Bourbon and Bacon Birthday Bash

 This past weekend my friend and I threw a party for our husband's birthdays. We decided on a Bacon and Bourbon theme and it was so much fun I thought I'd share all the details of what we did. We found some cute quotes about Bourbon and an image of classic bourbon cocktails and framed them to decorate the bar area. We had about 12 different bourbons to taste, an assortment of bitters, mixers, fruit, mint, simple syrup....literally anything needed for everyone to make their favorite beverage.

My friend ordered these adorable cookies that were as delicious as they were cute!

 As per usual, right before the party I was running super late so I asked the birthday boys to take pictures for me. The bacon you see in the glass is "Bacon Man Candy" that Celena made- dangerously delicious!

Celena's daughter also made a decadent Chocolate Pecan Cake with Bourbon Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Maple Bacon Rice Krispie Treats 

 I had cheese stuffed mini peppers as one of the appetizers. All I did was mix goat cheese, Boursin cheese, thyme and bacon together and spooned that into halved mini sweet peppers. Roast them at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes and then drizzled them with a roasted garlic honey

 My bacon deviled eggs went fast! I couldn't believe we went through 48 of them!!

This Beer Cheese Spread is something I've made many times. It's so simple to make and can be made ahead of time. I served it with toasted baguette slices and mini soft pretzel bites.

 There's a small wine bar by my house that serves manchego stuffed bacon wrapped dates with a chimichurri dip that's to die for. I made my own version by stuffing pitted dates with a smoked goat cheese, wrapping them in bacon and roasting them until crisp. The chimichurri I made was actually a recipe my son and I came up with together while researching Argentinian food for his World Cultures class. It's delicious with grilled meats, as a dip, or as a salad dressing!

Chimichurri Sauce

2 cups packed fresh Italian parsley leaves

4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/4 cup packed fresh oregano leaves (or 4 teaspoons dried oregano)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Place all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth

 A veggie and cheese tray is always a hit and for the main dish, I had pulled pork in the crockpot. I had a variety of sauces to choose from along with slider buns and tortillas allowing people to make sandwiches or tacos!

Overall, the party was a huge success. We had so much fun celebrating our guys!

Shark Attack Birthday Party

My son and his best friend both turned 12 in July an they had a joint Shark themed birthday swimming party to celebrate! Since the party was at his friend's house I was able to spend my time having fun creating the food and snacks for the boys! The big cake was pretty simple: chocolate cake with vanilla icing and a fondant shark cutout. The cupcakes were coconut cake, filled with berry jam and coconut cream cheese frosting. I used the extra fondant from the big shark and made mini shark fins for the cupcakes. For the favors I took rice krispie treats, dipped them in blue candy melts and decorated them with goldfish crackers and sprinkles.

For the snack table there was a drink dispenser with blue gatorade and mini Swedish fish frozen in ice cubes so they would float. Veggie Straws were pool noodles and Goldfish crackers and potato chips were called "Fish & Chips"

I had fun carving the watermelon and cucumber into sharks for the fruit and veggie platters and at the end of the day even the shark cucumber was eaten!

I think the best part of the whole party was the severed hands and feet floating in the pool! The kids got such a kick out of that and never stopped laughing at the "slow swimmers"

It was a great party and the kids had a ton of fun swimming!

Chopped Jr Birthday Bash

Last weekend we threw my daughter a birthday party at the house. I tried to offer numerous other options and even attempted bribing her, but she wouldn't budge. She wanted a Chopped Birthday Party. I wondered about the state of my sanity while pulling it together and was really nervous at the thought of having 9 little girls over to my house for a Chopped competition, but to my surprise it went way better than I could have ever expected! The girls had an absolute blast and seeing them so excited made it all worth it!

I ordered the Invites, score sheets, banner and all of the cute printables here from Etsy

I also ordered kids plain aprons and some fabric markers so as the girls were arriving they could each decorate an apron to use while cooking. I was thinking instead of the usual bag of annoying noisemakers/stickers/candy that dyes their mouth green and gets left on the floor of your car after a party this was at least something they could keep and use at home too!

 We had the girls pick a number and then divided them into 3 teams of 3. I set up 3 small stations that they could cook and prep at and had a "pantry" table of extra ingredients they could use as well

The Pantry Table before it was raided is below

Afterwards it looked like a swarm of locusts had cleaned it out

For the entree round the secret ingredients were tomatoes, pizza dough and cheese (I had 5 types of cheese and they could pick the one they wanted)

I pre-cooked bacon and Italian sausage to give them some proteins to choose that didn't need to go on the stove and made sure I had a ton of veggies to choose from too.

For the most part I was really impressed with the final dishes. A few of the girls were worried and told me before we even started that they had never cooked anything before so my expectations weren't very high to begin with. 

