She is an absolutely gorgeous newlywed with a bubbly personality and two cute pups!
I hope you find her as enjoyable as I do and show her lots of love!
What a fun honor it has been to be asked to guest post for a new blog friend of mine. Thanks for having me, Kristen! I am excited to be the voice of whiskey.tango.foxtrot for the day.
I am Lauren. I blog over at Crazy Ever After. It's mostly just me that writes our blog, but I can occasionally get that husband of mine in on the action too. Just be warned, neither of us have a serious bone in our body. Jesse has been known to make me laugh until I cry. If you have a sense of humor like us (and a semi-unhealthy love of dogs) then I think you just might enjoy our random daily musings. Unfortunately I think Jesse may be on an indefinite blog-cation, so you'll probably get me for the most part. And you will like it (dot dot dot) I hope?
Jesse and I got married this past summer. So I guess that makes us newlyweds and stuff. We're going on four months as husband and wife, and we're finally coming down from the high of our awesome nuptials. Crazycrazycrazy. Crazy. Please don't get me wrong. We couldn't be happier that we got married, but things got slightly out of control throughout all of the planning madness. Four wedding showers. Two bachelor parties. Two bachelorette parties. And then 350 (give or take a few) of our amazing, awesome family members and friends witnessing us make the biggest commitment of our lives. Did I mention my parents hosted our wedding on their farm? They sure did. And that we got married on Jesse's parents' 40th wedding anniversary? We lovingly called it our big fat farm wedding. It was wonderful and memorable. It was so us. But it was so much dang work. Any other newlyweds feel me on this? You loved your wedding, and you LOVE being married, but the journey that brought you to skippin' down the aisle was a lot on the crazy side? And here's the funny part. I honestly thought the crazy would end once we were married. But that's not the case in the least. Crazy wedding planning season may be over, but our crazy ever after is just beginning, my blog babies. And that's where I got the name for our blog. Crazy Ever After. We embrace it. Everyone needs a little crazy. And a lot is even better, right? Right.
As most of you know (unless, of course, you live under Mr. Scrooge's rocks), the holiday season is upon us. Jesse and I are true blue Minnesotans. As I write this it's looking like we may be having an unseasonably warm and yucky, brown Christmas. There is zero snow on the ground. Just icky, dead grass. Christmas in Minnesota just isn't the same without a blanket of freshly fallen snow. It's been a bit harder to get into the holiday spirit, but Jesse and I did manage to begin a few new traditions to remember our first married Christmas together. We're calling them Our 25 Days of ADVENTures. Click here for the DIY project in action. This is our own twist on an advent calendar, chucked full of activities for us to partake in during the month of December. Some big. Some small. Always on the cheap (we're saving up for a house after all). And I say the "we" rather hesitantly. I knew going into this that I wouldn't always have holly jolly team player along for the ride. My husband thinks some of my ideas are crazy (please tell me you're seeing the crazy theme by now), but he is a good sport for the most part, and doing his best not to be too much of a Grinch. I think they call that love.
Here's our 25 Days of ADVENTures.
Write a letter to each other.
Make Fat Linda Bars (our "wedding cake"/my mom's world famous bars).
Make something new or different for dinner, but doing it together (no Totino's pizza rolls!).
Pick out a holiday movie on Netflix to watch together (Love Actually? Yes, please!).
An ornament exchange.
Volunteer with Safe Hands Pet Rescue that day, or plan for another day in the near future.
A silly present from AxMan that reminds you of the other person (we love AxMan).
Winter walk with puppies around Theodore Wirth Parkway.
A random act of kindness toward someone you don't know.
A surprise!
Working out together (we better do this more than once next month-yikes!)
Ice skating (Jesse told me he'd take me since our first date--about dang time!)
Make a snow angel.
New winter apparel--new socks, mittens, hat, etc.
Share half price aps at Applebee's and play Bargo.
Frame a silly picture.
Write about a Christmas memory.
Try a new beer at your favorite bar.
Get soggy nachos from the Muddy Pig.
Go look at Christmas lights together.
Go Christmas shopping.
Write a letter to Santa.
Play Scrabble.
Play Yahtzee.
I am going to be honest. We're not going to get around to all of these. But it was something to strive for, and we definitely made some new Christmas memories together. Be sure to hop on over to our blog to see if we were able to cross off number 14 by Christmas! Crossing our fingers, because a grass angel in December just doesn't sound as much fun.
Thanks again for having me today. I hope this holiday season finds you and yours doing mighty fine and well. I'd love to hear about your holiday traditions too!
