Explaining How An Introverted Extrovert Works...

I'm having a total me-fest this week. I know that I'm not going to be blogging once we move and the fact that I am in a major state of limbo since we're not quit packing as we don't exactly know what home we're moving to... well, I have some time on my hands that I haven't had in quite some time. And the time has of course has given me a chance to think about life and myself a lot more than I usually do. I normally am totally fried mid-week as I've worked 3 days in a row as a waitress (an extrovert's job!) and all I want to do is catch up on cleaning the house and laundry. This week has been different. I'm not behind on anything. It's weird to have spare time. I mean, really. Weird. I almost don't know what to do with it.

I'm on my second baby blanket and it feels so nice to not have to cram handmade gifts in to my schedule to the point where they actually make me resentful my friends ever decided to get pregnant. I am actually enjoying the process of quilting again.

And my kids are cracking me up too. I took Birdie, my little potty-trainer to swim today and she announced mid-lesson she had to go to the bathroom, so I took her... and then upon returning to the pool she announced loudly, "I peed in the POTT-IE everyone!" When the entire pool didn't applaud and throw candy at her she looked at me like, "What's up with this crowd, Mom?" I mean, my kids are funny as heck... and honestly, sometimes I am just too tired to notice their hilarity. But not this week!

Recently I got to talking with the ol' husband about hanging out with this person and that person before we leave... and as I was making excuses for mainly only wanting to hang out with myself... I came up with the term: The Introverted Extrovert. I tried explaining it to him and he wasn't impressed. Well too bad! It's an awesome term! Has someone else already coined it? Say it isn't so. I haven't even googled it yet but I'm pretty sure I am a genius with the discovery that such a person exists... Because I AM THAT PERSON. And so here, I will go in to detail on what exactly an Introverted Extrovert is... because, I know... you care.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm an extrovert. It takes all of 5 seconds to figure this out. Okay 2 seconds. I am kind of loud, excited and blunt... all rolled in to one. I love telling stories, like- a lot. If Shawn tries to cut me off or change a detail I pretty much flip out- I hate story hi-jackers. I love parties (duh)... I love to dance and have no problem getting a dance floor started. I love people...unless I hate them, and then well I hate them... But I mostly love people. I will totally talk to the person in the grocery store line... I am that girl. Anyway, trust me- all signs point to EXTROVERT.

Except... except for that one little thing about preferring to hang out at home... by myself. You see, while I may love people and being social- and my amazing story-telling ways... I also LOVE my me-time. I am in love with it. I would marry it if I didn't think it would be unfaithful. I love to sew, I love to craft, I love to plug in the hot glue gun and see where it takes me... I love reading magazines and the occasional book... and I love blogging! All of these things are SOLO work people! Please don't ask if you can come over and "hang" while I blog... Noooo, that's weird! Confession: if I had the choice between going out for a GNO or crafting alone (the thought of a crafting party sounds like hell on earth by the way) I would most likely prefer staying home and make something... for someone else... as a gift...

And then giving it to them at a party- because I love parties! But I hate games. No charades, no Cranium, no other normal extrovert-y type games.

I mean... this can't be normal right?! According to the life of an extrovert: I am refueled by people! And I am, kind of... like when I want to be? So here I am once again... an anomaly to all... including myself, my introverted extrovert self...

I guess I'll go hole up in my Craft Cave... no wonder I gave it that name... Introverts love caves, don't they?

xo Party or Die xo

kenna

 

The Burnt-Out Pastor's Wife.

Last week was a kind of a crazy week for me. In summary I left my waitress job at the restaurant and we also announced that my husband got a new job and that we're moving, news we've been waiting to share. With some of my new-found free time I've had a chance to think... which always leads to a blog. Usually a vulnerable one.

I'm not proud of the blog's title. I already know the words "burnt-out" and "pastor" should never be in the same sentence.

I learned a lot of things quickly upon talking on the roll of "pastor's wife". I am not saying my church forced these learnings upon me... I am saying that somewhere along the way to becoming the wife of a pastor I learned that there were expectations.

+ One of them is to always be happy.
+ Lots of smiling and nodding will help you win over the masses.
+ If you don't cook- try taking cooking lessons, so that you can cook great meals for those in the church who need them. Real Woman Cook.
+ Try and lead a bible study at least once a year and preferably invite other pastor wives to join you- showing a united front.
+ You MUST volunteer in Children's Ministry, because you're a woman and every woman has the gift of volunteering with children.
+ Also, try to never stir-the-pot. Instead, be positive, always, even if you don't agree... just pretend you do. If you cannot always be positive then try to at least be positive 99.9% of the time.

