Saturday, December 31, 2011

Exactly One Week From Today

Exactly one week from today, I will be getting up around 7 am so that I can be ready to start my hair and make up at 8 am.

Exactly one week from today, I will be watching my family and bridesmaids getting themselves ready for our wedding.

Exactly one week from today, I will be heading to the church.

Exactly one week from today, I will be stepping into my dress and getting ready to take pictures with all of my girls.

Exactly one week from today, I will be walking down the aisle toward my Groom.

Exactly one week from today, I will be saying "I Do"

Exactly one week from today, we will be partying it up with our guests.

Exactly one week from today, I will officially be a Wife.

It is weird typing the word "Wife". It is still really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we only have a week until the wedding. One week. Seven days. It is just crazy!!!!

With just a week to go, I thought I would give an update on how our list of to-do's is doing.


  • Ceremony Programs(Waiting on our Ceremony Music and then we will get started on these)
  • Wishing Tree Sign(Just need to print it on the paper and put it in a frame)
  • Final touches on Favor Boxes
  • Affixing signs to candy jars
  • Buy all the candy(We only need to find two more types)
  • Table #'s (These are designed, we just need to pick pictures out for them and print them)
  • Get a hold of the last 6 or 7 that haven't RSVP'd
  • Seating chart
  • Place cards(Aran's Mom has the list and will be working on these this week)
  • Ceremony music(Just waiting on our musicians to finalize this)
  • Make my garter(I tried making it, but I don't really like it, so this may go out the window)
  • Finish Gift for Flower Girls(Almost done with this, but I need an iron. Who doesn't have an iron? Oh yeah, us,haha!)
  • Buy gift for Ring Bearer
  • Buy Groomsmen Gifts(Going today to do this)
  • Get my Brother and Step Dad to get fitted(I may have to drag them there, but it will be done this week)
  • Final Count to Caterers(Emailing them on Monday with the final count)
  • Final Count to Florist for Corsages, Bouquets, Boutonniere's, and Table Arrangements
  • Get our Marriage License(We are doing this at the end of this week)
  • Get all of our final paperwork to the church by this weekend
  • Take my rings in to get put together and cleaned
  • Final meeting with DJ's(This was supposed to happen last week, but we have had to reschedule twice, oops!)
  • Need to get ribbon to our cake person
  • Cut down the sleeves on the flower girl dresses(they are way too long, good thing they are made of tulle)
  • Pick up dress the week of the wedding
  • Pick up Veronica from the Airport(Can't do this til Thursday! Hurry up Thursday!)
  • And lastly, find some time to relax and breathe(I went and had a massage today, more on that later!)

  • Our list is definitely getting shorter. I am hoping to have most of this done by the end of this weekend, especially with us having Monday off. 

    What was your to-do list looking like with a week to go?

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    Thursday, December 29, 2011

    A Year Ago Today...

    A year ago today was without a doubt one of the hardest days of my life so far. A year ago today, my Dad, my cousin and I were racing to Kansas in a blizzard to go see my Grandmother one last time. Unfortunately on our way there, we got a phone call from my Uncle saying that Grandma was gone.

    My Grandma when she was younger.
    I love her dress in this picture.

    I can remember everything about those few minutes. I remember looking down at the screen on my phone and seeing that it was my Uncle calling and I just knew. I didn't even want to answer the phone. I remember answering and hearing the tears in his voice when he told me she was gone. I was standing in a gas station at this point and I turned to my cousin and I told him that she was gone. I then went outside and I didn't even have a chance to tell my Dad what had happened because he could see it all over my face. He looked at me and said, "She's gone isn't she?" I didn't even have to answer, he already knew.


    Even though we didn't make it to see her one last time before she left us to go to Heaven, we still raced out there so that we could say our goodbyes. A drive that should have taken us six hours at the most ended up taking us almost 12 because of the weather. I was really surprised with how well I was handling everything that was going on. But now looking back on it, I think it was because I didn't think it was real. The next day, it definitely became more real.

