Candyland

As promised, here are some pictures from Jaylin's Candyland Birthday! Jaylin truly enjoyed her party.The party started off with birthday cake and ice cream. Following the theme of the party, there were several cakes all representing a different character from Candyland. We had Mr. Mint's Peppermint Cake, Princess Lolly's Rainbow Cake, Lord Licorice's Strawberry Cake, Grandma Nutt's Girls Scout Cookie Cake, and Plumpy's Cherry Chocolate Cake.

Next to the cakes was King Kandy's Candy Bar. There were jars of candy and paper cones which read "Your Presence is a Sweet Treat" for guest to fill up with candy and take home.

The rest of the room was filled with balloons including ones we had wrapped in cellophane to look like candy and hung them from the ceiling. Uncle Jim came through again with airbrushed lollipops.

It was so much fun to watch Jaylin open her presents. After her mom read each card, she clapped and gave out hugs after each present.

 On to the next party! I have a Minnie Mouse Birthday Party and Wondermom Baby Shower on the horizon!

Blog to you soon!

Lucy

Alice in Wonderland

I have two of the best friends that also love to plan parties. I met Heather and Misty in college and since then they have become like family to me and we have planned several parties together. Three years ago Misty had the cutest little girl, Jaylin. This weekend we are celebrating her third birthday with a Candyland Birthday party. In honor of her birthday week, I thought I would post pics from her second birthday.

Misty had the best idea for Jaylin's second birthday party, Alice in Wonderland. The birthday girl was dressed as Alice in a dress her mom made and a mini top hat.

There are so many great themes from the movie and allowed us to do some very fun things. They rented out a place with several rooms so we decorated one room as the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. We hung brightly colored lanterns from the ceiling, used teapots as centerpieces, and made the entrance look like the rabbit hole.



The second room was decorated in red and black for the The Queen of Hearts. The sign in the window said "Off with Their Heads."

Jaylin has a lot of people that love her including her Uncle Jim who made these wood card people for a bean bag game. The kids had a great time playing with these!

Misty makes amazing cakes and this party was no exception. See below for the colorful cake complete with fondant roses on the top that were painted red just like the Queen of Hearts.

In addition to the cake, they had jars of candies that had Alice in Wonderland cartoons on them.



Looking back on the pictures, I can't believe a year has already gone by. I am so thankful for great friends and their cute little girls to plan parties for! Look for Candyland birthday pictures next week!

Tuesdays with the Chapman"s

I have really neglected my blog lately and I must say, I have missed it! My real job (you know the one that pays the bills instead of the one that doesn't pay but allows me to plan fun parties) had me on the road all last week. I spent four nights in Vegas, one night in LA, and one night in Nashville. I had a blast but it is great to be back home with the Househusband. I walked into the house after work tonight to the smell of dinner on the stove. He just got the cookbook "The Professional Chef" which is the most intense cookbook I have ever seen. http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/0764557343/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298341811&sr=8-1 He is engrossed in trying several recipes from it this week which is just fine with me :)

Recently when I was thinking about party planning, I realized it is really all about bringing people together. You can plan the most extravagant event but if you don't have loved ones to share it with and to create fond memories, it is a waste. We have a gathering every Tuesday with our friends the Chapman's. We take turns having each other over and cooking dinner for one another. While the Househusband has been known to whip out homemade pasta, our Tuesdays are nothing fancy and very laid back. In fact, most times we are in sweatpants. The best kind of friends are the kind that you can have over when your house is a mess and you're wearing you sweats. I look forward to Tuesdays because it gives me a chance to talk and laugh with our friends. It is easy to get wrapped up in life and let months go by without seeing friends. If you take the time to make a commitment to spending time with friends, priceless relationships and memories are made. Even if they are in sweatpants.

Bryce and Carrie have a precious little girl, Ruby who is almost 2 years old. Her mom is nice enough to let me help plan the party. The theme is Minnie Mouse and the wheels have been turning for a great party!

Blog to you soon!
Lucy

Valentine's Brunch

It was a rough week for party planning. Nothing was coming together or working out for my Valentine's Brunch. It started with my trial run of mini pies that failed, followed by a crisis with the place settings, and failed homemade caramels. Despite all of that, the party came off without a hitch today. For decorations I used Valentine's paper and some red and white checked ribbon. With the paper I cut out hearts and hung them from twine (the same twine used for the Chili Cookoff).

For party favors we made turtles (unfortunately without homemade caramel) and put them in paper bags decorated with the same ribbon used for the place cards.

The food is what really stole the show. We served a potato spinach torte, cinnamon rolls, potato sausage, and strawberry peach Bellini's.

The potato spinach torte was great and was nice because we were able to make it the night before. The Househusband made the best pie crust anyone at the table had ever had. It was very flaky and perfectly browned when it came out of the oven. When he told my mom and grandma that it was made with butter instead of oil or shortening their jaws dropped. It was just about the craziest thing they had heard of when it came to pie crust. If you too feel like being a rebel, below is the recipe.

Pie Pastry

2 1/2 Cups All purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2 T sugar

2 sticks cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2" dices

6 to 8 T cold water

In a food processor combine the flour, salt, and sugar until combined, about 5 pulses. Add the butter and combine until it resembles coarse meal, about 10 pulses. Add 6 tbs cold water and pulse twice. The dough should hold together when you squeeze between your fingers but not be sticky. If it is sticky, add more water 1 tbs at a time pulsing twice after each addition. Turn the dough onto a work service and divide in half. Shape into disks and wrap tight in saran wrap. Chill 2 hours or overnight.