These are just a few of the ways in which I failed the church upon taking on my prized title of Youth Pastor's Wife (YPW). I failed all together 6 months in to being a YPW (okay maybe one month). But by 6 months it was obvious. I publicly said our worship needed updating... in a forum about whether or not our worship needed updating. It did. I stand behind that statement, still- 5 years later. I was taken aside and quickly told that pastor's wives have a lot to think about before speaking publicly, like our husband's reputations and essentially that I should probably go back to smiling and nodding. Which is crazy because I have never been a smiler or a nodder.

I knew early on it wasn't going to be an easy role for me to fill but like the President this job is based on approval ratings and so I forged ahead trying to remain positive- the golden rule- in order to have high ratings for my husband and our soon-to-be family.

I reminded myself that I had the whole innocent-baby-growing-inside-my-belly thing going for me and that soon enough that baby would be my connector to all those I'd offended. My baby wouldn't have offensive opinions or a worship style. He would just want to cuddle and rock out to universal well-loved lullabies...preferably ones about God. And who can resist a Pastor Baby cuddle... I mean you're practically cuddling with an angel! I convinced myself my baby would help me better fill my role as YPW. Moms always fit in better in church, known fact. Ask any mom-aged church goer who's not a mom.

And the whole mom thing did work. For a time it did. My red-headed cherub Pastor Baby won over the hearts of many and made my lack of knowledge on the best way to marinate a chicken almost invisible. (Almost.)

Here we are 5 years later and we're leaving this first real-job for my husband. When we made this decision part of me wanted for Shawn to have a complete change of heart and make a career change, not just a church-change. In my heart I know that his calling is to lead youth in to a relationship with Christ, but in my mind I was/am sick of being a pastor's wife. I just want to be a normal God-fearing woman who's married to an insurance agent or a teacher and can go to church and be on committees and have an opinion without affecting reputations and being fearful I'm not fitting the mold. Or that my kid (my grown-up Pastor Baby) is now saying, "poop head" and should know better. PK's should never ever say the word poop.

This 5 years has been full of exciting moments, life-changing moments, happy tears, sad tears, anger and bitterness... It's been full of feeling excited and feeling depleted. I have lost sight of Jesus in the process many times because I have let my annoyance at humans (Christians) become more important than Jesus himself. I have gone from leading a ministry to completely stepping away from everything except Sunday service as a way to guard myself from my hardened heart... that ever growing hardened heart. The heart that remembers every complaint, every criticism... every disapproving note mailed to our personal mailbox. Where I collect bills and wedding invitations and do not want to read about how much you hated my husband's church directory picture. Guess what, I choose it.

While we're leaving our church, I know our church is still a sweet place of worship where many people seek God's will. I have some of the best friends I've ever made in my life from our church. Families who have treated me like family and my kids like their own grandkids. And I am grateful to our church for every lesson learned whether through happy tears or sad tears. I know that every church has issues... because every church is made up of people, imperfect people. And I know that sometimes church gets ugly... just like sometimes family gets ugly, because the church is a family.

We're headed to a new church, 1 hour south, where my husband will take on another Youth Pastor position. We will be moved down to Santa Barbara in less than a month, leaving behind everything our kids have known- from preschool to friendships to Sunday school. While there's excitement and hope, there's also the very real fact that things will not always be perfect there. I will probably still say something that will offend someone and I might still come to resent my role as the imperfect YPW. I know at some point Shawn will tell me something I do not want to hear and I will again wish that he'd become an insurance agent. (Preferably for Progressive, I just love Flo.)

Until that point I will pack the house and stay positive... because I am still a YPW and that is still the golden rule, now isn't it?

This Youth Pastor's Wife,

Kenna

Party Planning: Profit vs. Sanity... What's More Important?

Well let's get the obvious out of the way... You've missed me.

I've missed my blog and my readers and the comments that make my day and that's the real truth. It's been a crazy month for me to try and run a blog. First off, my laptop got a bunch of virus'. Wow those are a annoying! After taking it in to be fixed 4 times and paying enough money that I could have gotten a nice tablet it's finally back to normal. If my laptop wasn't less than a year old I've have said screw it... So here's to really hoping we're virus free!

