Show Us Your Life - Collections (Willow Tree Angels)

My mother is the one who taught me all I need to know about Collecting. She loves anything old or old looking. My very first collection was small dog figurines (Go Figure - she also gave me my overwhelming love for dogs). I remember every time we would go antiquing or go on vacation I would always look for a very unusual dog figurine. My most unusual one was a very colorful wood carving from New Mexico when I went Skiing one year with my best friend, Callan. But that's not the collection I am going to talk about today because sadly they are all at my mother's house collecting dust....

Today I collect Willow Tree Angels. My mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer at the end of my Junior Year in High school. While she was going through chemo my Aunt gave her this angel for encouragement -

I remember thinking how peaceful and powerful it was. So my Mom continued to battle her cancer and has been cancer free for about 7 years now. YAY! I haven't ever really thought about it until now but I think that really started my collection. I love how even though there is no expression on their faces you really know the emotions behind them. I also love that there are different angels for different occasions. I have gotten some from my Fiance about Love and relationships. I have been given some from my parents - Mother/Daughter or Father/Daughter. I have some from friends - Sisters By Heart. And there are many others for birthdays, thank yous, praise, and many more. Finally I love that there are also little cards that come with them so you can mark who gave them to you and for what occasion. I think they are just perfect and I probably have about 50 or so and I'm starting to run out of room to display them. Time for a bigger house! Hehehee. My favorite is that I can incorporate my collection into my upcoming wedding. They make a cake topper! So I can't wait to be able to add this one to my collection and every time I look at it remember the day I got to marry my best friend! OK we are getting a little sappy so I'm going to end this post!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today is Valentine's Day and I am spending the evening alone. Well not totally alone...I have Bear and Rose. They are pretty good dates but I would love to be spending the evening with Nicholas! He had to drive back home. So we celebrated yesterday and it was great. Everytime we go to Houston we pass a little diner and we always talk about going to eat there. So Nick suggested we got there for Breakfast. It was really good but greasy. I guess that's what diner food is. Then we went to the mall and my favorite store TJ Maxx. Nick says it stands for "Totally Jessica to the Maxx." I'm still trying to find the perfect wedding shoe. I'll talk about that a little later. For our premarital counseling we had to read the 5 Love Languages and my Love Language is "Acts of Service." So Nicholas thought the best Valentine's gift to me would be to cook me dinner. He did and it was wonderful. Then we watched the movie Fireproof. It was a little on the hokey side but had a really good message. Finally we looked at houses online. There is one house we really like but we still aren't sure what area we want to live in. Soon we will need to make appointments to go house shopping....very exciting.

Now more on the hunt for the perfect wedding shoe. So I THOUGHT I had found the perfect shoe - earlier post. Last weekend I went to see my friend Traci in Houston. We went to Neiman Marcus and I asked to try on the Oscar DeLaRenta Jewel Toe Platform and the very snooty salesman said "We only sell those online." Well I refuse to think about spending that kind of money on a shoe I can't even try on my foot! So after a few other stores it was a no go on operation perfect wedding shoe. So if anyone out there has any suggestions on where to find my shoe. Please let me know. As long as I'm asking for opinions on things - Nick and I need a first Dance song. We never have been a couple who has "A Song." We like similar music but also have very different tastes. So if you have any suggestions for a first song let me know that too!

I guess that's all I have to report on right now.

Check.....Check....Check.....

It seems like over the next year I will be making a lot of trips home. For one thing, Nicholas is back at home and we will be apart until after the wedding. But then we also have wedding things to handle back at home. But first I'm excited to say that we have reserved our Videographer! I can tell you (my phantom readers) who she is because I know you can't steal her from me on the November 27th. Her name is Vanessa McKellar and she is AWESOME! When my cousin got married back in 2007 he and his wife had her capture their wedding day. Before that I was always like "Who really needs a silly wedding video?" But I watched their video and what sold me was how she captured the moment when he first saw Lauren walk down the aisle. And I was a bridesmaid and I can tell you I never noticed her until during the reception. So she is very much in the background just capturing the day as it happens, not staging corny things. If you want to see some of her work, I follow her blog.

But I went home this weekend because we had an appointment with our cake lady and photographer. We first met with the cake lady. I guess Nick and I have watched too many wedding planning shows on TV because we didn't get to taste any cakes! Or maybe that's just something you do in a big city. But she has done a cake for a friend of mine and it was delicious so I bet ours will be great too. This is the cake I would really like because it has elements of our invitations.
If it doesn't work out we have another option. Nick also picked out a grooms cake. He wasn't going to get one at first but he found one he really liked. It's a single chocolate tier with chocolate drizzle and a lot of chocolate strawberries around the base.

Next we met with our photographer at his studio. He actually plays the piano at my church so we already knew him and I had seen a lot of his work before so it was a pretty easy meeting. I told you I was from a small town!

So all in all it was a really productive weekend! I guess that's it for now. Maybe I will go try on my dream shoes this weekend...