Engagement Announcement!! - Go check her out!

Just a little shout out to my sweet friend Jo at South Africa meets Belgium!
She got engaged y'all!!
ENGAGED!!! In London!!!

 I totally snatched this pic from her blog but I'm sure she'll be fine with it ;)

We were all hoping and waiting and praying because we knew it was going to happen soon, but he was soooo romantic...
Now go read the story here and give her some tips on the wedding planning :)

Sweetie I'm really happy for you!
Enjoy the time being a fiancée because it's a very limited time in life that you get to be called that way :)

A year later...

A year ago, Jeff and I came back from a little holiday with Jeff's parents and we decided tot take a walk... We went to a lake in Oudenaarde where Jeff grew up, and  we started a walk around it.

When we had almost finished our walk, Jeff asked me to go sit on a bench (while joggers kept running beside us, haha, it was the only bench on the entire path so we had to settle for that particular bench!). He said that he loved me so much and that he really believed we belonged together and that he was ready to take the next step in our relationship.

He kneeled, took out the ring he picked up earlier that day and asked me if I would marry him.

So I said YES (yesyesyesyesyesyes.....yesyesyesYES!! - insert lots of tears and hitting him for being such a sneaky man haha) and here we are!
Husband and wife!

 I've never felt closer to him than I do right now. He truly is my best friend and I'm so happy that I can wake up next to him every morning. I can make him dinner every day. We can worship God together on our couch and we can grow together.

Baby, I love you!
Thanks for asking me to become your wife... 

Update: bachelorette party, dress fitting, give aways!

I couldn't sleep last night...
Couldn't sleep as in: I called Jeff to tell him I was SO excited and that it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to sleep.

Why, you ask?
I called the woman from my wedding dress' shop and we made an appointment for my first fitting!!
Whaaa! I'm so so so overly excited :) My heart started to beat really loud when she picked up the phone haha!

And then one other thing: in 2 weeks I'll have my bachelorette party!! I can't wait! My friends keep saying these little things that I just don't understand... And then they start laughing really loud. Yeah. Fun.
But I'm sure they've planned some great things because everybody I ask about it starts giggling and saying: oh, we'll have a blast!
And yes, the party is pretty early because in june I'll have exams until approx. a week before the wedding. And I don't wanna be dead/tired/stressed out at my wedding :)

I even bought a skirt. For my bachelorette party. You wanna call me insane? Go ahead, I'm fine with that!
It's just such an exciting time for me!!!
Pictures will follow :)

Oh and another last thing: friday I'll go to the give-away gifts store to try to find something I like. Last time we were there, J. couldn't be less interested in all the... "stuff"... It's just all the same to him so I didn't even bother to look any further and said I'd do it myself.

So, that's it for the mini-update :)
Love,
Evelien

Bridal bouquet

What do you think about these pretty bouquets?

 This one is my favourite until now:

But I also like this one

And this one!

So I think it is safe to say I want a red/dark pink/maybe some whites - bouquet with roses :)

What did your bouquet look like??

master lists

I love to read Brittany's blog "The High-Heeled Housewife"! Today she wrote a post about making a "master list" of all the things you have to do every day. I always make lists and it does really help me to get everything done. It also gives me a sense of accomplishment when I can cross something off the list :)

She said that she added something special: writing the things your husband asks on top of your list as a priority! I love the idea and will make sure to do this!

But my sweetheart is one easy man. He doesn't need me to do things, most of the time... Maybe that'll change when we get married and I see him every day? only 88 days to go! - but who's counting?
So I try to think of what he would like me to do. Does he want me to do something for the wedding? Or just do the dishes he left it piling up all week? Yep, he's living like a real man! no laundry, no dishes, no cleaning at all! I don't mind doing it for him so I don't think he'll ever learn it :)

I don't think he even notices everything I do because I think he would like it, hah! But it doesn't matter, it's the thought that counts, right?

97 days to go!

I was searching for a picture of my weddingdress last weekend, but I just couldn't find it! I looked in every magazine I had, I searched on the internet, but nothing!! I kinda started to freak! (and maybe -just maybe- I even cried a little... JUST maybe!!)

I've got the brand and the reference number, so why can't I find it?
I didn't take a picture because Jeff is so curious. But now I'm so sorry for that! I'll have to wait almost 2 months before I'm supposed to go try it on!

Next weekend we're going tço discuss the music for the dance party with our DJ. I'm really excited!

Just 97 days to go...

Relationship Survey

Just stumbled across this funny survey about relationships! Enjoy :)

How long have you been together?

