Happy 31st Birthday Fritz!
We celebrated Fritz’s birthday on the 18th this past week and I made him breakfast in bed to kick off the big day. We had dinner at Clyde Common with some of our closest friends, yum. Not as big of a celebration as last year, but a great day overall.
My Poor Cuddle Muffin
Poor Fritz sprained his ankle last night at his basketball game in Beaverton. He woke me up at 7am in so much pain he couldn’t even walk. I went to Walgreens, but they were closed as was New Season’s so I made my way over to Fred Meyer and got some pain medicine and supplies. He’s stuck in bed today, but at least his toes are pretty from our Valentine Day pedicures!
Baby Boy Finds
I wasn’t too excited about shopping for a little boy as I would have been if the ultrasound would of shown us a girl, but I’ve started to find some amazing boy clothing. Maybe having a boy is a fashion chanllenge the fashion gods have put forth for me. I’m up for it and it’s started to be fun. I found these cute little shoes at the Children’s Exchange on 33rd and Division. The shop has tons great used clothing items for kids and they are all priced excellent.
Another fun shop for resale children’s clothing is Mississippi Treehouse. I found these OshKosh B’Gosh overalls there for $7.50! They are amazingly cute. Sadly they won’t fit the little guy until next summer, but I had to pick them up anyways.
Happy Valentines Day
I woke up to some beautiful flowers from Fritz on Sunday. We proceeded to check out Ace Hotel’s 3rd anniversary and valentines day brunch party. We made each other handmade valentines and enjoyed a yummy brunch provided by Clyde Common. Our friend Jason Kinney was taking photos and we jumped into the booth for our valentine photo.
Then we headed to CT Nails on 21st in NW for some pedicures. We arrived just in time for a surprise New Year celebration! Pho lunch followed our trip to the nail salon and then we relaxed at home on the couch with the cats and movies. It was one of the best Valentine’s ever!
Baby Bump
It’s A Boy!
We went to the doctors office today for an ultrasound and turns out were having a boy. Everything looks normal and healthy! He is a real mover says the doctor. Our new due date is June 25th instead of June 22nd. A few days later than we thought. So today I am 20 weeks and 4 days.
Everybody loves PIES!
When addressing the challenging factor of what to do for dessert after dinner at the wedding we immediately knew we wanted pies. Some friends of ours were married the summer before us and after attending about eight weddings that summer it was only their wedding that stood out to me in terms of dessert. Most weddings we attend always have some over the top, expensive, unmemorable cake, but pie is a new twist on the whole wedding dessert task.
We asked some of our favorite pie makers to prepare a pie for the wedding day and they happily inclined to do so. Our guests loved the different varieties of pie there were to choose from and most people had at least two kinds. We used the leftover pie as a breakfast option for the morning after the wedding accomplanied by Stumptown Coffee and some delicous muffins.
Pies are a great option for people who have a smaller wedding budget or just don’t see the point in spending upwards of a few thousand dollars on a cake. If you don’t mind not have to save the top of your wedding cake in a freezer for years then go with pie. Cupcakes or cookies are also a cute, fun, affordable, and creative alternative to cake.
We decorated the table with a few flower arangements, forks, pie plates, and tree stump cake holders.
The flower arrangements were simple to make. We just tied ribbon around mason jars and added flowers. Forks and pie plates were all collected from different vintage stores so they were all unique. The tree stumps were cut to be used as a pie holder to give the table some depth variation.
Victoria joked about planning a wedding out of all Goodwill bin finds a few years ago. She found these plastic toys and said that they would be their cake toppers. Little did she know they would actually show up as her real pie toppers at the wedding.
Fritz got a little excited when cutting into the first pie. They enjoyed apple, blackberry, Marion berry, lemon meringue, rhubarb, chocolate, and many more different kinds of pie.
Baby on BOARD!
Were having a baby!!!! June 22nd is the due date, I’m sixteen weeks along. June 22nd is also the same birthday as our nephew Emmett. Chances are we won’t actually have the baby on that day, but strange either way to have the same date as our sisters baby.
Baby, Victoria, and Fritz are all doing great and very healthy! We will be finding out if it’s a boy or girl in about a month! We decided to give the fetus a name for now so we are calling the baby “Juan Carlos” instead of “it”. This will simply fill in as the fetal name until birth when we give Juan Carlos a real name.
Our close friends, Pheobe and Grant, are also pregnant! It’s nice to have someone to share this time with and our children will grow up together. They are having a boy so of course both Grant and Fritz are already planning the starting line up team for 2025 High School Basketball. Let’s hope Juan Carlos is a Juan and not a Juanita. I’m sort of partial to a girl, but healthy baby is all that really matters.
We have been to the midwives twice now and both times had the amazing experience of hearing the heartbeat! What a life changing moment.
We Moved
Fritz and I have been busying moving from our NW apt to our NE house, still renting 
Anyways, thought we should update everyone with out new address.
Fritz & Victoria Mesenbrink
4120 NE 12th Ave
Portland OR, 97211
DIY Lighting
Lighting a large area can be difficult and costly, but making your own lighting can be fun and save you money in your wedding budget. For our wedding we made these quick, easy, cute, and cheap mason jar lights. We used them to light the surrounding areas of the reception.
Here is what you will need:
Mason Jars
Tealight candles or other small candle
Ribbon
Sand
Scissors
Long stem lighter
Hole punch
Optional: tags (we added tags on our because we found some super cute camping stamps)
Fill the mason jar anywhere from 1/5 to 3/5 full of sand. Add the candle and be sure to place it into the sand so it won’t tip over. Cut ribbon about 8 inches long and tie around the top of the mason jar.
Adding a decorative tag is easy. You can use any kind of decorative paper, we used chipboard.
Step 1 – Cut paper into small rectangles about 1.5 by 3 inches.
Step 2 – Hole punch on one end.
Step 3 – Cut both sides next the hole punch.
We set up projects like this a few days before the wedding for campers to help with. It’s a great way for guests to meet each other and makes the project go by fast.
I also made a few custom ones that sat on the cupcake and gift table for the rehearsal bbq / brithday party we had for the groom’s father and bride’s sister birthdays.
Here is the final project in action at the wedding.
