A Birthday and Barbecue

Our sweet Rosy turned three and we had a very low-key birthday party for her this weekend, which means we had family over, I made a few bouquets for the table, and cooked a meal.  It was so nice!  The more birthdays we have for the girls, the more I'm gravitating towards simple parties as they seem to be a lot more enjoyable for all! Plus it was so nice to have the family all together and visit.

I have several old tablecloths that belonged to my grandmother and I love pulling them out for special meals. I brought a card table in and "attached" it to our dining room table so we had enough seats for all the adults.  Then we had a separate little table for the sweet little cousins.   

 There was a time I thought I would never say this (believe me), but one of my favorite things about having friends or family over is cooking a meal for everyone.  Since we're in the midst of a hot July, I decided on a menu of summer barbecue dishes.  We don't eat a lot of pork, but I cooked this pulled pork with spicy peach-mustard sauce (using recently made peach jam) from the cookbook The Art of Preserving, and it was so delicious.  (I'm sorry, I can't find the recipe online anywhere, but the cookbook is worth purchasing if you like to can!) 

Three-color slaw (recipe here)... 

Potato salad (recipe here)... plus sweet pickles and sliced tomatoes from the garden.  (Not pictured, because I get so busy I always forget to take pictures of all the food!) 

  For dessert I made a cake that I saw in my Pioneer Woman cookbook.  Her recipe uses strawberries, but my parents have wild blackberries blooming all over the farm, so I used the blackberries instead.  These were so good!  They are a little tart, but after sitting in a little sugar... oh my...

Now my picture really does not do justice to how good this cake is.  (Not to mention I assembled it in a hurry with everyone in the kitchen watching - ha!)  But here is the link for the recipe and you can view The Pioneer Woman's beautiful photos instead.  ;-)  The cake was a winner.  So delicious and easy too since there wasn't any frosting.  

Just a note on the recipe - I used a dark chocolate almond spread instead of Nutella and I decreased the amount of sugar in the whipped cream to 1/4 cup and used organic granulated sugar instead of powdered.   Also, I baked the chocolate cakes the night before to save time, and put them in the freezer until about 15 minutes before I was ready to assemble the cake.  It worked perfect!

Last night I received a text from my sister-in-law and it was a picture of Rosetta from the evening.  She said, "You should put this picture on your blog!"  It was a picture of Rosetta wearing her pretty birthday dress, grinning ear to ear... and her dress pulled up (unbeknownst to her) with a chicken in her arms.  It's rare to be outside and see Rosetta without one of her chickens, even in a pretty dress!  Too cute!  (And I did want to put the picture up, but decided I probably shouldn't have a photo of Rosetta with her panties showing on the internet!  ;-) )

Hope you have a wonderful week! 

Summer Birthday

 Last week our Rosetta turned two years old, so we had a little birthday party for her yesterday evening. I thought I'd share some of the pictures! 

 How two years has flown by already, I'm not sure.  Our sweet little girl is growing up!

Rosetta's birthday has been a lot of fun the past two years... since it's the middle of summer, it feels more like a big family picnic! 

I set up in the side yard where it's shady... despite a few rain showers during the day, the weather was just perfect in the late afternoon.   I very quickly painted a few little signs last week with some weathered pine planks I found behind our shed... Justus placed them casually around our huge shade tree, which I thought was fun. 

 My favorite part were the mason jars we used as drinking glasses.  My mom drilled holes through the lids and I bought some fun striped straws (here).  We used half-pint jars for the little ones (smile). 

 I had these gingham cloth napkins from several years ago that I thought would be perfect for our "country" theme.  Jillian and I dressed them up a little one evening by making little pockets for the silverware and tying them with jute twine. 

 I went with summery salads and BBQ chicken... most of it I was able to make beforehand and my mom and mother-in-law thoughtfully chipped in with a few dishes.  I love to cook for large gatherings, but I do try to select dishes that can be made ahead of time and keep the party as stress-free and enjoyable as possible.  

I made potato salad (recipe here) and coleslaw early in the morning... I love that they are two dishes that taste even better after they've sat for awhile.  And I used this great recipe by Pamela Salzman for the BBQ pulled chicken, which goes in the crock-pot hours before.  It was delicious.  (I did leave a lot of the sauce off at the end and omitted the cayenne pepper because I was afraid it would be a little spicy for the kids... instead I placed additional sauce on the side for everyone to add.)

 This is my cute mom... I loved this picture and asked for her permission to include it (smile). 

 For dessert I made hand pies again.  I love this recipe from Country Living and it's just perfect for summertime when cake feels a little too heavy.  I bought some fresh blackberries at the farmer's market for the filling and they were so good.  I did bake these a couple hours before the party so they were nice and fresh. 

My mom made the darling matching skirts (yes, I even wore one!)... they were so fun.  

It was such a nice summer evening.

I hope you had a great weekend too!

Fun, Family and Five

 Our sweet Jillian turned five on Saturday... it hardly seems possible that five years have gone by since I held her for the first time.  I'll never forget that moment and the love and joy that instantly filled me.  She is so sweet and funny and my little helper... I couldn't be more proud of her.  

We had a fun little "Pinkalicious" party for her on Saturday and I couldn't help but share a few pictures from the day. 

 After lunch and cake, we all went out in the beautiful sunshine and played some games (including the adults)... old-fashioned games like three-legged and wheelbarrow races.  We laughed and laughed... so much fun. 