    My Grandma is the one in the middle with the crown.
    She was an amazing bowler.

    The morning after we got there, we headed over to go say our goodbyes. I had been on the phone with my Mom a few times that morning and kept telling her that I wasn't sure if I wanted to see Grandma like that. I wanted to remember her in the way that I knew her, always happy and full of life. I finally decided to go in and see her and I am glad that I did. I was able to say my goodbye's and I think that if I hadn't it would have been an even harder process for me.

    I believe this is the day that her and my Grandpa Dave
    got married. She is the one in white.

    Later that day we were back at my Aunt's house when the Pastor that was going to be conducting my Grandma's services came over. She wanted to hear more about my Grandma so that she could be prepared for the service. I think we sat around sharing our stories and our favorite memories about Grandma for two or three hours. And the nice thing about it was that this whole time, none of us were even crying. We were all laughing so hard that we couldn't even think about crying. I know that this is how Grandma would have wanted it to be though. She wouldn't have wanted us sitting around and moping. She would have wanted us to remember all the good times and the fun that we shared with her. And that is exactly what we did.

    Me and Grandma the day I
    graduated from College and sadly
    the last time I ever saw her

    My Grandma was so many things. She was a Mom, a Wife, a Sister, a Daughter, an Aunt, a Grandma(of course), an avid Bingo player and many more things. She was always our biggest cheerleader in the stands for whatever sporting activity we were playing. She was always there to talk whenever you needed her. She would do anything for you, even if you didn't ask her to. I could go on and on about all of the amazing things that she would do, but this post would be ridiculously long. She was an amazing women to say the least.

    Grandma holding my niece Kelsi for the first time.
    And yes, she has a black eye because she was a bad ass, haha!

    It is always hard losing someone that you love, especially around the Holidays, but for me this is an even harder loss. With my wedding being only a week away, it is really hard for me to not get upset when I think about how she won't be there to see me get ready and to walk down the aisle. She was supposed to be there. She was so excited for me when I called and told her that I was engaged, and it never occurred to me that she wouldn't be here for this special day.



    I know she will be watching over us from Heaven with my Grandpa and my other Grandma by her side. Even knowing that it is still hard knowing she won't be there. Grandma, if you are listening up there in Heaven, know that not a day goes by that we don't think about you and miss you. We miss you and love you so much and we hope that you are proud of us and what we are doing. I love you and miss you more than words could ever express, but I take comfort knowing that you are in a better place and that we now have another angel watching over us.

    She is in the black dress. She was so beautiful.

    This is probably one of the hardest posts I have ever done. I am not going to lie, I had to step away from it at least twice because I would just start crying when I would start thinking about everything. But at the same time it feels good to be able to share with people how much I love and miss her. RIP Grandma, you will be forever loved and missed.

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    Tuesday, December 27, 2011

    The Great Ring Debacle of 2011

    !WARNING! This post is a little long, sorry! But I just have so much to say about this topic!

    With a little under two weeks to go until the wedding, the Fiance' and I decided it was time to take my rings in to be sautered together. When we bought our bands in October, we decided not to have my band sized yet because it just seemed easier to have it sized when it was sent off to be put together with my engagement ring. We did however have Aran's ordered in the right size.

    So the afternoon before we headed over to Helzberg, I told Aran that I wanted him to try his ring back on and make sure that it still fit. For most guys this wouldn't have been an issue, except that my Fiance', Aran, decided that he was going to go on this thing called the Abs Diet before our wedding and has since lost almost 20 lbs. 20 lbs!! I didn't even think that he had 20 lbs to lose. He is already really tall and a skinny minny, but apparently there was 20 lbs in there to lose. And shouldn't it be me worrying about losing weight before our wedding? You would think, but definitely not the case. I figured that I ordered the dress in the size that I was at the time and losing weight would just cost more money when alterations came around, so I didn't even bother.

