Parties

A Monsters, Inc. birthday party

March 16, 2013 1 Comment

You remember our friends the Gaines’? The ones we’ve adopted as our Bowling Green family? The ones who are moving to Africa in October (*sniff*)? Well they recently had a fun Monster’s Inc. party for Abby’s 11th and Josiah’s 2nd birthdays.Tiffany had decorated super cute with all this purple, green, and teal. I have to confess that it has been many, many years since I’ve actually watched Monsters, Inc. but I vaguely remember something about doors…or maybe I’m just gathering that tidbit from all the doors Tiffany used for decorations.

I was excited to contribute the cake…Sully on the bottom layer and Mike on the top (copied from here). Compared to Nora’s Wizard of Oz cake, this one was a breeze! It turned out cute (at least, I think so).

I just hope it didn’t hurt Mike’s eyeball when they stuck those candles in there…

The birthday girl approved

And so did the birthday boy

And Levi just tried to grab everyone else’s food…I think he was jealous

I love this sweet boy

Even when he eats my Monsters, Inc. security badge

Jojo-bear

Little monster…this is one hilarious kid

He got this car racer thing and played with it forever.

Clearly I’m way out of touch with pre-teens and Disney channel – Abby got tickets to R5 and she was super excited (apparently R5 is a band from the Disney show Austin & Ally…yeah, I didn’t know that either – don’t feel bad).

Levi was clearly unimpressed by the present-opening

So he took a little nap :) Presh.

Abby wanted us to play a little family game of basketball

But I’m pretty much the most un-athletic person on the planet so I chose to stay on the sidelines.

Observation #1 about that picture: Look at the four of us with our arms crossed…we look so judge-y.

Observation #2: I promise I am working on my New Years goal of improving my posture…but clearly this moment was not one of those times

I adore this picture that Tiffany took. I didn’t even realize she was taking it but it’s now one of my favorite pictures of us.

In other news…who’s thankful for Facebook and multiple cameras? There were no less than 5 cameras snapping away at the party and then we could just snatch each others pictures from Facebook. Yay technology and yay for way better angles and shots than I would have ever had to show you :).

Filed Under: food, parties Tagged With: cake, cake decorating, party

Wizard of Oz cakes

November 5, 2012 1 Comment

This lil’ cutie turned one last week (hold the phone…how is that even possible? I’m pretty sure I attended her baby shower just yesterday…but I digress)

Her momma took a major leap of faith and asked me if I would be interested in making her cakes so I could practice using my newly acquired cake decorating skills. Outside of the cakes I made and decorated in class I’ve only made two other cakes – both which were very simple. So being asked to make the party cake and the smash cake for Nora’s party made me feel incredibly honored but also quite nervous!

The party had a Wizard of Oz theme (I can’t wait to share more pictures of the rest of the party later…Julie did an AH-MAZING job with all the decor and food!). Julie found some cake ideas she liked and we bounced around some ideas until we settled on one like this (although this one was absolutely incredible…no way could I recreate that but it was certainly fantastic to look at…go ahead, click over and check it out, you won’t be sorry).

Not only was this my first cake for someone else but it was also my first tiered cake. As I started looking at cake pans to figure out the size of the cake, I realized that in order to have room on the tiers for the little figurines to stand that I was going to have to have some pretty big layers! The bottom layer ended up being a 14″ round that took 15 cups of batter and was almost too much for me to remove from the oven myself! It turned out quite a bit larger than I expected but the overall finished look was totally worth it!

Michael and I were also nervous about transporting a cake of that size and weight but fortunately it arrived unharmed. We put a bunch of dowels in it for support and that seemed to work really well.

Here it is – my first tiered cake! I had a really hard time getting a picture because of the window behind the cake so I’m hoping the photographer got a better one I can use later.

The bottom layer was chocolate, the middle layer was white, and the top layer was white with chocolate filling. The green icing was buttercream, the yellow brick road was made out of fondant, and the poppies are made with royal icing. Julie made the Emerald City for the top. The little ruby slippers were American Girl doll shoes.

I was really pleased with how it turned out!

I also made Nora’s smash cake – a simple, 1 layer chocolate cake with buttercream icing, buttercream clouds, and a fondant rainbow.

Let’s zoom out and check out that high chair, shall we?
Adorbs. I love the high chair’s decorations!

I also love this little munchkin and am so glad I got to be a part of her birthday!

Filed Under: crafts, food, parties Tagged With: birthday, cake, cake decorating, Wizard of Oz

2012 goals and bucket list update – May

June 16, 2012 2 Comments

I know this is a bit late…I had this post written to go up at the end of May but some stuff came up and then I was at camp, so here I am, halfway through June, finally posting my update for May.

