It's Football Time!

My husband grew up back east though and is a BIG Redskins fan. Since we don't get to see too many Redskins games on TV out here on the west coast, he was so excited that their season opener was on TV out here that we decided to host a Redskins party last night with some good friends to kick off football season. I seriously can't believe I did all that work for a football game that the Chargers weren't even playing in... just joking, I love the guy and I love hosting parties, so it was all worth it. Plus the Redskins beat the Cowboys... ahhh, icing on the cake! I made this banner and the other printables from paperandcake.com. This is the 2nd time I've used one of their printable parties and I LOVE them! I loved being able to edit the text with the printables. We used my husband's football pictures from when he was a kid as part of the decorations! We had two galvanized drink tubs... one for the adult drinks and one for the kid drinks. The touchdown tea from the Rookie tub was a big hit! One of my favorite party details was the green astroturf runner! These little labels marked all the food for the RED Skin potato bar. For dessert I made chocolate rice krispy footballs and Red Velvet cupcakes (since it was a RED Skins party after all!) It was a great night with wonderful friends and I wish the Redskins a great season... almost as good of a season as I hope the Chargers have. Go Bolts! And Redskins :)

Silhouette Give Away!!

Ever since my friend Jen won the Silhouette giveaway on HowDoesShe.com recently ( I KNOW, she is sooooo lucky!!) I have been wanting one of my own. Tonight on Kara's Party Ideas, one of my favorite party sites, she is hosting a Silhouette giveaway!!! Hop on over and leave a comment so you can try to win it too! Look at what Jen just whipped up on hers for the 1st Day of School today... adorable!

Calling all little ladies!!

Looking for an adorable theme to host your little girl's next party? Tweedle Dee Designs is a super cute blog that has FREE ladybug printables. So, so cute! Flutter on over and print them :) Click here to see all the free ladybug printables!

Me and my SWEET tooth!

Everyone who knows me knows that I LOVE cupcakes. I have spent countless hours in the kitchen trying out different cupcake recipes and countless times I've been disappointed by the results... until I got this book. I realize this book is not new- I got it the minute it came out, just never had a chance to share my love for it until now! Every single Martha recipe I've tried comes out perfect, every single time. Martha gets two thumbs up from this cupcake lover! Even though I know both of these books have been out for quite a while, now that I've had such sweet success with Martha's cupcake book I think I NEED this one now too!

Ooh La La!!

For the past year or so my life has been a whirlwind... a fun whirlwind, but a whirlwind nonetheless. I'm so grateful to have some time to breathe, catch up on things I've had to put on the back burner, and spend more time with my boys. Way back in March I hosted a French Bistro themed Bunco night for our Bunco group. It was a really fun night... and I'm finally getting a chance to post a few pictures!

Happy 4th!

4th of July is my favorite holiday... the patriotic colors, the warm summer weather, the way it's soooo easy to incorporate fun for the kids into the celebration. I love everything about it, even when it's celebrated 4 days late due to a sick little boy. So we celebrated a Happy 4th on the 8th! My two little cuties in their 4th of July shirts (from Crazy 8... love that place!) I LOVED these free printables from lilboandco White chocolate covered Oreos... yum! Hostess with the Mostess printables are always fabulous! Alison's brownie pops were a hit! Horray for a healthy boy!! And of course, we ate our corn on the cob in style thanks to Heidi!! Happy 4th of July (on the 8th)!! We loved celebrating with our good friends.

Time to celebrate!!

Sometimes it's hard being the one who plans all the parties because when it's time for my own birthday, who does the planning? Normally we do something nice as a family and I love it, but I don't always spend time with friends or get a break. This year I got everything I wished for... time with good friends, time alone (with a good book and a pedicure to keep me company) AND special time with my family! The tricky part for me was planning something for myself with friends without making it about ME, ME, ME... I didn't need gifts, just time to relax and hang out with some of my favorite girlfriends. I had seen a "Favorite Things" party on a blog forever ago (sorry, don't remember where!) and loved the idea of getting to share some of our favorite things with each other. Throw in a few of my favorite appetizers, favorite drinks and desserts, and of course favorite friends (with my favorite show, The Bachelorette, on) and it was a fabulous night!! I was so relaxed that I forgot to get a group picture and I had also wanted to get a picture of all of our "favorite things" that we swapped. It was such a fun assortment of things, from mascara to crock pot and vegetable steamer bags and everything in between!

Happy Birthday Jake!

We celebrated our sweet son Jake's third birthday with a backyard sail boat party! It was a beautiful, relaxing day full of fun friends {and little swimming pools, a water table, squirt guns and water balloons}. I bought the Sail Away pdf file from paperandcake.com and loved it! For favors, we had a red, white and blue candy bar for all of the guests, along with books for each friend {from the $1 section at Target!} We love you, our silly sweet Jakers! I used the "Life's a Beach" Cricut cartridge for the front door decoration, as well as the "Jake" banner and lots of little details {sail boats for the candy bags, water bottles, and thank you cards}. The adorable straws above and red/white polka dot cupcake liners below are from bakeitpretty.com. The cute little straw flags are from the Sail Away collection from paperandcake.com. The "fish and chips" were really dolphin and whale shaped chicken nuggets with fries! This adorable sail boat shirt is from myduckduckgoose on etsy. Thanks for stopping by to check out Jake's party!! Have a great weekend!