Valentine's Dinner Party

We celebrated Valentine's Day at home this year, and had two of our favorite couples over for dinner! My husband is a fabulous chef and prepared an amazing meal for us. It was a great evening with friends, and allowed us to have meaningful conversations without the chaos that comes with dining out on the "most romantic night of the year."

Since we were just at home, I wanted to give the dinner an extra touch with a simple, but elegant tablescape. I pulled my grey chevron table runner I had made out of the drawer to start with. I knew I had to use red as my corresponding color versus pink, since red would pop more on the grey runner. Added in some votives, and we have the table ready to go!

For the silverware, I wrapped it up in red dinner napkins and then twisted a red and silver heart wire strand to keep it together. Very simple!

On the menu: homemade hush puppies with a side of creole butter, grilled veggies, salad, garlic mashed potatoes and flat iron steak topped with New Orleans style BBQ shrimp. It was as delicious as it looks!

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!
B

Connor's First Tailgate Party

Disclaimer: I did not attend LSU - I am a graduate of HBU. But, I did marry LSU. For more details, please visit www.fordfamilytailgating.com. Enough said.

Many weekends in the fall, J and I can be found in the armpit of Louisiana - Baton Rouge. We are third generation season ticket holders to LSU football games. We are huge Tiger fans in our family, and couldn't wait to introduce Connor to the fun traditions of Ford Family Tailgating.

FFT began in the 90's as a true tailgate. One cooler, some food, and around 12 people tailgating out of a van while the kids tossed a football in the parking lot. That simple idea has since morphed into a 60+ person party complete with games, TV, a sound system, trailer, signage, a full four-course menu, t-shirts, a cookbook, a twitter account (follow us @fordfamtailgate), a strong presence on Facebook, and a website. It's quite the production, put on by J's parents, family and friends. But, I can't stand to imagine Connor growing up without tailgating. I guess it's because that's how I "grew up" into the Ford family.


This past weekend we took Connor to his first tailgate party before the Auburn game. J was so excited to get our little munchkin out there he could hardly stand it. It was really sweet, actually. I love watching how proud J is to show off Connor.

Connor's laugh is my most favorite sound! J was dipping him down in front of the fan and back up again - Connor thought that was the greatest!

And this is what he spent most of the day doing...crawling all over the porch, and attempting to crawl down the steps! His knees were some kind of dirty!

This is Connor's gameday face....he will do it on command. It's absolutely hysterical!

He loved pulling up on Pops' toolbox and pulling the handle up and down. 

This is Andrew. He's the son of Jeremy's lifelong friend (literally, they've been friends since birth). Andrew is seven and he LOVES Connor and hardly let him out of his sight at the tailgate party! They're making the gameface...but really Connor is making the "I didn't take a long enough nap and I'm cranky face."

Our friends brought their puppy dog to the party, and it loved giving Connor kisses. Connor tried following the puppy all over the place! Excuse me, I just need a moment to bask in all of Connor's adorable-ness in this picture. GAH! I canNOT get enough of him!

Sweet boys! How cute is Connor's lil tailgate chair?

Well this is embarrassing...how did my adorable front porch decoration end up in here?

Geaux Tigers!
B

P is for PARTY!

I love my job. I've been working at a private school in Houston for seven years and I've done everything from fundraising to public relations to coaching to event planning and more. We all wear a lot of hats working at a school, and it makes the job all the more fun. You just never know what to expect day to day, and for that I am thankful. I don't do well with monotony boredom.

The past few years, I've worn the hat of event planner at the school. Or as my colleague likes to call me, the party planner.

At the end of the school year, we typically have a last day cookout for teachers and let me tell you it's blazin' hot! Not hair blowing in the breeze, cheeks glowing hot....but armpit sweat, frizzy hair hot - you get the picture. It's an outdoor cookout on a rocky playground where we eat burgers that sweaty men are grilling. Umm...I'll pass.

So, this year I approached my amazing boss (but, seriously, he is amazing; and he doesn't even read this) with a new idea. Let's have an indoor, end of school catered party! We'll have fun music, delicious food and give away gift cards. I was so honored that he trusted little old me to run with my crazy idea!

The theme was "School's Out for Summer" and my sweet friend Lauren helped me pull this off!

As the faculty and staff entered, fun songs were playing like "Beat this Summer" (Brad Paisley), "Summertime" (Kenny Chesney...of course), "Long Hot Summer" (Keith Urban) and "Surfin' USA" (one of several Beach Boys songs on the play list) and more. I believe that music can really add to an event! They went through the buffet line and filled their plates with food from Zoe's Kitchen. Happy food = happy people!

Here's an overview of the party! We did bright blues and yellows to brighten up the otherwise drab party space. 

Each place setting had an iced sugar cookie that looked like a beach ball. 

We had 150 personalized beach balls scattered all over the floor! Fun takeaway!

The stage was especially fun to decorate. Yellow striped umbrellas, beach pails with gift cards, blue Adirondack chairs and monogrammed beach towels.

The party turned out to be a success, and a really fun way to send our teachers off for the summer! 

For back to school, we did a bingo party, which was super fun. Maybe I'll post on that one, too. 

The next party I'm planning is the biggest one....Connor's first birthday. Lord, help me! I need to get off Pinterest and get it together!

Until next time...

B

 

All Wrapped Up

I've got several pregnant friends right now. And all of them - no joke - ALL of them are having girls! 2013 must be the year of the girl! Many of these pregnant friends happen to be in my Sunday school class, and so we threw them a combined shower for these sweet second time moms. 