We've been together for 1 year, 9 months, some days and have been engaged for 6 months!!

How long did you know each other before you started dating?

We met in april 2009 and started our relation in june... The answer to the question is: 2 months

Who asked who out?

Ahm... J. just wanted to come over every week and just say hello, eat an ice cream and leave. Or he would come to my dorm at 7.30 am to wake me up. I thought that was really sweet but wasn't in love at first. But his sweetness touched my heart :)

 

 

Did you go to the same school?

No, we live(d) 2 hours from each other!

Who is the most sensitive?

I think that would be me... Teah, definately me...

What about pets?

I love dogs and would LOVE one when we get married (in, like, 3,5 months that is) but Jeff is more of a cat-man... I'm allergic to cats so I think I'll win this battle, moehahaha! If I don't, that would mean I would die a very painful death

Where do you eat out most as a couple?

I think Turkish pizza restaurants

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?

The Netherlands? Or Paris. But if you look where Belgium is and then look up Paris or the Netherlands, you would see that we didn't travel very far! 2 or 3 hours at most.

 

Who has the craziest exes?

J has only one, I have a couple of them. But they're not "crazy". Just exes I guess

Who has the worst temper?

Oh my, that's me again :s 

Jeff is always happy!

Who does the cooking?

we both love to cook! so it depends

Who is more social?

Jeff LOVES people, he just loves them! I'm too shy I guess

Who is the neat freak?

Haha, when I enter J's appartment I immediately start cleaning random stuff. J just leaves it all there for me!!

Who is the most stubborn?

We can both be stubborn, it depends

 

Who wakes up earlier?

I would. I get up and start making coffee/breakfast

But sometimes it's J, when he wants to surprise me :)

 

Where was your first date?

a real date? I don't really remember... I am I a bad woman now? :s

I think we went to eat something together (Turkish pizza?), but J had invited friends! I remember thinking that he was SO weird. But we had a fun time and he promised not to randomly invite friends anymore in the future :)

How long did it take to get serious?

I told him the first week that he would have to wait at least a year before asking me to marry him!

He was sooo head over heals in love and I was afraid he would just pop the question before I even really knew him! But we both knew that it was a special relationship from the beginning

Who eats more?

J is 1m92, I'm 1m66. It would be VERY weird if I ate more than he does.

Who does the laundry?

I do, I LOVELOVELOVE doing the laundry! We don't live together but I still do his laundry most of the time

Who drives when you are together?

He does, but he makes me drive because I haven't got my driver's licence that long and he thinks I should practise more

Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong?

I don't know... It depends

Who wears the pants in the relationship?

He does, I want him to be the one that leads me. He's one very tough man for being able to handle me :)

Who eats more sweets?

Don't know... Depends on what it is :)

I don't like "candy" but I love chocolate :)

Now you know me and J. a bit better, I hope you liked it ;)

Love,

Evelien

(Wedding) update!

So as of now it's only 107 days untill I'm a married woman. One of my friends, her name is Rachel, loves to say that to me every time she sees me, hah!

Right now we're sending our invitations, which is SO exciting! Now we can't go back or we would have to cancel all these people...

This is the picture we used for our invitations

My sister took some really cute pictures such as these ones:

but J. liked the first one better...

And I'm trying to prepare for marriage. How do we do that? By reading blogs, duh!!

I LOVE to read 

www.womenlivingwell.org by Courteney

www.passionatehomemaking.com by Lindsay

and www.highheeledhousewife.com/ by Brittany

Anyone some good sites I could read? 

And one of the side effects of all this: I am all for baby sites! Jeff probably doesn't like it, but I'm researching, reading blogs, looking at cute baby stuff in the stores... Yeah, it's really bad... But that's something that'll have to wait untill I'm at least in my last year of college!

Right now I'll just have to settle for this sweet little princess!

 

I'm sorry for the bad quality - it's J's cellphone!

Love,

Evelien

De-stress present :)

I sometimes feel very sad and stressed out when studying, but my sweetheart found a way to make me the happiest girl in the world!!

Isn't it gorgeous? Isn't it HUGE?!
sooo pretty :)
He had them delivered at my parents' house, which I think is the cutest thing ever! Just like a movie hehe...

And back to studying we go!!
(There won't be many posts until january 30th, which is my birthday!)

Love,
Evelien

Love

courtesy

That's our word for 2011. Love.
We were thinking about new years resolutions, and what J. was kind of focusing on, was the love that Jesus had for all the people. We want to work on that next year! Learn to love our parents (and in-laws!), our siblings, our neighbours, our friends and each other in the right way!

