Growing to Four

January 7, 2016

We're married! Our wedding day June 20th, 2015

So, since I haven't posted anything since February 2015 there's a lot to catch up on. The biggest thing being our wedding! I have a few posts with the DIY decorations we did and stuff like that, but this post is all about our actual wedding day.

We got married on June 20th, 2015. Our colors were yellow and gray with a sunflower theme. Our wedding party consisted of my sister, best friend, and niece, Mike's best friend, my brother and his nephew. Marley was the flower girl and Mason was the ring bearer. My dad got ordained so he performed the ceremony. We had the same photographer that took our family/engagement pictures last year.

We each wrote our own vows (Mike wrote his on the back of Marley's chore cards, too funny) It was a short and sweet (and hot) ceremony and then we took photos and were off to the reception.

For the reception, we rented out a local church hall. We did all the decorations the night before, and had food catered from Panda Express (one of our favorites) Mike and I had our first dance to Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars.

I danced with my dad to Daddy Dance with Me by Krystal Keith and Mike danced with his sister to John Legend's All of Me.

My cousin, Nikki, made the cake and 100 cupcakes. We had banana cake with cream cheese frosting with banana pudding and sliced bananas inside. It was amazing!

She had about an hour drive from her house to the hall and by the time she went to put the cake out it was actually falling apart and the pudding was oozing out. She had about 10 minutes to fix it and she did amazing!

Then the real party started. We had about 75 people attend and I hope everyone had as much fun as Mike and I did.

All photos in this post were taken by Nichole Goodrich Photography

We partied hard and before we knew it it was time to go home. But the fun didn't end there, in the morning we were off to Miami for our honeymoon cruise to Cozumel and Key West!

January 2, 2016

Sloppy Joe Corn Bread

I made this recipe a while ago when I was on a cornbread kick. It was pretty delicious and a nice twist on sloppy joes.

1 pound ground beef

1 can sloppy joe sauce

1 (8.5 oz) box Jiffy corn muffin mix

1/3 cup milk

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 egg

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown and drain ground beef. Mix in sloppy joe sauce.

Combine corn bread mix, milk, oil and egg.

Spread meat into 8x8 baking dish. Pour cornbread mix on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes.

Cowboy Casserole

I haven't blogged anything in almost 10 months. Crazy how life gets so busy and things get put aside. I have lots to update, but this recipe will come first.

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup milk

4 tablespoons sour cream

1 can (15.25oz) whole kernel corn, drained

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

1 bag (30 oz) frozen tater tots

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown and drain ground beef and onion. Mix together the soup, milk, and sour cream until smooth. Add to meat mix and combine well. Stir in the corn and 1 cup of cheese.

Grease bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Layer half the tots on the bottom. Pour meat mixture on top. Cover with remaining tots and remaining cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

February 4, 2015

Chili Dog Casserole

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and it looked awesome. I love hot dogs and this was a fun twist on just a normal chili dog.

1 package of hot dog buns

1 pack hot dogs

1-2 cans chili (personal preference on how much you like)

cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rip up buns into pieces and place in bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Cut hot dogs into small pieces and place on top of buns. Cover with chili then cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

February 2, 2015

I'm a Jamberry consultant now!

Have you ever heard of Jamberry? No? Well, why not?! You will be addicted I promise you that! They are vinyl nail wraps that come in over 300 designs and you can even create your own designs too.

I decided the other day after hosting a party to just bite the bullet and become a consultant. Most of the parties are online and they have one of the best compensation plans of all the home party businesses. So, I figured why not? I could use the extra money for the wedding and honeymoon coming up.

Wraps should last 14 days, sometimes more depending on how rough on your nails you are. The photo above has the Black Lace wrap and nail polish. The nail polish was chipping by the end of day 1 but didn't look awful until day 6. The wrap was going strong for a long time.

They also have nail care items and all the items you need to apply the wraps. You can watch an application video on youtube. It's so easy.

Interested in seeing more? Check out my facebook page here or shop here.

January 30, 2015

January Date - Year of Dates

Remember how I told you I gave Mike a year of dates for Christmas? Well, our January date is already here and gone.

