Oh How Nifty, Look Who’s Fifty!

Johnna is 50! She is also my godmother. When I was little, until age 4, we lived across the street from each other. I grew up with her kids. Emil was in my grade and we went to school together from pre school until high school graduation. We were very best friends all through childhood. Stephanie was two years behind us. Johnna has been at every birthday, graduation, and family party that I can remember. So when Stephanie asked my sister and me to help out with her mom’s fiftieth we were both more than happy to help host.

My sister made a chocolate cake for the shindig. I love the daisies and how the white 50 pops out against the dark chocolate.

My contribution was three appetizers. I found all the recipes on Pinterest (of course) and just had to try them out. First I made sesame chicken wings. They were flavorful and crispy.

I also made Pioneer Woman’s stuffed mushrooms. I love that they are low-carb. Instead of bread crumbs, she uses cream cheese. The hot sausage adds tons of flavor.

My absolute favorite appetizer was the bite-sized baked brie! I used the linked recipe, but modified it slightly. The cherry preserves got switched for apricot, and I made them about half the size that the recipe calls for. These were so delicious that I wanted to keep them all for myself. A pop-able snack and a perfect bite.

Look at all the food! That’s pretty much all I need for a great party!

My sister hung some baby pictures of Johnna. I love the personal touch that they added to the decor.

Here is the happy family before the festivities begin. I love that even the dogs are looking right at the camera!

As the party was occurring I took a bunch of pictures of the guests.

(From top to bottom: My fellow hostesses, Becky and Stephanie; Me and my godmother; My mom and godmother)

Time for cake! Yummmmm. I don’t know the recipe but I want it. Just so delicious! Chocolate frosting on chocolate cake.

Some more random party shots… Brother and Sisterly Love (please excuse the bad white balance)

Childhood best friends…

Family love…

What’s a birthday party without presents?!

Even Daisy (the family dog) wanted to know what all those presents were!

Thanks to Steph for letting me help out! And happy birthday (again) to Johnna!

-Carolyn

Mystery Wine Party… Part 2

You may remember me writing this post about a friend of mine having a mystery wine party. That party was a little over a year ago, but she had another one (with an around the world theme) this past March. Each event was so much fun that I knew I had to have my own.

A good friend of mine got married in March. It was a great wedding, partly because I got to reconnect with some of the girls that I graduated high school with. I thought that it would be great to have them for a dinner party. What a perfect opportunity to have my mystery wine party!

Here are the details for the mystery wine idea:

• Each guest is assigned to bring a different type of wine (I did kind of wine, but at the around the world party we brought wine from different parts of the world).
• The wine should be under 15 dollars and a brand you’ve never had before.
• Guests bring their wine still in the brown bag that it is given in. That way you can’t tell what the wine is before the guessing begins!
• Everyone tastes each wine at the same time, guessing type, year (or vintage if you want to sound fancy), and location.
• The person with the most correct wins!

I tried to make the party look and taste great! I want to note that I copied was inspired by my friend’s party, so please don’t give me all the credit! I started with a wine themed flower arrangement. I was going for a purple and green color scheme.

Brown butcher paper covered the table so that guests could write their wine guesses right on the table. I provided purple and green Sharpie pens right with the silverware. (Note- the paper needs to be cut to the table size and shape because it does not fold down like a normal tablecloth.)

The food was very centered on the wine theme. Simple food with hints of international flare. First I had cheese, crackers, and grapes. The cheeses include Havardi Dill, Extra Sharp Cheddar, Gouda, and Blue Cheese. I made sure to let them come to room temperature. Grapes accented the platter perfectly.

Next time I will have to remember to leave the cheese in the packaging until right before people come. By the end of the night the edges were just a tad dry.

Dill dip with veggies right on the table. So delish!

Plus three different recipes of bruschetta.

The three kinds of bruschetta are regular ol’ tomato (with some melted mozzarella), braised pepper, and honey-lemon ricotta. They were all fantastic!

My absolute favorite part of the meal was the butterbeer cupcakes! I am Harry Potter obsessed, as were some others at the party, so they added a perfect ending. I found them on Pinterest, my favorite website. Here is the original link to the recipe. I highly recommend them! Anything with cream soda and butterscotch is good with me!

I neglected to take pictures during the party… we were just having too much fun! So much fun that one of the guests is having her own Cinco de Mayo themed wine party tomorrow. I can’t wait!

Have you ever been to or hosted a wine tasting party? Are you as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am? Let me know!

-Carolyn

Easter 2012

I know… I’m just about three weeks late. Can’t believe it’s already May (tomorrow).  So I’m finally uploading some pictures from my brand new Canon that I got for Christmas. I’m in love with it and I’m trying to get tons of practice.

This Easter was great. I’ve always loved holidays. I love spending the time with my family and that everyone gets together. We spent the morning at church. I broke out the trombone and joined with some others to play along with the hymns. Then we went to my mom’s side of the family for egg hunting and dinner.

Loving this picture of my brother-in-law with all the eggs.

I love egg hunts! The kids are so cute hunting for all the candy and eggs. The adults have a great time pelting one another with the candy that is left over. Let me tell you… Candy being thrown at your head is painful!

Kids came out and the yard was swept for any sign of goodies.

