Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to Ivy!!! Our little miss priss is 4!!! She's been waiting a long time to celebrate her birthday and it's finally here! She's so excited!

We had her party with family and a couple friends on Monday! She had fun opening her gifts and eating strawberry cake and Neopolitan ice cream. Just what she requested! Happy Birthday to my "sugar and spice and everything nice" little girl! I'm so thankful I get to be her mommy!

Happy Birthday!!!

On Saturday, we celebrated our son's 12th birthday!!! --Wow! Still can't believe he is 12 yrs. old! That means he will be a teenager next year!-- He celebrated at home with family and some of his friends from church and school. They all had a fun time playing Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures, visiting, and eating grilled hotdogs,chips, cake and ice cream!

This year I made Trent a three layer Funfetti cake with homemade buttercream icing! He really liked it and we are still enjoying the leftovers! It was a great day for Trent! Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!

Blowing out 12 candles!


Opening his presents!

Paint and Party-Part 2

A couple days ago I shared the painting, now it's time for the partying! I kept everything pretty simple. The table was lined with Laci's favorite color, turquoise! I used cute napkins I found at Target that looked like brush strokes from a paint brush to go with the lime green plates. Great for an art party!

The food was simple, but yummy. We had french vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, foods that we could dip(like dipping paintbrushes)fresh fruit and fruit dip, mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce, ice cream, and paint water to drink(blue Hawaiian Punch).

The kids took home goodie bags with their own sketchbook and pencil, bubbles, and some candy.
They got to have some candies from our paint cans, too! These are so cute. I found them at Michael's and filled them with Jolly Ranchers and Skittles! Party on!

Paint and Party

On Saturday Laci celebrated her 8th birthday with an art party! All of her guests got to paint their own version of a picture my husband came up with based on things Laci wanted in it; a heart, peace sign, and a flower. We gave out watercolor sets with all the details on the back to invite her friends to her party!



The girls are ready to paint on their canvases. The backgrounds were already painted to save on time.


My husband cut out stencils of the heart, peace sign and flower. We just had the girls arrange them on the canvas however they liked them and then used a piece of chalk to trace around the stencils. Ready to paint!


They did have to put a couple coats on their images to cover up the background, but I think it turned out great! All the girls enjoyed painting and putting their own touches on their masterpieces. Thanks to my husband for taking care of this aspect of the party. They loved it!

The little artists with their creations. They all did a good job and made their paintings unique. Check out Ivy's on the end. I can't help but laugh. She put so much purple paint on that canvas, but she sure had fun with it ..........for a little while. Then she was onto other things. Come back tomorrow for party time!

Bridal Shower Dessert Buffet- Part 2

I have a few more pictures and a recipe to share with you for part 2 of our dessert buffet. See yesterday's post for part 1.

We chose to go with 2 different flavors of cupcakes. We got really wild and went with chocolate and vanilla! Ha! Ha! They turned out yummy, as well as cute! My sister purchased damasked cupcake liners from Fancy Flours.Look in their Printed Design-Baking Cups section. The package said they would retain their color and design during baking. I was a little skeptical, but they did! The liners were just as cute and vibrant as when they went into the oven!


Here are the cupcakes along with chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter balls and an empty platter for the chocolate dipped strawberries. Guess I should have waited to take this picture!

You can get the recipe for the peanut butter balls here!


I thought I'd also show the napkins I personalized for the shower. I used simple white dinner napkins and stamped an "A" and a pretty scroll design with black Staz-On ink. It's important to use Staz-On ink, which "stays on" its surface rather than a water based ink that could rub off. We wouldn't want people wiping black ink all over their mouths! Yikes!

Stop by tomorrow for Struesel Apple Pie Minis!

Bridal Shower Dessert Buffet- Part 1

Today I want to share the sweet dessert buffet my sister and I put together for the bridal shower we recently hosted. We held the shower in the afternoon, so we thought desserts would be a good option. The picture above only shows a few of the treats. Remember it's only Part 1 of the dessert buffet. Come back tomorrow for Part 2! I will share the menu today and my recipe for Coconut Macaroons, which were the hit of our buffet if I do say so! We had many compliments on the treats, but these seemed to stand out! Scroll down to get the recipe!

Dessert Buffet Menu
Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and Chocolate Curls
Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Fudge Frosting
Peanut Butter Balls
Coconut Macaroons
Cream Puffs
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Brownie Bites
Lemonade
Water with Lime
Bottled Water

Coconut Macaroons
2 1/2 c. flaked coconut
1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
2/3 c. sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp. vanilla

In a small bowl, combine the coconut, flour and salt.Add the milk and vanilla. Mix well; the batter will be a bit stiff.Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet.Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.Remove to wire racks to cool.Yield 1 1/2 dozen.
**I like to use my small scoop, which holds about 1 1/2 tsp. to make these.

Delicious dipped strawberries were also a favorite! I love the elegance of chocolate dipped strawberries. They're just so pretty!


We embellished bottled water to go with our theme with pretty damask labels which I made from scrapbook paper. Come back tomorrow for part 2 of the dessert buffet!

I'm sharing this today for Totally Tasty Tuesdays at Mandy's Recipe Box, too!

Bridal Shower Decor

Last week my sister and I hosted a bridal shower for a friend of ours. It almost became the "shower that got blown away." It was rainy, yucky and their were tornado warnings.The tornado siren actually went off in the middle of the shower,but what did we do? Ignored it and had us a shower.

