Mini Banana Muffins

This week has been super busy!! I managed to make time to bake a batch of mini banana muffins for my breakfast this week. I didn't include any chocolate chips to make it 'healthier' but these were still so dang good!

I used two recipes to make this. I searched Epicurious and found this well rated recipe first. 

Then I realized it would be so much easier to make mini muffins so I could bring a better portion size with me to work each day. So I went looking on good ol' Pinterest and found this mini muffin version to use the oven settings and time.

I may have left my muffins in the oven a tad too long (12 minutes in my conventional but newish oven) but I was able to make 36 mini muffins! That was enough for me to save 3 days worth of breakfast and give the rest away at work. Everyone LOVED them! (I don't think my coworkers would keep taking the things I bake if most of them didn't turn out well but maybe they are just super nice haha)

I am in the middle of a craft this week that is taking longer than I thought it would for me to fit it in to my schedule. I hope to have 2 crafts done by the end of this weekend.

So with that, happy Friday everyone!!!

Thank You!!!

What better way to end a month about parties than by talking about thank you cards?!?

I think a lot of people do thank you cards as an after thought following a party. Like, "oh yeah, I have to do that, right?" Whether you're hosting a birthday party, baby or wedding shower or it's your wedding day it is very easy to include thank you's in your plan.

A lot of store-made party decor themes will have coordinating thank you cards. If you didn't use a pre-made theme there are plenty of thank you card sets available out there. Or you can even buy simply designed, blank cards and stamps with different words so you can make your own cards for thank you's and other things.

Is writing that stack of thank you's daunting? A lot of times you already have to send out the invitations and have a list. Keep the list of names and addresses and if you get any early deliveries put what they gave you and send out that card right then and mark it as sent! Then when the day actually comes, print out that list and fill in the gifts you get as you open them. After that, type in the gifts and run down the list. Even just sending a handful a day for the week or so afterwards, that list will start to get smaller and smaller.

So, here are some thank you cards for inspiration!

(Wedding Thank You Photo Card)

(Artistic Color Thank You Card)

(Personalized Thank You Card)

(Silver Foil Floral Thank You Card)

(Kid's Thank You Photo Card)

Wedding Photography - How to Look Good in Photos

Now that you have an idea of what shots you want it is a good time to think about how to help make your photos amazing. I personally wouldn't have thought about how the type of makeup I wore would affect the outcome of my photos - I am SO glad someone told me! Here are some tips and tricks on how to make your photos great!

(Tips for Looking Great)

(How to Look Great)

 

(Exactly How to Look Amazing)

(How to Look Your Best)

(5 Tips)

(5 Makeup Tips)

Wedding Photography - Must Have Shots

There are TONS of experts in photography and I'm not going to pretend to be one today. I talked with my two photographers (both family friends) and together with their two different styles I got the shots that I asked for. I think the most important thing is to go look through some online albums and pull one or two 'must haves' from each one. Don't overwhelm your photographer though. And I think giving them a list would be helpful but obviously they probably won't be able to reference it the day of so give it to them well in advance. They are professionals so don't micro manage them!

Without further ado - here are some experts' lists!

(50 Must Have Shots)

(Wedding Photography Hot List)

(Must Take List)

(85 Photo Suggestions)

(5 Photos to Add to Your List)

Wedding Music

How do you select music for you wedding? It can be a huge task because maybe your everyday taste of music isn't something you want to play in front of your grandparents or maybe your soon to be spouse and you have different preferred genres of music or maybe you just don't know where to start. For me, I went to iTunes and started browsing songs that way. We were getting a DJ and I knew I wanted instrumentals for the ceremony and fun/upbeat more modern music for the reception but that still left me with a lot of choices. I frequented a few wedding websites to browse suggestions but a lot had a large proportion of old school or classic songs. I ended up being able to find a number of songs for the reception by going through my playlist and then looking up the artists I liked and googling their most popular love songs. Then for the ceremony I knew I wanted a version of Canon in D so I listed to other instrumentals and found some that went with that. I would give you my whole play list but I can't seem to find it!  In the meantime - here are some resources that could help you find your play list!

(RSVP Card Song Request)

What better way to get people on the dance floor than by playing 'their' song?! This is a simple but thoughtful way to include everyone in your day.

(Top 10 List)

This link lead me to 10 of their top 10 suggestions but there are more links to more top 10 lists! There are some classics but a lot of modern ones too.

(30 Modern, Upbeat Songs)

This list is about recessionals but I think you could use some of these throughout your reception.

 

(100 First Dance Songs)

Again, this list is for a particular part of the reception but I think a bunch of them would be great for the general playlist as well.

(DIY DJ Guide)

If you are going to completely DIY this part of your wedding I would definitely go read through some people's first hand accounts of it. They can suggest which playlist software to use, how to separate and name the playlists, give timing tips, etc. This can save a ton of money.