It's the most Wonderful time of the Year

 

I don’t know about you but Christmas is defiantly my favorite season!

 

The celebration of our Savior's birth.

The celebration of Family, Friends and way too much food!

~

This year was indeed one of my favorite Christmas’s

My First Christmas as a married women <3

A new year to start our own tradition and to combine and incorporate each others family’s traditions.


It started with a ..... well "a really good attempt at a delicious Christmas breakfast" :)

This was something that came from my families side - 'Christmas Breakfast' Mum would prepare a feast for breakfast you were full till next Christmas once you were done. 

Then it was off to the In-Laws <3 

(Beautiful Photo Courtesy of Tania )

Kieran's family has always opened their gifts together as a family <3 I really enjoyed being apart of this..... seeing everyone's faces as they open their presents especially when it comes to the Fairy Princess saga :p or the funny names and people the gifts are from :)

We then spent the rest of the day with both sides of Kierans family. 

A Big lunch with Ken's side and afternoon tea with Tania's side. 

It's was very different from my usual Christmas coming from separated parents and from a small family. 

And one day It will again be different when mini Kieran and Jackie's will be running around.... brace yourselves :D 

For me Christmas is a celebration. I give thanks to God for the many amazing Christmas's I've had... from meeting my Half-sisters for the first time, to some wonderful Bridgetown Christmas's with way way to much turkey and the giving of the ducks to Christmas in the middle of know where or as it's formally known 'Mundubbera'...... to now my first Christmas as a married women incorporating each others families and traditions

 ~something old . something new~  

I can't wait to see what my future Christmas's will be like !! 

Hopefully one day it may resemble one of those movie scenes where there's kids running around giggling, grandpas asleep, grandmas fussing over some dish, aunts and uncles are squabbling over something, there's a mopey teen forced to where their Christmas cracker hat and you've pulled in chairs from outside, in the office, beach chairs, bar stools just to fit every one and there is a mini kids table for the young ones and everything is just crazy..... and your the host and you just have a laugh to yourself and think there's no place I'd rather be then here... with the family :)

~

It truly is a time of blessings and celebration. 


I pray that your day was full of the Lords joy and richest blessings, full of laughter, full of full tummies from too much delicious food and an overwhelming sense of love and peace 
From my home and heart to yours 
Merry Christmas 

Love Mrs Turner <3

Feeling #22

So much can happen in a year.

As we were driving over the weekend I reflected on all that has happened in the past year.

1: Got Engaged 

2: Got a new apartment 

3: Married the love of my life 

4: Quit my job 

5: Decided to go back to TAFE next year

6: So much more

This time last year I had just turned ~twenty-one~ 

Had a sweet Mad Hatters 21st <3 

life was sweet

Now just a year later I'm Married, Unemployed and still absolutely loving life.

Sure I'm a bit uneasy about not having a job and Kieran and I have our good days and bad days, But recently something I believe God has been teaching me is; as a wise youth pastor said "praise him in the storm"

I've had to seek God a lot in the past year as there have been many storms I've had to get through and i know that there will be many more to come. But I have comfort knowing that I serve a loving God and I have an incredible husband I can do life with.

Life is hard, we recently listened to a Guest Speaker at our Church - Frank Rautenbach. He told us of his heartbreaking yet incredible story of perseverance and commitment to the Lord. He went from a Famous movie star to a Cab driver over the span of a couple of years and to see the man on stage have such a peace despite all his turmoils tells me one thing..... God loves us. 

Who knows what I'll be doing in a year, maybe building a home, employed, unemployed, a mum... so many things can happen in a year. 

But what I do know is that God will not give us more then we can handle. HE will ALWAYS be there. Praise him in every storm and beautiful sunny day.

And i know life is hard and what i say may sound "easier said then done" but I'm living proof of the love and Grace of God.

I once would of scoffed and told you to tell someone who cares when it came to the topic of God, i hated the very thought of him, my life was a mess and i hated myself, i wanted to curl up and die, if he loved me why does my life seem meaningless and full of pain? 

It wasn't until I understood its by our own free will we have gotten ourselves into the hole were in, God gave us the choice the world that's full of hate, selfishness and little love or Him creator of Love and YOU... when we choose the world we fall into its self hate and meaningless ventures, but when we choose to find love in Christ thats when even on our worst days we find peace. 