We also want to learn to love the people that are passing by when we're just walking to the store, or the person sitting next to us on the bus...
We want to love like Jesus did!

What's your biggest new year's resolution?

Love,
Evelien

Dress hunting!

Yeah, yeah, I should be studying but...
I'm sooo excited!
I have an appointment with a bridal shop for NEXT WEEK to go try on some wedding dresses!!! I'm so so so so excited :)

I'm not sure what I want.. Ok, yes, I AM sure haha, I already knew what I wanted when I was five! but I'm afraid the style won't suit me... Or that my mom says she hates it and says that I should go with her style! Or that my sister is going to behave like a drama queen and be too enthousiastic for my poor head! OK, no, I'm not afraid for that last thing, I'm 100% sure she'll act that way :)

I won't be able to post any pictures though, because J. follows my blog... He's a bit confused that he cannot go with me to choose the dress hah!
I love him :) He's so cute... (Ja schattig, poebel! Je mag toch niet mee!)

My favourite part of the house

It's week 5 of Brittany's challenge of favourites!! (I know I'm a bit late but that's OK ;))

This week's challenge is to celebrate your favorite part of your home!  Spend extra time there this week, cleaning it, enjoying it and filling it with holiday cheer.
I have to say that my favourite part of the home is the kitchen!! I'm in love with the kitchen of my mother haha! They just re-did it and it's just gorgeous... It invites to cook :)
But I'm not going to live at my parents anymore... So I'll have to be happy with J's kitchen!

It's a very small kitchen, and  we don't have an oven (I hate that!!!!).
For now, J. has put a curtain between the kitchen and the living room... Because it's an old house and it's very hard to get and keep it warm... And now the kitchen is freezingly cold and it's such a sad little place... Sigh...
No, I don't like what he did with it, but I'm just hoping it'll get better when the weather gets a bit warmer! And if J. really wants to have a curtain, I'll have to find a curtain that's a little bit cuter and more my style!

Aah, only 6 and a half months and we'll be married and I'll have something to say about the kitchen!! Haha :)

Look what I made!

Look what I've been doing in stead of studying like a good student is supposed to do....

I made some invitations to go shopping for a weddingdress!!!

 It says: Coupon for going on a weddingdress-hunt (and place, date, to, from)
I made one for Petra, who's going to witness at my wedding (hopefully!) and one for my little sister :)
Maybe I should make one for my mother too, she would love that :)

It's just some fancy paper, some white/gold ribbon and LOTS of cutting and trying to stick it together!
I think it turned out ok, maybe a little less fancy than I would have hoped it would... But I'll try to find something to stick on it, like a little flower or something like that! That'll be very pretty :)

Yeey for me :) I'm happy I did something I like!

Thankful: my sweet fiancé J.

So it's our second week of being THANKFUL!!

This week's challenge:
Focus on your favorite thing about your husband (fiancé in my case).  Instead of dwelling on the things you don't like about your hubby, appreciate what he does well.  

I love this challenge :)
J. is the most amazing guy I've ever met. He loves to cuddle, he loves to cook and what I find the most important: he loves Jesus! I can't remember how many times he has pointed me to Jesus when I was having a rough time.

He's also the most positive-minded man I know. He finds the good side in EVERYTHING! Amazing... Especially for me, 'cause I can be the exact opposite of that... Oops...

One thing that comes with his positive-minded-ness (which he's always afraid of that I don't like it haha!) is his humour! He is a clown, loves to make everybody laugh. And yes, his jokes aren't always superhigh humor-quality, but I love them because they're HIS!

I guess I just love everything about him... :)

Thankful: my favourite things!

Because I've noticed that lately I'm not as thankful for and to my fiancé and other people/things, I've decided to joing in at The High-Heeled Housewife and her new challenge!

Today's the first day/week and it's all about "My favourite things".
Her description: This week, focus on your favorite part about being a wife or a woman.  Celebrate it!  Spend extra time this week focusing on that aspect of your life.  If you are a blogger, write a post about your favorite part of being a wife/woman and link up below.


First of all, I want to try to explain how thankful I am for J. OK, no, I won't try to explain it because I will fail :) He's just thé funniest and most handsome man I've ever met. He loves me, even when I'm cranky (and believe me, I'm cranky a lot :s ). I'm so happy to have met him! I'm so so so thankful that he fell in love and made my heart open up to love again... (long story!)
Honey, if you read this: I love you. I do. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that as much lately!
More about that next week hehe!