 The girls with Grampie...

Even Huck joined in the festivities... I'm not responsible for putting the pink bandanna on him, but he was just too cute not to photograph (smile).

Hope you had a wonderful weekend! 

A Summer Birthday

 Hi all!  Hope you had a nice weekend.  Yesterday we had a little birthday celebration for Rosetta, who just turned one!  We kept it simple by only having family and some good friends over and it was such a fun evening.  It felt like a summertime picnic. 

I was so happy to find these sunflowers at the grocery store.  Don't sunflowers just make you think of summer, sunshine and fun outdoors?  

I found these hanging tissue paper poms on clearance after the fourth of July.  

Our old table we keep on the front porch comes in handy for days like this - it's just perfect for drinks!

  I spent a few dollars on a handful of scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby to make a couple bunting banners and these medallions that I put in some tin buckets I already had.

We had picnic staples, like hamburgers, potato salad, chips and dips, watermelon, and sauteed veggies from the garden.  

My mom put these little signs together last minute with some craft labels, paper plates and skewers.  I thought they were so cute!

 This year I decided to forgo cake and instead I made hand pies with local peaches and blackberries.  Cake seemed a little heavy with the heat outside, so these paired with ice cream seemed right.  (However, I admit I was a little "pied" out after making 25 of them!  smile)

Here is our precious birthday girl. 

 

Opening some gifts...

 I so wish I had taken a picture of the two girls together... somehow with putting a meal on and visiting, I forgot.  ;-)   They are such sweet sisters. 

 I think a fun time was had by all!  Jillian was so happy to be with her cousins and friends.

Thanks for letting me share a little of our evening and pictures with you!

Sharing at Cowgirl Up
Savvy Southern Style 
Jennifer Rizzo

A Princess Party

Our little girl turned four on Friday.  I can hardly believe the past four years have gone so quickly, but I've enjoyed every stage and loved every minute.  Jillian is my sweet little helper and my constant companion.  I hope and pray we're always close.

My mom made Jillian this precious Cinderella dress specifically for her party.  I can't even tell you how excited she was to wear it for the first time!

 This year Jillian insisted on a princess party and I admit I was a little reluctant simply because I didn't want it to look like it had come out of a Disney book.  Then I realized it didn't have to... I could still incorporate princess colors like blue and pink but I could give it a bit of a shabby-farmhouse feel.  I was particularly inspired by this beautiful shabby chic princess party.

My mom and I love planning parties.  We've thrown several parties during the past years, between showers, lunches and now birthday parties.  And we're a pretty good team... I try to take the brunt of the work when it comes to birthday parties but I don't know what I would do without her help and her creativity.  

My mom designed and made the invitations and I simply love them.  I went to Hobby Lobby and picked out four different papers, which to me sets the entire tone for the party. 

After Jillian and I made pinwheels recently I realized how easy, fun and pretty they were.  I could make four pinwheels per sheet of paper.  I literally made all of the pinwheels for the party in just an hour one evening.  

 The party was planned for outside.  We've had absolutely gorgeous weather for the past month and this week in April has always been beautiful for as long as I can remember.  But this year was the exception... we set up tents, tables, chairs, decorated the porch, hung pinwheels from the tents, and tried to pretend our fingers weren't frozen.  

But an hour before the party we finally admitted it was absolutely freezing and there just wasn't any way we could expect people to stay outside.  So we scrambled to move the party inside... which wouldn't have been a problem, except we don't exactly have a large house and we were expecting around 40 people!

Once everyone arrived we were crowded and cozy, but I don't think anybody minded because we were also warm.  And I've always tried to have a flexible attitude when it comes to parties, because let's face it, they never seem to go completely as planned.  (I had to adopt this attitude on my wedding day when my husband had food poisoning and barely made it to our wedding!) 

 I placed the pinwheels in jars and put them on the tables as centerpieces along with some fresh flowers.  I hung some of my favorite pictures of Jillian from this past year on an old window frame with twine.

 I had some leftover paper and I've been wanting to try a tutorial I saw for paper flowers.  This paper bouquet was a blast to make and so pretty!

 I wish you could see how pretty Jillian's birthday banner was.  However, the wind was whipping and I only managed a couple shots.  My mom made it and she said it didn't take her any time with her Cricut machine. 

We also hung tissue pom-poms from the porch ceiling.  (My original plan was to have the drinks, gifts, etc. on the porch.)

 A few more pictures of birthday decor (you can see the banner a little better here).

 Since we were expecting a crowd I made a sheet cake.  I used my very favorite Strawberry Shortcake Cake recipe from Pioneer Woman, but I doubled the recipe and made a sheet cake instead of a round cake.  Delicious! 

I kept the menu very simple and I prepared almost everything the day before.

Cheese Ring with Strawberry Preserves and Crackers

Fruit Skewers with Dip

Chicken-Tortellini Salad

Mango Salad

Fried Chicken Bites with Honey Mustard Dip

For drinks we had water and cherry limeades.  We used canning jars as drinking glasses.

Favors for the adults consisted of sugar cookies shaped like princess dresses and I raided the Easter clearance aisle at Target for the kids.  (The adorable felt baskets were on clearance for 30 cents!)

Even though we had to party indoors, we still had a wonderful time and Jillian loved every minute.  

I love planning parties and this was no exception, but I did breathe a huge sigh of relief yesterday evening.  (smile)