A Birthday Weekend

We spent time with family this weekend at a 2nd birthday party for one of our sweet grand nieces, Lucye.

The party was on Saturday, but we arrived Friday evening so we could watch her twin 6 year old brothers compete in their T-ball tournament. Unfortunately one of the boys was sick and couldn't play. However, his brother had a great game!

It was cold in the stands! This is our nephew, his wife and their sweet daughter. They were there to cheer on the kids.

After the game, we went out for a big family dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. Then, home to continue preperations for the party the next day. Momma Tracy made cupcakes and the twins and Daddy blew up balloons. Then, off to bed so we could get up early Saturday and finish the party prep.

Our niece had a schedule* to follow. Everyone was very excited when we got to highlight items that were complete!

Great Uncle Steve was in charge of streamers.

Great Aunt Cindy was in charge of carrots, celery and ranch dressing.

Mid-morning break time included reading a book.

The Husband and Tracy putting finishing touches on the adult buffet, which was chicken salad sandwiches, mom's macaroni salad and chips.

The kid's table featured PB&J sandwiches, carrots & celery and applesauce.

And cupcakes, of course!

The birthday girl enjoyed her lunch and cupcake.

As well as opening her gifts!

Aww...money!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby Girl!

* Tracy keeps a spiral bound notebook with all her notes for parties and holiday celebrations. It contains information on the guest list, the menu, table diagrams, etc. 

I'm proud of her for being so organized.
She entertains a lot and this is one of her tricks that makes entertaining appear to be so easy!

I keep Thanksgiving and Christmas books,

but nothing for other holidays or parties. 

How about you? Do you have a party book?

A Family Gender Reveal Party

I blogged about a family "gender reveal" party here.

The result of that party was our lovely Lucye Jane.

How sweet is she?

The Husband and I attended another family gender reveal party this week

for our sweet niece, Mary and her husband, Joel.

We all predicted the gender of the baby by voting on this board.

We also suggested boy and girl names, but I didn't get a photo of those. :-(

(Yes, Cynthia was a suggestion from me!)

There were pink and blue cupcakes for everyone.

The secret is inside!

Mary was so nervous she couldn't bite into the cupcake,

so she had Joel do the honors.

The results are:

Blue!

We are having a boy!

Yippee!

Have you ever been to a gender reveal party?

They are fun!

An Okie Style Royal Wedding Tea Party

Yes, I watched the wedding of Prince William and Katherine. In fact, I recorded it and watched it again with my 8 and 5 year old nieces. We had a little tea party, Okie style.

We had flowers and jewels for our hair.

Everyone practiced the "royal wave" (except for Mom.)

We had tasty tidbits.

There was pretty dessert.

The girls had their own little table, which coordinated with the serving table.

There were many brides and grooms, like this pair, who joined our festivities.

We had a lovely time having a party to watch the royal wedding together.

I was happy to use my grandmother's glass snack sets and my large punch bowl. I can't remember the last time I've used either one.

Our Menu:

Cucumber Mint Tea Sandwiches

Apple-Boursin Cheese Sandwiches

Veggie Crescent Snacks (I used diced red, yellow & orange peppers, radishes & carrots)

Deviled Eggs

Decorated Cookies from Merritt's Bakery

Punch

Did you watch the royal wedding? What was your favorite part? I loved their carriage ride from the church to the palace.

Edited to add:

The 5 year old niece loved Princess Beatrice's hat. She called it the "ribbon hat". Many of the other wild hats at the wedding caught her attention. Perhaps she will be a future world famous fashionista?

Third Annual Holiday Open House

The Husband and I hosted our holiday open house yesterday. We invite family, friends and neighbors to have a bite to eat, a glass of holiday spirits and an opportunity to paint ornaments for our porch tree.

The salt dough ornaments were ready to be painted and bedazzled.

I didn't get a photo of the food table, but it was loaded with goodies. :-)

The house was full of people, some more formally dressed than others.

One of our neighbors showed up in a tux, but I failed to get a photo. Notice a trend here?

We had several serious artists at work.

More artists.

Lots of catching up with friends occurred.

See the tree through the front window?

And there was a bit of silliness also. Our friend models TU and OU earrings.

Here's a close up of one of the ornaments. People take their painting very seriously around here.

And when the party ends, we have a lovely tree full of ornaments from our friends, family and neighbors.

We always have a lot of fun hosting this party. 

Does your family have a tradition of hosting a holiday party? If yes, what do you do?

Party Preparations

The Husband and I are hosting our annual open house tomorrow. We have been working hard this week to get everything ready so we won't be rushing around and stressing out on Sunday.

I've laid out all my serving dishes and have put notes on each one, so I'll know I have a dish for each dish (har de har har). For some reason, when I do this it amuses everyone who knows me. Yes, I do take organization a bit too far sometimes, but I think this makes perfect sense. Don't you?

I have collected a few of these 6 1/2" glass vases. They are the perfect size to use for flatware on a buffet. I've used them several times in this manner.

I think it is a cute way to temporarily repurpose these vases.