And I know its hard, I still sin and fall into the world, but its about letting God pick you up, dust you of and send you on.

So as I reflect on the birthday i just had, now 22yearsyoung, 

I am truly grateful for the blessings in my life, the new family I have, my cherished family who have seen me grow these past 22 years, My friends old and new who have been a source of comfort and laughter - of good times and insanely fun memories, of the roof over my head, the loving church i attend and the beautiful people i have met there, for the jobs I've had and the one i will soon have, the opportunities I've been given through out my life,  all the storms I have been through that have made me who I am today and to the loving husband that walks through my door everyday with the sweetest and most genuine heart.

Heres to the Year ahead 

Cheers <3

Love and Blessings 

Mrs T 

 

Adventures in the Kitchen

As a new wife I have embarked on the adventure of cooking,

an am finding my inspiration from cook books...

The best I've come across is this. 

The Australian

Women's Weekly

Cooking in 

1o, 2o, 3o, 4o 

Minutes

An impulse buy from before I even had any thoughts I was getting married...thinking I could start using it to cook me some simple and yummy meals after work...thus it sat collecting dust until I picked it up to find a meal to cook my darling husband one night.

I decided to make omelets.... pretty simple stuff. Eggs, cheese and ham, that part I had down, it wasn't until I was past the point of no turning back that I came across this sentence...

'Gently fold whites into yolk mixture' 

I'm sorry what? Fold liquid ?.... what are you some sort of water bender ? cause I sure as heck as ain't. Now for the food savvy people who actually understand that, I'm sure you're practically wetting yourself laughing at my lack of 'folding liquid' knowledge...but I kid you not, I was having an argument with the cook book in the kitchen "what do you even mean", "fold into yolk' ", "do i look like a water bender"....I'm sure onlookers would of been amused.

I eventually just went YOLO and poured the egg whites in and did my best at 'folding' said egg whites hoping for the best.

 on a side note....

Dear Recipe Writers,

...What? 

If I'm seeking advice from a cook book... I'm obviously not the worlds best cook... so please for all us 'non-food technical liquid folding experts' make recipes less complicated. 

xxx

Yours Truly 

People Everywhere

And on a plus side Kieran said they were delicious :D

 So I must be better at this 'folding liquid then I thought I was. 

Peace and Love

Mrs T 

The story of four Dresses

Trust me to pick the most difficult way to plan something! 

I started out with what I thought was any easy task and idea…. Oh how wrong was I!

I’m not typical and traditional really isn’t my thing so when I thought bridesmaid dresses, what did I do… Mix and match!

  

Something like this was the image I had in my mind…

 

My biggest thing was I wanted my girls to feel beautiful on the day too and comfortable in what they were wearing. So I said ladies the colour is Blue, any dress, any shade of blue is fine just maybe make it long so you’re not too cold.

Now I must commend these beautiful ladies they did an amazing job and we made it in the end! Many many thanks lovelies! ! <3

When ordering dresses online prepare to be disappointed! One out of the four ordered worked :/ Luckily one of my girls could wear the dress that didn’t quite work for the other. Then it was a mad rush to find dresses for the other two girls.

Would you believe, that finding blue in a dress is much harder then one would think, months before we were on a frantic search to find the perfect dress for each girl and what colour was there no dresses to be found in… you guessed it blue! Gah it was looking dire towards the end.

Many dresses were bought and taken back. But we prevailed determined to make it work, with contingency plans working in the back ground for the “just in case”.

 Looking back I think if you were to put that old country music in the background the ‘typical’ chase scene between the cop and the crook where it’s sped up and the cop chases the crook then the crook is chasing the cop and so on as you watched us searching for blue dresses, it would be amusing to watch and I suppose I can laugh at it now because in the end it all worked out. 

About a couple weeks before the wedding what magically decides to make an appearance…  

Blue dresses in all the shops! I was cheezed of to say the least! 

But God provided beautiful dresses for my beautiful ladies!!

And here it is the end result! They looked absolutely stunning!!

What a journey!  

Brides if your looking at dresses dear goodness just make it easy on yourself or prepare to run the hard yards!!

Peace x

In the beginning....

(warning long post..sorry)

I come to you from my second day of being a married woman, curled up on the couch in front of a fire in little cottage in Pemberton, my husband…asleep on the bed.

I’ve always liked the idea of a blog and have unsuccessfully started a few, but never felt I had something exciting or interesting to write about....until now.

