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Up until a few weeks ago I thought the most special way to learn the gender of your unborn child was to, well, wait until they were born. With my first it was the doctor, speaking to me, “You’ve got yourself a girl!” after Sarah was born. With my youngest it was the doctor, addressing the baby this time, saying “Welcome to the world, baby girl!”. With both of my pregnancies it was tempting to find out during the ultrasound but each time I resisted, much to the chagrin of friends and family who wanted a tad more direction in purchasing appropriate baby shower gifts etc… Both times decorating of baby’s room was done gender neutral…with my youngest it was Peter Pan. But I have to admit that I often wished I had gone pink and frilly at the beginning as neither of my girls ended up being girly-girls and my one opportunity to go girly was passed up in favor of the surprise.

However, my dear friend Marci’s daughter is due in January and I recently received an invitation to attend her “Gender Reveal” party. What? Never heard of such a thing! Being in the invitation business I was seriously surprised that there was a brand new event on the scene of which I was not yet aware. So here’s how it works….

OK…you’re on the table, belly covered in cold sticky something (what is that anyway!) having your ultrasound. You’re somewhere around 18 – 22 weeks into your pregnancy. Your doctor asks if you want to know the sex of your baby. Well instead of yes, or no, you ask the doctor to write the sex of the baby on a slip of paper, fold it, put in into an envelope, and seal it. In fact, bring the paper and envelope with you. If you can resist the temptation to peek, you hold onto the envelope until you’ve planned your Gender Reveal Party.

These parties are generally hosted by the expectant couple. Invite friends and family…this is not the official baby shower so be sure to request “no gifts” on the invitation. Because it is not the traditional shower where we play those cute but goofy shower games, invite the guys as well. Food, wine (sorry Mom – none for you), and non-shower type fun…the guys will come. On the invitation you request that your guests wear either pink or blue, hedging their bets as to if you’re having a girl or a boy. When you’re ready to order the cake for the party, take the still sealed envelope to your baker. Request that they open the envelope (after you’ve left the bakery of course) and bake a cake in the color pink or blue, based on the information sealed in the envelope. Request they ice the cake with neutral frosting being sure that the cake color does not show. Be sure that they know the color is a BIG surprise and NOT to indicate anywhere on the receipt etc…the color of the cake.

Now it’s show time…the baby Gender Reveal party. Your guests arrive, some in pink, some in blue. You visit, you eat, you chat, and you laugh. Before you know it the time to cut the cake has arrived! If both expectant parents are hosting, together they cut the cake and as the color therein is revealed, they finally find out if they’re having a boy or a girl! So your guests get to share in this wonderful revelation. It’s like having them in the ultrasound room with you, but much less embarrassing! And the guests who have chosen the correct color to wear now have bragging rights for their keen guessing ability!

This is serious fun with an element of high drama. Sweet!

See www.picturemeperfect.com for your Gender Reveal Party and Baby Shower invitations!

OK Food Network fans! Is everyone as crazy for cupcakes as I am? Recently I’ve been watching Cupcake Wars and I’m hooked.

The show, if you have not seen it, is yet another battle of chefs. It’s really inspiring to see these bakers, most of which are true entrepreneurs having started their own shops and experienced some success, battle it out in the kitchen. Though not much of a cook or baker myself, I’m intrigued by what can be done with these little culinary cuties IF you simply use your imagination.

My favorite cupcake from the show is the Smores cupcake. Its graham-cracker crust, chocolate cake, and flamed marshmallow cream frosting looks like a mouthful of sitting around the campfire! A close second, for me, was the cupcake that well represented breakfast. It was a coffee cupcake and the icing was infused with the flavors of maple syrup and bacon. Ingenious! We’re even thinking of having a family cupcake baking contest at our home, though I’m sure both my daughters will totally dominate!

I had no idea, until watching the show, that there are actually hundreds of cupcake shops across the country! After a bit of research I found the term "cupcake" first emerged in 1828 and referred to small cakes that were baked in…you guess it! Cups! Individual pottery cups to be specific. While we’ve come a long way since that sweet development, it looks like the popularity, surging in the 1990s, is still on the rise!

This versatile and delicious treat has even inspired a new line of popular Picture Me Perfect stationery products called “Cupcake Love”. SWEET!

Have you just been blessed with a bundle of joy? Introduce your new addition by sending your family and friends birth announcement cards. Birth announcement cards are the perfect way to let everyone you care for know about your new baby!

However, before you rush to the store to buy yourself a package of general announcement cards that every new mother will be sending out, consider customizing your own cards. By customizing your birth announcement cards you will be bringing a little bit of yourself and your family into the home of everyone you send them to.

