My shower is today!

January 31, 2008. Besides being the date for my shower, today is also Momma's birthday. Some of you may remember that we lost her 7 months ago, so today is filled with various emotions. Pops looks so sad and I feel helpless that I can't do anything to ease his pain. Mike went to North Carolina this weekend, not only to get his car inspected but to put flowers on his Mom's grave.
We'll get through this. I just know wedding day is going to have the same roller coaster of emotions.

On the upside, as I said my shower starts at 2 pm. I need to start getting ready. Mike's sister, niece, and Toya (Shaq's wife) are at the mall now doing last minute shopping. Slow as usual =)

I also got the hint that my bachelorette party is tonight also. I was only told to bring an overnight bag. Oooo, the suspense! I know it's going to be in New York, thanks to the bitter bridesmaid that's no longer with us, but I don't know all the details. Which is good, because I love surprises!

I'll be back with a full report and of course pics!

Prep time!

Hey, hey hey! My shower is tomorrow!

The girls don't know I know but I also know the b-party is afterwards. I think it is in New York. The girls obviously got a hotel room because I've been told so far to bring an overnight bag.
Oooo, the mystery! Ha!

So in preparation for my shower tomorrow (and a night of partying) I'm going to go get my hair and nails done. I already bought a cute dress last week when I was in the mall. I also bought some new jeans and a dressy tank top to wear if we hit the clubs (which I'm sure we will). Right now I'm sitting here debating should I go to the gym or not. ?

2 weeks from tomorrow we leave for Florida!

DIY projects....last bit!

This should really be it for diy projects. I did quite a bit over the weekend and finally am getting around to posting pics. It's quite a bit so bear with me ;-)

First, I decided to do an iron on for my Mom with the leftover rhinestones I had. Used them all up:I have instructions for how to do this if you click on diy or bridesmaids, it will come up.

Next, I did petal toss signs, menus, for the bar and dinner, and cards sign. The petal toss sign I made in Publisher. The poem I found on good ole trusty google!:


I made the bar sign in Publisher. Found the recipes on greygoose.com. We love the Goose!
The dinner menus were made in Publisher also. I'm printing them on VistaPrints oversized vertical postcards and tucking them into the napkins at each place setting.
This cards sign was also made in Publisher. Where the yellow piece of paper is on the treasure chest is where this sign will go:I got around to designing my card box. It's a treasure chest (we already owned) with fish netting, pink and ivory pearls, and starfish. I also bought a hermit crab for decoration:


The above photo is the bottom of the chest which will have a little sand to cover the bottom and a knobby starfish as well.


Here are my beautiful petal cones:
I bought gold colored doilies from Michaels, used double sided tape to roll them up and stick the bows on that I hand tied with ribbon purchased from Michaels also. I alternated ribbon colors with pink and brown. I'm going to display them in a brown basket with the instructions sign next to them. I love how they turned out:
Here's the brochures I made in Publisher for the OOT boxes. This is the inside:
Outside:
My table numbers also completed in Publisher, just a few for you to see:Lastly, our rehearsal dinner invites. I plan on giving these out in Florida either hand delivered or in the OOT boxes for the bridal party and their spouses/significant others. Here's the front:
And the back with directions to the restaurant from Paradise Cove:
Whew! That is it! I am done with diy! I think.....heehee.

Our goodbyes....

Saturday we said goodbye to Jr. The funeral was what it was; a funeral. Nothing nice about it, in my opinion but nonetheless it was put together nicely. There were quite a few people there. The one nice thing was they allowed people to get up and speak, briefly, on their memories and recollections of Jr. What I do know is that he touched many lives. He was such a good person, he'd give you the shirt off his back. It was nice to hear and see that he had an impact on so many lives.

He will surely be missed but he's in our hearts and with us in spirit. Jr. we love you and miss you already.

DIY projects

It's getting down to the wire! I still have a few projects to complete. Today, I took off work so I'm going to tackle this list:

• Rose petal cones
• Brochures (OOT boxes)
• Rose petal sign
• Fish net for card box
• Rehearsal dinner info card

That's it for now. Let me get busy because family is on their way up for the funeral tomorrow and I want to chill out at least part of the day. I'll be back with pics!

Happy Birthday Mommy!!!

Today is my mom's 65th birthday! Yay! I just gave her a gift card to treat herself to something. We'll probably take her to dinner this weekend or something. Blessed with another birthday with Mommy. =)

On another note, my videographer called me yesterday to get out baby pics together for our video. It was so ironic because my parents haven't been able to find my photo album for MONTHS. I was just telling my mother the day before yesterday I really need them to find my album. Then he calls. So, I went into panic mode and was ready to tear up their living room looking for my album. The problem is my album was safe and sound on top of a bookcase in their apartment. The bookcase fell (too much crap in it) and my father and brother decided to pack everything up in boxes and bags. Who knows where the album was packed?

