Joyful Pink Ballerinas

Emma's 5th Birthday was perfect!

The girls were in awe of the very lovely Lauren.

We kicked off the party by decorating tutus with flowers, feathers, and heart stickers. 

Lauren taught the girls some important ballerina moves and danced with them to a fabulous selection of Disney princess songs, Hannah Montana, HSM, and some Jason Mraz.  The looks of adoration and concentration were so precious!  The girls tried so hard to be just like Lauren.

 

After all that hard work the girls needed some cupcakes and ice cream and a little creating.  We colored angel ornaments and created snow-ballerinas.  And then some more dancing!

I hear that all of the little ballerinas slept very well that night.  Thank you Lauren for doing such a great job teaching ballet.  You are one of my very favorite people!

Happy 5th Birthday Emma!

Fall Party 2009 -- Brrrrr!

Last year, warm and sunny.  This year, snow.

I guess you never know what October in Minnesota will bring.

The morning of our fall party we woke to a winter wonderland.  Fortunately the snow melted by the afternoon, but it did not warm up at all.  Oh, and it was windy.

No worries.   We had a great time regardless of the weather.  This sign welcomed our guests:

When the time came for apple "bobbing" swine flu-style the kids gathered by the apples.  On the word "GO" they tried to catch the apples in their mouths with no hands.  It was precious to watch.  I'm lucky to have two professional photographers as friends.  Check out Emily's photos and her website and Laura's photos and website.

The boys kept warm with a new game they invented.  It was kind of like dodgeball with bean bags and snipers in trees.

Scarecrow building was more popular with the girls and little kids.

The food:  soups and cakes.

• Butternut Squash Soup
• Baked Potato Soup with Bacon
• Laura's Spicy Smoky Chipotle Chili con Carne
• Luke's White Chicken Chili
• Luke's Crab Bisque
• Chicken Wild Rice Soup
  
• Joelle's Taco Soup
• Pete's Cheeseburger Soup
  

• Italian Cream Cake
• Red Velvet Cake
• Yellow Butter Cake
• Carrot Cake
• Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake

For awesome sprinkles and eyes for cakes check out The Layer Cake Shop -- fantastic baking goodies.

All in all a wonderful party.  The weather only made it more interesting!

Pete's Backyard Football Party

Pete celebrated his 8th birthday with a football party in the backyard.  He decided to mix it up a bit after two years of very fun baseball parties.  To prepare for the party, Pete, Dad, and Grandpa Roger built a 10 foot tall goal post out of PVC pipe.  We used it for a punting contest and quarterback contest.  Luke pointed out that a goal post is not actually used for punting or throwing (details!), but it made a great target!  The competition was very impressive.  I think Wayzata is going to have a fantastic football team in 2018!

The best thing about having a July birthday is that you can have a water balloon fight.
It always ends with kids vs. Dad

Burrito Loco at Tour de Fat

This past weekend New Belgium Brewing Company brought the Tour de Fat to Minneapolis for the first time. My friend Greg of Burrito Loco asked me to help him make the BL food tent look cool. I think the blue and orange flags and pennants were definitely responsible for the muchos tacos sold that day.

The event was a lot of fun -- great people watching, good food and drink, fun games and entertainment.

My kids are still talking about the variety show in which two people spit pieces of banana back and forth to each other. Brilliant.

People watching:









Did you know there was such a thing as chalkboard fabric?









Yum.

Annie's Shower

Unfortunately, Annie's Shower had to be cancelled at the last minute. But many of the decorations I made for the shower were also meant for her to take home and decorate her nursery. Above are pennants made from muted baby prints connected with brown organza ribbon and butter yellow rickrack. It should look very cute on baby's tan and cream striped walls.

Pete and I worked on a gift for baby that can hang in his/her room:

Pete chose the fabrics from my stash and cut out the animals, I did the sewing and attached the scene to a prestretched canvas.
Don't know baby's first name yet, but he/she will have a big brown spotted M (baby's last initial) for the nursery. Notice that the spots match the pennants!

A string of green tulle pompoms won't ship well to Ohio, so they found a home in my 7-year-old neighbor's bedroom. They look great blowing in the wind.

And the fresh strawberry pie . . . didn't last 24 hours. Three helpings each for the kids. Yum!

Casey's High School Graduation

What a great time I had planning this party!  The graduate's high school and college colors went well together:  black, white, red.  His extracurricular activities included soccer and music.  With that inspiration I got to work making pennants, windsocks, tablecloths, and centerpieces.

The party was to be set on the small island connected to the client's property by a dock.  Strings of pennants were to line the dock as the guests walked out to the island.  Metallic red windsocks were to blow in the breeze and shine in the sun.  Pots painted red and planted with red gerber daisies and white dahlias were going to be so summery on the red and black gingham tablecloths.

April and May gave us almost no rain and lots of sun, but then on June 6th there was no sun to be found and it RAINED ALL DAY.  What can you do?  We moved some things around and had a lovely party despite the weather.  The graduates even snuck in a muddy game of volleyball when the rain let up a bit.


Cocoa & Fig catered the party.  Their food was wonderful!  Great wraps, pulled pork sandwiches, and salads.  Country Cake Cupboard made the cakes.  They were so cute and really good!

 

Thanks Sue and Phil for the opportunity to plan Casey's graduation party.  

Congrats Casey!  Enjoy college!

Lauren's Go Green Birthday

My wonderful friend Lauren was turning 11 and honored me with the job of planning her birthday party. For the invitation I used wordle.net. Check it out -- fun to play with.Lauren is a budding enviromentalist and chose "go green" as her theme. I found some very cute green (the color) decorations. Dinner was a pasta bar where the girls got to choose their pasta toppings.For dessert we had a strawberry cake and homemade ice cream (ice cream flavors added by Lauren).

We did several green (as in re-use) crafts. As the girls arrived we created button flowers with old buttons, floral wire, and floral tape.

Next was designing a "sculpture". We used empty plastic containers which once held rice and salsa, all the junk from the bottom of the toybox, and a glue gun. The girls were very creative. After dinner we made a tote bag out of an old t-shirt. After sewing the bag the girls used fabric paints to further decorate their bags.Party favors for the girls included pots that Lauren and I filled flowering plants, button flowers in their plants, t-shirt bags, and sculptures.

I had a wonderful time with my favorite 11-year-old and her lovely friends.