    Anywho, when we went to Helzberg, the guy that was helping us informed us that the ring that we had originally picked out for Aran couldn't be sized because of the type of design that was in it. So the only option was to order a new one in his size. The only problem with this option was that we weren't guaranteed to have the ring back in time for the wedding. Apparently you have to send the old one back to get the new one. I was about to lose it at this point. The guy helping us then told us that what we should do is keep the ring we have and place a ring guard on it and then after the wedding come back in and order Aran a new one in the right size.

    Aran's Wedding Band that we picked
    out in October
    Source

    Well, again I was about to absolutely lose it because this just didn't seem right to me. It didn't seem right that we would get married and take our vows with this ring and then turn around and get him a different one. I want us to have the rings that we will be wearing for the rest of our lives on our wedding day. And to not have that ring would be really upsetting to me. Hence why I was about to lose it.

    Luckily, Jeanelle, the lady that helped us pick out my engagement ring and our bands, who I absolutely LOVE, came back from her lunch at this point. I think she sensed that something was wrong and she came over and pretty much told the guy to get lost and that she was now going to be taking care of us. Thank you Jeanelle!! We told her what was going on and she said that we should at least try to get the new one here on time and keep the old one at the same time so that if the new one didn't get here on time, we would still have something. I still wasn't real pleased about this, but it was a better option than not having one at all.

    Well she was working on putting everything in the computer for mine to be sent off and then she was working on getting Aran's new one ordered when she was having issue's finding the correct SKU for his. This was starting to worry me. She was telling us that it almost seemed like it had been discontinued or something. Great! So she said that she would put in a call to the designer tomorrow and get everything figured out. Well at this point I was more than a little worried and I wanted to have a back up plan. So I asked Jeanelle if we could pick out another ring for Aran just in case that one was discontinued. She was very much okay with this. She wanted to help us in anyway possible, so I think she thought this was a great idea.

    So we walked over to the case with the bands and in the case were some new bands that we had never seen. Something that I need to explain is that Aran has long slender fingers. A lot of people refer to them as surgeon fingers or pianist fingers because they are so long and slender. So when we were picking out his band in October we were looking for bands that weren't so big and bulky because they just look ridiculous on his finger. So when we saw these bands, I pointed them out to him because they were thinner than his ring he already had. He put one of them on and he looked at me and said, "I like this ring a lot better than the one that we originally picked out." Jeanelle looked at us and told us that if we liked this one more, that this was a ring that could be sized and she could have it back to us the same time that mine came back which is the 30th!

    We discussed it and Aran decided that he liked the second ring much better, so we went ahead and exchanged the rings and we will now have both of our rings cleaned, sized, put together and ready to go for our wedding day. I was actually very surprised that he picked out the first ring that he did in October. The one he picked out yesterday was way more what I thought he would have picked out and I am glad that he is happy with it.

    The New Ring that Aran picked out
    Source


    So the Great Ring Debacle of 2011 as it turns out, worked out very well for us. I guess that other ring just wasn't meant to be.

    Did you have any issue with sizing rings? How early did you take your rings in to be sized and cleaned?

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    Calling All Guest Posters!

    Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope that everyone had an amazing Christmas and enjoyed some time off of work and your usual everyday activities!

    With our wedding being less than two weeks away, I figured I should start putting some guest posts together. So, if you would be at all interested in guest posting for me for the week of the wedding and the week after the wedding, please leave me a comment letting me know if you are interested along with a way to contact you or email me at mdvervaecke@gmail dot com. I would love to have enough guest posts to cover both weeks, but if not, then I will just spread them out over the two weeks.

    Even though we are not going on our honeymoon the week after the wedding, we are taking it off to just relax and re coup and maybe spend some time with our family and friends that are still in town, so I have no idea how much I will be around a computer. So again, I would really like to have some posts set up for that week too.

    Thanks in advance to everyone who is going to help. Hope you are having a great day so far!

