Tuesday, April 19, 2011

{Baby Shower} Cookies and Milk for Alicia and Chase

Our dear Alicia, Kevin's office manager,
gave me the excuse to
bake some cookies and.....
Call It A Party
this winter!
I fell in LOVE with the idea of a
'Cookies and Milk' baby shower!
We started with a color scheme.
The nursery was decorated in brown and blue,
so this was a perfect place to start!
This first picture is of the table.
As I look back on the pictures, I see so many things
that I might have done different, but I think it came out pretty cute!

I made the banner out of felt, printed fabrics and ribbon.
It now hangs in Chase's nursery!
I love making things that can be used for awhile.
It's always so hard to spend your precious time making party
decorations and then it only meets it's doom in the bottom of the trash.

We chose 5 diffrent types of cookies for the occasion.

I recruited the WHOLE family on the baking job!
The kids LOVED it!  Though the picture looks like
I was drinking heavily....please notice the Coke Zero can!






Kylan thought the beaters were the best part!
  
I got these ADORABLE cookie jars at Wal-Mart.
They worked perfectly.  Now...they hold my notions in my
sewing/craft area at home!

I purchased the cute tags to label the cookies from
rachelps on Etsy!  She was so great to work with me on the
different cookies that we have and on colors too!


I think they turned out really cute! 
They were made to be self standing, but I decided
to use ribbon to tie them on the cookie jars.


I'm in LOVE with my two platters!  I love running different ribbons through them
and changing the look for the event.  I have matching vases too! 
A party isn't a party without no bake cookies.....right??? 
Yummy!  One of my personal favorites!


Alicia's Mom made these SUPER YUMMY mints!  Ask me why
I didn't make sure they were all turned perfectly before I snapped a picture.....
Well....the answer is....I'm not sure....  I'm learning from my mistakes!



I ordered these precious invitations from Dimpleprints on Etsy.  (Are you seeing a pattern here?
I'm a HUGE Etsy fan!)




Do you have some items that you wonder what you will
ever do with them?  These milk jugs are one of those things for me.
As it turns out....It was a good thing I had them.  How could I have
ever displayed milk any cuter?  We HAD to have chocolate milk....
pregnant Momma's have to have access to chocolate milk!
I put both jugs in my punch bow with ice to keep them cool.


I added a couple of chrystal bowls with dark chocolate almonds.  If you haven't ever
had the enjoyment of these almonds.....it is TIME for you to try them.  I am in LOVE!
Aren't these little mints the cutest things?  They were extra yummy too! 

Baby Chase came into the world with some really awesome stuff
waiting on him!  I loved everything she got.  You may ask....
Did you love it enough to add another member to your family????
The answer is NOOOOO!!!! 
We love Chase and will spoil him forever, but there will be no more Ruff Babies!



Thursday, April 7, 2011

This is a stick up!

I give my kids the liberty of choosing a 'theme' for their birthday parties each year.  They tend to get very creative and sometimes it stresses the Momma out. 
This year, Kylan wanted a Cops and Robbers party. 
I knew we had to pull out all the stops.  Here are the pics from his party.

This cute invite was created by mgr1966@gmail.com
Isn't it so cute....Wait....did I mention that I had to order it from
Australia???  I didn't know about Leslie yet.  You will see her work later in this post.


I started with the colors.  I decided that the "COPS" part should be Red and Blue...."ROBBERS" black and white....of course!!! 
Into that mix I added some gray and white....
and what we got was a lot of fun!

Bum...Bum...Bum....enters the ROBBER!!!!  **BOOOOO*  *HISS*

Enters the COP!!!  *yea* *whistle*

We even had a visit from our local cheif of police, Cliff Brinson.
The kids got to see the lights on his car!  It was so kind of him to show up at
the party.  Kylan was thrilled to see the car up close.  The kids were a bit confused
that it was an 'unmarked' car.  The lights were in the grill and on the rear view mirror.
My precious husband got into the theme and made up his very own scavenger hunt
to find the ROBBER.  The kids had a great time going from business to business in his
office complex to find the ROBBER and their LOOT!  It was so fun!

The mustaches were a huge hit.  So funny to see these precious little faces
with a mustache!  Couldn't help but share.
Sometimes even GIRLS have mustaches! 
This little guy can't be up to anything good. 
You have to see the most precious cupcake toppers made by my famous
friend, Charynn, at http://www.twosugarbabies.blogspot.com/.  She is amazing!
Aren't they cute on these store bought sugar cookies! 
Hey....I never said I liked to bake a bunch of stuff for my parties.....
My friend, Leslie, at http://www.leslieearneststudios.blogspot.com/ did the awesome graphics
for the party!  Don't you agree???  She is so very talented!

My little COP had to have IBC Root Beer at his party.  Wanna know why???
Because it looks like real beer, of course!  Will I ever have him raised? 

These are black and white "robber" lollipops from http://www.orientaltrading.com/ all
dressed up with Leslie Earnest original graphics!


This is a full view of the dessert table.  We had chocolate covered marshmallow pops.
Cake pops that look so cool and taste WONDERFUL!!!  They are super easy too!


If that smudge looking thing is making you feel the need to clean your computer
screen....*I makes me crazy*....don't even try.  That is SMOKE from the 'sparkler' number 6
that we burned on Kylan's cupcake!  If you have the awesome notion that it would be a great
idea to buy one of these.....DON'T.  They look cool in the package, but take days to burn and the kids
get really tired of watching it.  The Birthday Boy/Girl can't blow it out or the sparkler will not finish its
'sparkle.' Over all....not one of my better ideas!  You will see it in the package in one of the pictures
because I didn't think to remove it before taking the picture.  :-)

I will know better next time....don't put anything in front of the
sweet graphics that you are trying to photographs.



Notice the cute little flags on the sticks??  Those are from Leslie's
COPS and ROBBERS design set too!  I cut them from sheets of
design paper that she provided in the set.


Cupcakes.....Ahhhhh....the cupcakes!
Several years ago I found that having cupcakes at my kids' parties
helped me so much in serving and clean-up.  I don't have a bunch of
knives and forks laying around full of icing and cake.  Messes make me feel
crazy......this is one of the many things you will learn about me on this adventure. 
Here are the cupcakes!

Aha!  There is that pesky number 6!!!!!

We must not forget the Party Favor Table.  This was a HUGE hit with the guests!
Each kiddo had a cap gun, handcuffs, badge, mustache and robber mask.
They had a great time splitting off into 2 teams....COPS and ROBBERS.  Both sides
had cap guns!  I used a simple glass candy jar and filled it with 'caps' for the guns.
8 kids shot over 150 rounds of caps in about 15 minutes!





 Next time....we need to triple
the amount of caps we buy!  The kids had a great time and Kylan was very
pleased with the hour and a half long COPS and ROBBERS game with his friends!

Oh....and he enjoyed the treats too! 




I can't help it....I think the hat off to the side is the most precious thing ever!
He has always worn his hats sideways and it makes my heart smile!!!



We had so much fun that we had to find a place to rest......Ahhhh....
What a day!!!!