My New Adventure

Lord help me, I have decided to venture into trying to make some "cake pops" for this Easter.  They are just so darn cute, who wouldn't want to make some??  After all, how hard can it be to put the batter in the "cooker", put the stick in, and then frost them?  Or wait, do you frost them and then put them on the stick? 

I was googling "cake pops" last night and came across this photo of these adorable ones

After I saw these, I knew I had to at least attempt some.  I am quite certain that mine will turn out nowhere near as cute as these, but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained...and who wouldn't want to eat the evidence??

These are also cute, not so much Eastery, but just cute!!

This is the "cake pop" baker....I just happened to see it for sale in J.C. Penney the other day for $20 and I am pretty sure I cannot live without one any more.  I am also pretty sure I will cake pop my whole family to death, to the point where they never want to see another cake pop EVER!! 

Payton and I also dug out all of my Easter cookie cutters this morning and over the next couple of days we will be baking Easter cookies and frosting them!  Ohhh the fun we will have baking and eating and saving a few for our company!!

I will probably post pics of our adventures and how they turn out.....Pray for me and my family who will be the guinea pigs in this whole thing...it's such a rough life they lead haha having to eat all of momma's cooking adventures!! 

It's a great day to be alive la la la..... :) :)

Today has been such an awesome day.  Actually it's been a pretty darn awesome month around here!!

I got an email this morning saying that my photo of Adleigh's birthday cake, from her 1 year old party, had been selected to be featured on the Children's Party Network!!  WOOP WOOP!!  That is such an honor, and as much as we love party planning around here, it's great to be recognized for having a fun idea!! 

I don't know about y'all, but I'm trying to start to get everything together for Easter.  We are definitely having it Saturday here.  Obviously we will attend church Sunday, but as far as getting the whole family together, Saturday just worked best for everyone!  We need rain SO BADLY here in Texas, and we have it forecast for the next four or five days, but I am sure hoping that at least it won't rain Saturday evening lol,  I don't want to have to try and move all of everything I have planned for OUTSIDE, INSIDE!! 

I have decided that four year olds are just some funny little people.  My little grandson has started requesting a baby sister.  He keeps us laughing with all of the funny ideas he has about "how you get" a baby sister.  He told us that if he had one, he would feed it a lot and it would be a big sister hahahaha....he was totally serious....he doesn't mean big as in fat, he meant big as in "big sister" :) It's adorable.

He also said that he likes the name APPLE...what an interesting name for a sister.....thank goodness it's not like what he likes to name his dogs, along the lines of  PABLO, TOMATO, AND HOUSE HOUSE.  For some reason I don't think I will ever have a granddaughter named Apple, but never say never!! :) :)

 We told him that mommy would have to get married first, and now I am sure he will mention it to her boyfriend at some point, which will be even more humorous.  He is such a great guy, I am sure he would just grin and say, yep, that's in my plans son.  He's one of the top criminalists/homicide detectives  in this area, and he also has a son, so it's nice for her to be dating someone who has some concept of what it takes to be a parent!!   Not to mention he's just a super great guy...haha have I mentioned that one too many times??  Can you tell I like to see my daughter really really smile and be happy??

I guess that's enough ramblings for one afternoon.....I got both the grandkids to take a nap at the same time, so I am going to go enjoy some PEACE AND QUIET for a few minutes and maybe try and finish planning what the menu is for the weekend etc!!  Jessica and I have also started planning Payton's 5th birthday, which right now is looking like it's going to be a Sheriff party...lolol amazing how that ties in, but that's what he wants, and we have found some super cute inspiration stuff that is just fueling our creativity!!

Have a wonderful Tuesday, pray for rain for all of Texas...so many wildfires and so many have lost their homes, and livestock, and their land is scorched!!

Easter Tablescaping $20 shopping trip

Easter Decorating $20 trip

by Carol Dison on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 1:44pm

I had a rare moment today to spend time with just my little granddaughter Adleigh, and I have been itching to do a little Easter decorating, so we went into town and went to the Dollar Tree to see what we could find.  I say we, she's  two so I am pretty sure she didn't care about anything but the candy!!
I gave myself a $20 budget for the day, just to see how hard it would be.  I had considered going to Hobby Lobby, however Hobby Lobby for me is a 45 minute drive.  The Dollar Tree is a 15 mile drive, so it won out. 

This will be the first Easter that any of my kids have had to work. Because of this, we are going to have our family Easter get together on Saturday evening.  I am going to do it much like our annual summer parties LOL...I am going to set up tables outside, one for food, one for Easter baskets and candy, and one to eat at.  More than likely we will end up smoking ribs and sausage and then Easter Egg hunting until dark.  Jackie and cody won't be off work until 6 that evening, so we won't start until about 6:30'ish.  I've got a good mind to start inviting friends over with their little ones and making it a party..haha y'all know I can't resist!!

By the way, total spent today was $20.57

Robin Egg Blue Tablecloth. $1

Bunny Wall Hanging $1

Pastel bird and butterfly floral picks...great for adding to an Easter Display

3 glass candle holders $1/each. I will use these to put different types of candy in

2 pilsner glasses $1/each, I will use these to put pastel jelly beans in one and pastel m&m's in the other

A wind up hoppy bunny just because it was cute $1

Pastel yellow and white polka dotted favor boxes $1, these were in the baby shower section, but they are CUTE for Easter!!