I have so much information stored in my brain that I need to share it with someone and that someone falls to complete strangers around the globe.

I have just spent the past 8 months planning a wedding that was over in a flash, to be honest I’m slightly disappointed, so many people said enjoy it cause it will go quickly, and I always responded with a “yeah, yeah I know” never really fully taking on board the full meaning behind those words. Now I wish I had of. Don’t get me wrong though, I loved every single moment of my wedding sure it had some mishaps – like our limo breaking down!!- but nothing could of come between me and my happiness that day!

My best advice comes in four parts

Don’t stress

Time management

Family fun

And lucky last

ITS YOUR DAY

First things first – Stress and time management

Stress is an absolute waste of time and I am the absolute worst person for this! I spent the better part of the last 8 months stressed! My husband and I are slight procrastinators and we left a lot to the last minute which caused stress… It doesn’t matter how small what ever needs to be done, if possible sort it out right then and there, then make a note in the ‘to complete or completed’ pile, Kieran and I fell into the trap that it’s small and easy to do so leave it to last and get the ‘big’ things done first, nuh arh gurl fran! That is a no – no!! So many of my worries could have been elevated had we done things when first thought of them, granted there are some things that have to wait but make sure you get onto what ever you can do in a timely matter other wise like me you'll have a list as tall as yourself to sort out and arrange in the 2 weeks before the wedding!!

Other things that added to my load where family matters and friends, at the end of the day all you need to remember is your about to marry the love of your life… who cares if the flowers don’t look quite right or uncle bob is annoyed because he had to stand, in 5 years time all that is going to matter is that your still happily married.

Family Fun!

My oh my where to even begin, I’m not sure about you but I have the most dysfunctional family on this planet! Who I love and adore to bits though! My family caused me quite a bit of grief through out the whole process, some warranted some not, let me be the first or second of fiftieth person to tell you sadly weddings can bring out the worst in families, I like to think its cause they want to make sure your day is perfect and they have there own ideas on how to make that happen and they want to be apart of the excitement which is fair enough, but there comes a point where you need to realise you cannot jeopardies your marriage for the sake of other people. If it ever comes between your family and your fiancé think long and hard as every situation is different but your spending YOUR LIFE with this person not your family and family come around eventually. Another thing is involve family on decisions that do effect them, something I learnt the hard way. When Kieran and myself made one particular decision, there where some displeased family members who we should of talked to first about it, whether it would of effected the decision I’m not sure but I think they would of appreciated being involved. No matter what you do your going to step on someone’s toes friends or family just try to be as understanding of why their upset and deal with it nicely there’s no point you yelling at them and creating a massive cycle of everyone being angry, try to sort the issues with the person the issue lays with not behind there back and if it cant be solved at least you’ve kindly tried to fix the situation and they can see that.

If I could go back and re-do it all how I dealt with my family is probably something I would do differently. But to be fair there is no – how to plan a wedding and deal with your family- books, there’s billons on what to wear and what flowers to have but this is a minefield you have to navigate on your own.

But if you need a third party sounding board I’m more then happy to listen and offer any advice I may have on the situation.

Lastly it’s your day

Well you and your husbands. Kieran and I are incredibly blessed to have some amazing family and friends that all come to our aid and all helped with making things and helping set up stuff, if you have them use em, I’m the last person you’ll find asking for help but most people are more then happy to, you want to get to your day and not have to worry about anything just enjoying every moment of it.

In the lead up make decision based on what you and you fiancé want not your brother, not your friend, not his aunty etc sure take there ideas and them into consideration but at the end of the day you want to look back and see the day as a reflection of you and your husband not other people preferences. 

WOW, Ok so that was a lot to take in I do apologise, I did say there was a lot bouncing around in my head!! 
I just want people to enjoy there wedding planning experience and if I can help with that then that would be sublime, also to provide some good humour or perspective into married life for those in it or about to join the club.

If i offend, soz not soz... everyone is entitled to an opinion and I don't mind if you share it with me or question me, but I have no time for negativity I'm having too much fun in life to let that stuff in :) 
Yes I understand I may come across as some silly naive girl who has no idea what she's talking about but life is all about learning and I may say something now and change my view later, but no-ones perfect and that includes me!

so come learn with me and I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I am! 

Love and Blessings Mrs T <3