How do you prepare for your parties? I'm interested in any and all tricks you use to ensure you don't forget an important detail!

Our Perfect Salt Dough Ornament Recipe

The Husband and I host an annual holiday open house where one of the activities is painting salt dough ornaments for our front porch Christmas tree. We have tried lots of dough recipes over the years that, for one reason or the other, didn't turn out the way we thought it should.

After a lot of experimentation, the following is what we consider the perfect combination of ingredients and baking instructions.

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

• Combine flour and salt, mix in 1/2 cup water and begin to knead the dough
• Add remaining water and continue kneading until dough can be rolled out easily
• Cut out shapes with cookie cutters
• Use ice pick to make a hole at the top of each shape for an ornament hanger
• Place shapes on cookie trays and bake for 1 1/2 hours at 200 degrees 
• Turn shapes over and bake for an additional 1 1/2 hours at 200 degrees

The resulting ornaments do not puff up during the baking process and are consistently crisp.

Have fun making and decorating your ornaments!

Are You Planning A Party? Let Me Help!

I have become obsessed with vintage cookbooks, entertaining books and etiquette books. Below are just three of my collection.

The Glamour Magazine Party Book was published in 1965. The Year-Round Holiday Cookbook was published in 1969. And the 1,001 Ideas for Parties, Fairs and Suppers was published in 1964.

There's a hand written note, penciled on the cover of the Glamour Magazine book that says, "Great book to have around."

So, if you're planning a party and want a mid to late 60's theme, just let me know!

The Year-Round Holiday Cookbook has a number of recipes to use your left over hard boiled Easter eggs. The following recipe (page 70) caught my eye:

Eggs in Sausage Shells are a delicious luncheon dish served on a bed of rice with a tomato or mushroom sauce. Two egg halves is the usual serving.

6 hard cooked eggs, shelled and rolled in flour

1 1/2 pounds sausage meat

1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Bread crumbs

Fat for deep frying

Coat the floured eggs evenly with the sausage meat, completely encasing the egg. Dip them into the beaten egg, roll in bread crumbs and fry in deep fat heated to 350 degrees until they are richly browned. Cut the eggs in half before serving.

These are also known as Scotch Eggs and were created in London in 1738. A few years ago, I had Scotch Eggs at an Irish Pub and thought they were interesting. I may try them at home again.

How about you? Have you ever had a Scotch Egg?

Wedding Brunch Planning

So, what did I do Monday?

• Sorted and started laundry
• Went to breakfast at my favorite bagel shop
• Purchased wedding brunch paper goods (plates, napkins, cups, utensils) at Party America
• Grocery shopped at Reasor's Grocery Store
• Wrote a Saturday wedding brunch e-mail manifesto
• Created the wedding brunch grocery shopping list
• Planned my wedding brunch activities for remainder of the week

Heh heh.

I'm reviewing my manifesto and related Tuesday "things to do" list.

Finishing laundry is high on that list!

New Years Eve

Do you have big plans for New Years Eve? We don't. Which is more than fine.

We'll probably be in bed by 10pm. After seeing the blue moon, of course.

Happy New Year!

One Last Post About our Christmas Open House

I just finished the official "after action review" of our Christmas open house.

For those of you who haven't spent recent time in Corporate America, an "after action review" is the analysis of an event to determine what went well and what did not go well. The goal is to document the review findings so the next time the event occurs, any problems are not repeated and all successes are repeated or improved upon.

Obviously, Corporate America still influences me.

So, my party book now contains all the notes on the guest list, food, beverages, glass rentals, household preparation/help and party set-up.

For the 2010 party, all I have to do is open the book!

Oh Christmas Tree

I promised a few pictures of our porch Christmas tree that was decorated by family, friends and neighbors during our party.

The full tree:

Close up #1

Close up #2The tree looks spectacular both during the day and at night, when the lights are on.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

The Second Annual Powell Porch Party

In 2008, The Husband and I began hosting a Christmas open house for family, friends and neighbors. Our second party was held this past Sunday.

The purpose of the party is to come together, have fun and paint salt dough ornaments to decorate the Christmas tree on our front porch.

Below, the art table awaits the artists.

The Eddins family creating several masterpieces.

Family and friends working hard.

Friends and neighbors continue the efforts.

We had about 40 people at the party, resulting in a great variety of ornaments.

Our Christmas tree looks great! I'll post photos soon.

Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments - #2

Tuesday was "do over" day for the salt dough ornaments.

Our next door neighbor, David, loaned me his marble rolling pin and surface. It was much easier with these tools to roll out the dough, cut the shapes and pick them up without distorting them! And, let me just say this rolling pin is awesome!

David helped with the first batch by supervising me and poking the holes in ornaments before they were baked.

Here is the batch just out of the oven. Look...no puffy ones!

All the ornaments are thin like this:

Baking them at 200 for 1 1/2 hours did the trick.

I researched salt dough ornaments this week and found this project for Thanksgiving. Very cute. I need to review this blog more closely because it appears has lots of fun projects.

Now that I've had one good batch of ornaments, I only need 4 or 5 more for our party on December 6th! Wish me luck.