Quick update on the past year....

So I've had a little think about how I'm going to sum up the goings-on of the past year without making it too drawn out and boring and have decided to just make a quick five point list, and if anyone is interested in hearing more detail about a particular thing just leave me a comment or send me a tweet (@MrsKirstyWJ) and I'll get on it... like a car bonnet - mad apologies about that, couldn't resist.

1. We bought a new house
2. We got married
3. We went on honeymoon
4. We renovated our new house
5. We got another puppy

I wish I would have documented the whole renovation process a bit more but to be honest it was buying the house and starting renovations that kept me away from here for so long. It was a really difficult task, especially because we were doing it on a spend as we earn basis so there was no bulk loan taken out for the work. Glad of this now... not so happy about it at the time, because everything was so slow and so much hard work even though we had a lot of help from friends and family. We are just putting the finishing touches to the house now - finishing off the front garden and the attic so at least I'll be able to share that with you as we do it.

Oh, and for all of you that followed my 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' blog where I uploaded a lot more diet related stuff, I just want to say that I am still eating healthily, not totally slimming world approved all the time but it's going good. I try to make a lot of freezable meals on Sundays as during the week I can be too busy to cook and don't want to resort to take-aways too much - not only for the healthy factor, but also for the pocket factor! I'll hopefully do a Sunday evening post with my meals for the week. And if anyone would be interested in me doing a food shopping haul video (of affordable healthy eating on a budget) let me know.

Talk later,

Kiki x

Lists are taking over our lives!

I am a list person... I make lists for everything an anything (although I should point out that the pic above is not one of my lists), but for the past week and a half the amount of lists made in our house has been ridiculous! The count down is now on to get everything ready for November... it may seem like a long way away, but trust me it isn't. Last July when we got engaged I thought I'd have everything done and dusted by December... now we are in to April and I've still masses to do!

It's the little things that take up a lot of the time, so we sat down last week and made a list of all the little things we still have left to do - for instance, we completely forgot the we need new shoes!

We need to get the invitations sent out pronto so that we get the RSVP and menu choices back in plenty of time to make up the table plan and the hotel needs at least 10 weeks notice of the menu choices... and J has to find his birth certificate so we can get the marriage license... it's all the little things that need to come together!

We've also been considering taking on a renovation project... so have been working out the figures for that!

So I haven't been keeping up with the squat challenge, in fact I never made it past Day 1, but I do want to give it a good shot, so I'm getting back on the wagon with it today I'm starting all over again. I have also been quite naughty and been a little too flexible with my syns... back on track now though which feels good!

Scan Bran Challenge Day 6...

So it's day 6 of the can bran challenge. I have been very good (aside from some pizza on Saturday night) and am hoping that the Scan Bran Challenge will help me shed some pounds and I'll see the number on the scales go down tomorrow night at weigh-in. I've been using Finn Crisp instead of Scan Bran... the Scan Bran tastes like cardboard.... I couldn't stomach it! I have always loved Finn Crisp, so am happy that I can have 6 as a HEb on the plan. I haven't weighed myself at all this week, and I plan to wait until weigh-in tomorrow night to see if there has been any progress.

I am aiming to have hit my target weight by September (for my hen party), and then maintain for my wedding in November. I all honesty I don't have masses of weight to lose to get to my personal target. Doctors say that a woman of my height, 5 ft 9, should weigh on average about 145 pounds (10.5 stone)... My personal target is 11.5 stone, so I don't have a lot to lose before September, then if I want to carry on and lose the extra stone I can do that, but I wouldn't be too concerned about it to be honest.

We had a pretty good weekend - spent Friday night watching TV in the house and on Saturday we headed out with some friends. Things went downhill on Sunday though - I had a terrible migrane and from about 4pm onwards I was laying in the dark in the bedroom with some painkillers! Then of course it was sod's law that my car (not even a year old!) wouldn't start on Monday morning... apparently it's something about it being an eco-car and the sudden temp change and rain affected the electrics and made the petrol gauge go all wonky... sake... got it to go eventually, but too late to go to work - by the time I drove there I would have only had two or three hours in the office before heading home, so took an unexpected day off and got some house work done.

Everything's back to normal today though! I'm actually glad to be back in the office! I hate sitting at home with nothing to do, it would drive me crazy not to have a job!

Made a list of everything we still have to get done before the wedding... it's not a long list, we already have most of the things done, it's just a few things we need to do - get our shoes, send out the invitations etc... all in all, we are pretty organised, which is a GREAT feeling!

A Little Monday Update on the Weekend...

I did not eat healthy at all this weekend, Slimming World went right out the window and I've only let it back in this morning! Weekends are always hard for me - especially when J says "lets get a Chinese takeaway"... I can't resist the smoked chicken!

Apart from being very naughty in the food department, we had a great weekend... I have decided on my wedding band and J has 'almost' decided on his. We were able to view a couple of houses together on Saturday and are hoping to see a few more in our area this week. Although getting a Saturday appointment for a mortgage is much harder than I thought - they're booked up until the end of March!

After viewing the first two houses we had a loooong discussion about what we are really looking for in a house... it's terribly hard to think of what you really need in a house - space, number of rooms, parking, area, neighbours, layout of house, outside space incase you need to extend, do we get the 'home' feeling, how many bathrooms (for when we start a family), family sized kitchen and spaces, privacy...  these are only some of the things we have realised we need to think about.

Choosing to rent our apartment was much easier... and a lot less complicated, we walked in, liked the space, got the 'home' feeling and signed the lease!