Just in case you're wondering, yes that is a pizza surrounded by cool whip in the bottom shot. 

Yeah, it was rough...

They were so excited for the reveals! 

There was a lot of squealing...it was LOUD y'all

Team 1 hard at work

 So stinking cute!

 I loved seeing how intense they were as the clock was running and had a great time teaching them a little bit of knife skills for those that were interested

Hands Up! Round 1 is over!

 For the dessert round, I had a whole dessert bar in the middle of the table so that served as decoration and their stash to work with plus the pantry table for them to pick from. For their secret ingredients they had to use any flavor cupcake, sprinkles and their choice of icing.

There were sprinkles EVERYWHERE

Overall, it was a blast and I hope the kids had as much fun as Brianna did!

Star Wars 6th Birthday

 Every year I look forward to this moment. The "first glance at the cake" moment. 

The one second that makes all my pre-party stress totally worth it.

I am like almost every other mother I know; we put tremendous pressure on ourselves to make our children's parties "perfect"....whatever that means. 

And as I was decorating his cake this year I was realizing that I'm not going to be able to do my little tradition much longer. Every year I have completely hidden the cake from Marshall until right before his party, had him walk in when it's completely finished and gotten a picture of his face when he first sees it. It is something that I adore, seeing the excitement and joy in his face when getting the first glance at something that I have poured my heart into especially for him. 

 The older he gets the harder it is to pull this off. It takes hours to make his cakes and he needs to be gone or asleep for me to work on it. And keeping him away from the fridge where I am hiding it is a job itself. But I am so grateful for one more year of cake surprises and he was just as enthusiastic as I hoped he would be.

  Marshall is completely and utterly obsessed with Star Wars, so there was really no other choice for the theme of this party. For the cake I did a Millennium Falcon out of chocolate cake and vanilla icing.

 The party was at the Austin Children's Museum and I think everyone had a great time! I got the idea for the lightsaber utensil/napkins on pintrest and filled Yoda cups with bounce balls, candy, glow sticks, stickers and chalk for the favors

 The cake was chocolate and the cupcakes were vanilla

I got the idea for the chocolate covered lightsaber pretzel rods here

 I went a lot simpler this year with the food than I have in previous years. Han Solo Roll Ups for the adults (whole wheat wraps with ham, havarti cheese, spring mix greens and a spread I made out of sun dried tomatoes, mayo, garlic and a Pampered Chef Parmesan Garlic seasoning) and Jar Jar Links (crescent wrapped turkey little smokies) for the kids

 PB&J bombers that I cut out with these sandwich cutters and the cupcake decorating set from here. Luckily for me I live very close to a Williams-Sonoma outlet and was able to get all of these items on clearance!

 Droid Dip and Vader Veggies

Yoda Melon, Trooper Scoopers and Jawa Juice

 The birthday Jedi ready for some cake and Princess Brianna with her Leia buns

 Make a wish!!

 

 I love random pictures when you see all of your guests having fun!

 As we were cleaning up Brianna had to put herself at the head of the table and pretend it was her day, even if ti was only for 5 minutes

Once we got home Marshall got to open his gifts and I got to relax with a glass of wine. We were both happy!
I have always found it stressful to open gifts in front of people. You never know what potentially embarrassing things kids will say, like "I didn't want this" or "that's it?" or when you receive three of the same item.  Do you open gifts at parties or do you wait till you get home?


" Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is"
-Yoda

Dessert Shooters............So No One Has To Share

When Louis and I first started talking about throwing an engagement party I instantly knew I needed this wreath on the door. Isn't it so fun and festive?

I've told you about my pinterest obsession and this wreath is one of the first things I ever pinned

I wanted to have a party just so I could make it

All the decorations were bright and fun

 I have never seen a cabbage in flowers before but now that I have I want one in every arrangement I buy from now on

On the dessert table was the cake and cupcakes I told you about earlier here 

and these adorable mini desserts

Mini Raspberry Cheesecake Dessert Shots

I was so happy with the way these tasted, and I loved how it was single servings

because none of us want to have to share dessert!

I made the crust the night before the party, let it cool, crumbled it and assembled the dessert shots in the morning then placed them in the fridge to set for the rest of the day.

In between the layers of cheesecake filling is a layer of raspberry preserves.

I wish I could share the recipe with you, but I can't

I started out making a recipe that I looked up with great reviews for a no bake cheesecake filling

I made it, I tasted it, I hated it

so I added a little of this and a lot of that and I really don't know how to tell you the exact measurements for what was in it except that once I was done doctoring it up, it was delicious!

I hope the guests and the happy couple enjoyed them as much as I did!