(old updates: January, February, March, and April)

2012 goals:

read through the entire Bible - New Testament: check. Old Testament: chugging through Deuteronomy right now.
get my healthy lifestyle back, specifically to lose the 20-25 pounds I’ve gained since getting married. - All progress that had been made has now been reversed and I’m back to square one. I have big plans to tackle that once I get back from church camp, though.

2012 bucket list:

make an apple pie from scratch
~~take cake decorating classes~~ - I took the Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 classes in March (see here, here, here, and here) and took Course 2 in April (here, here, here, and here).
learn how to make Mom’s homemade Christmas cookies
make 72 hour emergency kits for our home and cars
make my own laundry detergent
~~bake a loaf of homemade bread~~ – Done! I made some Amish friendship bread this month.
make a quilt - Working on it! See January, February, March, April, and May
grow something – Well, our little container garden has been planted. Hopefully something will actually grow!
can pickles
~~take some sort of vacation~~ - Chicago!
get at least one scrapbook done for my in-law’s
???start an Etsy shop???

Other notable things:

We sold our house!!! We closed on it right before we left for Chicago. What a relief! We’re now starting the house-hunting process…much more exciting the house-selling process.
I graduated with my masters in library media education. And we had a graduation party.
We went to Gatlinburg for work (for Michael) and Chicago for fun.
I finished working as a graduate assistant at Western and started the job application process for next year.
My women’s Bible study wrapped up for the year.
We celebrated three wonderful years of marriage.

Filed Under: about me, parties, school, travel Tagged With: 2012, Block of the Month, bucket list, Chicago, container gardening, Craftsy, Gatlinburg, goals

our wedding

May 23, 2012 5 Comments

Three years ago today (can it really have already been three years?)…

this girl

and this guy

got hitched!

In honor of our anniversary here’s a look into our big day (note: these are mostly pictures of the stuff, not the people, because I know many people are not comfortable having their pictures posted all over the place…so I’m trying to keep that to a minimum).

I really wanted to get married in front of a lake, but there weren’t really any good places within driving distance and we decided we’d rather have more people get to come and not get married at a lake than to have our ideal location but lots of people have to miss because of the distance. But we were able to find somewhere with a nice creek behind us. We got married at The Rawlings in Joelton, TN and it was truly the perfect day. The weather was beautiful, it wasn’t too hot, and the rained held off until everyone had left. It was casual and fun (at least for me, I sure hope it was for everyone else!).

here comes the bride

Michael had to win a game of paper, rock, scissors in order for Kelly to marry usI sure am glad he won!

The flowers that the flower girls dropped were dried petals from every rose Michael ever gave me. Many years ago my mom suggested that I always keep the flowers given to me by a boyfriend and then someday if we got married I could use them in the wedding. So I saved all those roses and it was so special on our wedding day that the rose petals came from years of bouquets.

these sweet little girls did a magnificent job dropping those special petals

Miller decided she didn’t want to walk back out, so K.C. had to carry her

Speaking of Miller…

I can’t believe how little she is in these pictures! She sure has changed a lot in three years!

Brendan and Riley, along with some of the other kids at church who are near to my heart, sang as the parents and grandparents were seated

After the wedding we posed in the creek

Instead of a traditional guestbook, I made scrapbook pages using our wedding colors with lined paper for guests to sign. Then later when I scrapbooked our wedding, I mixed the signed scrapbook pages in among the pictures of the reception. Now our “guestbook” and pictures are all in once place.

yummy cake

a display of pictures of us through the years

I decided to use one of my favorite flowers rather than wear a veil

I was over the moon with my flowers. A friend from high school did them and they were gorgeous!

We covered candy with personalized labels for favors.

our rings I have no idea what was going on here…true wedding goofiness, I suppose

Happy three year anniversary to my best friend!

Filed Under: about me, love, parties Tagged With: anniversary, wedding

book themed party {Works for Me Wednesday}

May 15, 2012 1 Comment

Way back when I started working on my master’s, I knew I was going to have a graduation party once I was finished. And I knew it was going to be book themed…to go along with my master’s in library media education. So after I graduated Friday night, we had my graduation party the next day at my parents. Since we were in Gatlinburg until just a few hours before graduation, we really only had Friday night after graduation and Saturday morning to prepare; so it wasn’t anything elaborate, but I love how it turned out.

Obviously this theme works well for a graduation party for someone graduation with a library media degree, but it could also work for a birthday party or a baby shower (have the guests bring children’s books as their gifts).

Let’s start with the invitations. I wanted the invitations to be in the form of an old library card:

(FYI, this is not the exact invite that I sent out…I changed some of the more personal info for the one I wanted to post on here…gotta watch out for those creepers, ya know?)

