Entertaining
This year I continued my trend of taking a picture of Charlotte and making my own birthday invitations. Charlotte kept going back and forth between wanting a cupcake party and a purple Minnie’s Bowtique party so I went with purple and pink cupcake invitations. The back had the pertinent information like date, time, place, etc.
I made these cards with the Make a Wish template set from My Lil Creations. I bought this back in 2010 when Tina had a big sale and have never used them until now but they were perfect for these cards! I have been so pleased with everything that I have bought from My Lil Creations, so if you’re looking for a good supplier of Photoshop graphics, she is definitely a place to check!
I have the invitations printed from Pro Digital Photos. I used their press cards/ploppers setup to order 5×7 cards. I used this company to order our Christmas cards this year and was very pleased with the quality and quick turnaround. I originally ordered the 5×7 cards on the linen paper which is the same as what I used at Christmas. They came and the fronts looked beautiful and I flipped them over and saw that I made a typo in Charlotte’s name on the back! Jason and I had both proofed it but must have flown right by it!
So, in order to save a little money on the re-order I re-ordered them in just the card stock. I was so surprised the next day when I received a call from someone at Pro Digital Photos! They had printed the original invitations and when they started to print the repeat they called to make sure that everything was ok. They wanted to make sure that I was happy with what they had sent me the first time. And even after I told her that I was re-printing because of my error, they gave me a credit for half of the re-print cost so that I wouldn’t have to pay full price twice!
The cards came in (correct the second time!) and I loved them. Thanks to their awesome customer service, quick turn around, ability to upload your own images, and great quality I’m not sure that I’ll ever print invitations/cards anywhere else! Check them out if you need cards because they also have beautiful card designs that you can order just like any of the other online photo sites.
*Disclaimer: Neither of these vendors know that I’m writing about them and I wasn’t compensated in order to write this post, just given a credit because they’re a great company!
So far I’ve considered Jason and I to be in our mid-twenties but I think with Jason’s birthday just past and mine approaching I don’t think I can consider ourselves by that title anymore. This was Jason’s last birthday before the big milestone and it probably couldn’t have been celebrated in a less low-key way!
It always amazes me how quickly Jason’s birthday approaches after Christmas. I know March should seem like a long time since December, but somehow I’m always taken aback when it rolls around! This year I had a meeting in Tuscaloosa the day after his birthday so we celebrated the night before his birthday.
When we started talking about his birthday Charlotte decreed that he would have a birthday cake with polka dots. By the time it was time to make his cake it had morphed into a cake with polka dots AND sprinkles! Such is the life with a two year old little girl making your cake decisions! Thankfully, she did acquiesce and let us make the yellow cake with chocolate icing that he requested, she just had rule over the decorations!
I wasn’t sure how to make polka dots but remembered a pin on Pinterest about making candy dots. I figured that candy dots on a larger scale would be perfect so Charlotte and I set out to make them. They turned out great but to warn you, this recipe makes a TON of icing! We still have three almost full cookie sheets of dots and hearts and letters in addition to what went on our cake. That being said though they were really easy to make and very fun to write with and they still taste yummy a week or so later!
Even though our celebration was a day early it was still a day to celebrate the wonderful husband and father that Jason is. We are so blessed to have him and are so thankful for all that he does for us!
Four Christmases ago (how was it that long ago?!!?) we decided with our friends Kelly and Tripp to throw a Christmas party. Kelly was pregnant and we did all the cooking ourselves. We also went all out on desserts and made a chocolate raspberry cake!
The next year Caroline had arrived and I was pregnant but we wanted to have the party again so we again made everything ourselves. And that year we went ALL OUT and made a Southern Living cheesecake-stuffed chocolate cake that was fantastic but took so much time to make!
Last year….well, we were tired. We had recently moved and had a six month old, Kelly and Tripp had an 18 month old, and we just couldn’t pull it together.
But this year we wanted to pick it back up and I’m so glad that we did! We did the smart thing this year and catered the party. Although there were problems with the caterer we still ended up with tons of food that was really good (Kelly and I decided that we aren’t comfortable with the amount of food/drinks/cups/plates/etc that we have unless we’re sure that we have triple what we need!) and no one other than ourselves (and now all of you!) knew that there was a problem. We had a great turnout with some friends that we’ve had for forever and some new friends. It was so good to see everyone and enjoy some Christmas merriment without the kids around. And it was the first party where neither of us were pregnant so we really got to have fun! 🙂
We took some pictures before the party really got swinging and I’m so glad we did because hosting you never get to stop and take pictures during the party. I love these!
We even got to grab a picture with Jason’s brother Kevin and his girlfriend Stefanie before it got crazy! Does anyone else think I don’t belong in this picture?!?! Kelly and Tripp literally burst out laughing when they saw us stand together. Poor, short me!
Overall we had such a great time at the party and are looking forward to working out the kinks and continuing the tradition next year! I’d say the party’s a success when your last guests leave at 11:30 and it doesn’t even feel like it’s 11:30!
On Friday we hosted a Halloween playgroup and has so much fun having our friends over. I had a good time putting together some fun Halloween treats and using playgroup as an excuse to get a few more Halloween decorations for our house. We had a great crowd — 20 people in all! — and had a great time together! I can’t wait to do it again soon!
I had fun putting together some Parenting treats. (The recipes will be featured during this weeks Recipe Wednesday!)
I don’t know if anyone has a need for this but I just found out about site site and wanted to share. It’s called Download and Print and it has beautifully designed invitation templates FOR FREE for you to download and print. It would be a little bit of work because you would have to buy the nice cardstock and envelopes and then cut the invitations out but Hobby Lobby sells great, fairly inexpensive paper cutters that would make the cutting pretty easy. Anyway, there are some really gorgeous cards and I wanted to make sure and spread the word. Enjoy!