Gettin Ready for a HootNanny!

First off, I must say that the term HootNanny makes me laugh hysterically inside. I wrote the title of this blog and then got scared that it might have an underlying meaning that I didn't know about so I give you a disclaimer: I think that the term HootNanny means a big par-tay! Thus I am going to a HootNanny this weekend in Athens-town, G-A! Bacherlorette-ing with the girlfriends and it is gonna be fun.

In mental preparation for the trip tomorrow I was looking thru pictures from my bachelorette party ... we went to Destin and I had a ball. Probably because I have the coolest friends this side of the Mississippi :) The pics are quite humorous (and some quite inappropriate) and let me remind you that behavior like that is only acceptable once in a lifetime! On your Bachelorette Party, of course.

I am sure to come back with a story to tell. These pics can hold you over in the mean time!

I have no idea what could have possibly been so funny!

"Stage diving" in the limo ... by everyone's reaction it does not look like they were amused :)

The final product. A Bachelorette Bash with good times had by all: Mission Accomplished!

Have yourselves a fun weekend as well!!!

xoxo~

Can I get a Yee-Haw!!!

Can I get a Hellz Yeah!!!

Today is MONUMENTAL in the life of A Belle and her Beau. As of 8:39 a.m. we are officially 100% out of credit card debt!!!! Hallelujah ... I want to shout from the roof-tops! In all honesty it only took us a couple of months to pay off our credit cards once we really became serious about doing so. But it wasn't easy and it wasn't always fun. Saving money and/or paying off debt is much like dieting, at first it completely blows and you are miserable but after a couple of weeks you begin to get used to it and it becomes second-nature, so to speak. For the first month it definitely sucked to write down every single solitary penny I spent (even if it was just 97 cents on a coke) when I was so used to just running a debit card and trashing the receipt. But when the Beau and I totally grasped the concept of Every Penny, On Paper, On Purpose our spending habits have completely changed.

We are not in the clear yet though. We still have student loans and the Beau's car is not paid off. Before I began Financial Peace University I had the mind-set that student loan debt was "not bad debt" and that everyone had a car payment. Well, if I would have just used a little bit of common sense I would have realized that all debt (minus your home) is bad debt and if you owe $20k on a car, in fact you are in $20k in debt. With lots of prayer to be strong and faithful in paying down our debt we hope to have my student loan paid off by the end of this year and the Beau's loan and car paid in the following 2 years. Again, that will come with lots and lots of prayer.

Proverbs 22:7 says,

"The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."

The bible gives us over 800 scriptures on how God intends us to handle our money ... you can find them here.

xoxo~

Blogger Blahs and Catching Up

I have the Blogger Blahs in a bad, bad way. I have been averaging about a post a week but that is all I have been able to muster up. **Point is case .... I have just sat here staring at my computer screen for five minutes thinking of what I should write next** Basically, I got nothin. I should possibly go back to my original intention of making this my online scrapbook. We will see ...

I do have just a couple of pics from Monograms and Mimosas on Saturday morning. I have been waiting on some more pictures {helloo LEF} but I will show you the ones I have, or the ones I stole rather.

First of all, if you are a bride you totally need to request a Monograms and Mimosas shower. The bride got the CUTEST stuff! Let's be honest, you could monogram a piece of poop and it would be cute. It was really fun to plan as well. However, it was at my house and I took on the "catering" ... I now know why caterers charge an arm and a leg - it is serious hard work! Especially when you are working in a kitchen as small as mine.

The bride in her adorable new monogrammed apron!

The "party favors"

Me with the bride and I am pa-pa-pa-pasty white. Come on spring! {APK, I promise I will not be this white in your wedding dear}

Hope you all have a terrific Thursday!

xoxo~

Showers and Sleep Overs!

At 5 o'clock EST my 3-day weekend begins. I took tomorrow off to prepare for Monograms and Mimosas. Ya'll I am beginning to panic ... I have enough food to feed an army, the hostess gift has been purchased and wrapped, the decorations are cute, I have gift favors, the mimosas will be flowing HOWEVER none of this is going to matter if everyone can't fit in my house!!! Last night 11 girls were over for book club and that is when worry set in. If 20 people show up on Saturday we will be tight (real tight) but if more than that come I am basically screwed. My calculations are showing that we will have between 16 and 18 but if peeps are feeling real shower-y on Saturday morning I might be out of luck.

Oh well, I can't worry about that now. This is what we will "brunch" on:

Breakfast Casserole

Sausage Pinwheels

Pigs in a Blanket

Party Ham Rolls

Strawberries and Fruit Dip

Cheese Ring

Cinnamon Rolls

Orange Blossoms

Cheese Straws

To drink we will have Passion Fruit Mimosas, Strawberry Mimosas, Traditional Mimosas, and coffee.

I probably went a little overboard on the menu but I would much rather have too much than not enough. Pictures to come on Monday.

Tomorrow night 2 of my besties from out of town are coming in early to slumber-party-it-up with me! Very exciting ... aren't they cute??!!

In book club news, we chose to read Jen Lancaster's Bitter is the New Black for this upcoming month ... changing it up quite a bit from Redeeming Love :)

I knew I would love this book when I read "...or why you should never carry a Prada bag to the unemployment office!" Who has read it? Thoughts?