And what I love about being a soon-to-be wife? Everything!! I'm really looking forward to the day that we'll finaly live together and that I can cook for him everyday! I'm even looking forward to cleaning our 'house' hah!! I love just being around J. and I could spend hours just cuddling or watching a movie!
I'm also looooving the planning for our wedding! Last week I've tried on some dresses and I had to cry because I loved one of the dresses and just felt like a princess in that thing!! Didn't buy it though, it wasn't thé dress ;) But I loved it anyways!


Next week: What I love about my fiancé!

Wedding planning stress

J and I have been talking a lot about our marriage but it's so hard to plan it!
I love reading wedding blogs and I see all these beautiful pictures of beautiful brides, venues, cards, ... and it's a little bit disappointing to hear the prices of all these things I love to see!

J. and I would love to have a big wedding where everybody feels welcome and is just having fun! But that means we would need a big venue -which is practically not affordable in Belgium-, a lot of food -which is rather hard to find...- and a lot of people that are willing to help.

We're looking at a wedding of 250 people... Yikkes! That means a lot of things can go wrong... If the food isn't good, that's 250 people not being happy... If our venue sucks, that's 250 people not being happy...
It just stresses me out to check out places and hear prices we just cannot afford without just throwing all our savings into 1 day!


How do all these brides do it?!

My Engagement Story!

I've been so busy that I almost forgot about my blog!
Almost...

Here's a picture of the ring :)

After my last exam on tuesday I left to Ghent to go to J. We were going on a little holiday to the Netherlands with his parents on wednesday, so we were going to take some time for just the two of us to be together on that tuesday.

When we were cuddling J. suddenly said: "hey, maybe we should go choose a ring, so I can propose whenever I want to and don't have to worry that you don't like the ring or that it doesn't fit."

I thought: o-oow, is he serious?

But he was! We only had 1 hour to get to the shop because it was nearly closing time. We had to run because J's father had left his car at church and we were supposed to pick it up before our trip. After a very stressful ride (traffic was just awful...) we jumped out of the car, ran to the shop and entered it at 10 minutes before closing time! Yes, I was REALLY stressing!!

I knew exactly which ring I wanted because we had stopped by the shop several times to watch the rings. It had to be made a little bit bigger so we had to return on saturday.

We left for our trip and came back on friday evening. Saturday I had my first make up class (more on that following soon!), so we were going to get the ring after that. Unfortunately, my class got cancelled because the teacher had an accident (nothing too serious, but bad enough to cancel the class!). I went to J's house and he wasn't there. I forgot my keys in my suitcase so I had to wait for him to return. For a moment I thought: "maybe he's going to get the ring?", but he said he had just gone to a friend of his and he wasn't acting suspicious at all, so I didn't think about it any longer.

In the afternoon we went walking around a big lake. 

When we had just become a couple, J had thrown a ring into that lake because I got it from an ex-boyfriend that had hurt me very much... I hadn't been able to take it off because I loved the ring and the memories that went with it. But J decided to end that chapter of my past and he threw it in the lake! (can you guess what will happen next? :))

So we were walking and when we had almost returned to the car, J asked if we could just sit down for a moment. We sat down and he said "do you remember what we did last year? We closed that chapter of your life and maybe it's ready to start a new one... I think we are made for each other and that we're going to have a great time! Maybe I should get on my knees now... *he kneeled* Honey, will you marry me?"

I said 'nouuuuuu', which means "well....." and started to cry :) And he said: did you say 'no?!' and started to laugh. I think I said yes 3 or 4 times and then cried some more. I believe I also said things like: "Oh my God, I don't know if we can do this... We can't just do this, can we?" But he said: sure we can, I love you!

I think that's about it :) Long story, but I loved how he asked me!

I hope you like it too!

See you soon!

Love,

Evelien

GREAT news!

So my exams are over. Don't know how it turned out yet, but I try not to care.
I have one thing keeping my mind off of my grades and that is....

The fact that I am...

ENGAGED!!

Whaa!!
J. asked me last weekend to become his wife!
Yes, I just said wife...
And I'll say it again: I'm going to be a wife! The wife of my best friend!
It's still very surreal and I'm trying to think about what I have to do next.

If anyone has any tips about what to do, please feel free to comment because I'm still not sure how to handle such a big event and what I should try not to forget!

I'll share the engagement story soon, after I've recovered a bit and when I'm settled again at home.