With 5 different categories and over 80 different designs to choose from, Picture Me Perfect is the ideal company to make your custom birth announcements for your beloved new addition.

Have you ever lost a beloved pet? It is such a disheartening experience. The pet is there one day and gone the next. You think he'll be back soon. After dinner. Before bedtime. The next morning. Then you really start to worry.

Our new kitten, Lucky, lovingly known as "KiKi" disappeared 5 weeks ago, almost to the day. Such a cute cat, all black, super affectionate and funny too. Went out early one morning and never returned. We searched the neighborhood of course. Put up signs, visited the local animal shelter, eventually printed up flyers with a reward and plastered the neighborhood. We received several encouraging phone tips that sent us out on a high and left us feeling a mixture of hope (had he really been spotted) and frustration (he's gone and we're foolish to hold out hope).

He had his tags so we were truly hopeful that he would be found and returned but after a month we had pretty much given up hope. Began referring to him in the past tense, "Kiki was such a cool cat", that kind of thing. Cleaned out the litter box and food bowls, tucked the cat food away on a shelf, collected the cat toys. Stopped calling for him every time we walked outside. Started to get back to life without KiKi. And then, this morning, from a tree in the back yard, came the sweet music of meow!

Kiki had returned after almost 5 full weeks. He was battered and skinny, eye injured and afraid to climb down out of the tree. Looked like he had traveled to Tijuana and back. We rescued him from the tree and swept him off to the vet who deemed him tattered but basically healthy. His eye will take some time and antibiotics to heal, but his vision will be only slightly, if at all, impaired. Kiki was lost and now is found and our family is whole again.

Where was he? Why did he stay gone so long? How did he survive? What dangers did he face. Those questions will never be answered, although my youngest daughter is talking about writing a book about his journey (and ours!).

While we're awaiting the release of this best seller, we're simply enjoying showering Kiki with affection and enjoying all that he returns. I think he is even more affectionate than he was before. Perhaps we are as well. Perhaps each of us knows what we almost lost and appreciate it all the more. And our family has also learned an important lesson...never give up hope.

Picture Me Perfect is celebrating its 11th year of business! Hard to believe that for over a decade we've had the honor of helping you make even more memorable all the special occasions in your life.

What began as a company specializing in Birth Announcements flourished into the modern Picture Me Perfect you know today offering full card lines for every occasion you can imagine. Actually, for this, we owe a great debt of gratitude to you...our customers.

It was our birth announcement customers who, over ten years ago, clamored for baptismal invites, begged for holiday cards, and suggested first birthday invitations etc... And it was you, our customers, who told your friends, family, and co-workers about Picture Me Perfect which further inspired our designers to provide a host of products and services for a myriad of events.

Our success, and the pleasure we've had working with each of you, is greater than anything we could ever have imagined when we began this journey 11 years ago. Although today's tough economic times have touched so many families, the special events in our lives continue, unabated. Babies are born, children still graduate, young lovers still marry, and our parents still celebrate golden wedding anniversaries. We'll be there for you when you need us. Whether your celebration is grand or modest we'll give it our full attention and help you honor your special event in a special, timeless, and beautiful way.

We appreciate your continued patronage during these tough times. We also hope you've noticed that we've responded! We've reduced minimum quantities and pricing, lower priced product options, and have regularly scheduled specials during non-peak times (and even occasionally during peak times!). Hopefully you're also aware of our Face Book contests and we even have a "name that card" contest for our currently named "UNAME" card. We're continually working with vendors to find the best quality products at the lowest possible cost and then passing that savings on to you, our customers.

Although times are tough, we've not forgotten that to build a strong economy, we need strong communities. With that in mind, we have continued our financial support of the ASPCA and the Donors Choose programs. In addition, we are in negotiation with a local food bank program to provide assistance to the many homeless and hungry in Houston. Together with its customers and community, Picture Me Perfect will continue to do its part during 2010 to keep our country a strong, healthy, happy place to live.

There are so many things to remember around the holidays. You can’t put nuts in the Christmas cookies because your cousin’s kid is allergic and your gift wrap box is out of tape. Before you know it, you forgot to send out the Christmas and New Years greeting cards with that great picture of the kids.

Luckily, it is not too late. Unlike other Christmas gift and greeting card companies, PictureMePerfect.com mails your non-photo or themed photo order the next day so that your holiday wishes arrive on time. If you want to customize the theme of your card, you will add just one day to your delivery time. Shortening our production time on Holiday Cards gives you the one gift we could all use around the holidays: breathing room.

