A Campfire Campout

Summer is the time for campouts, so I knew camping would be the perfect theme for my August monthly dinner.  On top of that, our family had a weekend camping trip planned for the weekend before my dinner, so I already had camping on the brain.  Of course, this was not the greatest planning on my part as I ended up creating and cooking everything the day of the party without the weekend to prepare!!  I think it turned out great though.

Invite:  I kept it simple with this invite.  My other ideas were to make a S'More out of card stock and have the white marshmallow fan-fold out with the party details on it....ran out of time for that.

Entry Decor:  My husband nailed together some plywood to make an A-frame which we threw a tarp over as a makeshift tent.  A fun way to enter.  I also made a sign out of wood for our Campfire Cookout and set out a rolled sleeping bag and lantern by the tent.  For a last minute job...not bad.

Decor:  I set the table with a brown tablecloth and a couple of matching camping lanterns.  The fire centerpiece I made using paper towel rolls that I covered in brown packaging paper and painted lines to look like wood.  Then just tissue paper flames.  I used plastic paper plate holders that we use for picnics/camping (yeah...less dishes!) at each place setting.

On each plate, I made a tent out of a green napkin using a hole punch and cut up wooden skewers.  I rolled the plastic silverware in a second black napkin to look like a sleeping bag inside.

As a place card, I made a book of matches with each guest's name on them. The photo is the front of the matches.  The back had the date of our monthly dinner as well as a pretend strike swipe.  Inside each matchbook, I made pretzel matches.  The girls gobbled these up before dinner..they were yummy and hard to resist!!

We enjoy wine at our monthly dinners, but I didn't think my fancy wine glasses would go well with a camping theme!  Instead, I bought cheap mason jars from Target and added a strip of gingham fabric with a twine tie, and a leaf wine charm made with my Cricut machine. I also had water bottles which I made a simple label for using Microsoft Word.

Menu: My monthly dinners are usually nicer food, so I didn't want to do hot dogs or a generic camping food.  I chose to make hot wraps instead.  I called these Sleeping Bag Chicken Wraps to fit with the theme.  They were easy to make and delicious.  I will definitely make these again and recommend the recipe.

Sleeping Bag Chicken Wraps

1 package Tyson's Grilled and Ready Chicken Strips (or your own chicken grilled and cut in slices)

1/2 cup barbecue sauce

1/2 cup light ranch dressing

Shredded cheddar cheese

Chopped romaine lettuce

Tortilla Strips (mini, found in the salad section)

Large Tortillas (any flavor)

Cook up the Tyson chicken strips according to the package. Mix together the barbeque sauce and ranch in a small dish; set aside.  Place your tortilla on a plate and fill with lettuce, cheese, tortilla strips, chicken, and then drizzle barbeque ranch over the top.  Wrap the tortilla and secure with a toothpick.

I also served baked beans and corn on the cob.

...and watermelon cut in triangles to resemble a tent.  For the menu tags, I just cut a piece of wood in a rectangle, put the card stock tag on top, wrapped a piece of gingham around it and stapled it in the back.  Simple.

For dessert, we of course roasted S'Mores, so I had a small S'more station set up outside.  I used camping chairs to surround our fire pit and added my kids' mini play tent to the decor. It was nice to move outdoors for roasting and visiting.  By the way, if you haven't tried a Reece's peanut butter cup in place of regular chocolate on a S'More, you are seriously missing out!! Delicious!

I also had a plate of Inside-Out S'More Brownies.  Aagain...yummy!

Favor:  As each guest departed our camping trail, I gave them a small treat. I made small logs out of toilet paper rolls (same as the fire centerpiece), and filled each log with a treat bag of trail mix.  The tag wished them Happy Trails.

This was a great party, and we all had a very fun time chatting, roasting marshmallows, etc. As usual, if you would like any of the tags, labels, etc, just comment below.  I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Gender Reveal Party

My husband and I will be welcoming Baby Casto #3 in November, and we found out the gender last week.  My friends were anxious to know and celebrate, so we moved our July monthly dinner back a couple weeks to accommodate.  A gender reveal party is a great way to build anticipation as well as tell family/friends in a cute way.

Invite: I themed the party around mustaches vs. lips with the phrases Hello Handsome and Hello Gorgeous, so I wanted these on my invitation. I designed the invitation on Microsoft Word using simple text boxes.  Nothing fancy.