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    Licensed to Wed

    I have been horrible about posting things on the same day or day after they have happened, but there is just so much going on that I just haven't had the time. Sorry guys! So today I am going to tell you about what took place last Thursday(I know! An entire week ago, haha!)

    Last Thursday the Fiance' and I took the afternoon off to go run a few errands. The biggest errand on that list? Getting our Marriage License! I was pretty excited about this. I thought it would be fun and start making this whole wedding thing more official. We went to one of the three or four locations in our town where you can buy a Marriage License. We walked in and there was no wait at all. The lady at the front door handed us a number and as soon as we walked in, our number was called. So we sat down at the counter, gave them our $30 and our information and within ten minutes we had a Marriage License.

    It is exciting that we finally have this taken care of, but it definitely was not as thrilling or exciting as I was hoping it was going to be, haha! But I did manage to get the "We just got our Marriage License" picture. We took a few once we got out into the car. The Fiance' was not very happy with me because I kept making us retake it because I didn't like how it looked, haha! Typical girl right? This was the best that I could get, so it will have to do.



    So there you have it, we are officially licensed to wed in the state of Colorado! I am so excited that everything is finally starting to fall into place. I can't wait until the 7th when we can officially be married!

    Did you take the "We just got our Marriage License" picture? Were you excited to go do this part?

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    Monday, December 26, 2011

    Merry Christmas!

    I know it is a day late but Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that  everyone had an amazing Christmas with your family and friends. Christmas isn't quite over for us yet, we still have one more stop to make to deliver some presents to my nieces. I can't wait to see them open their gifts. I hope that they love them!

    Now that Christmas is almost over, things are really going to start shifting gears. I mean we have a wedding in less than two weeks! And our list of things to do is slowly getting checked off, but it doesn't feel like it is getting checked off quickly enough. I kind of just wish that they would do themselves at this point. But of course they won't so I still have some work to do. It isn't a lot and I think that within the next week we could have everything finished.

    Last week this was my list of things to do;

    • Ceremony Programs
    • Wishing Tree Sign(Have it in Word, just need to print it on the paper and get a frame for it.)
    • Final touches on Favor Boxes
    • Affixing signs to candy jars
    • Buy all the candy(We got a Sam's Club Membership for Christmas so that will come in handy for this!)
    • Table #'s (These are designed, we just need to pick pictures out for them and print them)
    • Get a hold of the last 6 or 7 that haven't RSVP'd
    • Seating chart
    • Place cards
    • Ceremony music
    • Make my garter
    • Finish Gift for Flower Girls(Almost done with this, but I need an iron. Who doesn't have an iron? Oh yeah, us,haha!)
    • Buy gift for Ring Bearer
    • Buy Groomsmen Gifts
    • Get my Brother and Step Dad to get fitted(I may have to drag them there, but it will be done this week)
    • Final Count to Caterers
    • Final Count to Florist for Corsages, Bouquets, Boutonniere's, and Table Arrangements,
    • Get our Marriage License(We are doing this at the end of this week)
    • Get all of our final paperwork to the church by this weekend
    • Take my rings in to get put together and cleaned(Doing this today!!)
    • Final meeting with DJ's(This was supposed to happen last week, but we have had to reschedule twice, oops!)
    • Need to get ribbon to our cake person
    • Cut down the sleeves on the flower girl dresses(they are way too long, good thing they are made of tulle)
    • Pick up dress the week of the wedding
    • Pick up Veronica from the Airport(I am way excited about this one!!)
    • Need to get my nails done
    • And lastly, find some time to relax and breathe

    Like, I said the list is getting shorter. I know that there are a few other things that need to be done, but I just can't think of them at this time. 

    Well, I think that is all that I have for today. I need to get myself up and out of bed and ready to go. We have a few other things that we need to do today so I should probably get my butt in gear. It is nice having a day off of work, but with all the stuff that we have to do it doesn't really feel like I have the day off. Bummer! But, I guess it will all be worth it in the end! Merry Christmas again everyone!