PictureMePerfect.com also offers Saturday delivery and full mailing options so you can prepare for the holidays and leave the Christmas cards to us. Just upload your mailing list and choose from one of our hundreds of holiday themes. Or you can customize your own. Then leave the rest to us.

If we are filling out our wishlist, many of us would sacrifice this year’s hot gift item for a hassle-free holiday. But if you get your order in to PictureMePerfect by Tuesday, we can make sure your wish is fulfilled this year.

Halloween Party Invitations and Halloween Birthday Invitations

Baseball Season in full swing!

Wow...what an exciting year it has been for professional baseball! My team, the Houston Astros, has been up, down, in, and out. Half the season devoted to breaking 500. Now trying to build on to that despite DLs, trades, pitching and hitting dry spells etc... As always, our Astros are battling their way to their second chance at the World Series. We made it once and are eager for another! Go 'stros!

And that's the way it is with our Astros...they have talent come and go (did Biggio retire on a high note or what!), they have their struggles with managers, the bullpen, trading favorite players away (we miss you Willie and Brad!!!), but this team has heart like no other. They make baseball seem like the passion sweeping sport of years past. Like apple pie, like fathers and sons playing catch in the backyard, like...well, like baseball was meant to be.

It's such a joy to see all those grown up "kids" jumping up and down on each-other after a hard fought and closely won battle. You can see it in their big goofy smiles that this truly is more than a business to them. This is a game, their game, their passion. Lucky for my family and all Houstonians, it's our passion as well! Thank you Houston Astros!

Are you passionate about baseball as well? To learn more about your home team, visit mlb.com. To learn more about my home team visit astros.com. And if your children or family are passionate about sharing your baseball spirit you should checkout the personalized baseball invitations and announcements we've created for some of our baseball-fan customers...totally custom and all-too baseball cool!

Baseball birthday invitation


Baseball holiday card


Baseball birth announcement


Baseball graduation announcement

School is back in session! The kids are coming home loaded down with homework and they are hungry. You wonder if they even eat their lunch. My kids say a quick hello when they walk in the door then it’s, "What’s for snack?" I really try to pack them healthy lunches everyday, so how about those after school snacks?

My Mom was very serious about after school snacks. What she put out for us was always healthy, usually a fruit and a protein. She believed that if we, her children, did not eat a substantial enough snack we would be hungry way before dinner was ready. All you Moms out there know how difficult it is to concentrate on making dinner with whiny, hungry kids in the kitchen. Talk about stress! So I have followed her example and it has worked well for me. Out of all my Mom’s great afternoon snacks these are a few of my children’s favorites:

• Core an apple, any kind, and fill with natural peanut butter.
  Try the kind with no additives.


• Slice a banana lengthwise and spread natural peanut butter on the bottom half, replace top.


• Place a slice of cheddar cheese on one piece of wheat bread then put under broiler until cheese melts.


• Top a ½ cup of low fat yogurt with fresh fruit and chopped walnuts.


• Make your own trail mix using dried fruit, nuts and pretzels.

I hope these simple ideas will give you a little extra peace and quite while you rush to put dinner on the table.

It’s almost time for the Renaissance Festival in our neck of the woods. These festivals take place under different names and at different times of the year around the country. We’re lucky enough to have ours in late October – perfect Texas weather for outside activities.

It’s always one of our Family’s favorite outings. We love the jousting, juggling, and jesters. The food and craftsmanship is fabulous and the games and rides are fun for young and old alike. And the belly-dancers are my daughters’ favorite (my husband’s too I’m afraid!).

We always make sure to arrive before the opening ceremony – it’s so exciting to see each “house” introduce themselves and their members. Each has its unique garb and all are totally in character. The Barbarians are covered in animal pelts and weapons, the Vampires are in black and seem to float when they dance, the Highlanders are in plaid and skirts (ok kilts!) , the Pirates are in hats and puffy sleeves, brandishing swords and “aaarging” (no doubt to make up for the puffy sleeves), and the Royals are velveted, bejeweled, and ribboned with the appropriate “better than thou” attitude.

Many fans of the festival will attend dressed up in their favorite renaissance clothing. Some festivals offer free or discounted admission for dressing up as it enhances the realistic feel of the festival. While we don’t attend dressed up, it does not keep us from dressing up each year at the photo booth. Last year we dressed up as Pirates, Wenches, and Fairies and had a serious pose taken as well as a funny one. They both turned out wonderfully but the funny one was hilarious and we ended up using it for our holiday cards, complete with pirate lingo!

Attending the Renaissance world is such a wonderful, all encompassing experience…if you’ve never been you should definitely try it this year!!! Visit Renaissance Faires & Festivals to find a festival in your area.

See you there!!!