For our decor we chose to go with a lime green and damask theme. We used lime green tablecloths and damask wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby as a runner. The food table was our main focal point. We would have liked to have hung lime green paper lanterns, but at our venue you could not hang anything from the ceiling. The centerpiece of the food table was the bride and groom's framed monogram that I gave some height by wrapping a box with white paper and tying a black ribbon around it. Two antique vases with carnations accented the table too.


For the framed monogram, I used my Cricut to cut out their initials and just applied them directly to the frame. The frame was matted with a piece of damask scrapbook paper and white card stock to make the monogram stand out.


I'm including our little labels for the dessert buffet as decor. I really like how they turned out. We just printed off all our menu items on white card stock, matted that with black card stock and then stamped this elegant design underneath. We used glue dots to adhere them to our serving pieces. More on that dessert buffet tomorrow! It was good stuff!



We used two small round side tables for accents that we covered with white sheets. Lime green tissue paper gave it a pop of green. We also set out some framed pictures of the bride and groom to be as well as their initial and more antique vases with carnations. Oh-I can't forget the framed saying my sister made which was kind of our theme-"Love is Sweet."


We tried to keep the cost down on the party favors by using these cute favor bags from the Dollar Tree. I've used these many times and they are great for embellishing. For these we added "A" stickers, which are actually envelope seals, from Hobby Lobby and accented them with lime green tissue paper. Since "love is sweet" we filled these with Hugs, Kisses and Lifesavers for the guests to take home. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, including the bride to be.She got SO many nice things, too! It was a sweet success!

Come back tomorrow for the dessert buffet menu and some recipes!

Baby Shower Gifts

Today I want to share a couple of the gifts/decor from the diaper shower. My friend and co-host for the shower, Renee, appropriately made this gorgeous diaper cake for the new mom. Isn't it so pretty! I love the green ribbon and the way she used the flower petals in between layers. I tell ya, she's a crafty one that Renee. I received one of these before and couldn't believe how many diapers are actually in it. It's a lot!


I know, more mod podged letters. I should be a pro at these by now since I've made so many of them.( If you want to see the others I've done, click on the "crafts" link in the labels section.) I couldn't resist making these for baby Faith to have in her room. I knew the nursery was going to be done with some soft pinks and greens so I chose scrapbook papers that were fitting, pink toile, a soft pink stripe, and white and pink polka dot. Then I embellished with pink and green ribbons, white flowers and a vintage pearl brad. The letters did double duty as part of her gift and as a decoration. I just sat these out on my mantel for display and decor.



I was happy to host this shower for my friend and mom-to-be. Can't wait to meet baby Faith in a few weeks!

Scrumptious Shower Food

For the pretty in pink diaper shower I hosted Saturday, I kept the table simple yet elegant with a white table cloth and an overlay of pink toile fabric. I found this pretty fabric with nursery rhyme scenes at Hob Lob. It was a pretty place for all the scrumptious food that was served. I made a few things and a friend brought some delicious mini quiche and a rich and creamy mousse. Great food to celebrate our mommy-to-be and her baby girl. Be sure to get the recipes below.

The Menu

Ham & Spinach Mini Quiche
Turkey Cream Cheese Ranch Pinwheels
Spinach Dip & Crackers
Fresh Fruit
White Chocolate Drizzled Brownie Bites
Mini Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting and Candy Diaper Pins
Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse
Sparkling Pink Lemonade
Water

Ham & Spinach Mini Quiche

1 box of puff pastry (2 sheets per box), thawed

6 eggs

9 Tbs. cream

3 tsp. grated onion (fresh)

generous dashes of salt and pepper

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, tightly packed

1 cup minced spinach (fresh)

1/2 lb. thinly sliced sandwich ham, diced

Preheat oven to 410 degrees.

In a small mixing bowl, mix together eggs, cream, grated onion, salt and pepper.

Unfold sheets of puff pastry and using a biscuit cutter, cut a dozen circles from each. (If you have a standard-size biscuit cutter, this IS possible, I promise! Cut the circles right against the border of the next, cutting 3 on the first row, 2 on second, three on third, and 2 on fourth.)

Generously spray your muffin tins with Pam. (You can bake these back-to-back if you only have one muffin tin.) Press a round of puff pastry into the bottom of each muffin tin. They'll only come a little way up the side, but that's fine.

Divide the cheese evenly among each tin, then repeat with the spinach, then ham. Using a tablespoon (measuring spoon), measure three tablespoons of the egg/onion/cream mixture into each tin. Place in hot oven and bake 16-22 minutes, until puffed and golden. Mine are done at exactly 18 minutes, but each oven is different, so start checking at 16 minutes.

Recipe from Renee

Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse
1(13 oz.)jar Nutella
1(16 oz.) container Cool Whip

Whisk together Nutella and Cool Whip until well blended. Store in refrigerator.
**You can fill a pastry bag fitted with a star tip with mousse and pipe into small cups. Grate a chocolate bar and sprinkle chocolate on top of mousse for a nice presentation.**
Recipe from Renee


Turkey Cream Cheese Ranch Pinwheels
1 pkg. soft taco size flour tortillas
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 pkg. ranch salad dressing mix
shaved turkey

Mix together ranch salad dressing mix and cream cheese until well blended. Spread heaping tablespoon onto a flour tortilla, covering entire tortilla. Lay 2 pieces of turkey over mixture. Roll up tortilla. Cut ends of rolled up tortillas. Cut remaining rolled up tortilla into 1-inch pinwheels. Repeat with remaining tortillas.