So yesterday after talking to Seth, I got ready to hit every last box and bag in their. After about 15 minutes of looking my mom finds the album buried behind another bag on the first level of a smaller bookcase. Whew! I have my album. Both of my parents breathed a sigh of relief because they said I was about to drive them crazy about that album. heehee. I have it now.

Mike already has his pics so we just have to decide on pictures of us dating up until the engagement. Since we're not doing a slide show at the wedding of the pics I don't need to rush the pics to Seth, I can give them to him the day of the wedding. What a relief.

Decision, decisions....

Today we had our 30 day checklist with the venue. Kristen just asks a bunch of questions regarding the reception, details, etc...and of course pay the balance. Now I'm stuck with a dilemma: as it stands the total time we have the place is 4 stinking hours. Do we extend it another hour for a little over $400 or keep our money and go elsewhere to continue the party? The other thing is we went over our 75 guests we put a deposit for and had to pay extra for that. Ugh...Mo' money, mo' money...

The way I see it is honestly 4 hours for everything is not enough time. I figured the ceremony will be 20-30 minutes and then we run off to take pictures. If we can get our pictures done in 30-45 minutes that leaves almost 3 hours for the reception. Is that enough time? That's my dilemma and we need to make a decision at least 1 week before. They want the money, lol.

I think 5 hours would be perfect because with the ceremony and pictures we could still have almost 4 hours to party. It's just paying that extra $$$$ that's getting on my last nerves.

Looking back, I realize that Paradise Cove is a beautiful location but they don't budge on pricing and you get very little for your money. 4 hours rental time for what we Paradise Cove ladies are paying is insane, but the location beauty sucks you in. =)

Another battle lost.....

We had a good time last night at Mike's annual holiday party. We didn't get back to our room until 3 this morning. I couldn't fall right asleep so I stayed up about an hour watching deal or no deal. Probably about 9:30 am Mike jumped up and found his phone on the floor. It vibrated it's way to the floor after he failed to pick it up when it was going off. He looked at it and realized his cousin Michele had called him at 4:30 am. We were dead to the world at the time. But knowing that hour, my heart sank knowing the call had to be bad about Jr. As he calls Michele back, I have my face buried in the pillow, bracing myself for the words I know are going to come out of his mouth. I also said a silent prayer. Then I heard it. He's gone.

We jump up, call Shaq, shower and get dressed as fast as we can so we can get to the hospital before they take his body downstairs. Michele told them she would wait for us and they did.

At the hospital, the same hospital where Mikes' best man (Shaq) lost his mom a little over 4 weeks ago, I'm dreading entering the room. We're all there; Mike, his best man who was best friends with Jr. (Jr. was Shaq's best man Oct. '07), Toya (Shaq's wife) Michele and her husband Kurt, Keith, Aunt Helen and Uncle Charles, Kevin and his girlfriend, Carl (Jr.'s roommate), and a few of Carls' friends. The four of us enter the room and the first thing I notice is the silence. The machines are all gone; no beeping, just silence. I look at Jr. and he looks so peaceful. Like he's sleeping. With tear filled eyes I stand there, honestly questioning my faith and beliefs in God, or Allah as I've known him for many years. I put that to the side for now, walk over to get closer to Jr. I touch his face, his hair and then kiss him goodbye on his forehead. After standing in the room a little longer I walk out and just remember him the last time I saw him up and about. Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Jr. came to our house with one of his famous sweet potato pies. Oh my god that pie was good. I hid it from everyone else so they wouldn't get a piece. LOL. I know it's selfish but I couldn't help myself. That man could cook and his pies were amazing. What's funny is the last time I was at the hospital, about a week ago, I told him I wanted another pie so he had to get out of the hospital. I told him how I hid the pie and he just laughed. That smile I won't forget and am glad I was able to put it there the last time I saw him alive.

Mike is holding up pretty good. The family meets with the funeral director tomorrow so we'll probably plan to have the services on Saturday to give out of state fam a chance to get here.

I'm going to miss Jr. I still have his boxed wedding invitation in my car that I never got to give to him. I'm going to pray for understanding because I need it. Pray for us, please. It's been a rough year for this family.

I knew this was coming....

the RSVP madness. Why don't people just send the damn cards back? I paid money for that little stamp on the back that you've wasted. Thanks.

I think a few of my guests hit a new record. Ignore. Have you been ignored by guests that you felt enough about to invite to your wedding? Well then.

