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!

Potato Mix Adventures

Sometimes it's easy to forget that kids like the simplest things.  Take our latest adventure.  It was just fun with a box of potato mix.


Pete was super surprized when I came home from the store with boxed mashed potatoes (I'm not usually one to use mixes), but then was disappointed to learn that it was not food.  It was for an activity.  But, Tomato LOVED the activity!

At first he loved seeing the flakes flying in the wind.  After he'd done that for a bit, we added some water to make it like clay.  He really enjoyed destroying shapes and smashing the potato clay.

Deck Table Assembly Adventures

Tomato loves to copy his Daddy.  Pete was assembling our deck table, and Tomato wanted to get in on the action!  Here's a few pictures of Tomato's Deck Table Assembly Adventure.

Humm, this little thing fits in these holes.  

This is your glove.

I guess it's mine now.

This bigger one fits in too!

Still having fun.

They took away my screwdriver!!!!  How could they!!!!???

Enjoying snacks with a friend on the completed table.

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!

Coomer Farm Adventure

It's the spring again and we have emerged from hibernation.  You'll see in the pictures that little Tomato is not so little anymore.  Well, he's still little, just not AS little as the previous post.

Last weekend we went to an open house at Coomer Farm.  Everyone was super nice and Tomato loved seeing all the animals.

He got to pet a horse and a baby chick.  He loves El Pollito Pio's song "Pio Pio" (the joys of having a Spanish-speaking au pair includes Spanish kids' songs).  Pollito means little chicken so petting a little chicken was super cool for him.

We also got to see some pigs, a cow, a big turkey and a very spunky little goat.

I thought it was super cool that Coomer Farm had an open house.  It was nice to see all the animals!