We were also able to assemble the cinnamon rolls the night before. (And when I mean we I mean the Househusband). Since it was a brunch and we were serving several things, we made them about half the size of regular cinnamon rolls.

We bought the potato sausage from Sappington Farmer's Market. http://www.sappingtonfarmersmkt.com/ Sappington sells meat from local farmers. We buy pork there from Todd Geisert Farms in Washington, MO. http://www.toadspigs.com/

Finally, for the Bellini's I had peaches and strawberries in the freezer we had put up last summer. I took about 4 cups of fruit and pureed it with 1/2 cup of sugar. I combined the fruit with a bottle of champagne in a pitcher.

It was a great morning with my family. Below are a couple of pictures of my family.

Lastly, my brother said he would only come to the party if he got major face time on the blog. So here he is!

I'm off to Vegas in the morning on a 7:15 flight (yikes!) I have lots of parties planning to do in March which I will get to after a week of Viva La Lucy!

Super Bowl XLV

I am still full. The Househusband was not messing around when it came to Super Bowl food. We had a group of ten for the Super Bowl and had a great time! The Keeven's will definitely be annual Super Bowl party holders. There are those whose Super Bowl revolves around football and then there are those of us whose Super Bowl revolves around food. Since it is such a food event, I put most of the efforts into what we would be serving. I spent a total of $5.00 on decorations. I went to the fabric store and bought enough green felt to cover my table. We then taped off lines to paint white so it looked like a football field. I also dressed the beer bottles up a bit with the teams' logos on them. There was a friendly competition on which team would have the most beers drank :)

I feel that when you are hosting a party it is important to keep the guests entertained throughout the party. With this in mind, we decided to feature a different food every quarter and at halftime. I wish I could take credit for this idea but I got it from Doug Heffernan on King of Queens when he featured a different chip in every quarter of his Super Bowl Party. (Who says watching tv is a waste of time?)

For the First Quarter and as the guests arrived, we had tortilla chips and dips. Our dips included queso, buffalo chicken dip (okay it was actually wild turkey and it was awesome), black bean dip, and guacamole. I got the black bean dip from Allrecipes.com http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Creamy-Black-Bean-Dip/Detail.aspx. I loved it but next time I make it I will reduce the apple cider vinegar to 1/8 tsp. The guacamole came from Food Network http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/guacamole-recipe/index.html I'm not a fan of cilantro so I really liked this guac recipe. It had a citrus taste to it.

For the Second Quarter we had a mini burger bar. We served venison burgers we had ground a few weeks back and of course they were served on homemade buns because that's how the Househusband rolls. For toppings we had ketchup, mustard, pickles, sauteed mushrooms and onions, Swiss cheese, and American cheese.

For Halftime we had homemade soft pretzels. YUM! I also got this recipe from Food Network http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe/index.html I couldn't find pretzel salt so I used coarse sea salt which worked just as well. We made these the night before and I put them in the oven for a few minutes before we served them. They went great with the queso and mustard. Katie, please note the use of the pasta drying rack you gave me for Christmas :)

Third quarter was buffalo chicken pizza. Okay, again not chicken but wild turkey. It was excellent! The Houshusband made a ranch and buffalo sauce that he spread on top of the dough, followed by the turkey that had been soaked in buffalo sauce, and provolone cheese.

For the Fourth Quarter (drum roll please) we had an ice cream bar. I made chocolate and vanilla ice cream and had asked everyone to bring their favorite topping. The toppings included apple crisp, bananas in a brown sugar sauce, marshmallow cream, Heath Bar, chocolate chip cookie dough, chocolate chip cookies, crushed Oreos, chocolate syrup, and caramel. It was truly a glorious display. It was so glorious that our friend who is lactose intolerant ran to Walgreens to get lactose pills so he could indulge. He was lucky there was any left when he got back!

Before we all were in a total food coma, we did a couple of betting games. We had made two sheets, one for first quarter and one for second quarter, with questions on them about the game. Ex. Who would challenge first? How many total points at the end of the first half? Who will win the coin toss? etc. It cost $1.00 for each sheet and there was a winner for each half. I was so proud of Tarah who beat the boys and got an almost perfect score! She is proudly displaying her winning sheet below.

So even though I am still full, we are not known to miss a meal. We made great use of the leftover guacamole and black bean dip on fish tacos tonight. If you haven't noticed, we love taking pictures of food. When we bring something out of the oven it's like the paparazzi surrounds it.

So excited that I get to spend this week working on my Valentine's Day Brunch. Blog to you soon!

Cabin Fever

I made it to the office today after being snowed in since Monday. I can't believe I am saying this but it was so good to be back in the office. The first day and 1/2 was nice but by yesterday afternoon cabin fever set in something fierce and we had to bust out of the house. Props to the Househusband for being able to work from home for five years without going insane. I didn't even last two days.

I was very productive during my time at home. One of the things I have accomplished is my invitation for my Valentine's Day Brunch. I know, I'm cheating. I am having more than one party in February but I love Valentine's Day. Mostly because of the endless possibilites when it comes to hosting a party. When we were kids, my mom would have a Valentine's breakfast for us every year. We had homemade placemats made from past valentines, strawberry shakes, and lots of chocolate goodies. I decided to continue the tradition by having my family over for a Valentine's Day Brunch. I must say, I outdid myself on the invitation. I went to Archiver's (http://www.archivers.com/) and found some great paper that I made into a pocket to slide the invitation in to. They also had coordinating paper that was thicker that I made into envelopes for the invitations. I don't want to give too much away, but I will be trying out a mini pie mold for this party :) More to come in later posts!