Awesometastic Family Fun

The Last of our Christmas Fun.

Just thought I would share the love. We really had a beautiful holiday - next up super awesome wedding fantasicalness.

Elf on the Shelf Schinagans

Yes, we had an Elf on the Shelf, his name is Reggie, and this was the first year that Reggie was at our house, he was really great at teach Gabriel about Christmas (and also, a behavior tool)...

Reggie was a lot of fun.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Recently, a really good friend came to visit, and I wanted to make cookies, no cupcakes, no cookies, wait no cupcakes...

It was a war in my head.

What to do...

That little voice was like the devil on one side and the angel on the other... cookies - cupcakes-cookies... you get it.

So I made these:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes (I used her frosting and cookie dough recipe and my chocolate cupcake recipe and my chocolate chip cookie recipe)

These are now my signature cupcake, and that frosting, hooooo-leeeeee-cowwwww, amazing!

Helping Aaron

My Gorgeous Sister and Aaron

My personal Superhero, Awesometastic Man!

I cannot thank ya'll enough, we (our awesometastic readers, friends and all around amazing peeps)came together and helped a little boy that is near and dear to my heart!

We collected over 112 hats and jillions of toys- check out Aaron in his Avengers hat!

(Warning Sappy'ness ahead)

Aaron's Mommy is my sister's bestie, and this kid has come into my heart, and has tugged on my heartstrings in such a way that I just feel drawn to help, has that ever happened to you before?

Aaron is a new 5 year old little boy, and right now he wants to grow up and be Buzz Lightyear. He is the coolest, strongest, happiest, most courageous person I know! He has undergone spinal surgery to remove a tumor on his spine, Chemo for weeks, 2 bone marrow tests, countless days of Laser Beam therapy (Proton Radiation), has a radiation burn on his back as big as my 8 month old son, and still manages to melt my heart with his smile!

Your gifts, financially, toys, hats and snacks have been amazing!

And I just wanted to say thank you, again and again, from the bottom of my very touched heart. If you want to keep up with Aaron and his progress of kicking cancer's bottom, you can read more about him here - Aaron's Site.

Stop and Breathe

I am crazy.

You all probably know this already. I love working, I can't get enough. I can't sit still, just ask Saundra or my sister.

I have had two babies and went to work 2 weeks after their birth days. I know, it's nuts. But sometimes you need a reminder as to why you should slow down, and literally stop and smell the roses.

Or the cake baking, or the cookies, or stop and smell the cinnamon rolls. Either way, stop. Breathe.

For me, stopping is to play "cah cahs" (that's car cars in non-Gabriel) he reminds me how much life there is to love.

This is his face when I told him we were going to Zoo. The Zoo...

Can you remember a time when you got THAT excited about going somewhere. That face (that mischievous face) reminds me to love life, and not just go through the motions daily, and take in each moment.

So as you are going through each day, remember to stop and enjoy the moments, savior that coffee, that "I love you" when you finish a phone call with your sweetie.

Monday Funday!

Just thought we'd give you something to make you smile on this beautiful Manic Monday!

Year End in Review

Happy New Year!!!!

Normally, I'd post a quick, I am so excited for the new year, and how much inspiration its going to bring! But I think what I really want to do, is show you our 2009 is pictures, since pictures speak 1,000 words, it might be funner!

So here goes...

So a brief explaination:

Top Row: A slight change in our marketing and Eventology - totally loved meeting people that I have talked with for years and made some friends for life!

Second Row: Make new friends and keep the old ones, some are silver and the others gold! The first is of, myself, Stewart Powers, Amanda, and Amanda - we had a great time at TJ's Studio Networking Event, And then the fun we've had the office, PJ Party and Halloween!

Third Row: My Best Friends Wedding, and at the same time, same picture, what you don't see is that I got to work with and made friends for life with Wes and Rae Leytham (Love Love Love - but don't tell them, I hear Wes gets a big head) and our Bridal Shows, along with Let's Eat Cake! You all know how much that meant to me!

Fourth Row: Photobooth fun with Matt Radlinski from Verve Studios, formally known as Prince K-Gallery, me being a dork, shoveling an entire cupcake in my face (another thing marked off my life list), My sister's cake from Let's Eat Cake!, and Keri Vincent, meeting her (another thing marked off my life list).