This is the template that I used for the library card. It was a Word document so I just edited it so that it had my party info on it and used the fonts I liked. Then I printed the cards onto white card stock and cut them out (four to a piece of card stock).

Here’s one that you could use if you have Photoshop (I don’t, so I couldn’t use it, but I thought it was cute)

Also, another one, another one, and another one

I found the card pocket template here

I traced the template onto those yellow file folders, cut them out, folded them, and stamped them with a stamp that we have that says “From the *OUR NAME* Family Library”

Then I just put them in small, card-sized envelopes and mailed them off.

Once that was done, it was on to the party details. I really wanted the food to go along with books but it also needed to be really simple since we didn’t have much time to spend cooking. I searched online and asked for ideas from my Facebook friends (I got tons of super creative ones!). This is what I came up with:

1. Green Eggs and Ham………………………..deviled eggs and ham sandwiches (the filling for the deviled eggs was supposed to be tinted green but I completely forgot to do that!)

2. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs……………………..meatballs

3. The Three Little Pigs…………………………………pigs in blankets

4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar……………………fruit salad

5. Peter Rabbit………………………….veggies and dip (from Mr. MacGregor’s garden)

6a. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory………………………chocolate cupcakes

6b. James and the Gian Peach…………………….peach cobbler

The decorations were also very simple – mostly we just displayed some of my favorite books

1. basket of favorite books and books on the table (some Baby Sitter’s Club, Baby Sitter’s Little Sister, and The Silver Slippers)

2. favorite young adult books (Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games)

3. more favorites on the end table: Deputy Dan Gets His Man, Amelia Bedelia, and Junie B. Jones

4. centerpiece on the table: stack of Little House on the Prairie books, jar full of chunky/baby books, Beach Day, and my all time favorite book – Brown Bear, Brown Bear

we also invited the guests to write some of their favorite books on the chalkboard wall in the kitchen

So there you have it: very simple, quick, and easy, but also very fun. I was pleased with how it turned out!

Linking up to Works for Me Wednesday

P.S. We’re headed to Chicago this weekend (yay!). Neither of us have been before…so feel free to leave suggestions of where to eat/what to do/where to go/things to visit (or places/things to avoid)

Filed Under: parties Tagged With: baby shower, birthday, book themed party, books, grad school, graduation, party

Erin’s baby shower

May 7, 2012 3 Comments

This weekend we went back to Lexington for Erin’s baby shower. Chris and Erin are expecting a baby boy, Noah Ray, in July. Jonie and Julie threw a beautiful jungle-themed shower that went along with Noah’s nursery.

food table

monkeys hanging in the trees

Jonie made these animal picture frames to use as centerpieces for the tables then gave them to Erin to use in the nursery. I loved them! Such a cute idea!

I made the cupcakes for the shower – strawberry with cream cheese icing and white with chocolate buttercream icing. I wish I could, but I can’t take the credit for the super cute cupcake toppers; Julie ordered the fondant toppers (from Etsy, I think) and we placed them on the frosted cupcakes.

how adorable are those jungle animals?!?!

opening gifts

that mesh netting thing has been so handy – Erin used it first for Julie’s shower, and it has been used for several other showers since then; it’s easy to decorate to match the colors/theme of the shower!

little tiny baby sunglasses that look just like Chris’ (the daddy-to-be) glasses!

And, well, because what would a trip to Lexington be without picture of my favorite girl…here’s little miss Nora all ready for the Kentucky Derby in her Derby hat:

seriously, could she be any cuter????

beautiful eyes

Now it’s time to sit back and wait for Noah to make his appearance – so excited to meet him!

Filed Under: parties Tagged With: baby shower, jungle theme, Pottery Barn jungle friends

High Five for Friday

April 27, 2012 3 Comments

Friday! Woo Hoo! Here are a few exciting things…

1. I’m headed to a ladies’ retreat with our church tonight. I’m super excited but I’m also a little nervous since we’re new and I don’t know anyone very well…but I guess this will be a great way to get to know the other women from church!

2. I got to see my sweet little Nora this weekend. Who could resist this cutie? I can’t believe how much she’s grown! It feels like we had her shower.

Love her!

3. After Amanda’s shower on Saturday, we stayed the night in Lexington. Sunday after church we were getting ready to head home and got a call from our realtor….WE GOT AN OFFER ON OUR HOUSE! The paperwork has been taken care of and we should close before the end of May. Fingers crossed for all to go well with closing! That will be such a relief to get the house sold.

Speaking of the shower…

Gina, Erin, Jonie, and Julie threw a wonderful shower! Thanks for all your hard work, ladies! And Amanda (well, baby Abby, actually) got tons of great stuff.

