.

So much has happened! I'm extremely lucky and blessed and just wish I were better at this whole blog thing.

So the original wedding date was Nov. 14 2009, however - the Army is not giving Steven any extra leave, so when he does get back to Georgia he'll only have 14 1/2 days of leave. Not including travel days of course...So we moved it up to Oct. 31 - Halloween! Someone asked me yesterday if we were doing a themed wedding...uhhhh NO WAY....not my style at all...

We scaled down A LOT...only having 1 attendant each, his best friend and my half sister. We had 5 plus my half sister was a junior bridesmaid, but since my original MOH couldn't make it on Oct. 31 we decided to not have attendants, but then my mother was afraid my sister's feelings would be hurt if she weren't in it, so we decided to do a MOH and Best Man, so my sister is going to be the MOH...we're just going to skip on the flower girl and ring bearer.

I want to do the sand ceremony, so I need to look more into that and into getting stuff for it. And I've been meaning to talk to Steven, but I mentioned to his preacher that I want to do Communion also.

Steven is suppose to order our invites tonight or tomorrow....I'm using this site http://www.cardsandpockets.com/ and I was going to make the pocket fold card part myself, but since we don't have that much time left we ordering the Easy-Order Kits - which comes with the pocket fold, invite mat, invite paper, inserts, RSVP envelopes if you want, and mailing envelopes...We got them in my colors, the pocket folds are Clover green, the invite mat is Watermelon pink, and the inserts are Snow White and the mailing envelopes are Watermelon pink! I made the invite on Photo Shop CS4, along with a directions insert since most guests on my side are from out of town. I made the invite and directions insert the size I wanted it in inches on Photo Shop CS4 and put a border around them so I could easily cut them out!!!!

I eventually made it back to Tennessee from Oklahoma - Sept 13...Steven drove me to Oklahoma City, I flew to Chicago O'Hare, it was RAINING so bad that my flight into O'Hare was late and I had 2 connectors to catch...luckily the gate attendant was super helpful and exchanged my 2 connections for a direct flight from O'Hare to Atlanta...granted it was a later flight and I had a 3+ hour lay over...but I didn't mind. However, Steven didn't have a great commute back. It had been raining all weekend, and it started raining pretty hard, and so he slowed down, and ended up hydroplaning. Luckily he wasn't hurt, and nobody else was hurt. Today is Oct. 2 and the insurance company is just not calling to tell him that the car is totalled. I can understand not knowing right after, and having to get the car apart, but this is like 3 weeks later...what was the car guy doing with his car for so long? Or what was the insurance company doing for 3 weeks? Anyways...this is pretty long, so I will continue this story later. Which will give me motivation to blog!

Love ya'll!