wedding season

Wedding season is in the air! 

I'm incredibly lucky to have so many awesome people in my life, but as I have come to find out in my adult life, awesome people all like to do things at the same time ... whether that's getting engaged, getting married, or having babies - it always happens at once. 

These are what I refer to as "seasons", and I'm here to tell you that we are officially in the midst of wedding season! Wedding season consists of: Bridal Showers, Dress Shopping (because you can't wear the same thing to the shower and the wedding), Bachelorette Parties, and of course, we can't forget about the actual wedding! Multiply that by 5 and that's exactly how many bridal showers, dresses (x2), bachelorette parties, and weddings I will be attending before 2013! 

Side Note: In 2013 I have 4 friends having babies, 1 in each month. That's right. 1 baby per month starting in January .... WOAH BABY!

Weddings, showers, babies, and parties aside, I'm incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and the opportunity to be invited to celebrate the special "Seasons" of their life with them!

I kicked off the start of wedding season 2 weeks ago with my friend Mary's bridal shower. Mary and I sat across from each other at work and quickly realized that we were both overly sarcastic and shared the same sense of humor(thank God, or that already terrible office situation would have been a whole lot worse!). Mary is what affectionally refer to as an "Intentional" person, everything that Mary does, says, wears, goes, and even down to the way she decorates her office space and (new) home is extremely intentional and done with purpose (check out her blog, its 100% Mary). The concept of her "Intentionalism" continues to fascinate and inspire me, and her bridal shower was no exception. 

Simple (beautiful) flowers + simple foods + careful attention to detail = A very-Mary wedding shower

My "Intentional" recycled magazine wrapping paper 

.... just in case there was any doubt that I work for 

a magazine:)

Wedding presents

Shower guests

Her bridesmaids made these verrrry cute cake-pops as a take-away from the shower. They even hand-wrote out the recipe on vintage recipe cards for us to take home with us. 

Her bridesmaids found a recipe on Pinterest for (easy) individual apple pies (as I said yesterday, "easy" is a term Pinterest users use loosely). I'm pretty certain that Mary would have left her own party had we tried to wrap her in a toilet paper dress or made her wear a crown of any sort - which is why the baking activity they had planned was perfect for the occasion.

They bought all the ingredients and we all stood around the butcher-block island making our individual apple pies. Now I can't be certain if the recipe really was THAT simple or if it was made simpler due to the fact that it was being taught to me step-by-step by 2 third grade teachers, either way, it was stupidly easy to made. Which is why I'm including the step my step recipe below! And rest assured knowing that if a recipe is on this blog it's easy enough for a toddler to make. 

(for real) Easy Apple Pies:

Pre-heat oven to 350º

Cut off the top of the apple (just enough so you don't see the stem anymore)

Using a spoon, scoop out and save the insides of the apple, but be very careful not to rip the apple skin.

Throw away all the hard core pieces of your apple insides.

Add 1 tablespoon of melted butter, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and cinnamon to taste to your bowl of apple pieces.

Stir together.

Once you have everything mixed put the mixture in 

your hollow apple.

Cut 4-5 strips from a frozen piecrust for your lattice pieces.

Check your text messages.

Lay the lattice on top of your apple inter-twining the pieces just like you would on a traditional apple pie. At this point you are almost finished, if you like cinnamon feel free to add more to the top of your mini-pie. 

Make sure someone take a picture.

Bake for 20-25 mins.

Enjoy with friends :)

 Congratulations Mary!