Country Wedding Inspiration

Celebrating my fourth wedding anniversary the other week has got me thinking about weddings more than ever. I absolutely love everything about them and if I was a more organised person I would definitely look into being a wedding/event planner. Who knows, maybe I will evolve into a more organised person and start a career as a planner one day. In the meantime I'll make do with pinning gorgeous images and dreaming about planning weddings.

Although my best friend's wedding is over I still keep adding images to the pinboard (aptly named 'my best friend's wedding' - a name that I blatantly stole off the lovely Laura).

This week I'm dreaming about an idyllic country wedding and I thought I would share some of my favourite images. (All images can be found here, or you can click the link under each image to go directly to the source.)

{kuku couture invitations}

These invitations are elegant and sweet, setting the scene for a gorgeous, simple country wedding.

{source}

 The dress would (of course) be vintage lace. I absolutely adore this dress and could never pull it off in real life, but it's absolutely perfect for my imaginary wedding (or someone else's).

{source}

{Wedding Day}

I love loose unstructured bouquets filled with soft pinks, creams and pale greenery.

{source}

 The ceremony would be outdoors amongst the trees and the recpetion in a gorgeous big barn. It would be strung with hundreds of fairy lights and be decorated with lots of tea light candles.

{style me pretty}

{the knot}

These favours are just perfect for a country wedding and would help bring a touch of nature into the reception.

{ruffled}

What do you think? Do you love country weddings as much as I do? Did you have a country wedding? I would love to see photos if you did!

Four Years

Today, my wonderful husband Sean and I are celebrating four years of marriage.

I've found myself reflecting on these years through-out the day and each time I find myself with a big cheesy smile on my face.

It hasn't been all smooth sailing. But what's got us through those rough times is a genuine love for each other and a willingness to make things work. Besides, the good stuff far outweighs anything that could possibly be thrown our way.

Sean was at work so I spent the day with Max and it was an amazing reminder that our marriage is so much more than the two of us. The greatest things that will ever come from it are Max and the baby we have on the way (and any future babies we have!).

Looking back at our wedding day it almost seems insignificant compared to getting to spend the rest of my life with Sean and our family, but it still remains one of my favourite days of all time. It was before the days of pinterest and although I would LOVE to throw another wedding, I'm still really happy with our wedding day. It wasn't perfect, but it was perfect for Sean and I.

 

(All photos by the very talented Jodie Litzow)

Tonight we had a home-cooked (by me no less!) dinner with family and tomorrow night Sean is taking me out for dinner and a movie. He won't tell me where we're going or what we're seeing, but he guarantees me I'll love it!

The Week that Was

Last week was huge! Maybe not huge for everyone, but for pregnant, MS-y, home loving me it was BIG!

Very early Thursday morning Sean and I flew down to Sydney for my best friends wedding. I have been looking forward to this moment since I first met Erin more than ten years ago. She didn't have a traditional wedding, but what she did have was absolutely perfect.

 

Erin and Arron got married in the most gorgeous park overlooking Sydney harbour. After the ceremony we all had lunch back at Darling Harbour where we were staying. It was such a fun day and most importantly Erin and Arron were so happy to be married surrounded by their closest family and friends. Erin is absolutely stunning and I can't wait to see how her professional photos come out!

The next morning the happy couple (and their gorgeous little boy) flew out to Fiji for a honeymoon and Sean and I did some Sydney sight seeing. When we booked our flights we planned a really late flight out of Sydney so that we could spend the day being tourists, my MS was (and still is) being really shitty last week, but we still managed to have a really good day.

We walked and ate our way around Sydney the entire day. It was gorgeous. We had such a good time just being together, we were definitely feeling the love and even got asked if we were on our honeymoon.

That evening at Sydney airport we were snapped out of our loved-up and blissed-out state. I was completely exhausted by the time we got to our gate at 7pm. We arrived an hour and a half before our flight because we didn't want to risk getting stuck in Friday evening Sydney traffic. In the time we were there our gate was changed 7 times. Most of the changes were between just two different gates (that just happened to be at the opposite ends of the Virgin terminal), by the time they announced the last change I burst into tears. I was so fatigued and just wanted to get on the plane and go home. Sean kept trying to get me into a wheelchair, but there is no way I'm going down that route until I physically can not put one foot in front of the other...