So the search continues!

The bridal fair on Sunday at the Clandeboye Lodge was brilliant. I found a lovely little home-run company that makes the most beautiful hair clips for bridesmaids... almost exactly the same as the ones I had originally seen (and fallen in love with) on Pinterest!

The suits for the guys are still proving problematic, but J said we will just pick one day he is off work and book an appointment for as many places as we can and go around them all.

I've also got my first appointment with a bridal consultant! This is very exciting! I was under the impression that I could easily pick up a wedding dress a couple of months beforehand... but I was very wrong... it can take up to 6 months for a wedding dress to be ordered and made! Yikes! Talk about leaving things a little late!

I have also just this very minute put my order in with Oh So Lean, which I will collect from Bangor on Wednesday evening! I'm very excited to try their stuff and will post what I got and how I used them! Hopefully it will be of some help to fellow Slimming World followers!

I baked some cupcakes! I hadn't baked anything in a while as I was sticking very strictly to Slimming World but I gave in at the weekend as J had requested I make him some Easter Cupcakes a little early - a tester, as he called them! Cheeky!

Turf the destroyer (as we now call him) got a new toy on Saturday (Mr. Snakey)... and destroyed it last night by pulling out his tongue and ripping a giant hole in its head and pulling out the squeaker!

Looks like butter wouldn't melt... toys beware!

Mummy will be playing doctor tonight and stitching Mr. Snakey's head back together (the tongue is a goner)... along with re-stitching bobo (for the third time) and babybear - who is missing a limb!

Wedding planning and Pinterest...

This week we really got stuck into wedding planning. When we got engaged in July of last year, we thought we had plenty of time... November 2013 was AGES away... but January has come round faster than we thought and the panic has set in. We got the big things booked last September - the church for the ceremony, the reception venue, the wedding cars, the venue decorators and the photographer... but it's the little things, the little details that make a wedding day really special and personal to the couple and their family that we have realised will probably take the most time and thought.

I'd heard of this great website called Pinterest a while ago, but never fully realised what a great tool it is for gathering ideas until I downloaded the app at the start of January. Since then I have made several 'boards' all of which are full of fun, funky and beautiful ideas for our wedding.

It is especially handy given that we are on a particularly tight budget - I have discovered great ideas for home-crafted centrepieces that cost less than £7 each. They are mostly made up of things we already had around the house - now I admit, if I hadn't already been pretty well into crafting and doing little homemade things for our home I wouldn't have had this stuff laying around, but as luck would have it I did.

I have about 100 jars left from the last batch of Cupcakes in Jars I made for a Vintage Fair last year - the jars only come in boxes of 500, so I was lucky to have some leftover, as ordering another box was out of the question.

We have hired a wonderful company called Sweetheart Vintage Weddings and Events as our venue decorator and they are bringing some fabulous pieces to the church and reception venue to add all the major touches that will make our wedding special to us. Because of our tight budget we had to restrain ourselves (well, more like J had to rein me in) when we selected the pieces for our venues, sticking to the things that we really wanted to have and which would give our wedding the beautifully vintage touches that we are after. I really wanted the birdcage centrepieces, but the reception venue has centrepieces included in the package we booked, so I (eventually) seen J's point of view and decided to go with the ones already included in our reception package. BUT of course, now that I had seen the lovely vintage set-up, I couldn't just give it up completely and J agreed that we could have
the wildflowers in the pretty jars - YAY!

This is the sweet little idea I found on Pinterest that I'm going to use to jazz up my reception centrepieces using the leftover jars

I am also being really thrifty and making my own favours, and they are going to also act as the place settings! Two birds, one cheap-ass stone!

Pinterest has been great for helping me visualise what our wedding cake will look like... I already knew I wanted a two/three tier vanilla sponge cake with vanilla frosting and jam filling - the frosting will (hopefully) be in little rose swirls all over the cake. I had seen this idea before at a Vintage Wedding Fair, but the cake was just to expensive for us. I've also seen it with rainbow coloured layers of sponge inside and an ombre frosting, which were quite pretty. I also really love the idea of having a grooms cake - a very America idea, but also a very cute one. J's cake will be a small single tier, three layer white chocolate cake with raspberry filling and blue white chocolate filling. The toppers are something that is very 'us'... all our friends say we have a Fry and Leela love story, so the groom's cake will be Futurama inspired, but still vintage and elegant.

Fry and Leela

After much debate about it, Turf will not be our ring bearer, simply because we couldn't be absolutely certain that he wouldn't get too nervous/excited and wee in the church... but he will be with me in the morning while the bridal party gets ready wearing a cute little tux.

The bouquets, buttonholes and corsages are being handmade by Vintage At Heart who does stunning work with foam and silk flowers and vintage broaches. My brother won't be with me on my wedding day, as he passed away in 2009, but I really wanted a way to have something there with me - Pinterest turned up this wonderful idea (below) and so I have found some lovely round picture charms on ebay for £2.49 for five, and they will be incorporated into my bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets. This is absolutely my favourite find.

I have also found some brilliant ideas for bridesmaid's gifts and fun little things to keep kids entertained at the reception -

If anyone is planning their wedding (or any celebratioin!), decorating/redecorating their home, looking for home-crafted gift ideas or just even looking for some cute new hairstyles, I would definitely recommend Pinterest, it's free to sign up and the app is free to download to you phone/ipad/ipad mini which is super handy for when you are out and about and want to show someone an idea you have found - saves me carrying lots of bits of paper and magazine cutouts in my handbag now!