After we passed our RSVP date last Saturday, Mike nearly flipped a gasket. I tried to tell him to calm down and wait a few more days before calling people because some people are just late, slow whatever you want to call them. He called a few people anyway, whatever, his prerogative. I even texted a few on Sunday just telling them I need their RSVPs, hoping they would drop them in the mail on Monday.

So by Wednesday when only 1 of the like, 12 people sent the card back, I'm starting to get pissed. A few answered me by text right away letting me know they were coming just kept forgetting to put it in the mail, yadda yadda yadda. But there were some that just straight ignored my text and still hadn't sent a card. What gives?

Finally I start getting on the phone yesterday. One girl sends me an email totally unrelated to the wedding; I think it was in response to something I forwarded to her that I received. I quickly emailed her back asking what she was going to do, accepts or declines? She finally answers, no, but I'll be at your shower! Okay. The other girl I called, I got her answering machine and left her a message to please call me. 2 minutes later I see my MOH, Mary at work and we're talking about the RSVPs and she said, wait I'm going to call her right now. Guess what? Mary gets her on the phone! I can tell from Mary's end of the convo that the girl is telling her how she's scared to fly, blah blah blah. Finally the answer is no. Why couldn't she just tell me that or better yet send the damn postage paid RSVP postcard back with declines checked off so I know what to do.

People just don't get it but I never thought people were scared, for lack of a better word, to just say no. It's okay. I knew when I planned a destination wedding that everyone wasn't going to be able to make it. And that's fine. That's part of the reason we planned one ;-) lol.

B-pics!!!

B-pics, short for boudoir pictures is a knot craze for wedding gifts for your new hubby. Unfortunately, I crapped around and waited too long to decide to do this so they won't be a wedding gift to Mike. However, I found a photographer, who comes recommended by some of the CFL knotties, that's available to do a b-pic session on February 15. Perfect since I'm landed in the sunshine state on the 14th. Tabitha from Ultimate Image Weddings, has a blog that displays a few of her b-pics that she's taken in the past. She does wonderful work. Unfortunately my wedding day photographer is unable to do a b-pic session or I would've done them with her. Her pictures are amazing also.

So, I've made a few purchases in preparation for my sexy session. The regular lingerie out there, but my fave is this officer arrest me outfit:
I ordered some black patent leather peep toe pumps to go with it. Whew! This is going to be hottt! I can't wait. Hair and make-up is included in the fee so I'll be dolled up and ready to shoot! The best part is a few of my girls are going too so we should have a blast.

Bridesmaid gifts

I headed to the mall on Saturday and racked up on body lotions, shower gels, and lip gloss from Bath and Body Works and Victorias Secret. Got a great deal also! Most of the stuff was on sale, actually everything was on sale so I paid as little as $1 for some of the bottles. Lastly, I ordered personalized bracelets for each girl from the knot gift shop. I should receive them any day now. On top of that, Mike and I had already agreed to pay a portion of their hair and make-up, if not pay for it all ourselves. If we do pay in full, it will be a surprise to them. For now, all they know is I'm putting down the initial deposit. So their gifts are a wrap. =)

For me, I finally purchased a pair of white boy shorts to wear the wedding date which I'm going to use the Mrs. iron on to jazz them up a bit. I also went to Things Remembered and got our cake server set engraved with our names and wedding date. They did a good job, but they charge a fee for engraving things not purchased from their store on top of the fee for engraving. Whatever. It was still pretty cheap. Oh, and they charge you based on the value of the item you bought in to be engraved.

So I had a productive weekend but I still feel like there's a million things left to do. I swear I can't sleep without dreaming of something wedding related. Good night :-)

Custom rhinestone iron ons

So part of my gift to my bridesmaids and maids of honor is that I decided to do custom rhinestone iron ons. I like the "Bride" and "Bridesmaids" ones but they may not wear those again. So for each girl, I took their nick names or married names or what they call themselves and made an iron on.

The first one here is for Tiffiny aka Ms. Boss. First you make the words in Word, Publisher, or whatever application you choose. For this one I chose Edwardian Script. You have to stretch the wording, actually it's called kerning, so you have enough space between the letters to place the rhinestones. You change the text in Publisher by right clicking on the word after it's highlighted, choose character spacing and the new box will pop up for you to change the spacing. Once that's done and you're satisfied with how it looks, go to your printer settings. This will vary for each individual as far as how you do this, but you have to print your wording in mirror text.

