The Life and Times of the Arning Bros.

Well, we did it. After almost a year of planning, blood, sweat and tears, we finally brought the inaugural Queen City's Mom Prom to life. And, boy was it ever worth it!

Never in a million years did I think our first event would be so incredibly successful, but it was! It totally was! We were close to a sellout. More than 265 local moms joined us on the pink carpet for an evening of friendship, food, fun, shopping and dancing.

The event started at 8 p.m., and I assumed there would be a slow trickle of guests for the first hour. But, by 7:45 p.m., folks were clamoring to check in. It was so exciting to see car after car lining up to valet park, and then to see all of those gorgeous women step out of their vehicles with their high heels on, dressed to the nines, it was so satisfying! We did it! We brought it to life! We actually did it!

What fun we all had posing on the pink carpet with our girlfriends. It made for such a grand entrance! And the venue... WOW! The venue was decorated gorgeously! It was absolutely beautiful! Like something out of New York City! Our florist was totally amazing. She blew us all away with her fabulous floral creations. It really made the decor come to life.

The food was incredible, too! All of the food was donated by local restaurants, and several of the bakeries did a fabulous job matching the desserts with the decor. I couldn't believe it! The Melting Pot's chocolate fountain was a big hit, but honestly, the Krispie Kreme donuts were above and beyond the most favorite food item of all. Are we Southern women or what?!

The raffle was absolutely incredible. My co-organizer, Lauren Verlander, totally blew me away with the raffle table. She grouped all of the prizes so that you could enter to win several things at once, such as a "Mama Makeover" with a massage, jewelry, a closet makeover, etc. She also had groups of prizes for Dads, fitness buffs, date night, you name it. So clever! But, the biggest raffle prize of the night was our $1,600 diamond pendant. We made LOTS of money off of it!

We also had a photo booth complete with tons of props. Moms absolutely LOVED this! The photo booth had a line all night! (And so did the bar, but that's another thing all together.)

But, what totally surprised me was the dance floor. It was hoppin' from the get-go! And when I say hoppin', I mean PACKED! Our DJ was perfect, playing hits from all decades. Women were dancing and singing at the top of their lungs! I also choreographed a "flash mob" dance that I posted on You Tube a couple of weeks prior to Mom Prom. (Click HERE if you want to see it.) Apparently, groups of friends got together to learn the dance (or so I'm told), and moms and daughters even went to the basement of their house to learn it together. All I know is that when it was time for the flash mob, the crowd went wild and all I saw was a sea of hands and hips all going in the same direction. It was the coolest thing! We had so much fun, we did our flash mob dance twice! I can't wait to start working on next year's dance!

At midnight, the dance floor was still going strong, so thankfully the DJ took pity on us and played 30 minutes more. Slowly but surely, the venue cleared out and everyone went merrily on their way with big smiles and great memories made.

So yes, we had TONS of fun at Mom Prom and yes, it was a rousing success... in more ways than one. We raised $20,000 for our charity, Cookies for Kids Cancer. Can you believe it?! I am thrilled beyond belief! Who knows what we can raise next year, now that people actually know how much fun Mom Prom is!

I am so proud of all of us for putting on such an amazing event. I wish you could have seen it. You would have been blown away. Truly. We spared nothing. We thought of every detail. We pampered our moms from start to finish. It was amazing. Best of all, we raised $20,000 for pediatric cancer research. That will go a long way toward giving sick kids and their families the hope they need and deserve.

That makes me more proud than anything.

Here are some pictures from the inaugural Queen City's Mom Prom. These photos are in no particular order... sorry about that! I would like to thank Themba Imagery for taking these amazing pictures... for FREE!

This was the photo we used for our thank you cards for our sponsors and donors.
This was Lauren's idea. Wasn't that clever? That's Lauren to the right of me in the second row.
I couldn't have done it without her!

This is one of the seating areas we had at the venue. Yes, those are orange couches. They were perfect!
Everything looked so chic and feminine! Totally gorgeous.

I love this photo. The beautiful woman in the white (Traci) is the best friend of one of our volunteers (Amanda with the pink flower in the front.) Traci lost her daughter - her only child - to pediatric cancer in March 2012. Yes, that's just two months ago. She still came to Mom Prom to support her friend, Amanda. We did our best to treat her like a VIP all night. She is the strongest woman I think I've ever met. And totally gorgeous!

Here's another view of one of the seating areas. I just love it!

I adore this photo. This woman is feeling fine! She's sexy and she knows it!
I love it!

This is a photo from the Prom Queen segment we did halfway through the event.
That's our spokesmom, Melissa Gibbs - daughter-in-law of Coach Joe Gibbs... her son survived pediatric cancer - with the microphone, introducing one of our eight prom queens. Our prom queens were local moms who have kids who are battling or who have battled pediatric cancer. That's Gretchen Holt Witt in black. She's the founder of our charity, Cookies for Kids' Cancer.

These are the tank tops we sold. Aren't they cute? They were a hot commodity.
I loved seeing women wearing them over their dresses at the end of the night!

This is a photo of all of our prom queens wearing orange scarves we gave them, as they listen to Gretchen from Cookies for Kids' Cancer speak. The orange scarf signifies the support of the community and the tie that binds us all... being moms. That's Traci and Amanda in the middle.

