One Golden Ring?

I hope everyone had a super rocking awesome Christmas.

Ben and I have been able to spend the holidays at my original home (I kept slipping up and saying we were going home for the holidays which made Ben mad cause Springville is no longer (technically) my home). It has been wonderfully relaxing and nice to hang out with the fam. Don't get me wrong-I'm excited to get back to my own place where no one will judge me for hanging out in spandex all day and watching hours of Friends episodes. But the visit has definitely been nice.

So I like posting about wedding stuff because people actually request hearing more (and that's a bloggers dream, right?) and it's on my to-do list to get all this junk written down anyway, so why not via the blog? Anyhow, Ben surprised me with a ring for Christmas (I know, I know, 2 rings?? Especially when my dear older sister has zero?? Don't worry...we're thinking one's on the way...). I figure now is a good time to share this story including my advice for all you looking/waiting for a ring sometime in the nearish future.

Honestly, Ben and I lucked out with our ring situation. Before I even let myself admit to Ben that I knew he was The One, Ben's grandma was trying to pawn off her ring collection to us.

I'd known the woman for like a total of 15 minutes and she pulled Ben and I aside and said, "Now, I know I don't know you very well, Kim, but I have just heard the most wonderful things about you."

She proceeded to pull out her ring collection showing us several options we could have when we were ready to tie the knot. The main one she showed us was this thick yellow gold one with a single diamond in the center. It fit my finger perfectly. What was even more cool about the ring was that Ben's great grandparents had brought the diamond straight home from their mission in Africa.

I wasn't entirely sold on it, though. I had always wanted white gold. And it wasn't quite as sparkly as I wanted. I told Ben he could do whatever he wanted. And, at that point, one of our main goals was to make it affordable. So the family ring was an awesome option. But I think Ben sensed my hesitancy. So he kept shopping.

This is where Ben's friend came in. The Friend had proposed to a girl more than a year before, but it hadn't worked out. He tried to return the ring, but the store he bought it from would only do exchanges. So The Friend did just that: He exchanged it for another ring and simply held onto it until further notice. When Ben called, The Friend offered the ring for an outrageously cheap price. Honestly, Ben got away with highway robbery considering what a deal he was hooked up with. Even better was that the ring is gorgeous and more than adequately sparkly.

Eh? Eh?

Backing up a tad, in Grandma's array of jewelry pawning, she also offered one of Grandpa's wedding rings. He had two Joseph Smith rings (he hadn't been able to decide between yellow gold or silver so he got both). Ben liked the yellow gold one, so we were completely set as far as rings went.

Here's my main advice. If you are on a tight budget while ring shopping, you can definitely find the perfect ring for a good deal. KSL and Craigslist are awesome places to start your shopping. I've heard of people finding exactly what they were looking for for thousands of dollars cheaper because they were willing to do some research and check out other options. The cheapest resizing we found was at Fred Meyer Jewelers (just 50 bucks!).

The only downfall with avoiding the stores is that you don't get any guarantees or warranties. My band already lost a diamond, and we don't have any sort of insurance to take care of it which is kinda lame. And I know that my sister-in-law got a good deal where she can re-dip her silver ring as often as she'd like for free. So there are definite perks to going through a jeweler. But its not entirely necessary if you really are trying to save.

And, in my opinion, you can always go smaller/cheaper now and plan on getting bigger/better/blingyier after you and your esposo make your millions. Right? Right.

Anyhow. After we got married, I started regretting passing up the family ring. It had so much history and an awesome legacy to go with it. It would have been awesome to be able to show the ring to my kids and talk about their great-great grandparents and someday pass the ring on, you know? Plus, it would match Ben's ring more. I told Ben about how I regretted it. And he surprised me with it on Christmas morning!

I was so freaking excited! (I know I look fat-my eyes were tired and puffy! So judge me!;)

This is what it looks like:

Yay!!! I love it!

Anyhow. There's my ring advice. And now you can all be jealous of the fact that I have a ring for every occasion.

I Don't Have Kids Yet...

...But you'd think I did if you knew how many times I've heard,

"Can we open presents?? Pleeeeeeeeeeeease!?"

Someday, raising children will be easier having already had to quelch the excitement of Christmas by "Heck no"ing the pre-Christmas-present opening idea. So really, I should thank Ben, right?

In other news, we have finally found a place to live in the Rexburg area (Christmas miracle!) and will be moving right at the beginning of January. We're pretty freaking stoked.

Hooray! And Happy Holidays!!

Update

Sorry I've been lousy at posting lately. I don't know what it is...I just go through spurts of having too much to write and wanting to write it all...Or having too much to write and not really caring if the world knows.

Anyhow...it's December!! I used to be the kind of person who absolutely would not tolerate anything Christmas related until after Thanksgiving was over. But I have to admit that this year I have taken a different approach and I'm finding I'm rather keen on starting earlier. I figure Christmas is about celebrating Christ...and shouldn't that be the theme all of the time?

That's how I justify it.

Not to worry, though, I have always and will always give Thanksgiving its proper place. After all, it is my favorite holiday.

But now that I'm a married woman, I have to make sure my other half has a Merry Christmas. And it turns out that takes a lot more planning than I'm used to. So between making stockings and trying to find a new place to live (it still looks like we'll be living in a cardboard box come January...), we have been pretty busy.

We weren't planning on getting a tree this year seeing as how we're spending Christmas in Springville and moving immediately after. But after much deliberation we decided to get one. And I'm so happy we did! I love it! Observe:

Eh? Eh? Yeah. I'm pretty much in love.

These were my favorite ornys. Ben didn't want me to get the feather. But I begged.

Isn't it lovely? Ben drove me all around town two nights in a row. The first night I didn't buy anything (I like to find the deals and make sure I'm getting just the right thing. So judge me!)...which is pretty typical for all my shopping trips. So the second night Ben insisted I buy at least one thing from every store we stopped at. Between that and Ben's sister telling us we needed A LOT of ornaments to fill the tree, we bought almost 2 times more than we needed (any craft ideas for leftover ornaments???). But it's beautiful and everything we bought was 50-60% off so I can't really complain.

Ben's been working out of town a lot which means that I stay up late. And work on too many pinterest projects. If I didn't have to wake up in the morning, I swear I'd stay up til 2 every night. So here's a handful of projects I've finished (there's more coming).

I found this from my cute new cousin in law's blog. You should check it out.

My sister in law actually gave me this idea. Her's is way cute and has scrap-
book paper mod-podged on.
I went the easier route and just painted and sanded.
Best part is I found the window in Ben's parent's shed. Free!

Cute tree, eh? Found on pinterest. Didn't buy a thing and took me like 30 minutes.

Cheesy I know. Quote and idea found on pinterest.
(The key to taking those letters off is tweezers. You're welcome.)

I kinda made up my own pillow based on ones I'd seen on pinterest.
The flower took a bit longer. Especially because I had to re-glue.
Ben insists on actually using the pillows. Unfortunately.

I hate having my husband go out of town. But that seems to be the only time I actually get stuff done. You win some and you lose some. At least now I have some pretty fantastic decor items :)

Okay this has been the most random post ever. I hope you enjoyed it!