Inside the January envelope was tickets to the movies and a gift certificate to Shoreline Brewery.

Mike had a beer and a burger at dinner and I had their mac & cheese. It was delicious. We actually still have a few bucks left on our gift certificate so we may go back for pretzels which we've heard are amazing.

We saw Taken 3 after dinner. It was a good movie, but I preferred the first two movies over this one.

After our movie we headed home and opened the envelope for our February date. Can't wait until it's here!

January 28, 2015

Let them eat cake!

A regular part of wedding planning is cake tasting. My cousin is making our cake for our wedding so we most likely won't be doing a cake tasting. However, a local bakery did a public cake tasting this past weekend. Anyone could go, you just had to pay per person. I immediately signed us up, because one, it would be neat to have a cake tasting during our wedding planning and two, who doesn't like cake!?

There were seven different flavors. Pumpkin spice, pink champagne, turtle, white with strawberry filling, carrot, lemon yogurt with raspberry filling, and banana.

We got our cake and sat down and Mike started shoveling it in. I don't think he even tasted it he was just chowing down. His favorite was the turtle one.

I sat down and took the time to pose for a picture before I too started shoveling it in. It was so good. I tried not to eat all of it but I couldn't save any of the pink champagne one, it was too good.

We brought home a small box of cake for the kids. It was a lot of fun and so delicious.

January 26, 2015

The Bride Box

A few months ago I came across this company called The Bride Box on Facebook. It's a monthly subscription box service for future brides. Each month they send you different items that could be used for your wedding or as gifts for your fiance or wedding party. It is $35 a month plus shipping.

I am on month five and I have loved everything I've gotten so far. There have been a box or two where I didn't think it was worth the $35, but I still liked everything I got.

I've been using the hair ties since I opened this box and will be using the little cake topper at our shower. I can't decide if I want to keep the earrings or gift them. They're really cute.

The wine glass says Bride to Be 2015 and I love the cards too.

I love this Mrs. bag and will be sporting it on our honeymoon.

This box had cute stuff, but not sure that I will use it since it's holiday related and I'm getting married in June.

The first one I received was probably my favorite with the forks that are engraved with 'I Do' and the mason jar glasses, which I plan to use at our reception.

Want to try out The Bride box? Just click here- when you sign up enter Melanie Sonnenberg and melanie8284@yahoo.com and you'll receive $5 off your first box. Let me know what you think!

*This is not a sponsored post. I purchased Bride Box on my own because I am a bride to be and knew I would love it. I was in no way compensated for my time or opinions*

January 5, 2015

Meatball Sub Bake

This is the second time I've made this dish. I found the recipe on Pinterest. It looked so yummy I knew my family would like it.

1 can Pillsbury Grands Biscuits

1 bag frozen meatballs

1½ cup to 2 cups spaghetti sauce

1½ cups shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut up each biscuit into small pieces. Place on bottom of 9x13 inch baking dish. Cover with sauce.

Evenly place meatballs on top of sauce. Cover with cheese. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes.

Pictures don't do it justice, but it is delicious!

January 2, 2015

Year of Dates --- Mike's Christmas Present

Mike and I have been together for almost 8 years but when we first met we really didn't do much dating. Now we have two kids and it's even harder to go on dates. So, for his Christmas present I knew exactly what I wanted to get him. A year of dates!!

First, I had to figure out 12 places we could go and things we could do. That was probably the hardest part. Then I gathered my supplies. For each month I wrote a paper inside that explained what we were going to do for that month's date. All of the dates are prepaid, so there's a gift certificate or cash inside to cover the date expenses.

We opened presents a few days before Christmas because I couldn't wait any longer to surprise him. Inside the box I put a paper explaining what the year of dates entailed. He LOVED it!!

Since it was practically January, I let him open the January envelope. It is dinner at the local brewery and tickets to the movies to see Taken 3.

I'll be sharing pictures from each date and what exactly we did each month on here and on Instagram. Some dates are just simple and others are more extravagant (June is our honeymoon so that's our June date).