This is a photo of the flash mob dance. Lauren is really working her moves!

The venue we used is actually an old movie theater so we were able to have our name on the marquis.
Isn't that cool?!

I LOVE this photo! Isn't it classy?! Look at the floral arrangements on either side of the door.

Every ticket holder went home with a Thirty-One thermal tote stuffed with lots of goodies. They were a BIG hit!

That's our emcee, WBTV Channel 3 (CBS) news anchor Christine Nelson in the red with me and Lauren.
Not sure what we're doing here, but obviously it was very important.

This is part of the raffle table.

More raffle items.

The FOOD!

Me and one of my best buddies, Erin Dry. She was in charge of decor and she did an incredible job!
The decor MADE the event!

And this is me and Erin right before the event started. Don't you love our pink shoes?!

These are my best buddies, Cristene, Lyndsey, Christina, Erin and Michelle.
This is the group of girls I go on my beach trip with every year.
Aren't they beautiful? And they came to support me. I love them!

This is me with our emcee, Christine, and spokesmom, Melissa.
(By the way, Christine and I worked together at Radio Disney in Atlanta and now we both live in Charlotte!)

This group of beauties are all from my neighborhood, Skybrook.
The support from my community was amazing!

Most of these girls volunteered to bring Mom Prom to life.
(This is our photo booth, by the way.)

My best buds again. LOVE!

And, this is my pink carpet photo. I had so much fun wearing my pink shoes!

Our photographer took over 550 photos, so this is just a small sampling of some of my favorites. To see more pictures, visit the Themba Imagery blog at: http://www.thembaimageryblog.com/2012/05/11/charlotte-nc-events-queen-city-mom-prom/

We had our second attempt at an Easter egg hunt last Saturday when our neighborhood, Skybrook, held their annual event at our central park. It turned out to be a beautiful day so I knew the boys were going to have a great time.

As we were driving to the event, I decided to take the time to coach Charlie a bit on the best practices of Easter egg hunting. I knew this would be a perfect opportunity to collect a lot of eggs because the event organizers literally just lay the eggs out all over the soccer field. We were sure to do better than we did at preschool.

It seemed as if Charlie was totally on board with my game plan. I was feeling confident as we lined up, getting ready for the hunt. Then, the announcer gave the most famous words in all of Easter egg hunting...

"On your mark. Get set. Go!"

Kids took off in all directions. It was a zoo! And, what did Charlie do? Well, you'll just have to check it out for yourself.

Here are a few photos from our second Easter egg hunt of 2012.

Before the hunt began, we had a few minutes to play on the park.
Chase is part monkey because all he ever wants to do is swing.

Isn't he getting so big?

Charlie is going through a climbing phase. He is part monkey, too.
(I know some of you grandparents are probably hyperventilating at this point...
seeing Charlie climb high off the ground without any help.
What can we say. We're daredevils in this house!)

Don't you wish you could slide down the slide yourself sometimes?

Dada and Chase, scheming on the best route for egg collecting.
(Not really, but it sounds good.)

I would jut like to point out how tall and lanky Charlie is.

I think we climbed this thing 100 times today.

Charlie loves to go "SUPER HIGH!"

Still swinging. He would swing ALL DAY if he could.

Chase still loves to be carried everywhere.
My chiropractor is very happy about that. He has a repeat customer in me.

Oh, boy. Now they're both climbing.
See? Part monkey!

Charlie, scoping out the lay of the land.

As you can see, we're starting to get a wee bit impatient here...

And, THEY'RE OFF!
Wait... Where are Charlie and Chase?

Oh, there they are. Taking a leisurely stroll with Dad and ALL THE OTHER PARENTS!
C'mon kids! Didn't you get ANY of your mother's competitiveness?

Well, at least we found one egg. And, even though we had a discussion about best practices at an Easter egg hunt, clearly we are more concerned with the quality of the candy inside the egg verses how much candy we can collect.

I would like to point out that all of the other kids are long gone and there are no eggs left anywhere near Charlie.

And, Charlie's Easter basket is practically empty.

Wait. What's that I see? Charlie, don't look now but there are four Easter eggs just steps away.
You can do it, buddy! You can do it!

The boys are all worn out from their Easter egg "hunt," so now it's time to take a break and enjoy a popsicle.
Wait a minute. What is Charlie doing? Is he guarding his Easter basket?

Indeed. He's got a grip on the basket so no other kids will steal the four eggs he collected.

Charlie, don't look now, but I think Chase is scoping out the goods in your basket.
I wouldn't trust him!

We've moved on from the egg hunt and like a moth to a flame, we're now checking out the fire truck.
Charlie wanted to have his picture taken on the back of the truck.
I believe we might be back to our old habits of grabbing our bits and pieces.
Let's take a closer look.

Yep! Indeed. We were concerned that our bits and pieces might have actually jumped off our body,
so we've decided to grab a handful just to make sure everything is still in tact.
Charlie, I hope you know that people get arrested for things like this...

Charlie and Chase got to sit in the driver's seat.
It's like heaven for little boys.

See? Heaven.

This fire fighter spent a lot of time talking to Charlie about all of the parts and pieces that make up a fire truck.
Parts and pieces are different that bits and pieces. Just in case you were wondering.