Entry: I made this sign and mini banner for my front door. You can't see it well in the photo, but I cut out a blue bow tie for the cross on the letter "H" and cut out a pink bow for the top of the "S".  On the steps in front of this, I had a blue stuffed animal on one side with balloons and a pink stuffed animal on the other with balloons.

Decor: A set a my table half with a blue tablecloth and half with pink.  For a centerpiece, displayed our dessert cupcakes and vases of flowers in pink and blue.  I also bought pink and blue blocks from the Dollar Tree to spell out "baby" on each side.

I modeled my place cards after the Hello Handsome and Hello Gorgeous theme, but substituted my friend's names. Pink or blue napkins with the female/male symbols were placed on the guest's plates depending on which gender they voted for.

I made smaller versions of the place cards to use as wine charms.  I also set out two bottles of wine with labels to tie in with the mustache and lips theme.

To have some fun with photos, I made mustaches and lips out of card stock and attached them to skewers.  These made for some silly photos!

Menu:  As guests arrived, I had mustache/lips chips and salsa for them to snack on.  To make the chips, I used a mustache and a lips cookie cutter on white and wheat tortillas.  I placed the cut tortillas on a baking sheet, sprayed them lightly with Pam, and sprinkled some Kosher salt on them.  Then baked them in a 350 oven for 5-7 minutes.  Cute, easy, and healthy.

For the main meal, I wanted to incorporate the mustache/boy and lips/girl theme as much as possible. I served Bob's Big Boy inspired burgers (notice I drew a mustache on Bob), Bow Tie/Bow Pasta Salad, and a Strawberry Jello with lips on top.

For the burgers, I set out various toppings for guests to add what they liked: lettuce, tomato, onion,

bacon, avocado.  For the bow tie pasta salad, I followed Jamie Dean's pasta salad recipe.

1 pound bowtie pasta

Kosher salt
1 cup frozen edamame (out of the pods)
2 carrots, sliced into 1/2-inch chunks
One 12-ounce broccoli crown, cut into bite-size florets
1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved (preferably yellow and red)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon sugar
1 large clove garlic, minced
Freshly ground black pepper
3 green onions, thinly sliced

Directions
Add the pasta to a large pot of boiling salted water. Set a timer and cook the pasta for 3 minutes less than it says on the back of the box. When the timer goes off, add the edamame and carrots and cook for 2 minutes longer. Next add the broccoli, and continue boiling for 1 more minute. Drain the pasta and veggies in a colander in the sink. Rinse well under cold water to stop the cooking. Make sure to drain off all the liquid. Add the pasta mixture to the large bowl along with the shredded cheese and cherry tomatoes.

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil and vinegar. Then whisk in the mayonnaise, sugar, garlic and some salt and pepper. Add the dressing to the salad and toss well. Fold in the green onions. Serve immediately, or cover with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours before serving. 

The lips on top of the jello is just the recipe for Jello Jigglers.  The recipe for what I called the Lip Smackin' Good Strawberry Salad is...

1 package strawberry gelatin
1 cup hot water
1 package frozen strawberries, partially thawed
1 small package cream cheese
1 cup whipped cream

Dissolve gelatin in hot water.  Separate frozen strawberries with a fork.  Soften cream cheese with a small about of strawberry juice.  Add separated, frozen strawberries to gelatin.  When mixture begins to thicken, quickly add softened cream cheese and fold in whipped cream.  Refrigerate.  Serves 6-8.

For dessert, I made chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting in the center to reveal the gender to guests. I topped them with scrap booked mustaches and lips on toothpicks. I had originally intended to have guests bite into these as my kids did the official reveal, but the girls and I decided to eat them after, so we could just focus on my kids' excitement.

The Big Reveal:  I painted a big box white and decorated the outside to go with the night's theme.  Inside, I blew up pink balloons to reveal the gender.  My daughter and son LOVED opening the box to discover they were going to have a baby sister.  I also gave out pink and blue silly string dispensers to some of the guests, so this added to the fun as they squirted the string everywhere!

A fun toast with the girls to celebrate the big reveal!  The champagne (sparkling cider for me), was served in glasses with sliced strawberries or blue berries on skewers to fit with the theme.  Notice how many of my friends guessed girl and wore pink! Turns out they were right!

Favor:  I made chocolate suckers as a parting gift.  Each guest, got a red lip chocolate sucker and a chocolate mustache regardless of which gender they guessed. I also colored in Hershey bars with permanent marker.

