Ta-dah!  .. And Happy New Year!  We are both excited and honored by this award!  To know that we have made so many couples happy on their Big Day is a feeling that can best be described as humbling.  We strive to create, enhance and solidify relationships at a time when confusion and chaos seem to run rampant in our world.  Nevertheless, milestones are still celebrated in a marked way and being able to play a part in many of them is both an honor and a pleasure.  Here's to many more! 

With the holidays in full swing (or maybe it's the 55 degree and wet weather in Central Texas that makes it feel that way!) and so many invites to get to, it seems that we're all just barely staying afloat.  Things like:  "I better take a different kind of cookie"  or "We're inviting how many people?"  or my husband's favorite:  "I can't wear that - everyone has seen me in it already!"  Those are the things overloading our mind right now.  Then of course, there's work and school and meetings.  But we get through it all somehow, don't we.  It's because we strive to do so...and that's okay.  As long as, that is, we take time to enjoy the journey and truly see the joy and happiness in our daily activities.  You don't want to rush to get to Christmas day and then experience what is commonly known as let-down.  This holiday season, let's strive to smoothly gliiiide in to Christmas Eve and wake up to take a deep breath at its beauty instead of exhaling because "whew, it's done".  Enjoy the journey for goodness sake!   
#itsaboutthejourney  #MerryChristmas

    You ever sit down and do like all the Facebook posts suggest and write down everything that you're grateful for?  Today, I'm grateful for clients who make my work with them ever so easy and fun.  Marc Anthony said that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.  How about that? In other words, if it looks like fun, it sounds like fun and it seems like fun, then it must be.......fun!
​     I recently attended a conference where I learned a great deal about how to structure my company and position it to help my clients achieve their goals-- whether it's a wedding, a huge family gathering or a corporation's milestone event. I was honored to receive the 2017 Businesswoman of the Year Award during this conference. That coupled with the amazing educational sessions I attended sparked in me the desire to pay it forward.  I'm real big into women in business.  (Nothing against you men!) It's just that I wholeheartedly believe that this is a great time for women in business to spread their wings, fly and flourish!  
     Paying it forward means that I'd like everyone to know what I know and how to succeed while knowing it.  It's so important these days to combine what we know with whom we know and achieve a greater understanding of how we can become better at what we do.  After that, it all just perpetuates itself and we all end up working toward the greater good.  That just one idea from a seemingly random occurrence in our everyday lives has the potential to turn in to a platform whereby we can perpetuate happiness for others is a miracle in and of itself.  Can you imagine that? What if we were to wake up each day and said, "Today I will be the miracle!"   Let's try it!  Every imaginable blessing would come our way and we'd be able to bless others with our actions.  Then we'd all be grateful....ever so grateful.
​#doingwhatilove #lovingwhatido #thankyou

So, we're celebrating our country's Independence Day which marks the dreams of the few that created this great country. What does that mean anyway?
I feel it means coming up from underneath something-- getting loose from something that has kept us tied up.  Being free to express ourselves either with the written word, with song or speech.  It means no longer needing someone or something no matter how abstract it is.   The idea of acting on your own volition is something that man (and woman) strives for.  Being able to make decisions based on your own information gathering is a priceless virtue and a well sought-after skill.  Independence also means of course, that you are free to independently deal with the consequences of your actions and decisions. 
Independence I suppose, also means that we are free to judge (or not) what we will (or won't).  In the movie called The Shack, the Holy Spirit played by Sumira contemplates the idea that somehow, we tend to play Judge of most of what comes our way.  We judge what we think is good and we judge what we think is evil. She goes on to say that when someone's evil collides with someone's good, wars ensue or at the very least disagreements happen. Disagreements can be everywhere -- even within ourselves in the form of second-guessing our actions, our hopes, our desires, and dreams. It can be scary if you're young and just starting out. Truth be told, it can be scary even if you are experienced and let's say, "seasoned".   That's why you hear say that it takes courage to be independent.
This Independence Day my husband and I are celebrating a milestone of our own.  Our daughter just got her first apartment without a co-signer!  Do you know what that means?   It means freedom for us and freedom for her, albeit bittersweet.  She can now operate independently of us.
How's that for Independence?
Milestone Memories & Events wishes everyone a Happy Independence Day whatever that means for you. Be safe…please. 

 Congratulations to Kaler and Chris!  Take a look at this still refreshing combination of colors. Green goes well with just about any other color and you can get all kinds of creative with the hue!

Planning/Coordination/Decor:  Milestone Memories & Events
Music/Lighting:  Wall of Sound Productions
Cake:  Gwyndene Hunt
Photography:  Scott Darling Photography
Venue:  Cathedral Oaks, Belton, TX
Caterer:  TCP Catering
Floral:  Christell's Flowers
Ceremony Music:  Gretchen Williams
Bartender:  Taylor'd For You
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In a few days the world will be celebrating Mother's Day.  Mothers everywhere will be honored with perhaps breakfast in bed, a bubble bath, a mani-pedi combo, chocolate covered fruit, flowers in full bloom, sparkling jewelry, greeting cards, joyful smiles, warm hugs -- love.
It's a special day that we stop and remember our mothers --whether here or in the beyond as well as everything that they taught us, left us with and charged us with doing, in order to leave our own legacy. Have you ever told yourself that you would never become your mother?  Now, let’s mix it up a little.  Have you ever heard yourself saying:  Wow, I’ve become my mother!       I know, me too.
Yes, the greetings are lovely. The phone calls are full of joy.  The mother's day cards, the gifts, the smiles, the hugs and love-- that tells us moms that we are remembered and we are loved.  But you know what? Those of us who are mothers know something else.  We remember that we are a mother every single time we worry about our child and we can actually celebrate the fact that we worry. (What?)  It’s almost like it’s our welcome God-given responsibility to fret over our children.  We celebrate that love every time we grow concerned.  It's in our nature I suppose, to fret -- to give of ourselves -- and so we do.
This Mother's Day as you receive your greeting cards and other “paraphernalia”, remember that they get to do that once a year.  But as mommies we get to celebrate motherhood every single moment.  What an extraordinary gift!  Happy Mother's Day to one and all.  May your daily worry be replaced by a nod and the thought of “everybody’s okay”.
#yougotthis #mommyhood

I absolutely love, love, love this year's color.  Just look at it! Greenery. Just say it.  Notice how it just rolls off of your lips? As Mr. Eiseman, notes here, green is a symbol of rejuvenation and revitalization.  Here is why I believe that this is very appropo for the season.  When I was doing my undergraduate work I somehow always thought of  August through December as the Fall Semester and then January through May would be the Spring semester.  Consequently, when January arrived, I automatically thought of Spring.  I guess you could say that I simply ignored Winter!  And I guess you could say that because I thought of January as being "Springish" , I would also think of all things anew again....like rejuvenation and revitalization.  See why green works so well now?  But let's explore what other colors would work well with greenery!
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Still reeling over this:

...and then this happens:

...and then this:

My cup indeed runneth over and I am so grateful first to God for the air that I breathe, the hands with which I create, the numerous clients I serve, a lovingly devoted and supportive husband, all my friends' support and my late Momma who taught me the value of the entrepreneural spirit. You can rest now Momma - we're good.