My little cousins (the ones who hunted) range in age from 5 (now 6) to 14. The older ones still in driving range (ages 18 to 28) got really cute ceramic bunnies from Crate and Barrel filled with Cadbury mini eggs! The adults enjoyed the egg hunt just as much as the kids!

Eggs had to be sorted: Money in one pile and jelly beans in another.

After a delicious dinner (which included my absolute favorite thing… sticky buns), we went over to my dad’s side. They had some great desserts and company!

That was my Easter 2012. Who wants to have a town-wide Easter egg hunt with me next year? I think its sounds fabulous!

-Carolyn

 

 

Becky’s Bridal Shower

My sister is getting married this summer and I am the maid of honor. I love being maid of honor and I am so excited, but boy it is a lot of work! Her shower was this past Saturday (June 4) at our family house. I have been putting little things together and planning the shower (with lots of help from the rest of the bridesmaids) for about a year now. Yes, I am a planner and a bit of a perfectionist. The shower was beautiful so I guess all that planning paid off.

There were lots of different things that I made for the shower, most of which I will post more about later on (so look out for those posts).

Becky’s shower started at two. The whole day (and week) before, the bridesmaids and I were setting up and getting things ready for the day. Back in November, I got some really cute shell garland from Christmas Tree Shops (only $3). I used the garland to jazz up the flower arrangements.

The garlands are around some really cute bud vases that I found for $1.89 each at a nearby home store back in February. They looked very pretty with the baby’s breath and matched the beachy, blue theme very well.

These lanterns were right above the blue bud vases…

The garlands are also around the white vases (from Ikea… my favorite store). The bridesmaids brought all the food. We did snacky stuff, which I absolutely love. I like to pick at all different stuff. The food was great!

Even more food (and shell garland) in the living room! This was the dip table, which had Mexican dip (Becky’s favorite), shrimp and black bean salsa (yum), and cream cheese and pepper jelly (one of my favorites- thanks Erin).

Thanks to the great weather the drinks were outside on the deck. I made Martha Stewart’s tissue paper pom poms in the beachy colors of blue, white, and green. I don’t have a picture of the drinks (hopefully I will find one), but we had sangria (red and white), champagne and pomegranate punch, soda, and water.

On the mantle I put all different pictures of Becky growing up, plus one engagement picture, and made a Best Wishes canvas to top it off (more on that in a later post). It ended up being a great centerpiece to everything.

When people came in we gave them each a clothespin to play the clothespin game. It was the only real competitive game that we played.

After a bit of eating and socializing it was time for “The Newlywed Game.” For a new twist on an old classic, I filmed Roger (Becky’s fiancee) answering 20 questions about their relationship. I edited the video using iMovie, adding in titles and some music. Becky had to try to answer the questions as Roger would. The game was hilarious. People were laughing so hard that I could barely hear Roger over the roars of laughter!

Roger on the big screen:

She got one right!

I told you it was hilarious!

Then it was time to open gifts. Here is the before shot:

I thought it would take her easily 2+ hours to open all these. But the bridesmaids had a plan and stuck to it. It took under an hour to open all the gifts (and Becks opened them all herself)! Woot!

One of the things that took the longest was unwrapping plates/cups/bowls/etc from Crate and Barrel. They must be really worried about breakage because each item is wrapped in what seems like 20 feet of paper! In fact, we cheered when Becky finally got this plate free:

Becky got a ton of great stuff. I think I may need to cook at her place from now on!

Dessert time:

Most of the desserts were made by the bridesmaids/guests, but I did make the lemon blueberry cupcakes with lemony cream cheese frosting. To die for. And I love the bride and groom toothpicks that my dad found a few months back.

Gorgeous

When everyone left, they got a bag of homemade shell-stamped cookies (look for a post on those later too)!

It was an amazing day for an amazing girl. Thanks to all the bridesmaids for their help… couldn’t have done it without you ladies!

My sister, mom, and I. My mom is recovering from surgery and still looks beautiful!

And a big thank you to Emily Goodwin (my favorite girl cousin on the Hale side) for the beautiful pictures!

Love you Becks and can’t wait for the wedding day. You’ll be the most beautiful bride!

-Carolyn

…A Mystery Wine Party!

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine had the best party ever! She called it a mystery wine party and invited six people to come. In the invitation each person was assigned a type of wine to bring. It had to be under 15 dollars and we could never have had that brand before. We also had to bring it in the brown bag that it came in so that it would be hidden from view. Already, I was very intrigued as to what would be going on at this party!

When we arrived there was a beautiful spread on the table on top of brown butcher paper. I felt like I was at a fancy winery!

How gorgeous is that table?! Each person had six wine glasses at their seat (which made me love the idea right off the bat). The wines were poured and it was our job to determine the type, location, and year of each wine. There were three points possible for each wine, 18 points total. We wrote our notes right on the table and the person with the most correct guesses won a prize! I got 8 points, which was not too bad. The winner of the game got ten points.

The food was everything that would go with wines… different cheeses, pepperoni, prosciutto, bruschetta, brie, fruit, veggies and dip. I love to have snacky dinners like that any time, especially if you give me wine to go with it! Even if you are not a vino it is a very fun time. Not only was there a prize, but it also introduced me to some wines that I might not have tried on my own. I loved the Cupcake Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc (which is what I brought but, in keeping with the rules, had not had before).

Of course we had to finish the wines after we were done with dinner, which led to even more fun being had.This party was so much hilarity that I want to have one of my own!

-Carolyn