The Girl's Birthday Party

An amazing AND fun day with family and friends!

I wanted to just share with you some snap shots of the party.  Here we go...

 

Sweet little favors filled with BFF's amazing iced sugar cookies that were tiny pink and yellow stars to match the theme.

Yummy berry lemonade punch and silly straws make having a refreshing drink so much fun!

Mmmmm...chocolate chip scones made another appearance along with some yogurt parfaits.

Pretty paper cones filled with sugary sweet cotton candy

 

Flowers were yellow and two shades of pink :o) in mason jars with lemons. So fresh and pretty.

The girls became fairies with tutus I made for them and fairy wands made of felt and ribbons. 

Each tutu had a little girl's name on it and they had to find them hanging from the trees.

I love this photo of them finding their own tutu and Fairy Cati looking on full of excitement.

I made baby fairy wands with Popsicle sticks instead of dowels to keep those little ones safe.

After the boys and girls became pirates and fairies, they went on a little scavenger hunt in the yard searching for treasure and little fairy houses in the trees.  Apparently some little fairies have been up to some mischief in our new yard and it was up to the pirates and fairies to find the little toys and treats hidden in them.

Fairy Cati finding some treasure.  

Fairy Ella refused her Fairy Tutu and was somewhere clinging to her daddy.

 

Cati's birthday pin.

 Here are the felt eye patches and telescopes I made for the pirates but you can kind see them in the photos of all the cute pirates.  The telescopes were made from the tulle tubes I used for the tutu's.

 Instead of one cake, I used a muffin tin to make individual little ice cream cakes topped with hot fudge, Oreo crumbles, and whipped cream.  The bottom was also Oreo crumbles.

My amazing family full of smiles on the girl's special day!

P.S.  If any of you Sweet Friends want to know how I made anything just let me know and I would be happy to do a tutorial later. Just wanted to give you a party glimpse for now.
OK then. Off to RELAX!

Simple Chairback Covers Made From Placemats

When we first moved into our house, I was not sure if I wanted bar stools at the little bar area of the counter. But a friend of mine was having a yard sale and selling these chairs that were her mom's...

I knew  I could breathe some new life in them and decided to paint them white.  I would have left the seats alone but I have too many things already that have that white and wood look so I committed and made them all white.

These chairs are really sturdy but the country look of the back of them is not really the look I am going for.  Since power tools are out, I decided to cover them up a bit.  My first thought was using a kitchen towel or cloth napkin because I was looking for a no sew project.  But they proved to be kind of big until I realized a placemat was a good size to work with.

 I found these at Pier 1 on clearance and since they had the color of my kitchen in them, I grabbed them up.  I also figure I can make a few sets of these if I grow tired of this one.

 I needed to fold it over to give it a clean look and to fit the back of the chair. 

I stitched it closed on the bottom.

 They had this cute ball fringe on them but I had to cut them off on one side for this to work.

Velcro is a delightful invention, is it not?  I used it for my closure since I wanted to be able to remove these easily. I also used it to secure the one side I folded down. I used super duper, stickier than sticky Velcro too. 

At first, I was going to do it like this but I wanted the look to fold over so I changed it to this...

It was fun.  Hope you might be inspired to do something similar.  I will let you know what else I come up.  I have another idea to do this but I have not found the perfect placemat or material yet.
I want to do one like this pillow from Pottery Barn... 

 So ridiculously cute!  

I promise to post it when I do it. I am totally inspired.

Let me know what you think!  Your comments make me happy.  Really.  They do.

Linking to:

Summer Strawberry Vinaigrette

Yesterday, we had our neighbor friends over for dinner and they made this amazing Chicago style pizza (which I do NOT have the recipe for since it intimidates me. I mean, I was in awe of the size of pan it came in).  

But I added a salad as my contribution and decided to use this awesome Strawberry Vinaigrette recipe.  I haven't a clue where I got it but have used for several years. And it is ALWAYS a winner. Honest to goodness.

So I decided to share it with all of sweet you.  Your welcome. :)

2 pints strawberries (extra berries to garnish salad)

1 cup brown sugar

1 oz honey

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

2-3 oz. extra virgin olive oil

2 oz. cider vinegar

Combine all ingredients in processor, adding oil and vinaigrette at the end until desired consistency.

I halved this recipe last night and it still made an entire bottle of dressing.  Just so ya know. :)

For the salad, you can use whatever leafy, green, yummy stuff that you like.  All I added were cucumbers, extra strawberries and Kashi Summer Berry Granola.

Hope you enjoy it.

I am linking this recipe up to my sweet friend Keren's blog...Free Pretty Things for You. 

A Shout Out to Good Old St. Nick!!!!

The Scene:  

Today's drive home from church.

The Dilemma:  

My ability to understand some aspects of CATIese.

The Subject:  

Cati singing.

Picture it as you read...

Cati:  "Ho Ho to Santa! Ho Ho to Santa" (She is moving around and I think it's dancing)

Confued Me:  What?

Cati:  "Ho Ho to Santa!"

More Confused Me:  Cati, what are you singing?  Ho Ho to Santa?  Is that what you sung in Sunday School today? 

Cati:  Yeah. Then Silence. Apparently no further clarification is needed.

Growing Impatient Me: Are you celebrating Christmas in July or something?

Cati:  I think I heard crickets and possibly a distant cough. No response available at this time.The singing then resumes.

Exasperated Me:  After 801 more rounds of a ho ho to Santa, I say, "Cate?  What song are you singing?"

Equally Exasperated Cati:  HO HO TO SANTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Suddenly Enlightened Me:  OHHHHHHHH!  Are you singing HOSANNA????

And this is the song she is trying to sing...

Hosanna Rock

Hosanna (Put hands to mouth like yelling) I was wondering why she was bellowing for Santa.
Ho, ho Hosanna (put hands to mouth like yelling)
Hosanna (do the twist) this explained the animated yet limited movements that one can do in a car seat.
Ho, ho Hosanna (continue doing twist)

Whew.  So happy to clear that up but that's when she starts singing the next chorus...

"Everybody, Everybody plays the Lord!"
"Everybody, Everybody plays the Lord!"

Ever LITERAL Me: "Um, Cati?  It's PRAISE the Lord." (this took like 5 minutes for this correct pronunciation to sink in).

Then I hear Ella chime in..."Airbody Airbody paze the WARD!" Waving her hands enthusiastically for emphasis.

Just precious. 

So when we got home I asked Cati to do the hand motions so I could snap some pictures.  

I am a proud Momma of my gospel loving, getting her praise on, cutie patootie girl.

Ho, Ho to Santa (Translation...Ho, ho, HOSANNA!)

Action shot :)

EVERYBODY PRAISE THE LORD!

This was a big finish on the word LORD and if I am not mistaken she may have added jazz hands.

God, thank you for these girls.