Eventually (with no explanation as to the changes or half hour delay) we boarded our plane and headed home. When we got to Brisbane they landed us at the furtherest end of the terminal even though all of the other gates where empty. Jerks.

I was so glad to be home though and the second we walked in the door I had a sound asleep Max wrapped up in my arms. We were only gone for 36 hours, but I missed him like crazy!!

The next day we (Sean, Max, Sean's parents, some friends of ours and I) piled into two cars and drove up the road to Australia Zoo. The smartest thing I could have done would have been to stay in bed and recover, but there was no way I was missing out on Max's first trip to the zoo! I got to see him do all the cool things - feeding elephants, getting up close to a tiger, checking out the African animals, marveling at the crocs and feeding some very friendly kangaroos. After that I went and slept in the car while everyone else finished checking out the rest of the animals.

Max and his Nonna

Captivated by the Tiger

Loving the Elephant (the highlight of the day!)

My favourite part of the day was seeing Max feed these Kangaroos

By the time everyone came back to the car I'd been asleep for almost an hour and was definitely ready to go home. We didn't go home though. We travelled a little further up the coast to Max's great Aunties place. Max had a ball though, so it was definitely worth it!
  

 All in all, it was such a fun week. Exhausting, but filled with so many fun memories :)

20 Weeks

Yep, we're halfway!!

I had my 20 week scan today and I am beyond excited to say that everything went perfectly. We even took Max along with us so that he could 'meet' his little brother for the first time. Max squealed out loud when we showed him the baby on the tv screen and said 'that's my baby!'. He asked a million questions while we were in there about the jelly on my tummy, what the sonographer was doing, if the baby was coming out now and more. He is such a clever little guy :)

I feel the baby kick so much at the moment, so it was no surprise that he wriggled around for most of the ultrasound. We got to see everything we needed to in the end though and our baby is looking healthy and happy.

The absolute highlight for me was when we were watching the baby touch his face and put his fingers in his mouth in 3D. I looked over at Sean and Max and saw that Max was smiling and watching the monitor. As I said to Sean 'do you think Max understands what he's looking at?', Max lifted his hands up to his face just like the baby was doing and said 'look he's touching his face!'. Such a beautiful family moment!

This scan is a real turning point in our pregnancy, from now on in we are no longer considered to be high risk. Such a feeling of relief after the last 5 weeks of uncertainty.

Back on the 16th of May (my birthday, and 6 days after our 13 week scan) we got a phone call from the hospital saying that we had been placed into the high-risk category for genetic defects and that we would need to come in for genetic counseling.

We went in the very next day and they explained to us that whilst my scans looked normal, the blood-test results had indicated that my hormone levels were not in the 'normal' range. We decided to book in for an amniocentisis, but had to wait two and a half weeks before I was far enough along for the procedure to be possible. To be honest I took it pretty hard at first. I got really depressed and was convinced that the baby wasn't going to be ok. I couldn't shake the negativity and kept thinking that this was a continuation of all the health issues I had developed over the last couple of years (MS and the symptoms that accompany it). When I wasn't thinking about that, I was really scared that we would have the amnio, find out everything was ok and then lose the baby (a 1/100 risk that is associated with the test).

Thanks to the most amazing, supportive and positive husband and the support of our family and some of my closest friends I was able to turn myself around in the last week leading up to the amnio and start focusing on being positive, praying for my baby and being grateful for the beautiful family that I already have. Changing my mindset made a huge difference and by the day of the procedure I was really optimistic that we were going to have a positive outcome.

The amnio and scan was done at 16weeks +6 days and went really well, no issues at all and the baby looked really good on the scan. We got a phone call 24 hours later (almost to the minute) saying that our initial results came back showing that all of the baby's chromosomes were exactly as they were supposed to be. Sean was at home with me waiting for the call and I can honestly say that it was one of the happiest moments of our lives. We were elated! We also found out on that phone call that we would be having another boy. Double celebrations!

We were told that within two weeks we would get a phone call if anything abnormal showed up on the other tests and that if all went well at our 20 week scan we would no longer be considered high risk.

