Every heart beats true 'neath the RED, WHITE, and BLUE!

We had a great "America Day", as Sadie called it, and hope you did too!

God Bless America!

Happy 3rd birthday!

Sadie celebrated her 3rd birthday (March 28) with a tea party this year with three of her little friends: Janie, Makenzy, and Makaley. While a little crazy for her poor sleep deprived mom, Sadie and friends had a great time!

We decorated tea cup pictures with flower stickers, read the book "Tea for Ruby", decorated straw hats with flowers, ribbons and tulle, and opened presents. But the highlight of the party was unmistakabley the TEA PARTY!

Sadie was the youngest little girl at the party and easily the craziest! I'm thinking we'll do a tea party for Molly one day as well, but probably not until her 4th birthday.

It was a really fun party for little girls though. I LOVE having girls!!!!

After it was all over with, we enjoyed some quiet time...

and Sadie tried out her new rain gear....



for those who are interested (and for our own failing memories around here)...

Extra Details:

Invitations:

I had ordered Sadie this tea party print when she moved into her big girl room last summer. The artist also had these invitations with the same painting on it.

Decorations:

I really had a fun time planning this party in my head, but when it came time for execution, it was pretty thrown together at the last minute! I don't know what the proper protocol is for kids' parties....when to send the invites and how much is too much...that sort of stuff. I tend to err on the more relaxed side of most of this, mostly because Daniel and I weren't raised on extravagant birthdays. So the invitations were sent out with one week's notice and much of the prep work was done the week of the party. I do feel like, with our kids a million miles from their grandparents and cousins, we have to do something to celebrate their little lives and make them feel special, but honestly (in my little party-planning and detail-loving mind) I consciously hold back a little to not overdo things. No need to create unreal expectations in my already dramatic 3-year-old, huh?

My mom bought this embroidered tablecloth for us to use...I LOVE it...so pretty! Of course there are pink milk stains on it now, but oh well!

My grandmother shipped the tablecloth along with the tea cups and saucers to us. So sweet of her! The tea cups were my great grandmothers. They are nothing special as far as worldly value, but my great grandmother, my sister, and I had tea parties with them when I was a little a girl. So they are quite sentimental, and I'm so glad my grandma, Jean Jean, thought to offer them to us AND ship them here. What a treat!

The other dishes are my depression glass that Jean Jean collected for me growing up and gifted to me when I graduated from college (as I was officially an adult...yikes!). I use these dishes all the time, but generally they're saved for special parties.

The party was a great excuse to make those banners. The ultimate destination for the banners was Sadie's room. So they are made in fabrics that match the colors in her room. It's nice that they could do double duty.

Activities:

The girls decorated tea cup pictures (made from clip art found on the internet glued to white doilies and pink gingham scrapbook paper) while we were waiting for everyone to get here:

Sadie got the book "Tea for Ruby" for her first Christmas from our sweet friend Tracy. We love this book! Tracy had it signed by the author Sarah Ferguson (who, despite her mishaps over the last several years, I really do love the former Duchess of York...she's helpessly flawed like the rest of us, right?). My sister-in-law, Suzanne, suggested we read it since it was a special book of Sadie's, and it related to tea parties and manners.

Mamaw had the idea for the girls to decorate straw hats with fun flowers and ribbons, but I had to actually FIND affordable straw hats. Insert Target! Of course! It pays to have a birthday around Easter, because these little numbers were found in the dollar bins at Target. They aren't the highest quality I'm sure, but they sure did work for a party activity and favor.

Food:

My favorite part! ;) We cut out the sandwiches into flower shapes. For the pb&j, I cut little circles in the top so you could see the red jelly. :) The cucumbers were also cut out like flowers and had ranch dip dabbed on top. We made mini fruit skewers with green grapes and blueberries on party toothpicks. Then we bought the sweet treats: giant petit fours (have you ever seen such large petit fours? I'm not certain they even qualify as a petit four, but they were so yummy!), pastel butter cookies, and lemon glazed mini cakes.

We opted not to serve the little girls tea for obvious reasons (little girls don't really drink much tea yet!). Sadie doesn't like lemonade. So our options were a little limited for drinks. I didn't want to do juice or punch because of staining. Sadie does love chocolate milk. So I thought we'd give strawberry milk a try. It was a hit! I think each of the girls downed at least two glasses, if not three! he!he! So that was a treat!

We ordered some pre-made sandwiches for the adults with chips and Salado Punch. Easy peasy! Have you ever had Salado Punch? It's the punch we grew up with around Troy....proms, wedding showers, etc. It's the perfect southern punch. I love it, was craving it (Do all breastfeeding mothers crave punches or just me? I was so thirsty all the time!), and therefore decided to make it! Here's the recipe if you'd like it:

1 cup lemon juice

4 cups sugar (yes, that's FOUR cups! it's sweet!)

2 quarts water

2 cups water with 1 family-size tea bag (make a very strong tea)

2 Tbs vanilla

4 Tbs almond extract

4 liters of ginger ale

Stir all ingredients except ginger ale together and place in a 1 gallon freezer bag. Freeze. When ready to serve, let stand about 1 hour until slushy. Add ginger ale. This serves about 30-40 people.

Party Favors:

We made up little take home bags for each girl, and they got to take their newly and fashionably decorated straw hats, their decorated tea cup pictures with leftover stickers, some Fancy Nancy and tea cup coloring pages (my mom mailed to Sadie to use for party favors), and some decorated tea pitcher sugar cookies.

Halloween Party

Last Saturday we had a little Halloween party for Sadie and her buddy Malachi. It was a ton of fun. We did lots of crafts, some play time, and a little cooking. It was nice to do something so fun for Sadie that she got to help shop for and (kinda) plan. It makes me anxious to get to plan birthday parties with her in the future! Fun!