    Did you guys have a great Christmas? What was your favorite gift?

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    Thursday, December 22, 2011

    We Have a Winner!

    Well, yesterday was the last day to enter my giveaway for the MyMemories Suite v3 digital scrapbooking software. And I am very excited to announce that we have a winner! Drum roll please....

    Congrats to K from Down at Fraggle Rock!



    I am so excited that she won because Tuesday was her Birthday so I am glad that I could also give her a gift. K I will be contacting you soon with how you can download your software.

    Thanks to everyone who entered. and I hope that you guys are having a fabulous Thursday!


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    Bachelorette Party

    This past Saturday was my Bachelorette Party. It was a lot of things, but it wasn't the traditional style.

    Let me start by saying that I was sick all of last week and of course Saturday seemed to be the worst day of it. As the week went on, it seemed that more and more people weren't going to be able to make it. I was starting to worry that we were only going to have a couple of people show up.

    Well, that is exactly what happened. This Bachelorette party had three participants. Me of course and then my MOH Lou and one of my bridesmaids, Rochelle. Every one who didn't show had very legit reasons as to why they couldn't come so by no means was I upset. Actually, the night worked out better than I thought it would.

    The night started with us going to dinner at Chili's. Lou and I ordered margarita's to start and were quickly informed by our waitress that they were 2 for 1. Sweetness! She ordered a classic one and I got strawberry(I am one of those people that doesn't like tasting too much alcohol in my drinks so I try to mask it with fruit). Rochelle was awesome and offered to be my driver for the night so she didn't drink with us. After our four margarita's were brought to the table, Lou gave me the straw that I would be drinking with the rest of the night. Let's just say it was dirty and I would cover it up any time a kid would walk by our table, haha!

    Me covering my straw


    We ordered our food and we talked and started in on our margarita's as we waited for our delicious food to arrive. Once the food got to our table we ate and talked some more. We ordered a deliciously yummy red velvet molten lava cake for dessert. Heaven is all that I have to say about this thing! Once we were done talking, eating and drinking, we decided to head back to Rochelle's casa.

    Me and Lou 

    Did I forget to mention the awesome attire I was wearing for the night? Of course I had the traditional Bachelorett Sash, but I also had an awesome head piece too! A few weeks ago, Rochelle and her boyfriend went to Disney World and brought me back this...



    So I wore these adorable bride mouse ears all night. You wouldn't believe how many people would stare at me any time that I got up to go the bathroom(which was a lot considering I had two glasses of water and two margaritas during dinner). I didn't care though.

    Once we were back at Rochelle's, her and Lou decorated it for me with fun balloons and signs. Lou had even bought us a game to play. Of course it was a dirty one, but unfortunately we never got around to it. We did however crack open a bottle of the best wine ever and had a ring pop or two and sat around and talked for a few hours.




    Our delicious ring pops

    We love our wine

    Me and Rochelle

    Now I realize this is not even close to the norm for a Bachelorette party, but with me being sick and me not being a big party person, this night was perfect. I had two great friends with me, some awesome food, some awesome drinks and we had a ton of laughs. I wouldn't change it for anything.

    Did you have a traditional Bachelorette party? Or did you do something that was different than the norm?

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    Wednesday, December 21, 2011

    What's Your Favorite?

    Happy Wednesday! Is anyone else hoping that the rest of this week flies by? I know  I am. I think a certain holiday on Sunday has something to do with that. Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday. I love decorating the tree and my apartment, and I love making Christmas cookies and all the baking that we do this time of year. There is just something about this time of year that just makes me feel all giddy inside and like a little kid.

    One of my favorite things about this time of year is that it is finally okay for me to watch all of my favorite Christmas movies without the fiance or anyone else looking at me like I am crazy. I would watch these movies year round if I could, but I know that the fiance would kill me. So today I wanted to take a little break from all of the wedding posts and tell you about some of my favorite Christmas movies that are always a must watch for me this time of year.