4. I’m loving my new dress and I’m already wishing for some extra time so I can make another!

5. I tried another baked oatmeal recipe this week – strawberry, banana, chocolate chip. Yummo.

Linking up with Lauren @ From My Grey Desk

Filed Under: about me, parties Tagged With: High Five for Friday

party time

April 14, 2012 1 Comment

I need some excuses to have parties. I am having a party after graduation, and it’s going to be book themed (I mean, I got my master’s in library media education, it just makes sense…), and I’m super excited about it. But other than that, I got nothin’. I keep seeing all these awesome party ideas on Pinterest and I don’t have any need for them, so if you can think of other reasons for me to have parties, let me know!

Here are some of my favorite ideas:

1. A mashed-tini bar. Make tons of mashed potatoes, put them in martini glasses, and then set out tons of yummy potato toppings. The variety of toppings she listed was incredible.

Source: mooreminutes.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

2. A grilled cheese party. This post has a ton of different grilled cheese ideas – even a dessert grilled cheese using cream cheese and nutella!

Source: plainchicken.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

3. A Harry Potter party. I actually had this post bookmarked for a long time before Pinterest was even around – I think this would be so much fun!

Source: marthashmartha.blogspot.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

4. Build-a-library baby shower. It goes without saying that I love books so I think this would be a super fun way to build your baby’s library.

Source: etsy.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

5. Miniature food! I love miniature stuff and I think this would be so cute. How adorable are the little grilled cheese wedges in the tiny tomato soups?

Source: blog.myweddingreceptionideas.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

6. A favorite things party. This is one of my favorite (pun not intended) party ideas yet. Each persons brings enough of their favorite thing (has to be pretty cheap) for each of the other people at the party, then exchange. When you leave you have all kinds of new goodies to try!

Source: angbrimwil.blogspot.com via Caitlin on Pinterest

Check out my board on Pinterest to find more party ideas.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to enter to win my e-book giveaway full of all kinds of great tips and tricks (and you don’t even have an e-reader to use it…just a computer!)

Filed Under: parties Tagged With: party, Pinterest

birthday bash

March 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

Even though my birthday week is over, we still had one more birthday celebration – birthday with my family. We were supposed to celebrate the weekend before my birthday but the threat of snow (that didn’t actually come) caused us to reschedule. This weekend actually worked out better since it was right before Riley’s birthday (Mine was February 21, Riley’s was March 5) so we celebrate both of ours at once.

Saturday afternoon we went out to eat at Red Lobster for lunch (Riley’s pick). Daddy, Michael and Brendan went home while Mom, Riley, Ben, Chris, (Ben and Chris are Riley’s friends from college who came for the weekend) and I did a little shopping. We went to Goodwill (it was 50% off day!!) – the boys bought all kinds of random things, I found a super cute jacket that I love! (be looking for it in next week’s What I Wore Wednesday). I also found some fantastic, looked-like-new, Nine West black heels. I really liked them but they were too big (which is pretty incredible given my big ‘ole feet) so I didn’t buy them. My most amazing Goodwill find of the day, though, was a pair of pleather maternity pants…I mean, really??? ~~Because I’m not crazy~~ sadly I didn’t buy them. We also went to the mall and looked around some.

Riley bought some of those odd toe glove shoe things – I tried some on while we were at the store just for kicks and I thought they were uncomfortable but hopefully he likes them

Saturday night we had chicken and dumplings (my pick) and then Mom and I made KevinandAmanda’s brownie batter chocolate fudge cupcakes for dessert. They did not disappoint! In fact, everyone LOVED them!

here are the cupcakes before icing (the blob on the top is the brownie batter filling)

and here they are with the wonderful, fudgey icing (I’m hoping my cake decorating class that I start Thursday will help my icing skills…)

Riley was a fan (I can’t believe my baby brother is 20!)

as was Ben (and the rest of us, too)

And so birthday week finally came to an end. Until next year.

Filed Under: food, parties Tagged With: birthday

Halloween 2011 – Picnics and Charlie Sheen

October 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

Trunk or Treat was last night – we had a blast and I carried my camera around all night but failed to take any pictures. Boo on me. But we did get pictures of our costumes before we left.

I was a picnic (with a trail of ants on the tablecloth that didn’t show up in the picture) and Michael was a YouTube video of Charlie Sheen. I loved our costumes and was really pleased with how they turned out. And the best part – they were cheap and easy! They took about an hour to make and cost less than $6.00. All I had to buy for mine was the tablecloth and then I just glued some of my stuff and some of Mom’s stuff to the tablecloth. For Michael’s we just had to buy the poster board (by the way, he did the whole thing himself – very impressive!)