Friday, May 30, 2014

Kentucky Derby Baby Shower

As some of you may know, I hosted a baby shower for my sister a few weeks ago. I was so thrilled to be able to throw a baby shower for my little sister's first pregnancy.  She made it a little difficult on us though when it came to picking the theme because she has decided not to find out the gender of the baby.  Which means no pink or blue for the shower. And gender neutral showers can be a little more challenging to plan.


Luckily, we had a flash of brilliance and came up with the Kentucky Derby baby shower. My sister LOVED horses when she was younger and, by sheer coincidence, we actually had the baby shower on May 3, the day of the Kentucky Derby. It was like it was meant to be!

Once we had the theme down, we found these adorable invitations on Etsy.





Working from the invite, our colors for the shower were mint and gold with a touch of red {mostly in red roses}.


I set out our wooden rocking horse with a wreath of red roses around his neck to welcome guests to the baby shower.


We had a little welcome table in the entryway where we asked guests to fill out advice cards for the mother-to-be. We had them place the finished cards in my sister's old play barn.




We made a diaper cake and wrapped the layers with moss ribbon {moss to mimic the greens of the track} and colored ribbon in the colors of the shower. I spray painted little plastic rocking horses {that usually come in pink or blue} in mint and used them to decorate the cake. For our cake topper, we found a cute little stuffed horse and made him a little wreath of tiny rosettes.



We also had roses in a mint julep imitation vase to decorate the front table.


Speaking of mint juleps, we had delicious mint juleps {non-alcoholic, for the lady of honor} to drink.


For those that preferred their drinks a little more spirited, we provided a Southern Peach Kiss drink.


In true Southern form, we had mason jars as our drinking glasses with black and white straws.








For the menu, we had traditional Hot Browns but we made them mini. These little sandwiches were so good! Everyone loved them. {Be sure to look for them on the blog later on!}


We also had Southern Pulled Pork sandwiches,



spinach salad with goat cheese and walnuts {we made sure the goat cheese was pasteurized}



fruit salad with cream dip,


and chicken salad with crackers.



For dessert, we had mini cherry cheesecakes {my sister's favorite dessert}


and my mom's friend made us some themed cookies in roses and cute hats. 

 

 We cheated a bit with the cake. We ordered a cake from a local grocery store, and asked for it to only be iced with white icing so we could decorate it ourselves. I bought some sugar sheets and ran them through my Silhouette to make the words and bought the icing roses from the store.

 

 

 After eating, we played a couple of games. We made betting slips for the guests to fill out to guess the baby's gender, weight, delivery date, and all the other vital stats. I am keeping the slips until my sister has the baby and then we will send a prize to the guest who guessed closest. What's a Kentucky Derby shower without a little gambling?


 


I found the official Kentucky Derby logo and traced it with my Silhouette. Then I swapped Kentucky for "Kelly Tummy" {she loves a good play on words...we are alike that way}and Churchill Downs for "Baby Shower" with the date. I love being able to personalize things like that. And I made sure everyone knew EXACTLY what they were waging with this bet...their reputation. It brought the game to a whole new level.

 We also played a game that I made up called Baby or Horse. We had a long list of names and the guests had to guess whether it was a horse name or a celebrity baby name. It was actually a very hard game. But really fun.

 

And of course, we voted for the fabulous hat. I loved the everyone wore a hat to the shower. It really added to the party and made it feel like we were at the races. Even my baby daughter wore an amazing headpiece.

 For thank you gifts for the guests, we gave them rocking horse cookies, again made by my mom's friend. 





My sister had a great time and I loved being about to shower her with a fun party to celebrate the upcoming birth of her first wee baby. 









Sharing with these parties:

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Pink Popcorn {Recipe}


As I may have mentioned previously, my daughter is obsessed loves Disney princesses. I swear, they have mind control over preschoolers. And not just girls... This morning, my son was belting out "And at last I see the light" when he thought no one was around to listen. Anyways, I've been wanting to put together a little princess movie night for Ella and her friends, and finally got around to doing it.


And it was so much fun! First we had pizza with punch from a special pink fountain, and then the kiddos settled down for "Tangled".

No movie night is complete without popcorn, and so with the princess theme came princess pink popcorn. My sister-in-law gave Ella the cutest princess cookbook for Christmas, and she had been begging me to make something from it. This princess pink popcorn sparked both of our interests and made for a great addition to princess movie night. The kids kept asking for more! It was so good that I almost didn't get a picture because my sweet-tooth-husband stole the bowl I had set aside.

And because I'm in the sharing mood, here's the recipe that I adapted from The Disney Princess Cookbook.


We added rainbow sprinkles as a garnish, but I'm thinking that pink sparkle sugar would might be a little more fancy. This recipe worked great with blue raspberry jello powder for Harry's pirate party as Salty Sea Popcorn. Oh the possibilities...

Enjoy!

Linking Up Here:

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Much Ado About Monday {No.61}


This weekend has been a blast. We decided to head up to the lake for the long weekend and were joined by Jill and her family. The kids had so much fun swimming out on the floating dock and spending time on the boat. All of the big kids (2 and older) got a lesson in water skiing from my hubs and they all did amazing!! Every one of them managed to get up and actually ski!! Even little Brynn, who is only two! But, don't tell her that, lol.

I love those sweet smiles!
It was so much fun for our families to hang out and camp together. We bbq'd, roasted marshmallows and spent a whole lot of time just enjoying being outside in this beautiful Texas weather.


And now, to top off this amazing weekend we get to party with all of you!! We always love to see what you've been up to and are so impressed with how creative you all are!! We had some great projects to share this week as well, so in case you missed them, I'll give you a recap. ;-)

On Thursday, I shared my Quiet Time Craft Sticks that my girls and I made together and then on Friday, Lydia got to share the Sweet Simple Dress that she pattern tested.



We also held a fun Jamberry Nails giveaway. Our winner was chosen over the weekend, so congratulations to Nancy L. We hope you enjoy your new set of nails!!


And, as always, we love to give a special shout out to the bloggers who we think shared the most creative, fun posts.

Jamie's Pick: Hello Kitty Hair Bows via Heck Fridays
Jill's Pick: Hot Air Balloon Wreath via The Happy Scraps
Emily's Pick: Polka Dot Rosette Wreath via My Life of Travels and Adventures
Lydia's Pick: DIY Desk for Boys via Tryin' To Make A Home


And the most viewed post of the week was Handmade Bath Bombs via Woods of Bell Trees


Congratulations to you all! Make sure to take a pause and grab our 'I Was Featured' button to display proudly on your blog, you deserve it! :-)



And now it's time to for what you all came here to do... PARTY!!!



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