2 bags jelly beans $2, these don't taste so hot, so I would recommend buying name brand at Wal Mart, probably for same price...but they look cute anyway

2 bags of marshamallow bunnies/chickies

cuteness for $2 (the pilsner glass and the jelly beans)

The bunny marshmallows in one of the bowls

Another view

The bird added in for fun!! :)

I already had the plastic eggs, was seeing how they would look in one of the bowls...a little Easter grass underneath and I thin k it would be super cute!!

Mad Hatter Tea Party ~ Adleigh's 2nd Birthday

Hi Friends!!

I promised I would post a blog about Adleigh's second birthday party, for those of my friends who enjoy being inspired by different party ideas!  I have had a lot of fun the last few weeks with the Circle of  Mom's contest, and am just humbled beyond belief that we have made it up to #84!  We might even pass the 100 mark by tomorrow when the contest ends!  Thank you all so much for your votes!!

My daughter Jackie put this party together this year, since it was for her two year old daughter.  Usually all of our parties are a collaborative effort, but she wanted to take the reins on this one naturally!! :)

She decided to go with the Mad Hatter Tea Party of Alice in Wonderland

The cake, which she designed herself and took to our favorite local bakery.  They are used to us bringing them drawings of cakes we want!!

The cheshire cat and a "tablecloth" over his head, like he was a table

The teapot was made out of rice krispies, covered in fondant.  The roses were all hand painted fondant

It was a four layer cake, two layers had raspberry filling and two layers had chocolate filling

She mixed and matched the plate colors and shapes to give it a lot of variety.  There were four different plate colors and four different "charger" colors and designs and sizes

The placed a sucker next to each place setting, and had ordered specialty stickers that say "eat me" on them and put them on herself

The water bottles with their "drink me" stickers

She ordered the banner off of Etsy.  It had Alice in Wonderland Characters and it said Adleigh is 2.

 

Singing Happy Birthday to Adleigh

Loving her presents!!

One of the gift bags, sorry for the photo quality.  They were all green with hand written pink and black tags on the outside.  She ordered each little girl a necklace with their initial on it, if I can find a pic on Etsy, I will add and share it.  She also ordered all the kids hand made crayons shaped like teapots. 

Repost of Jackie's Wedding

Since I've had so many new visitors with the Circle of Mom's Contest, I am going to repost the blog of Jackie's wedding....one of my very FAVORITE PARTIES!!  :) It was a lot of fun to plan and a whole lot of fun to decorate!!  Soooo much coordination goes into pulling a wedding like hers off!!  I am so humbled that I've had so many folks come to me that were there and tell me that they had never been to a wedding that they had enjoyed that much!!  That says a lot!!


Since this is the most creative thing we have done recently and took sooo much time and planning, I thought I would share some of our favorite photos!  I have thought about what fun it would be to do wedding planning as a serious occupation, but just haven't made up my mind yet!  Most of you, my friends, have seen these photos already on my Facebook page.  I thought I would share these with the general public in case someone is planning a wedding and needs some inspiration.  My daughter was engaged for two years and then decided that she wanted to have their wedding in about a six month time span.  We worked so hard to pull off her "fairytale dream"!!

These were the moss letters we ordered off of Etsy

The programs...Jackie designed the overall look and our invitation person made it come to life.......The other photo is a view of all of the martini glasses for the Mashed Potato Martini Bar.  That was so much fun....You put your mashed potatoes in there and then they have TONS of toppings for you to choose from to put on them.  Yum!!

The flower girls and one of the Ring Bearers

Jackie had the flower girl dresses custom made by another lady on Etsy. 

The cake!!  What is so neat about the whole cake thing is that the lady who made their wedding cake is the same one who made our wedding cake close to 25 years ago.  We were one of her first customers!!

The luminaries designed by our invitation person!!  We had some on every table and in every window

The head table, it was gorgeous!!

One of the table arrangements!!   We had tons of candles!!  There were hydrangeas under each of the candleabras.

First Dance!!

Daddy/daughter dance

The very first dance after Jackie changed into her reception dress!! 

They played Cupid Shuffle and quite a few people got out there and danced!!

It was a blast!!

The Groomsmen

The Bride, Bridesmaids, and Flower Girls

The sisters

There were over 8000 rose petals put out on the aisle runner!!

We had to layer them by colors!!

Jackie's bouquet!  She spent hours with the florist specifying

how she wanted the flowers to look!!

The Bride and Bridesmaids showing off their bouquets!!  The maid of honors

was a smaller version of the Brides, and the other Bridesmaids had white bouquets!!

I accidentally cut Jessica (maid of honor and my other daughter haha out of this pic)

How the guests saw the tables when they came in for the reception!

We had the tables preset with salads.  There was a buffet waiting.

We had roast beef, grilled chicken, green beans with sun dried tomatoes, a mashed potato martini bar (which everyone loooooved), rolls and then tea and sparkling wine or beer to drink.

A wide view of the tables

One of the flower arrangements in the chapel.  If you look you can see the candles to the back of it.  We had about 12 candles layered down each side of the steps

Jackie and Cody dancing! A great view of her reception dress!!

The Bride and Bridesmaids (- Taylor)

The Grooms Cake ~ it was soooooooo good!!

The Groomsmen ~ ha I love this pic!!

My new son in law with all of the children in the wedding!!

His niece Chloe, my granddaughter (his daughter) Adleigh, My grandson (his nephew) Payton, and his nephew Braeden

The Beautiful Bride!! <3

The Bride and her daughter!! :)