Happy holidays, no wait, MERRY CHRISTMAS..

Hi, everyone. :)

Just wanted to drop in and say hello and see how everyone is doing. As usual, I've been stressed out. I think that with the craziness of the holidays that I get caught up in the frenzy of it all (I'm spending an insane amount of money on presents), and I find that that makes me want to accomplish more for the wedding. But everyone keeps telling me to wait until after the holidays to get anything done. But there just doesn't seem to be enough time. I'm not sure if people understand that the wedding is about 4 months away. Sooooooo much to get done before then.

Christmas will be interesting this year. Anthony and I have always found a way to make time for both families, but for some reason, this year seems a lot more difficult. Maybe because we're making too much of it than it really is? Either way, somehow we'll end up offending someone. I'm a very, very positive thinker.

But here's what's going on with the wedding planning. I ordered my veil and blusher. So cool. I forgot about the veil part of the dress for a while, but just ordering one just made me feel so complete. The blusher is what gives me the tinglies. Just so pretty and frothy looking. The wedding attire is all coming together! I thought I knew what shoes I wanted, but a few weeks ago, I was checking out Christing Aguilera's (I know, but don't judge) wedding pics and I fell in love with her shoes. I'd always seen them in stores, but I always thought that they were like 17 years behind fashion, but actually, they looked so cute. We'll see.

The bridesmaids picked up their dresses. Very cute, very brown. I was happy to see all of the dresses together, although I haven't seen my girls in them yet. I love them all. Now we need to find shoes.

Ooh, ooh, and we finally picked our cake! It's going to be so fabulous. I'm not a cake person, but I just loved designing our cake and going to the tasting and everything. And it'll be different flavors, so we can accommodate all the picky eaters of the bunch.

I can see January being very busy for all of us. I know the bridal shower should be happening around then, and we've got lots of appointments to finalize invites, food (my favorite part), itinerary, music, readings, and other things that can't be put off, at least in my mind.

Seriously, I just can't wait to be married. We've been together for so long, and I keep staring at our empty condo, just itching to move in. But we're doing this the way we'd always planned, and I know that with all the waiting will come its reward. Leana told me a story about her and Oscar (the soon-to-be-ousted newlyweds) that made me feel so excited all over again about starting the Anthony-Annie life together.

Hmm. MZ (love her) passed along the rumored lineup for Coachella. When we were planning our day, we completely forgot about Coachella weekend, which falls on our weekend. Sorry to all the music fans if we're making you choose between us and the Coachella Music Festival. Of course, we can't make it on Saturday, but I'm trying to convince Anthony that we should head on over to good ol' Indio on Sunday. Am I pushing it? But how cool would it be to wake up and know that we've got a sort of honeymoon before our honeymoon? We don't leave for the real thing until May anyway, so IT MAKES SENSE. I'll wear my veil and we'll wear matching shirts that say, "Just married and we're at Coachella." I'll wear my X-tina shoes, too. With shorts. And my hair still did from the night before. YES! Why don't I just wear my wedding dress, too? No, that would be too much. Just the veil, shoes, shorts, and matching shirts. Hahaha. Anybody who knows Anthony knows that he loooooooves to match with me. There was this one time long ago when he picked me up, and we were wearing the same light blue color, and he turned back to his house, and I asked where we were going, and he said, "Back to my house. I need to change." I hope he's over it, because I bought us matching Christmas sweater vests this year. Looks great with light blue shirts.

Merry Christmas to all, if I don't a chance to say it later!

Love, Annie