Punch Pinata Adventures

At most of our parties we have a homemade piñata.  I'll have to post about how to make one of those at some point.  But for Blueberry's first birthday, I decided that a "punch" piñata was a better idea.  I thought that I'd dig up those old pictures to show you!

You'll need:

• 2-3 sheets of poster board
• 24+ sheets of tissue paper
• 24+ brown paper bags
• candy or small prizes

We took some poster board and cut out circles big enough for a child to stick their hand into a remove a fist full of candy.  We don't want to make any raccoon traps here!  You'll also want to make sure that the edges of the hole will not give kids any paper cuts!  Make sure you are leaving enough space in between the circles to secure the bags. 

Then tape some colorful tissue paper over the holes and lay out candy on top of the tissue paper.

Cut paper bags in half length-wise.  Then cut each edge about 1 inch.  Fold those over and tape them down.

Let the kids go to town!  You might need to make sure everyone only gets 1 or 2.  Otherwise the more aggressive kids will get a lot of prizes and the little kids won't get anything.  Seriously.  It's like feeding time at the zoo with these kids sometimes!

Our International Shower Adventure

Our au pair is getting married so I threw a shower for her.  And it was an International Fest!  

A couple of Karen's friends helped me throw it.  Look at the beautiful banner Yuri made!  She also made a canvas for everyone to sign for Karen to remember everyone who came to celebrate.

But you know me!  It was all about the FOOD!  Yuri from Columbia brought some Arepas and Empanadas.  Moana from France brought a savory Tuna Cake and a Quiche!

Between Yuri, Moana and I, we had food from every continent!

I made some Caprese sticks, three kinds of UK tea sandwiches, Australian sausage rolls and Swaziland Mealie Bread.  I made three types of pan-Asian satay in three different styles: Lamb, Shrimp and Chicken.  And representing the USA...we had some potato chips, lol.

The savory spread!

Though I am most proud of the dessert table.  Yuri brought a Lemon Pie.  I made Turkish stuffed apricots, Malawi Peanut Balls, and this amazing Norwegian Ring Cake.

The ring cake tasted super awesome...like almond paste.  It wasn't super sweet, which was awesome.  Even better, it was easier to make than you'd think!  For sure easier than if I'd tried a traditional iced cake!

I even made some fun beverages.  Horchata, a rice drink from Mexico that reminds some people of rice pudding.  Though, I like horchata and am not a rice pudding fan.  I also made a favorite shower beverage of mine...Strawberry Basil Tea with either sparkling soda or sparkling wine added in.

And of course there were GAMES!

Yuri organized a game with pictures of every year of Karen's life, which was so fun!

I also made a few...Present Bingo, What's in your Cell Phone, Love Quotes From Movies and How Well Do You Know Karen!

I think I was most proud of the prizes.  Most of these I got at World Market.
USA - Bike mug with an assortment of hot cocoa mixes...including a bacon one!
International (2) - Passport covers
Morocco - Mint tea, moroccan looking hanging tea candle holder and tea candles
India - Small box and scented soap
Japan - Sake and a little snow globe with a japanese scene
France - Small bottle of wine and a bag of madelines
Europe - Italian cookies, gummy bears, cookie butter
Beach - Pedicure set

I put them in brown bags, where I wrote the theme on the bag.  As people won, they got to pick the theme and then open to discover the prize!

Tomato crashed the party when he saw one of his favorite friends was an attendee.

It was a successful party!

Gender Reveal Adventure

It's offical.  Tomato is going to be a big brother in August.  We hosted a gender reveal party for our family/friends/neighbors.  I'm pretty proud of how the event turned out.  It was a bee theme so we served everything that was, in some way, yellow or bee themed

BarBEEque Pulled Pork
BarBEEque Beans
BarBEEque Meatballs

Potato Salad
Corn and Black Bean Salad

Carmel Cheesecake Stingers
Lemon Squares
Honeycomb Cereal
Pineapple and Blackberry Skewers

Honey Lemonade

I think that from now on a big bowl of Honeycomb cereal will be a staple at kid events around here.  Let's just say that it was a hit with the under 5 crowd.



And of course, a cake.  I managed to get it into a honeycomb shape.

I took a few pictures of the dessert table, but only a partial one of the rest of the food.  Ah well.  It looked nice, I promise.

The reveal itself was via pinata.  Unfortunately we did this a couple weeks ago and it was a little cold out so we had to do it all inside.  Luckily, that's why we have a basement!

Yup, that's blue candy you see.  It'll be another boy!   Tomato wanted to horde all the ball-shaped candy.  He didn't realize that it was candy.  He kept trying to throw and bounce them.

The due date is August 20th.  We are so excited to add another member to our adventure!

"Ready to Pop" Baby Shower Adventures

It's our first post where Tomato is not the star.  Instead, my little sister is!   Meet Meg who is expecting a little boy in the back half of July.


We had  a "Ready to Pop" themed baby shower for my sister Meg!  And at 36 weeks she feels ready to pop but she looks super cute (she gets that from me).  My sister Ashleigh and I along with my mom organized the party for her.  Ashleigh had it at her house and we worked together on the food and decor.

I love themes for parties.  It helps organize all the ideas around the theme.  Or at least that is what I think!

Homemade Pop Tarts (Triple batch)

Poppy Seed Ham Sandwiches

Buffalo Chicken Dip with Pops of Color (from bell peppers...also I added Kiefer to make it a little thinner)

Tomato Pops

Popcorn Bar (Kettle Corn, Caramel, Cheese)

Pop Rocks

Lolly Pops

Rice Krispy Pops

 

One of my favorite parts was a pop bar and blow pop "martinis" where you put a blow pop in sprite.

Well, I loved the popcorn bar too.  

We played a few games.  Guess the Baby Animal, Word Scramble, and a game where we blew up balloons and whoever was the closest in size to Meg's tummy won a prize.  

There was also Gift Bingo, of course.  

The prizes continued the pop theme with an assortment of bubble baths, a mini bottle of champagne (for those over 21 winners) and random nice smelling bath things.

 We ordered the cake and had them put balloons to continue the theme.

The favors were two Cake Pops (which almost killed me)

We also had a guest book where people wrote messages on a piece of paper and we turned that into a balloon picture.  I modified the base from this site and my other sister cut out card stock circles.

And we had people sign funny notes to diapers. 

Once again, another great day in Indiana!