Fifth Row: Speaking at The School of Rad and the funness that ensued, and more photobooth fun with Angela from Adore Events.

And so much more! 2009 was amazing! But honestly, like alot of you, I am glad to see it come to an end!

Welcome 2010! Let's ROCK YOU!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

From our entire family to yours! I hope your holidays are full of wonderment and suprises!!

Circle Date Stamp

Dear Blog Readers,

I hope you are doing well, today, I had my own experience at the Post Office, and I'd like to share it with you.

As I often tell my brides to have their wedding invitations Hand Canceled by the post office – and having my own experience having things hand canceled, I know it can be an ordeal. But I think that every once in a while you must experience things for yourself to get the full familiarity.

Now, I know what Hand Canceling is, I really do. Instead of being put through a machine, it’s hand stamped, as to avoid damaging what is inside an overtly large or strangely shaped shipping object. However, we suggest Hand Canceling your wedding invitation so that they don’t go through that evil machine.

So, when it came time to mail invitations of my own that I knew needed to have a lot of TLC, I opted to bring all 200 of them to my nice post office man, and ask for them to be all Hand Canceled. He was nice enough, he re-weighed and measured all of them, and explained that I had the correct amount of postage on them, he boxed them up and off they went. He mentioned that they needed to be sent to our main post office to be hand canceled, they don't do that at their branch.

Imagine my surprise when the next day I received an invitation back in the mail. This invitation was not even addressed to me, it was addressed to someone else, and it was shipped to the return address. NICE! But as if that wasn’t nice enough, it wasn’t HAND CANCELED! It had those lovely squiggly lines and a beautiful Bar Code on the bottom.

I then returned to the post office with a few more invitations that needed to be shipped off, and the invitation that I had received back. The same man helped me, I expressed, very politely my disappointment, and asked where the confusion had originated. He explained that that was indeed Hand Canceled – sure it was!

But what I wanted was a Circle Date Stamp. (my question was, really, is that the technically name for it…) But I was polite enough back, and kindly thanked him for his help. And he picked up the stamp and showed me a date stamp in the shape of a circle.

When I left, I called Kristin and said, fairly loud, I might add – CIRCLE DATE STAMP! Really! Circle Date Stamp! I am sure in the book of USPS information, in the back there is a specific category called The Circle Date Stamp!

So from now on, when asking your PostMaster’s office for a Hand Canceled item you might want to be more specific and ask for a Circle Date Stamp. Sheesh!

Happy Planning,

Melissa

{Picture of the Official Circle Date Stamp}

We Guest Blogged!

Have you been to Invitation Consultant's blog? We had a guest post there, it's pretty spectaculous {yup, that's my word!} if I do say so myself!

Font Whore!

I am a self professed font whore! I love me some fonts! And then I saw this...

Beautiful, isn't it! It's the most beautiful invitation suite that I've seen in a while! Brought to you by, Miss Cupcake herself!

I knew the moment that I set eyes on it - two things, after I lifted my jaw off the floor

1. I now love, lust and swoon over teal and green together!

2. I had to have that font!

So, after some searching {in the comments section} it's called Albemarle Swash, and it's now mine! I so love it!!!

Un-Momzilla!

Once in a blue moon, as a wedding consultant the bride or groom's mom becomes your worst nightmare. I don't know why this phenomenon occurs, really I don't.


But this time, the opposite… Gosh I love my job!! This makes me so happy, and proud to make peoples dreams come true!

"...We cannot begin to thank-you enough for EVERYTHING you and your staff did. You all were amazing and truly allowed us to enjoy the moment. I can't imagine what we would have done without you all (don't even want to think about that one !!!) I not only would very strongly recommend to all of my friends, relatives, and acquaintances to have a wedding planner- but probably should have some of your cards to hand out."
 
{Image Source: Unknown - sorry!!!}
 

Can you Feel The Love!

Today I found that I was mention on two seperate and unrelated blogs! If you are looking for some new fun reads, check out LCI Paper and Top 100 Wedding Blogs {and it also lists the Top Dating Sites too}.

And I had a fantastic talk with Monica Rae over at The White Box earlier this week! She is soooo sweet! And we could have talked for ever!!! It's so funny how close we become to one another over our blogs, it's like we've known each other all of our lives!

Thanks for the mention!!!