Happy Birthday, Hubby!

I started mentally planning Jeremy's 40th birthday several years back. He is the first of our friends to turn the big 4-0 and party planning is kind of my thing, so I was really excited for this shindig.

But as life happens -  babies, our jobs, moving, colic, babies, family events and babies - got in the way of me going all out for his 40th. And I think he was a bit relieved for this. I mean, who actually needs a video presentation, a band and surprises every 40 minutes at a party?

We decided to have his party at Cottonwood in Houston, and it was a great venue. We used their front area and it thankfully was not miserably hot.

Cottonwood Houston

My theme for the party was a caricature of him that I carried throughout on the balloons, napkins, menus and custom cookies. For party colors I used black (obviously) with beige. After all, I didn't want it to look like a funeral. I used his favorite font on the menu cards, balloons and napkins. Here are a few details from the party:

My mother-in-law helped me find these amazing cookies. They're from a company called Parker's Crazy Cookies and they do custom cookies of people. They taste like animal crackers. They were a hit!

Custom balloons with his caricature. 

Jeremy Ford - More fun than two 20 year olds. 

I strung pictures around the party with captions describing what he was doing, his age or his grade
year. Guests enjoyed seeing different stages of Jeremy's life (and some were in the pictures, too!).

Photo strand. I had 60 photos strung with mini clothespins along black and beige baker's twine.

At a point in the evening, Jeremy's brothers and I did a toast roast of him, which was pretty hilarious. Or, so I'm told. Jeremy had a great party and felt so loved by his family and friends. Mission accomplished!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

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

ONE Little Monster's Birthday!

He's a year old and there's nothing I can do about it! I can't stop time and I can't go back and relive all of our sweet "firsts" of this past year. I just have to live in the moment and soak up every day with our ONE year old! So, I have to stop being in denial that my baby is ONE!

I wanted his birthday party to be a celebration of him! I chose the monster theme to carry out the theme from his nursery, and then I could close the door on the monsters. I felt like going from the nursery to the first birthday party carried us full circle for the year. It just made sense. 

So, every great party starts with a great invitation. I chose this invite. I loved the saying and the bright happy colors. And who doesn't love chevron? I used these four colors - red, yellow, blue & green - as a basis for the entire party. I also had coloring sheets printed that matched the invite, thank you cards, stickers for the favor boxes & centerpieces and even the print on his birthday shirt! See, I like a good theme carried through an event!

The invitations.

This was an original design (which I now see all over Pinterest). I wanted a visual way for guests to look back on our year. The younger pictures of him are at the top, working up to the older pictures toward the base of the "1". This was stuck onto the downstairs closet door. In between the living room and dining room, so it was a stopping point between rooms. I wanted to make sure there were reflections of Connor in each party space.

Centerpiece on the table. Bright colored toys for little ones to play with and gum balls for the adults to enjoy. 

With a monster themed nursery, we also collected lots of monster clothes his first year. I put them on a clothesline to display at the party. It was meaningful because these were little outfits he wore and we could reflect on fun memories of him wearing them. It's all about the details!

Festive balloons showed guests that the party was here! The giraffe bike was his gift from us, and it looked fun on the porch.

I made a wreath! So proud of myself. It's a balloon wreath with some spiraled pipe cleaners coming out of it. FUN!

Favor boxes in the party colors with the chevron monster stickers on them. Everyone took home a monster squeaky toy.  The sign on the table says "Thank you from our little monster" This was a bistro table I had at the front door so guests couldn't miss their favors.

We had lots of kids at the party and we knew they wouldn't all fit in the house. So we set up bubbles, balls, kazoos and sidewalk chalk outside for them to enjoy!

His high chair corner all set up for the smash cake and singing! I wanted to make sure that the area would look good in a picture, so the "Happy Birthday" banner is just above the high chair.

His up to date baby book, monthly photos and monster birth announcement.

Photos from his one year photo shoot.

Ya'll, even his onesie is in the party theme!

Happy first birthday to our little monster. We love you more than we could ever have imagined. You are our world! 

He's ONE!

Warning: Prepare for a Connor overload as I recap his birthday celebration(s)!.

I still cannot believe that our baby is a year old. The fastest year of my life, hands down. A few weeks before the big day, we had his one year photo shoot. My favorite part was the smash cake - he went to town on the cake. At one point, he even propped his foot up on the cake stand and continued eating. He LOVED the cake!

On his actual birthday, we had a small celebration at school with mini cupcakes (he devoured two) and balloons. (Side note - I am pretty sure balloons are his new favorite thing. He loves to say "boon" and hit the balloon over and over!). It was really sweet. His teacher Mogee (pictured below) decorated the classroom and had happy birthday music playing when we came in that morning. Cue the first round of tears.

On his birthday evening I had to work (BOO) so when I got home, he was asleep. I went and picked him up and snuggled him at his actual birth time - 9:43 PM and just cried and prayed over him. I rejoiced for the perfect miracle that he is. I thanked God for his sweet life. I prayed that He would grow to know Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior and seek to have a close relationship with Him. It was a sweet tradition that I plan to repeat as long as I can, though realizing one day I won't be able to physically hold him!

That weekend we had his official birthday party, which after months of planning, was a huge success. I'll post much more on that later!

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