    The first movie is a movie that I have only been watching for a few years now. My Grandma told me about this movie my Junior year of college and told me that she thought that I would absolutely love it. She was completely right (as always) and it is now the first one I pop in this time of year. And now that she has passed away, I find myself wanting to watch it more often because it reminds me of her and it makes me happy thinking about how much she loved this movie too. So my #1 favorite Christmas movie is...

    White Christmas


    With Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye

    Now, I don't know that I could actually put the rest of my favorite Christmas movies in a numbered order, simply because I love all of them so, so, so, so much. It would be impossible to say that I love one more than the other. All I know is that this Saturday, I plan on cuddling up on the couch and watching as many of these as humanly possible before we have to go up to the soon to be parents-in-law's house for Christmas mass. So here are the rest of my favorite Christmas movies...

    No Christmas would be complete with out this classic...



    And of course "You'll shoot your eye out kid!"


    And how could you not watch Christmas Vacation and laugh your ass off the whole time


    And then of course the ACTUAL Christmas Classics...


    And I don't think it would be a complete holiday season without these two movies...

    The original

    And of course the real life one with Jim Carey

    And who could resist watching this hilarious movie...



    And last but certainly not least, one of my favorite Christmas movies that came out when I was younger...



    Now I want to know what are some of your favorite Christmas movies? What movies do you absolutely have to watch every year? Do you share in some of my faves? Or do you have some that I don't have on my list? 

    Merry Christmas everyone!!

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    Tuesday, December 20, 2011

    Giveaway Ends Tomorrow!

    Just wanted to remind everyone that the giveaway that I am holding ends tomorrow at midnight. So please don't forget to go and enter!

    Don't remember what I am giving away or would like to know, go HERE and find out! Hope everyone is having a fantastic day so far!

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    Sunday, December 18, 2011

    3 Weeks?!!! Aghh!!

    This past Saturday we hit the three week mark. Three weeks? Are you serious? I can't believe it! This past year has flown by and I don't know where it went.

    With only three weeks left it is definitely crunch time. I am realizing what needs to be done and what we don't have time for and will just have to be cut. I don't like the idea of cutting anything, but everything that absolutely has to be done is done and these things were just extras that I was hoping that we would have time for.

    As of today we are 18 days out for the wedding and I know that I still have quite a few things left to do. I have been trying to do a little each night and that seems to be working pretty well, but there are some things that we can't do yet because we are waiting on something else. Like our ceremony programs for instance. I have started working on them, but I am waiting on the final decisions on our ceremony music so that I can include that.

    Via my Wedding Wire account

    So with 18 days to go here is what my to-do list looks like;

    • Ceremony Programs
    • Wishing Tree Sign
    • Final touches on Favor Boxes
    • Affixing signs to candy jars
    • Buy all the candy
    • Table #'s (These are designed, we just need to pick pictures out for them and print them)
    • Get a hold of the last 6 or 7 that haven't RSVP'd
    • Seating chart
    • Place cards
    • Ceremony music
    • Make my garter
    • Finish Gift for Flower Girls(Almost done with this, but I need an iron. Who doesn't have an iron? Oh yeah, us,haha!)
    • Buy gift for Ring Bearer
    • Buy Groomsmen Gifts
    • Get my Brother and Step Dad to get fitted(I may have to drag them there, but it will be done this week)
    • Final Count to Caterers
    • Final Count to Florist for Corsages, Bouquets, Boutonniere's, and Table Arrangements,
    • Get our Marriage License(We are doing this at the end of this week)
    • Get all of our final paperwork to the church by this weekend
    • Take my rings in to get put together and cleaned
    • Final meeting with DJ's(This was supposed to happen last week, but we have had to reschedule twice, oops!)
    • Need to get ribbon to our cake person
    • Cut down the sleeves on the flower girl dresses(they are way too long, good thing they are made of tulle)
    • Pick up dress the week of the wedding
    • And lastly, find some time to relax and breathe