If there were ever a time to not have a computer- I'd say Halloween would be a great month for that. In case you didn't know it previously... I'm kind of a Halloweener. I love the holiday and like every year- I spent a lot of time getting every detail of our Famous Duos costumes just right.

Aside from literally not having a computer to blog with- our family has also set some really big changes in to place this last month and it's not only taken up time- but it's hard to blog about life when you're unsure of how it will all play out and you don't want to be vague... like I am being right now... I mean vagueness makes for terrible blogging- can't you tell? {Oh- and no, I'm not pregnant. Are you nuts?} I will hopefully be making an exciting non-vague announcement very soon... but it wouldn't be very nice of me to do it on the blog when a lot of close friends and family don't know yet- now would it? Intriguing... and a reason to come back....

Which brings me to the title of this blog... (not really) Profit vs. Sanity. What's More Important?

As I mentioned in my last personal post on running a business, I have kind of figured out the formula to making a profit- thanks to the book But Are You Making Any Money? by Marley Majcher. I would still say I have a lot of work to do in this department but making a decent amount of money on my parties was the goal I set out to accomplish in 2013 and in September I can finally say I did just that on two parties in a row.

Now, no sooner than I accomplished said goal I started to really think a lot about this big and important word: profit. Questions started arising like, what really makes the profit worth it? Is it the actual money? Because I made great money at one point in my life and it didn't matter because it didn't feed my soul. So no, it can't be for the money. I feel like I have a dual personality because in one post I wrote recently all I wanted to do was plan parties... as long as I was profiting! And now after a good run with parties... quite honestly- I just need a break. But back to that question- what makes the profit really worth it? Initially I'd have said being hired to do a party brings me creative fulfillment, setting out to do something I love and succeeding not only my exceptions but my clients as well. For sure- that is a wonderful feeling. But my question the last month has been... AT WHAT EXPENSE DOES THIS PROFIT COME? And I'm not talking expense meaning money. Remember the title of the post... I'm talking sanity. Straight up: what is loosing my mind worth and CAN I place a price tag on that?

No one other than a party planner is really truly going to understand what I'm about to say. Ok, I'll throw a bone to the graphic designer and the bakers out there as well. These occupations might understand me when I say this: Right now I am un-hirable. Uh-huh, you read that right- money currently cannot buy me (slight exaggeration). OK, the price that I currently charge for my work cannot buy me. That's right- I do not want to plan your party this November, December or January. {Side note- I do have one party this month but it was booked ages ago and I've had a lot of time to put in to it as to avoid tons of last minute stress.}

The reason I know I am un-hirable is because I've tested my theory. In the last two weeks I have had two potential clients contact me about parties. And seriously, up until now this has been my dream- to have people trying to employ me. Both were willing to pay my going rate- no nickel and diming me... another dream come true. I will go so far as to say if I wanted to tack a rush fee for booking within the same month- I am sure either client would have been fine with that- I mean who doesn't understand a good rush fee?

So what is my problem??

In really thinking about these parties and whether or not I should take them on, the thought of a few things flooded in to my brain (I've gone more in-depth on these a long time ago here!) Things the client would never think about (things they quite honestly shouldn't have to)- but these things are the reasons WHY I said no.

- The House of Chaos.
I am not one of those lucky planners with a detached office in my backyard. I have one of the most unorganized and small party rooms known to party-planning woman. Over flow in to the house is inevitable. Tension within the house due to overflow from the party room is inevitable. It stresses me out, it stresses the kids out and yes- of course when the husband is digging for clean underwear- that stresses him out.

On top of the cleanliness issue is the food issue. I mean, milk- these people want me to remember to buy milk?? WTH.

- 30 Days of Bad Hair Days.
Another month of me looking less than presentable- it wares on a woman's self esteem to see herself makeup free with frizzed out hair because that hour spent getting ready every morning is now replaced with pinning fun backdrop ideas and making follow-up caterer calls. Up until the party that is- when you magically transform in to a swan-like party planner in a theme-appropriate dress you found while surfing the internet for wooden spoons.

- Do I Have Any Friends?
I mean I know they were there pre-party... but where have they gone post party? They're referring to me as Miss Party Mom... this can't be good.

- The Party Brain.
You know how when you're pregnant you have those weird forgetful "mommy brain" moments for 9 months? Well I have "party brain" for the course of planning a party. I can only concentrate on the party and keeping my children alive. Everything else I leave to the gods.

