Parties

I have about 8 million things I need to post about but we are going to take it one step at a time.

Today we are discussing birthday parties.

Next year if I do two parties (friends then family), I will be sure to do those parties on two different days. Preparations were a bitch to say the least.

I was busy and forgot to take pictures. Thank goodness for my BIL and SIL. They rock.

We will begin with the invitation. It was done by Fern who also did my Christmas cards. She is awesome and I love working with her!


I highly recommend her for any of your invitation needs.

We had a princess brunch at 10am. It was our first party of the day.

Now, one to the party favors. Of course the little girls had crowns, necklaces, bracelets, wands, ring pops, and castles in their goodie bags. I also made each girl a little jar of fairy dust. Every princess has a special fairy, right? Along with the jar for fairy dust was this little poem:
"Take a pinch of fairy dust,
And sprinkle it around.
The fairies will take notice,
And dance round and round."



I found the little jars at Michael's for super cheap. I filled them with white glitter, put the cork back in, tied ribbon and TA-DA... Fairy dust!

The table was fit for little princesses. Mini spray painted flower pots held crayons because the children colored while parents fixed plates.



The margarita glasses actually held breakfast casserole. We looked everywhere for plastic parfait glasses and we could not find them anywhere. I settled for the plastic margarita glass.

I made all of the food (that had to be made). I totally forgot to take a picture of the food but here is the menu:

~ Cinderella's Cheesy Casserole served in margarita glasses- recipe to come later if you are interested

~ Gus's Cheese Platter- plate of cheeses, crackers, and grapes

~ Princess jewels- prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe

~ Royal strawberries- chocolate covered strawberries that Anna and I dipped ourselves. They were delicious!

~ Snow White's garden- Veggie tray

~ Princess Wands- pink dipped pretzel sticks complete with sprinkles

~ Bowl of watermelon balls and blueberries- I don't remember ever naming this dish

~ We had little huggies for drink complete with princess colored straws


Hopefully the children enjoyed their brunch. I know the parents did. I think some of the food was a little over the top for the 3-4 year old age group.


Anyway, after brunch everyone changed into their bathing suits. Dad rented a huge inflatable waterslide for the weekend. Before they started the waterslide, we sang happy birthday.


Caroline loved her cupcakes. She thought they were too cool. They were made my yours truly... Martha freaking Stewart. I found the crown wrappers and toppers at Michael's. I whipped up Paula Deen's deadly cream cheese icing (OMG! SOOO good!) and just used boxed strawberry cake.


The waterslide was a hit at the party with all of the children... except my own. Caroline cried and wouldn't go down. Emma did too.


(Reason #453,760 my child will need therapy... I made her go down the huge slide and land in a pool of water)


(This slide was more Emma's speed.)

After the waterslide, we opened gifts and said our thank you's and goodbyes.

It was an awesome princess brunch and I hope everyone had a great time.

At 5:30, all of our family members got together for dinner to celebrate Caroline.

Between parties, I had to make more cupcakes...


I also remembered to snap pictures of the snack table:



and the dinner lineup:


Snacks included:
~ Chips and french onion dip

~ Spinach dip and melba toast

~ Islander dip and wheat thins

~ Fruits

~ M&Ms

~ Goldfish

~ Cheese, cracker, and grape platter

Dinner included:
~ Hot dogs

~ Brats

~ Fresh corn

~ Potato salad

~ Pasta salad

~ Texas caviar- super easy and super yummy! 2 cans of black eyed peas (drained), 2 tomatoes diced, fresh minced garlic, a few tablespoons of chopped jalapenos (I use pickled because fresh are too hot for me), 1/2 red onion, green onion, a little green pepper, cilantro, and mix it all together with Zesty Italian dressing. Yumminess in a bowl!

~ All the condiments for the hotdogs and brats

We had a great time with family. I even got Anna to go down the slide with me!

We had a great weekend full of parties. Thanks to everyone (especially my Mama) for everything! Love you all!