We started the morning off with breakfast.....cinnamon mini bagels with pumpkin cream cheese and raisins and a side of bananas.

Daniel and I had some decaf coffee and pumpkin spice creamer (have you had it yet? it is so yummy!). I think Daniel was wishing he was drinking regular caffeinated coffee at this point...the kids were so hyper-hyper!...

Then we geared up for some painting....


We made handprint ghosts on the treat bags...



and then stamped pumpkins on gates made of popsicle sticks to make puzzles...

Then we went outside to play for a while, take a walk, and search for leaves. Here the kids are "taking pictures" of Daniel and I. :)

The highlight of the day for them was painting pumpkins...

They LOVED it!

We then made homemade pizzas for lunch. Sadie was eating black olives by the handful while Malachi was eating mini pepperonis by the handful! Good times!

More play time....

Then on to leaf rubbings...

and decorated rice krispie treat pumpkins...

Does it resemble a jack-o-lantern? :)

Here's one of the finished treat bags, complete with the handprint ghost. :)

Sadie and I shopped for treats to fill the treat bags and ended up with glow sticks, Halloween straw cups, glow in the dark stickers, raisins, Teddy Grahams, candy necklaces, coloring pages printed from the internet, and all their crafts to round it out. Sadie has kept all of her goodies in the bag throughout the week and carries her bag around the house...it's kinda funny! Oh the things that 2 year olds enjoy!

It was a fun day for all four of us honestly. It's nice to get to do these kinds of things with Sadie, and having Malachi over made it even more fun! We're very grateful Sadie has such a good, fun friend to enjoy having over and who enjoys her just as much.

Step Right Up!

....to a circus shower! This past weekend I helped host a cute little circus themed shower for some friends at church. It turned out so cute that I wanted to post some pictures of the details. It was a ton of fun to plan, as you can probably see, and it couldn't have been for a more deserving, sweet couple!

My wonderful mom was here last week, and we made these flag banners. Get this, my mom actually had most of this fabric already. She had decorated her classroom many years ago in a circus theme and had saved all the fabric. So I snatched that up back in the spring when we first started talking about a circus shower. Then we added a couple of other fabrics to play up the three main colors we wanted to focus on...yellow, blue, and red.

The food table

More decoration

We tried to do a grown up interpretation of carnival food (kinda) plus things that matched the decor (circus red, yellow, and blue).

Teeny weenies instead of corn dogs:

chicken skewers with cherry tomatoes

fruit kabobs with red, yellow, and blue fruit:


a little extra decoration on the food table, popcorn cupcakes:




chocolate dipped pretzels:



and the oh-so-time-consuming-but-turned-out-oh-so-cute clown cupcakes:

We also had a popcorn bar complete with popcorn, a choice of seasonings, and bags to take your seasoned popcorn home in as the party favor.

The drinks (sparkling lemonade, cucmber water, and sweet green tea, plus some mint leaves to add to your drink):

The mommy-to-be

The hostesses with the soon to be mommy:

and Sadie enjoying a cupcake after the party was over:

Neighborly love!

We have the absolute sweetest neighbors, Cory and Julie, and we have so enjoyed having them next door over the last year. They moved in the week after Sadie was born. So it took us a couple of months before we were functioning well enough to go introduce ourselves! ha! But we have quickly become friends, and they are really the nicest people you will meet...salt of the earth! Oh, and Julie is an OB/GYN nurse practitioner. So I bombarded her with post partum questions and questions about mastitis last summer. She was so patient with me and didn't judge (at least I don't think she did! :)) We are just so fortunate to have them next door!

They are expecting their first baby at the end of August....a lucky little baby boy, Owen. I was honored to get to host a baby shower for Julie this past Saturday. Here are a few pics of the decorations and the sweet, cute pregnant mama! Owen's room is decorated in bright green and navy blue. So I tried to stick with the same colors, and used a few "O"s for Owen here and there (because his mom loves monograms).

The two tables.....

Favors....


Present opening spot....

The food (blueberry parfaits, sausage balls, eggs, cheese muffins, gorilla bread--a Paula Dean overhaul of monkey bread, lemon poppy seed muffins, donut holes, and green grapes)...


and, last but certainly not least, sweet Mama Julie....

Here are recipes for a few of the foods....

Sausage Balls

(these are a classic...at least in mine and Daniel's families, but poor Julie had never had them)

1 lb pork sausage

3 cups Bisquick

1 lb sharp cheddar

1/4 tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Form 1 inch balls. Place balls on greased jelly roll pan and bake for 18 minutes, turning balls halfway through.

Gorilla Bread

(from The Lady & Sons, Too cookbook)

1/2 c sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c butter

1 c packed brown sugar

one 8-ounce package cream cheese

two 12-ounce cans refrigerated biscuits (10-count)

1 1/2 c coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the sugar and cinnamon. In a saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring well; set aside. Cut the cream cheese into 20 equal cubes. Press the biscuits out with your fingers and sprinkle sugar each with 1/2 tsp of cinnamon sugar. Place a cube of cream cheese in the center of each biscuit, wrapping and sealing the dough around the cream cheese. Sprinkle 1/2 c of the nuts into the bottom of the bundt pan. Place half of the prepared biscuits in the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, pour half of the melted butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle on 1/2 c nuts. Layer the remaining biscuits on top, sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar, pour the remaining butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 c nuts. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Place a plate on top and invert.

Cheese Muffins

(from The Lady & Sons, Too cookbook)

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 T sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups coarsely grated Cheddar cheese

1 egg

1 c milk

1/4 c melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir the cheese into the dry ingredients until all the particles of cheese are coated with flour. Beat the egg with the milk and stir this into the flour mixture until just blended, then add the butter. Bake the batter in greased muffin tins for 20 minutes.