Which brings us to today. Our scan went perfectly and we got the confirmed results back from the long-term tests saying everything is a-ok :).

A very happy day for us here in the Riley household!!

The Highs and Lows of 2011

2012 was a rough year for my little family. Definitely the hardest year Sean and I have gone through together so far. But we got through it and we're ready to give 2012 a red hot go.

I don't want to dwell to much on the negative, so I'll just write briefly about it before I move on to the list of my favourite things about 2011.

The Not So Good Stuff

• Struggling with money - the last six months of 2011 were hard for us financially. I took a lot of time off work, Sean was out of work for 6 weeks and to top it all off I went on a bit of a shopping bender and started to spend more money than I could afford. I'm smart like that...
• MS - getting diagnosed with MS last year sucked. It has effected me physically, but in these early stages of it I think the mental impact of it is what has hit me the hardest so far.

Not a big list, but both things had a huge impact on how much we enjoyed life last year.

In comparison I have a much longer list of things I loved about 2011... It does make me wonder if I'm correct in considering 2011 a difficult year...

January

• Max Learning to Walk - Early on in January my adorable little munchkin realised that he could get places faster if he stood up and walked. It was so much fun watching him find his feet. Definitely one of the highlights of my life :)

April 

• We had a long weekend with my BFF and her boyfriend in Byron Bay. That weekend the two of them got and engaged and found out they were having a baby!!  

May

• I discovered Pinterest (it totally makes it into my 2011 highlights!!) and fell in love

June

• My beautiful niece Ava turned six and my sister and I threw her a Pirate Party

July

• I put together a gallery wall for one of our hallways. I still love it :)

August

• We (finally) tiled our house
• I made a doormat, which got pinned by Sherry from YHL and has now had almost 1000 page views (which is a big deal for a tiny blog like this one :) )

September

• Sean and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary with a family dinner.

October

• My littlest niece turned one :)

November

• I threw a grey and yellow baby shower for my BFF - she's due to give birth any day now!
• Sean and I had a much needed romantic getaway at the beautiful Wolgan Valley Resort

December

• I threw everything I had into creating a plane party for Max's 2nd birthday. He loved it!

Here's hoping 2012 brings just as many smiles :) (but none of the frowns).

Wolgan Valley

A couple of weeks ago Sean whisked me away for a weekend at Wolgan Valley.

OMG

It was seriously amazing!

Before I share details or photos I just want to put it out there (again) that we didn't pay to stay there. The two nights were a gift. If we had a spare $4k lying around I can guarantee you I wouldn't be spending it on two nights accommodation. However if I had squillions of spare dollars lying around and was looking for a good way to spend it I would go back to Wolgan Valley in a heartbeat. That place was ah-maz-ing!

The scenery was to die for. The resort is in the most gorgeous valley up in the blue mountains. Before this weekend away I have always been more of a beach resort kind of girl, but this trip changed me. I never knew we had such amazing landscapes so close to Sydney.

The resort features the original homestead that was built in the 1800's. We took a tour of it, which was cool. But it made me really glad that its not the 1800s anymore. Outhouses make me nervous, too many chances of bumping into a snake or spider. Speaking of which, during the wildlife safari we did see a red belly black snake. One crazy tourist ran straight up to it, calling for her husband to take a photo of her. Turns out having squillions doesn't automatically make you smart... The snake ran (slithered?) away though and all she got was a lecture from the tour guide.

One of the awesome things about the package was that it included all meals and drinks. And not just any meals or drinks. Gourmet breakfast, divine lunch and an 8 course degustation menu with complimenting wines. I was in food heaven! I wanted to take photos of every course, but Sean wasn't keen on that! I can only imagine the kind of damage I would have been able to do back in the days when I could handle more than two glasses of wine!

Hands down the best part of the weekend was time away for Sean and I. Our room was spectacular, yet so comfortable and liveable. We had everything we needed in there for the perfect romantic weekend. Including our own private plunge pool. Definitely a glimpse into how the other half live!

As you might have gathered it was the best weekend I have had in years and exactly what Sean and I needed. Thank you so much Aggie and Kym for passing it on to us!!