    This seems like a huge list, but really they are just a lot of little things with a few big things. What is even more crazy is that I am still pretty calm. I have not been stressing out as much as I have been and I am very okay with this. One of my worries with stress is that I am a HUGE stress eater. When I stress I like to eat and I eat comfort food so chips & dip, fries, candy, burgers, if it has fat or grease in it, I eat it when I am stressed. So I have ordered instructed the fiance' to keep me eating healthy during these next three weeks. If he sees me reaching for that pint of Vanilla Blue Bell in the freezer, I gave him permission to yell at me and make me eat an apple or something healthy instead. This could be a really long 18 days now that I am thinking about it.

    On a side note, it snowed here yesterday which is always cool in my book. However, I wish we would have gotten more so that I did not have to come to work today. I can dream right? I am hoping that some of it sticks around for Christmas or that we possibly get more on Christmas. It has been a while since it has snowed on Christmas and I am really starting to miss my white Christmas'. 

    Was your list about this long with a little under three weeks to go? Or did you have more things done? 

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    Thursday, December 15, 2011

    It's Giveaway Time!!

    That's right! It is time for a giveaway, and just in time for Christmas!

    About two weeks ago I received an email from MyMemories to review their digital scrapbooking software, called MyMemories Suite v3. I was really excited about this because of two reasons. The first reason is that I have never ever been contacted to do a review, so I thought it was pretty cool that someone asked me to do one. The second reason is that I have been wanting something like this so that I can use it to do designs on my blog. I know that most people use some sort of digital scrapbooking software for this, so I have been wanting to get my hands on it.

    I went ahead and downloaded the software from the MyMemories website, which was super easy by the way. It walks you right through it and barely took any time at all. Within minutes, the software was up and running. At first, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Did I want to play in the already pre-made scrap booking templates? Or did I want to try my hand at doing something custom? I went for the custom. Little did I know that this software was going to be a blessing in disguise!

    A while back I found this really cute idea on Pinterest for table numbers. Each table number was a year and with that year would be a picture of the bride and groom taken in that year. I really liked it a lot better than our original table number idea so, I have been trying to figure out how I was going to design these table numbers because I don't have access to photoshop or anything fun like that. Well, I figured what the heck, let's try and design the table numbers and see how it goes. The software allows you to choose the size and orientation of your pages and this came in real handy for this project. I picked a 4x6 page with a horizontal orientation. I then proceeded to pick out a background paper, layout my photo boxes and add text and embellishments.

    The nice thing about this software is that it walks you through a lot of things. There are pop up boxes that walk you through different features of the program and it is really nice since you really are just trying to figure everything out at first. With the help of these boxes and some playing around, I was able to create these table numbers.

    Obviously these are not the right pictures for this year.

    I love how they turned out, so much that we are actually going to use these. We are going to print them as 4X6 photo's and they will be placed on each table. There may be a few more tweaks to them, but for the most part this is what they will look like. Again, this software was a blessing in disguise, because without it, I don't know how we would have done this!

    I also messed around with table menu's and was able to create this menu. We still aren't sure if we are going to do the menu's but they are designed and ready to go if we decide to do them thanks to this program.



    I seriously love this software. There are so many things that you can do with it and the possibilities just seem endless. You can also go on the MyMemories website and look through their scrapbooking kits. You can buy them(or they even have some free ones)and download them straight into your software. I can't wait to keep playing with it and eventually figure out how to create a header and other things for this blog. It might even come in handy once we have our wedding pictures back to make an album for ourselves.