All in all, it was a very fun night and a special way to reveal our baby's gender to our children as well as some of our closest friends. Only a few more months and the real adventure begins!!  We cannot wait for HER to arrive!!

Sixth Anniversary Gift

As you may remember from my Fifth Anniversary gift post last year, I like to try to give my husband gifts that match up with traditional or sometimes modern wedding anniversary gift traditions.  For a sixth anniversary, the traditional gift is candy or iron and the modern is wood.  Here is what I came up with:

I bought an iron bucket from Michaels and filled it with various candy bars.  I attached cute sayings to each candy bar for a personalized touch.  It isn't a keepsake gift, but it was fun to put together and come up with special/funny phrases for the candy bars.  Here are just some of my favorites...

 

You could totally use this idea for Valentine's Day or as a birthday gift. When my hindsight kicked in, I was also thinking I could have given my husband a candy bar a week or every other week throughout our 6th year as a gift instead of a one-time basket.  This may have been a better idea to keep the silly romance going all year long as well as spread out the tooth decay!!

I made the tags on Microsoft Word.  If you would like the file, comment below with your email address and I'd be happy to send them.

Happy Anniversary Honey!

Summer Bucket List 2013

Have you signed up for The Happy Family Movement’s Summer Bucket List Challenge?  I found out about this super neat idea from a fellow blogger.  The purpose is to encourage families to do things together and create meaningful memories.  It is right up my ally, and after talking with my family over dinner one night to get ideas, I created our list right away.

We tried to pick activities of varying price ranges and time commitment.  Some of the items we do often in the summertime, but others we have never done before which will be really neat.  My four-year old daughter got so excited to scream out her bucket list items like painting seashells, going fishing, and smoothie night.  My two-year old son was adamant about a bike ride, train ride, and donuts!  I created the chart, printed it, and tacked it to our refrigerator.  We use a yellow highlighter to highlight items after they've been completed.  This way we can see our progress, but it doesn't hide the event from view.

Just some photos from our Summer Bucket List fun so far...

Can't wait to complete more fun activities as a family!!

Swim Teacher Thank You 2013

My two little ones finished their first round of swim lessons today. I wanted to give the swim teachers a little thank you, but didn't want to do exactly the same thing I did as last year's gift.  Both of my kids' teachers wear zinc on their noses, so I thought of this gift as a practical one...

The package of zinc that I bought had the stick as well as the circular container in one package, so I changed the card to eliminate the "stick" phrase for my son's teacher. Of course, I also changed the blond girl to a boy.

Both tags were done in Microsoft Word.  If you would like either tag to use this year to thank a swim teacher, just comment below!

Happy Summer!

A Pirate Birthday PARRRty!

Seeing how my kids are a 2-year age difference and their birthdays are only 3 weeks apart, this year I decided to combine their birthday parties.  Lucky for me, they are both excited about pirates currently.  My daughter always wants to watch the Disney pirate show on television, and my son loves to walk around telling everyone "Arrgh Matey" with his fist pumping in the air.  Both were excited when we talked about this as their birthday party theme.

Invite:  I found some red and white striped scrapbook paper at Michaels which went perfectly with this theme.  I typed the party details using two free pirate fonts I found on the internet - Pieces of Eight is the majority of text, and Rapscallion is the Arrgh Matey font.  One of my students designed the pirate patch for me on Photoshop. She found the skull and crossbones, and then just added my children's initials to the image.  I used card stock for the invite and elevated the patch with a small piece of double-sided scrapbook foam. *Note: This 3D addition did cause the post office to charge me a little more to mail them.

Entry Decor:  I bought a long piece of plywood and wrote on it with Sharpie for guests to "Walk the Plank" before entering. I put a couple of crates until the wood for added support, and the blue tarp was my pretend water.  The simple sign on the door welcomed guests to The Pirate PARRty.  The kids LOVED walking the plank...this is an easy activity and a must-have for any pirate party as the kids had a blast.

Decor:  I kept things simple with red tablecloths, black/white napkins, and red/black plates and cups. My centerpieces for each table were wooden treasure boxes I found at Michaels with goodies inside. I used wood stain for each box, then set it on top of a pirate bandana (Oriental Trading Company), and filled it with red tissue paper, beaded necklaces (Dollar Tree) chocolate gold coins (Party City), and Ring Pops (Dollar Tree).  Some of the coins melted since the party was outdoors, but no big deal. I made the Happy Birthday banner with card stock and my Cricut machine.  Loved how it turned out.
I borrowed this amazing boat from a friend of mine to add a ship to the party.  Her husband made it, and it was a cute addition to the theme.