So here it is- until we're settled in on our big life change and I'm ready to be back to my normal workaholic ways- please, do not call me for a party UNLESS you can offer up the following Life Package on top of my Party Package price.

- A full-time maid who also is an amazing cook (preferably Mexican food).

I really like her happiness level, especially considering she'll be scrubbing my floors.

- A full-time nanny who will sit and work on lettering with my son while I watch, smile and clap from my kitchen counter, hot gluing rosettes to paper straws... And don't forget about my daughter- you will need to run in and out to push her on the swings in between the letters C and D.

- A book keeper who can keep me on track with my expenses so I can do what I really love- design your party and not hover over a calculator confused by simple math for hours on end.

- A holiday coordinator who will start my Christmas shopping and keep me on track for the impending holidays.

Christmas List from The Frog Prince Paperie

I say all of this with a bit of facetiousness (who, me?) because what I'm getting at is currently I can not find a price tag to replace all of the things that my day to day life is requiring of me right now. I still love planning parties and it is still my dream job but every day I'm getting to know my limits and I'm reminding myself that my 2 and 4 year old will soon be 5 and 7 year olds who are in school- and then- THEN I will have time to do party after party after party...

So I've set aside weekly blogging. I'm breaking from parties. I might as well home school. HA. ha. ha.

And because I don't ever want to discourage anyone in my industry from booking parties... I have one idea that maybe other party planners are already doing- I'm not sure so I'm throwing it out there: A HOLIDAY FEE. Like the rush fee, the only way I could see doing a party from now until January is by placing a nice sized fee for taking a party during this crazy season. Trust me when I say after last year's December 15th party- a holiday fee is VERY appropriate. I let a mid-December birthday party completely steal my Christmas joy... Lesson learned: Never. Again. Think about it- what is your holiday season worth?

xo Party or Die xo

kenna

WISHCLOUDS Launch Party, October 2013

Event Stylist: Miss Party Mom Event Planning

MPM Intern: Kristin Lethbridge

Photography by Felix @ LA Look Book

Background: WISHCLOUDS is a shopping/social media website with an app that alerts you as to when things go on sale... hence the tag line: "Know Without Fail, When Things Go On Sale". Another aspect of the site is that when you "wish" for something others following you can see just what you're wanting... let's say... for Christmas! It's pretty brilliant. If only I could convince Shawn to follow me. This party was to "present" the site to fashion, home and beauty bloggers so that they could give it press to their readers- WISHCLOUDS market: people interested in fashion, beauty and home decor.

I've already written about how I landed this amazing gig... if you somehow missed that story you can find it here... or here... It's a fun one.

Behind the scenes I worked like crazy with Sara of Green Elephant Prints who's located in my town. It was nice to be able to physically meet with her and sketch out some ideas as to what I had in mind. She was amazing with her turn-around time and quality of work and I highly recommend her if you're looking for a printables designer.

For 2 weeks before the event I spent countless hours (except I DID count them this time) emailing all of my vendors making sure I had everything I needed to provide candy/desserts for 50 top LA bloggers and a few of the WISHCLOUDS Tastemakers (celebs) that would be there. We had cookies coming from San Diego- me coming from the Central Coast and organic marshmallows coming from Canada... I'd say we spanned a pretty good amount of land for an LA based party!

I had all of my signage printed in my town at Local Copies... and true to there always being at least one pre-party malfunction I went in to pick them up and they were all 3 feet long verses 5 feet long. At first I was annoyed and then I realized I'd be able to keep all of the wrongly sized signs and hey- having 2 sets of signs never hurts!

I made the 3+ hour trip down to LA on Monday. On Tuesday I met Ashley, head of social media for WISHCLOUDS at the office where the party would be and I got myself a little tour so I could better visualize my set up.

Let me tell you it was good to be back in LA- traffic and all I was loving being back in the grind of a big city. You can seriously take the girl out of the city but you can NOT take the city out of this girl! I love all the chaos a big city brings... and knowing I was there setting up something I'd worked on for 2 weeks straight, it was exciting. Having grown up not far- distance wise- from Beverly Hills (but VERY far economically speaking!) I spent a lot of my weekends in High School begging my mom to drive me down to Melrose and Wilshire so I could go shopping. I hadn't been down in that area for a while though and was so happy to figure out exactly where the building was and unload my first load of party stuff.