My job at the shower was to get the group gift (besides the diaper gift card). I take gift presentation pretty seriously, so I spent some time trying to come up with a clever way to wrap the gifts. Enter my mom...my go to gift wrap helper. 

I got the girls monogrammed pottery barn kid bath towels. The best baby bath towels out there if you ask me. To wrap the gifts, I bought Kraft paper from Container Store. Then I bought every roll of pink ribbon from Michael's (you just never know what will look right), and large pink diaper pins from amazon. For a final touch, I added the first initial of the baby's name to the bottom corner. 

I was happy with how they turned out....but more importantly, the mom's loved them and the gift inside. I love doing fun things for my sweet friends!

Vote!

I'm trying to decide which curtain looks best for my kitchen window - so please vote by leaving a comment and let me know which one is your favorite!

A

B

Please ignore the sinkful of dishes and the cluttered countertops...deal?
Thanks for your input!
B

The Corner

Decorating large spaces overwhelms me, so I tend to focus on mastering the smaller ones, first. Hence, the large wall in my living room is still empty. But today, after a great shopping trip with Mom, I finished decorating this corner of my living room. I'm pleased with the way it turned out!


Chair: from J's grandmother
Recovered: Upholstery Shop, Houston
Pillow: Stein Mart
Lamp: Lowe's
Photo: Marshall's Home Goods
Side table: Harwin
Flower arrangement: Harwin

How do you think it turned out? I think its the perfect place to curl up with a good book and a Coke Zero.

Happy Saturday -
B

My Life in (iPhone) Photos

I got this post idea from my friend Rachel! So, here is my life through the camera lens of my iPhone. Out of my 220 photos on my Camera Roll, seriously over 100 are of Charley (our sweet dog). But, I'll spare you all of those adorable moments and try to show you that I've got a diverse collection of photos! Here we go!

My niece Alex before her cheerleading practice (my 'lil legacy) - isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen? Thought so!

I do this alot - take pics of myself in an outfit. I try it on and send it to Mom - she approved of the romper, but fashion consultant Shari did not. For $19.99 from Target, I bought it anyway. It's a comfy, around the house outfit!

Here are some of my rah-rah's at an SBS volleyball game! We were trying to twit-pic this photo - not sure it worked though!

I made this festive dessert for Memorial Day!

Well, hello there....this is Les Miles (LSU football coach, yes, I'm obsessed) posing with my boy Kenny Chesney (also obsessed) before his concert in Tiger Stadium! I got this off Twitter, I actually wasn't that close to my idols, because you know you would've already heard about that!


Pre-game before we got spanked by Florida. Good picture on my iPhone, right?


Naptime for my boys!

My new lamps for my guest room! Aren't they pretty?!?

I took a cake decorating class last summer. I'm your girl if you need a clown cake. Hey - you never know...

I made Pioneer Woman's Homemade Cinnamon Rolls one Saturday afternoon (...they took a long time to make) - but they were incredible!

Charley laid on my blanket, so I wrapped him up like a kolache! Hehe...sucker!

Our new Apple computers at work. Is the screen big enough for ya? Oh yea, that's how we do it at SBS! I'm officially a Mac snob!

This was a fun post to do! Have a great weekend everyone - we'll be busy packing! We move in SEVEN DAYS!

My March Madness

I seriously feel like March has lasted soooo long - anyone else feel that way? Here are some updates about what we've been up to lately:

1. No updates on the house; its been on the market 34 days, and we average about one showing every other day, so that's positive. The house I was in love with is about to become option pending, which is a little sad, but its ok. God knows our new address, and obviously that's not it!

2. We've spent lots of time with our Sunday School friends recently. We have such a great Sunday School class - Compass. It's all young marrieds like us, some with babies, and some without. I love the girls in there and the new friendships I've made. I hope I become closer friends with them!!

3. I took an interior decorating class through Leisure Learning with my mom last week - it was awesome! I learned a lot about how to decorate our home!

4. My BFF Kim got married on March 20! Here are a few pics from her wedding festivities! It was fun to do lots of the planning and preparation with my BFF Lindsay! It was such a blessing to be a part of the celebration! Kim's also a blogger now - check out her newlywed blog!

Me and Lindsay before the Bachelorette's Night Out!The Bachelorette Party weekend also involved some serious shopping!
Posing at the rehearsal with Bridesmaid Jessica (the wedding was supposed to be outside on this beautiful golf course, but it got rained out)
Having fun at the reception with the beautiful bride and her new groom!
We just had to do this - making fun of the traditional wedding pic! Haha!!
Me and my groom of 20 months :)

5. Please pray for our cheerleading tryouts this week - on April 1. We have lots of girls trying out, so just pray for all of these girls hearts as they go through this emotional week!

6. Its been fun this month to go to the Rodeo! It's one of my favorite things to do in Houston. I went to see Kenny Chesney (of course) with my BFF Jenna!! So fun! And also saw Lady Antebellum with Kim, Jessica (pictured above) and JS (other Jessica). I also saw Keith Urban - probably my favorite performer this year - with my friend Kim from SBS! So fun!! I love country music!

Have a great week!
Brittney

I Can't Stop Thinking About...

This chest she put in her dining room! The color is fabulous and I love the touch of color it adds to the room. I don't think I would've ever thought about doing this, but I love it! I like how she incorporates white and yellow and I think it would look good with dark wood.

It's from hookedonhouses.net - one of my new favorite websites!

Any guesses on what my current obsession is? Haha!