A few of you have asked over time about my book club ... it is not a bloggy bookclub, its the real deal, but I would love for anyone to read along and I will be more than happy to chit chat with you about the book!!!

xoxo~

V-Day Weekend

I have enjoyed reading about everyone's Valentine weekend. It sounds as if many of you were spoiled by Cupid! The Beau and I started out the Valentine weekend by doing something very, very romantic ... I am not sure if it is even appropriate to share on the blog. However I don't like to hold much back so here goes. I had been out of town for an entire week so ..... we did ..... (keep in mind we only do this kind of thing once a year) .... our taxes. I know, right? You wish you were me.

Saturday afternoon we drove up to Atlanta, shopped for a couple of hours and then went and met up with one of our favorite couples at their house. The boys lounged around and the girls prepared a fancy feast (not really all that fancy but it was fun). On the menu was Cajun crab dip from Fresh Market (my fave), the Beau's favorite kiwi-mandarin salad, shrimp pasta, strawberry cupcakes and petit fours.

After dinner we went to Cafe Intermezzo, which I highly recommend, for more dessert and coffee cocktails!

Sweet, simple Valentine's Day with my sweet husband and sweet friends!!! I wouldn't have had it any other way.

xoxo~

Yummie Tummie!

Please tell me that you all know about Yummie Tummie tanks and I have just been living in a hole! I am in Birmingham this week for work and I had a little bit of free time yesterday so I ran in to a little boutique ... and this is where I struck gold. On a little table with the Spanx were these amazing tank tops/ camisoles called Yummie Tummie!

As I have illustrated in the first picture the cami is basically broken up in to 3 pieces. The top is just your basic camisole or tank. The middle is where the magic happens!! It is tight stretchy material that is supposed to suck you in real good and eliminate muffin tops! Whoo Hoo! Then there is an extra piece of material at the bottom for extra length ... always good if you are tall like me.

Bad news is that these come with a hefty price tag. Boo! The tank in the first picture retails for $62 and the cami in the second picture retails for $72. Yikes. But what a great concept!!! I didn't try one on but when I came home and went to the website I found out that it was one of Oprah's Top Picks for Summer and Heidi Klum also endorses them. And we all know we can always trust Heidi and Oprah ... except when it comes to politics :)

Beau- I didn't buy one so don't freak out in case you are reading! Dave and FPU is really crampin' my style! But we are "living like nobody else so later we can live like nobody else" ... then I will be living like nobody else with no muffin tops!

If you have one of these let me know how it works for ya!

xoxo~

Party Pics

Here are some pics from Cupcakes and Cocktails ... finally.

my cupcake hand towel ... courtesy of Tar-jay.

pink, black and white m&m's ... you have no idea how many bags of Valentine m&m's I had to pick through to get only the white and hot pink ones. I bought the black ones from the m&m station at Swoozie's.

I got this Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcake recipe from Buford Betty's blog and they were sinfully delicious! I completely copied her by putting the diamond rings in the cupcake for decoration. Thanks BB for your help - yours were much cuter than mine though :)

I molded a cheese ring that I made in to the shape of a heart ... served with strawberry preserves. Yummmm!

The beautiful bride-to-be with her special pink/black wine glass. Sportin' her pink and black attire in true fashion!

All the pretty bridesmaids ... excluding me - I was having a crazy bad "face-day". Ha! Ironic that the heart said UR HOT. Should have said UR NOT!

xoxo~

Cupcakes & Cocktails

Is it only Tuesday?!? There is a lot of week left but that is actually a good thing because I have lots going on! I am in full party-planning mode. I know that I showed you the invitation for Monograms and Mimosas but I haven't told you all about Cupcakes and Cocktails yet ... and it is actually occurring this Friday!

*Invitations ordered from Wedding Paper Divas ... such a fun company!

So for months I knew I wanted to have a Cupcakes and Cocktails par-tay for my girlfriends around Valentine's Day and I began planning this party in my head. Well my friend Page got engaged so I decided to definitely have the party and give it in honor of her. It is going to a small little gathering of her bridesmaids and in my mind it is going to be super cute ... lets just pray that I execute! Haha!

I am a little bit nervous because this is the first real party that I have hosted at our house AND I am giving it all alone. So basically if it sucks it will be all on me. Kidding, kidding. I really think that it is going to turn out fab! I am serving appetizers, wine, a "pink drink", and 3 different types of cupcakes - I am making 1 myself but the other 2 are being "professionally" done! Everything is going to be pink and black ... I have lots of little details that I will share but they will have to be revealed on Monday because I don't want to spoil everything for the bride and any other guests that are readers! In keeping with the pink and black theme I think I am going to sport this number ...

the pink dress and maybe I will add some black jewelry. I had this on in a picture I posted previously and a couple of you asked where it was from (I am very bad at answering questions sometimes). You can find it here ... all the way at the bottom on the left!

So if this party is a success Cupcakes and Cocktails might become a tradition ... next year you all can be invited!!!

Wish me luck! I probably won't be around anymore this week because I have some work travel and such but I will give you all the details from the shin-dig on Monday.

xoxo~

ps- I have to make it known that I have the world's greatest husband ... we ordered a leather chair and ottoman for Christmas and long story short it was delivered to his parents house who live 4+ hours away. Guess who took off work and is making the 8 hour journey for the chair? Yep. Bless his heart but I had to have that chair by Friday. You understand.