Wednesday I was up and at um' at 7am with the glue gun plugged in and the glitter flying in order to finish up some last minute things. I ran some party errands and left the South Bay at 1pm for Wilshire Blvd. I got there, unloaded on a huge dolly and then shimmied my way in to setting up my dessert table way earlier than I was supposed to... I was told I could start at 4pm (party started at 6pm) and I knew that wasn't going to fly with everything else that needed to be done- I was sweating just thinking about setting everything up in 2 hours.

Set up was pretty intense. Everyone in the office had there own thing to be working on and we were all working like crazy until 10 minutes before guests arrived... slightly stressful! I am so used to having my sweet interns to boss around and at this party- I didn't have that luxury! If anything- I was the intern! It was fun watching Jamie take a boring board room and turn it in to a gifting suite full of amazing swag I was drooling over... it really made the whole fashion blogger thing ultra appealing since that's who would be hitting the suite up. Hummm...

During the party I was able to network like crazy (I haven't collected that many business cards since my Mattel function days!) and eat some amazing sushi and drink unlimited amounts of Diet Coke... definitely a major job perk. My main job however was to help people fill up custom WISHCLOUDS candy bags. I also had little glitter take-out style boxes if they wanted a quick way to get a sampling of every candy on the table. All of the sweets were a hit and I received so many compliments on the table that I was on [WISH]CLOUD 9 the whole night, what- like I wasn't going to do that?

I seriously owe it all to these peeps who cranked me out some amazing items on a 2 week turn around... my VENDORS!

xo Party or Die xo

kenna

Graphics: Green Elephant Prints

Logo Cookies, Cloud Cookie Pops, Cake Pops and Cake Balls: Roni's Sugar Creations

Cloud Marshmallows and Marshmallow Pops: Kimberley's Kitchen

"Sweets" Pin Wheel Sign, Jumbo Coffee Filters, Coffee Filter Garland: Peckled

WISHCLOUDS Custom Photo Props: Tweedle Dee Designs

Cake Pop Bling Sticks and Bling Candy Scoops: Made by a Princess

Blue Sixlets, Vanilla Taffy and Rock Candy: Candy Galaxy

Hot Air Balloon Lantern, Cloud Photo Backdrop: Oriental Trading Company

Turq Glitter Take-Out Boxes: Michael's Crafts

The CEO's of WISHCLOUDS 

Fashion blogger Beth Jones on the left

The winner of one of the 7 iPad Mini's up for grabs... I thought about jumping her for it.

John Salley of the NBA and Teala Dunn of Nickelodeon's Dog With A Blog

Somewhere Along The Way She Lost Herself to Motherhood...

I know, you thought I'd abandoned you. For a brief moment I thought I might have abandoned you too. I needed to get rid of one of the balls I was juggling: being a mom, p/t waitress, party planner and blogger. The blog is the easiest one of those for me to break from, as it gives me no *real* profit, just some therapy and a much needed outlet for when I'm feeling like only 3 people I know understand me... (one of them being my sister- and like, does family even count?) I figure if 300 people read this... I'm bound to to have someone else feel it... just based on the odds... and if you don't "feel" it, that's OK. We're all different and I'm just sharing my version of different.

I had a part in planning a huge event this week... a lot of you know this and have been following along with me through Instagram as I planned it. The entire story on how I landed this gig is in my last blog entry but in a nut shell I was reconnected via Instagram with my high school pen pal Jamie- a New Yorker now living in LA as a beauty blogger. She was hired on for this event to gather fashion bloggers and celebrities for the launch party of a new social media shopping website called WISHCLOUDS. Her and Ashley, (head of social media for WISHCLOUDS) contacted me 3 weeks ago about supplying some decor for their event. At first I figured I'd send a party-in-a-box and a photo of exactly how to set it up, as it was 3+ hours away. And then I got to telling Shawn about it and he told me I'd be crazy to miss it... and so I asked if they'd mind if I actually came down to LA to set up myself. They were happy to have me and so I made some plans for a visit to LA (I'm writing from my husband's old bed room right now). I didn't secure funding until 2 weeks before the event- so my entire candy/dessert bar, photo booth and all of the signage were done on the quickest timeline I've done yet. Creatively speaking, I work well under pressure.