Activities: Upon entering, the kids received their pirate attire and Treasure Map.  I made the pirate hats and patches using black foam from Michaels.  You can get two hat fronts out of each piece.  The hat front and strip on the back were attached with hot glue.  I cut the white skulls out of white foam board that already had the sticky back. I bought a Pirate foam sticker pack from Michaels, picked out the skull/crossbones and used theses for the front of the patches.  Then just hole punched the foam and tied black elastic to complete the patch.

My mom also made these super cute head scarves for each guest.  To add more "pirate" to the plain red fabric, a friend of mine drew a skull and crossbones on the front with white paint and fabric markers.

I created the Treasure Map using Microsoft Word.  Besides the Patch the Pirate game, kids could just play throughout the party and didn't really have to go in this order or need organized supervision.  This was nice because it allowed the party to have freedom and kids could do what they wanted, whenever they wanted.  When the kids finished their Treasure Maps, they received their pirate sword and gold coins. Since my kids are so young, I didn't want plastic swords, so I decided to make swords out of balloons (video found on youtube).  The coins were just chocolate coins.

One activity was the Tattoo Parlor and Face Painting station. I bought pirate-themed tattoos from Party City, and one of my friends offered to put mustaches on kids with black makeup.  Easy and fun.

Patch the Pirate was one activity we did as a group.  I found the pirate image on Google and traced it onto butcher paper.  I made patches with each child's name on it and they used the pirate hats they were already wearing as blindfolds.

Activity #3 was the Captain Hook Toss.  I bought 3 pirate hooks from Party City, and my husband screwed them into a plank of wood we painted white. The kids tossed pool rings to see how many they could make onto the hooks.  Since my kids are only 2 and 4, I did not set a specific line to throw from.  I just let them go.

Activity #4 was Fishing for Buried Treasure.  I bought fishing poles for $5 from Walmart and attached large magnets to the ends.  The kids fished plastic coins with washers glued to them out of a small pool.

The other two stations on the Treasure Map were the Pirate Lookout and Bounce Ye Heart Out.  This was just the fort my husband has been building for the kids and a small bounce house we borrowed from friends.

Menu: I chose an easy menu and just thought of pirate names for things.  For the adults, I served meatball sandwiches out of a crock pot and called them Cannonball Sandwiches.  This was honestly just frozen Costco meatballs and spaghetti sauce with a few extra spices that I put in the crock pot that morning.  For the kids, it was hotdogs in buns which I called Scurvy Dogs.

I served Fish and Chips and Pirate's Booty for chip selections.

The vegetable platter was "planks" of celery and carrots of course to be "dipped" in ranch dip.

I cut a watermelon to look like a pirate ship, hollowed it out, and served the fruit salad in it.  I tried to include a lot of berries so that I could call this the Ship with "Berry"-d Treasure.  I also made some masts using a dowel pole and sails I created on the computer.

For drinks, I served Kool-Aid and iced tea which I called Pirate Punch and Ahoy May"Tea".  We also had soda and alcohol in a cooler for adults.  I added the party logo to the cups by printing the logos on Avery Name Tag Label stickers and then using my circle punch to cut them out.

The Cake:  I love the pirate ship cakes I made for my kids.  Each one is a 9x13 cake cut and layered to make the pirate ship.  Square pretzels, stick pretzels, and Lifesaver mints were used for the added touches. I placed the candles coming out of the portholes. Again, I created the masts on Microsoft Word.

I made pirate ship cupcakes as well.  These were marble cupcakes that I frosted blue and then piped on a boat in brown.  The sales were printed and attached to toothpicks.  I got the free printable for the sails online here.

Favor: I made pirate face sugar cookies for each guest to take home and chocolate suckers.  Both took a while to do, but turned out really cute.  The tag for the cookies read, "Thanks for Coming to Our PARRty!"

Choosing to make all the desserts, hats, patches, etc. added a lot of extra work (and luckily I had some friends offer to help), but I think they were great additions to the party. My kids had a blast, and the party turned out great.

Here's a couple final shots of the birthday boy and girl!  Happy Birthday Ella and John!

*As usual, please comment on your thoughts!  Love hearing from you!  And if you would like any of the tags, treasure map, etc....just ask!