    Now onto the best part! I have a copy of this software to giveaway to one of my amazing readers! Now, I know that this giveaway has been going around a lot lately, but I know you will not be disappointed and not only that but it is FREE! Come on now, who doesn't love FREE stuff?! Here is how to enter;

    1.You need to be a follower of my blog-(1 Entry-Mandatory)

    2. Go to the MyMemories website and look through their digital scrapbook kits and then come back here and tell me which one is your favorite-(1 Entry-Mandatory)

    3. Follow Butterfly Dreams N' Things on Facebook-(1 Entry-Optional)

    4. Follow me on Twitter(in your comment please leave your username)-(1 Entry-Optional)

    5. Tweet about the giveaway and make sure to tag me in it and leave the link to it in the comments-(1 Entry-Optional)

    6. Blog about the giveaway and leave me the link in your comment-(2 Entries-Optional)


    Please leave a comment for each entry that you do. And please be sure to leave me your email address in one of the comments that you leave so that I know how to contact you if you win. 

    This giveaway will end on Wednesday, December 21st and I will announce the winner on Thursday the 22nd. 

    Good luck everyone!

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    Wednesday, December 14, 2011

    The Most Adorable Things Ever

    Last week I got an email saying that my flower girl dresses had shipped. Well that was on Tuesday the 6th and according to the tracking they should have been here on Monday. Well, they weren't and on top of that the tracking hadn't updated since Friday the 9th in which it said that the package was still in Lamar, MS. Uh, okay.

    So when the package didn't arrive on Monday, I started getting a little worried. So yesterday I called USPS and explained to them what was going on and the lady told me that she didn't know where my package was and that it definitely should have already arrived. She made it seem like it was lost, so they put in to do an investigation on where my package was. All day yesterday I kept checking the tracking and each time I was even more disappointed because again, it still hadn't updated.

    Well, last night I happened to look again and it had FINALLY updated and low and behold it said that it had been delivered that evening! Aghh! Finally! So I made Aran check the mail box on his way home from the gym. When he walked through the door with that box, I can't even explain my excitement, but I was very, very, very excited and relieved all at the same time.

    I quickly opened the box and pulled out the dresses. In that box were the cutest, most adorable little tutu dresses I had ever seen. Oh my gosh, I just can't get over how adorable these little dresses are. Kristin at All About Tots did an amazing job on them and my nieces are going to LOVE them!

    This is a really crappy pic but this is one
    of them. It looks really red in the pic, but I
    promise it is fuchsia and the ribbon is brown.

    I can't wait to take these over to my nieces to have them try them on. They are going to be so excited. They may not like me very much though when I tell them that they have to wait three weeks to wear them. I may have to get them each a little slip to go under this dress though because it seemed like it might be a little itchy, but they probably won't even care.

    Again, Kristin did an amazing job on these and she was so easy and fun to work with. I will definitely be going back to her in the future if I need anything like this for my nieces.

    What do you think of the dresses? Do you like traditional dresses for flower girls? Or do you like something more fun?

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    Monday, December 12, 2011

    The Big 24!

    Welp, today is my 24th Birthday! The crazy thing is that it doesn't even feel like my Birthday. Is that what happens when you get older and don't have parties and stuff? I guess that also happens when you are super busy and have other things that you are planning and really looking forward too, like oh I don't know, this little thing called a WEDDING!!

    The fiance and a couple of our friends are taking me to Red Robin for dinner for my free Birthday burger, whoop whoop! I am way excited for this! I can already taste the bacon burger, yum! The fiance also bought me these really pretty flowers. I love them. Especially the butterfly in them. He knows me all too well!


    I have already started the whole, "It's my Birthday Week" bit too, haha! Poor Aran! We have never done the whole Birthday Week thing, but we decided to give it a go this year(this was more my idea of course). Knowing me I will probably forget about half way through the week. That's okay though, because Aran has already more than spoiled me. He made me breakfast this morning, bought me flowers, bought me concert tickets to the best concert ever and he is taking me to dinner, so I am a pretty happy girl! 

    Well, it is time to get back to work(the one downside of my birthday, I had to go to work, booooo) Except that my co-workers did surprise me with a red velvet cake, can you say delicious? So I guess I can't be too angry about going to work today, haha!


    I hope that everyone had a great weekend and be sure to look for my giveaway this week!

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