To put it lightly... it's been stressful. The last 2 weeks have been FULL of emailing, online shopping, late nights and deadlines. And remember, I'm time tracking and profiting now- so it's been full of making business type decisions to keep myself a business- not a hobby- too. On top of this event I had another [mermaid] party already booked 3 days before the WISHCLOUDS event... So stressful doesn't really even begin to explain it. And in all of the chaos that fast deadlines bring, these 2 weeks have been awesome and inspiring and I've felt more accomplished than I have in a really long time. The day of the WISHCLOUDS event (October 2nd) I worked 16 hours and the crazy part- the insightful part for me- is that not one of those hours did I feel bitter or angry or tired that I was working so hard. I felt fueled and for the first time in a long time- successful.

One thing I'm learning is that the thing about success is that it's very subjective. Some people feel successful as a parent... or a wife... as a great friend.... And while I do love being a mom and a wife and a great friend- none of them have made me feel errr... successful, per say. I'm hard on myself, a perfectionist- which isn't as cool as it sounds... trust me. So if something isn't perfect I have a hard time feeling great about it...can you see how this could be hard on a mom? Most days if I'm honest, I feel less than successful when it comes to raising my kids... like I'm doing it all wrong and that neither child is retaining a shred of what I'm trying to teach/instill in them. That screeching tantrum wasn't exactly grounds for feeling like my clients (my kids) are happy with my work.

I used to wish I could base my success on things like potty training, or a great home-cooked meal... but simply put: I cannot. Because that is not who I am. I keep reminding myself over and over again- that is not who you are Kenna and that is ok. There is no mom-mold you need to fit in to. I can still be a good mom even without star charts and weekly meal plans. My kids will grow up with a different set of life skills than most of the kids I know. And again... after almost 5 years, I'm learning to be ok with that. 5 years of trying to be the SAHM, the WAHM, the perfect house- sparkly clean kids mom.... THE I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING MOM. The I-love-my-kids-but-I-also-want-to-work-mom.

The bottom line is, somewhere along the way deep in to motherhood, I forgot who I was. It's like a light bulb went off for me while planning this event and this light bulb shined a bright light on my love of so many things I'd retired for the sake of raising my babies. And why? Why can't I be a mom with passions and goals for my version of success?

My love of fashion. Have I mentioned I majored in it? And owned a funky little clothing store? I became a mom and swapped my wedges for flip flops and my vintage dresses for Target. And not that there's anything wrong with that- it happens, motherhood will change you. But I miss fashion. I miss caring about what I look like and waking up to put on a full face of makeup and stylish clothing and looking in the mirror and saying, "Wow you look cool today". I don't ever say that anymore, I'm lucky if I say, "You look presentable to the outside world!" 

My love of music. I traded the Kings of Leon for The Psalty Praise Album. Over. And over. Again. KOL just came out with a new album- my little sister told me. The same little sister (ok, she's 26) I introduced to them back when they were nobodies. Because I loved music and always found the nobodies. I have a poster from their 2004 tour on my living room wall and yet I didn't even know they just came out with a new album? But I have the newest Little People soundtrack... Oh yes, I do have that.

And I forgot that I love to work. Like really, really work. Which is weird because I have been working in some capacity since 7th grade when I first came up with the idea to sell hair wraps and plastic pacifier necklaces. I have always thrived on making and selling things.

In a sense becoming a mom meant responsibility and not taking business risks and just bringing in X amount of dollars so I can help with preschool for my son and other necessities. And even as I type this I'm thinking, "Yes, absolutely- security is good- that's why you waitress." But at what expense? Because I'm really asking myself this week, "Who are you, Kenna- where did you go?"

While shopping for an outfit to wear to the WISHCLOUDS event I felt so disconnected to fashion that I kept asking my best friend, "Are studs still in?" "Are back cut-outs still in?" I used to be the girl telling people what to wear... and I actually felt anxiety looking for an outfit. Me, anxious over clothing? And I know the exact verse my Christian friends are quoting in their heads... and like I said, not everyone is going to get it... and that's ok because I get it: I miss ME.

Yes, it had a back cut-out... It's still in.

This week working for WISHCLOUDS I got to do something I was created to do: CREATE. I was paid to take my vision and bring it to life. It was challenging in the very best way possible. At the end of the event I felt like a million bucks and that right there- makes me a better mom, a better wife... a better friend to anyone who can grasp my passion and need to feel successful in this business I started a year and a half ago.

Because when momma's happy... everyone's happy... Can we at least agree on that?

xo Party or Die xo

kenna

PS- Both parties were professionally photographed and I can't wait to show them off to you in the next couple of weeks.