This is how it looks printed:
Once you have it printed, you take your mylar paper and place it over the wording sticky side up. Tape it down so the words don't move on you. Then, using tweezers place the rhinestones on the sticky paper stone side down, tracing the wording. This is mine completed with the stones:

Once you have all the stones in place, place the backside of the mylar paper back over the sticky side and smooth it out. Voila! You are done. This is my finished iron on:

I made one for each girl and I plan to iron them onto tank tops I purchased from Old Navy. Each tank is a different color depending on their tastes. For example, my MOH Mai, loves purple, so she has a purple tank. I used different fonts with some of them, just playing around. In order, these are English 111 Vivace, Edwardian Script, and Passions Conflict.

Another one for my girl Wendy. She's a Diva, lol. The font is English 111 Vivace:

The top one here is for MOH Mai. I've been calling her Motts since we were 7 years old! The 2nd one is my new last name with our wedding date. I'm putting that one on a light pink tank top to wear on our honeymoon.

This one is for my boyshorts to wear the day of the wedding. The font is English 111 Vivace:

This is going on the back of my hoodie to wear the day of the wedding. The font is Edwardian Script:

That's it. Hopefully this is helpful if you're thinking of doing it yourself. I bought the rhinestones from eBay for about $5, the mylar paper for $5 and each tank for $5. Very cheap DIY project and I think the girls will love them. I actually had so much fun making them, I'm thinking about hiring myself out to make them for others. We'll see.

Bridesmaids dresses!

Finally, I get to see the bridesmaids dresses on two of the girls that I don't have pictures of on my blog. Ha! Gotcha now! This first one is Mike's sister, Jackie. Unfortunately, the shop ordered the wrong size top for her so it was too small. They are going to let it out and add fabric if possible, but they say they're going to make it happen. I love these dresses because everyone has the same bottom but each girl picked their own top. You can't see the back, but Jackie has a cute little bow on the back of hers and the bottom where the band is.
This hottie is Mikes' niece, Jackie's daughter, Ms. Boss aka Tiffiny. These are my girls! They're in the next room sleeping right now so they don't even know I'm posting pics of them, shhhhh! Tiffiny picked the top she liked best which looks fab on her. The colors are champagne with expresso trim.
Here Tiffiny is showing off her hot shoes. They picked their own shoes too; at first I told everyone to buy brown colored shoes but somehow Jackie missed the memo, lol. Jackies shoes are a beautiful champagne color. I forgot to get pics of them. But I don't care about their shoes; they're paying for them so if they like 'em, I love 'em!

Slowly but surely each girl is going in and getting their fittings. I can't wait. 40 something days left!

1st dress fitting!

It's official. The wedding is next month and I tried on everything for the first time yesterday. The jewelry, the shoes, oh the pink shoes, the veil from Occansey Designs, everything was perfect. I still have about 6 weeks to go so it's on at the gym! Because the dress has a corset back, I can still lose some more weight and not compromise the fit of the dress.

In other good news, Mike's cousin Jr. opened his eyes the other day. =) He now knows who's around him; before he was in a medically induced coma and on a respirator. He still needs the respirator because his heart isn't strong enough yet but we'll keep praying that he gets there.

I'm jumping back and forth here, but we also finally found a dress for my mom. Finally! She has an ivory 3 piece suit with gold embellishments on it. Very regal and classy. This weekend we're going to check out a dark brown suit for my father. Pops picked out a spiffy dark gray suit with white shirt and coral colored tie and hanky on Sunday at the men's store. The guys suits also came in and Mike tried his on with his ivory shirt. Looks rather good in it too if I must say so myself. The groomsman's shirts and brown.

Everything is coming together nicely. =)

New Years' thoughts.....

Happy New Year!

It's officially 2009 and our wedding is next month! Whoo hoo!

On another note, Mike's cousin Jr. is in the hospital and it doesn't look good. He's been sick for awhile, but this has been the worst. We are praying that he pulls through; God is capable of all things, even miracles, so we're hoping for the best.

It's unfortunate that it takes a tragedy to bring family together; yesterday we met at Mike's cousins' (the one who has been upset with us for not inviting his sister to our wedding, yeh, that one) house to reconcile some differences that we've had over us not inviting his sister to our wedding. I'm not going to go all into detail but it's now water under the bridge. We're cool. I'll leave it at that. Some people say life is too short for all the nonsense, but I say it's too uncertain, unexpected. I mean really; I've been living for 30 years so far, what else have I done that was longer than living? Nothing yet. So, I conclude life is not short (for some it is, children for example) but it is not guaranteed and you never know what will happen when.

So live life to the fullest and don't sweat the small stuff. Let it go in '09. Be the best YOU can be and don't worry about others. Check yourself and make sure you're living right. If you can sleep easy at night with the choices and decisions that you've made daily, that's what matters.

Live and let live.