Girl Pic

daisy dreaming....

Friday, December 28, 2012

If You Give A Moose A Muffin Birthday Party

Whew!  I'm back!  Sorry for the delay in posts!  We had some computer "issues" and couldn't upload pictures for about a month!  I'm back and so happy to share with you my son's 4th birthday party, which was themed after his favorite book, "If You Give A Moose A Muffin".  If you missed the post, check out the invitations here, designed by Alice of Qualls Creative.

First up, meet Mr. Moose.  This guy was created from paper mache, by none other than my very talented dad.  He is just the cutest thing and was the perfect "centerpiece" for the party (and quite a conversations piece, I might add).   


I chose to do a brunch (duh, muffins) for food.  It was so fun to put together the menu.  Almost everything I made was mini or a small serving, so everyone had a little bit of everything.  I made copies of the entire book and mounted parts on foam board.  I tried to re-create some of the more detailed parts of the book as decoration.  In the book (I wrote out the book below), Moose gets cold so he asks to borrow a sweater....then he notices one of the buttons is loose.  So, I ordered red, cabled sweater fabric to act as a thick, cozy tablecloth. It matched perfectly!

I made these mini chocolate chip pancake muffins.  I had been saving this recipe from Bakerella for awhile and Micah's party was the perfect excuse to make them.  I served them with maple dipping syrup.  Delish and super easy. 
 
I also made these Donut Muffins.  These are dense just like donuts and are topped with cinnamon and sugar.  Perfect for dipping into coffee, which we had plenty of Starbucks on hand.  Please note, that I am so crazy with the details that these cupcake liners matched a napkin Moose uses in the book.  I'm sure I'm the only person who noticed!  :)

Mini chocolate cupcakes with a blackberry frosting with real blackberries on top, compliments of Elizabethan Desserts, one of my favorite local bakeries.  Moose loves blackberry jam, so naturally, I'm sure he would love a blackberry cupcake.  They were almost too pretty to eat.  Almost.
Next up was my homemade Chocolate Moose.  Yep, moose, not mousse.  Thanks to my clever mom for thinking this one up.

The chocolate milk shots with chocolate sprinkled rim were a hit too.  I think my son had about 5.  I stocked up on cute supplies from my favorite Sweet Lulu.   And there is my birthday boy, pre sugar coma.  And yep, that's a moose on his shirt.

I thought it would be yummy to also make smoothies.  I re-created my favorite Jamba Juice smoothie, the Aloha Pineapple (strawberries, banana, pineapple juice, plain yogurt, and pineapple sherbet).  This picture was taken after I ran out of the smaller shot cups.  I didn't expect them to be as popular as they were!  Also not pictured was the candied bacon (basically thick cut bacon smothered in brown sugar) I did.  Not only did this make my house smell amazing, it tasted wonderful.  Check out my Pinterest board to find the recipe I used! 

I am obsessed with this apple pie oatmeal recipe I found on Pinterest.  You put it in the slow cooker overnight and have a yummy and healthy (well, healthy before all the brown sugar I added on top) breakfast.  I got these mini plastic bowls and kept the crock pot close so people could serve it up nice and warm.  Soooo good. 

I had to have blackberry jam.   I set some out on a wood slab left over from Micah's 1st Camp Out  Party and added those beautiful fresh blackberries into Sweet Lulu's berry basket, left over from Drew's 2nd Pretty Picnic Party.

 
For one of the activities, we had a sock puppet station because Moose loves to make sock puppets and put on puppet shoes. 

Moose paints a backdrop for their puppet show, which I re-created.  We set up poster board and had paint cups and brushes for the kiddos. Lastly, we had story time, where I read the book for all the kids.

For favors, we had a muffin in these adorable red boxes from Sweet Lulu.  We also just had to have Moose Munch! 
Overall, I think this was probably my favorite party.  I loved doing brunch-type food and it was really fun doing a theme based on such a cute book...especially this time of year.  Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures!

If You Give A Moose A Muffin
by Laura Joffe Numeroff

If you give a moose a muffin, he'll want some jam to go with it.  
So, you'll bring out some of your mother's homemade blackberry jam.  
When he's finished eating the muffin, he'll want another, and another, and another. 
When they're all gone, he'll ask you to make more.  
You'll have to go to the store to get some muffin mix. He'll want to go with you.  
When he opens the door and feels how chilly it is, he'll ask to borrow a sweater.  
When he puts the sweater on, he'll notice one of the buttons in loose.  
He'll ask for a needle and thread. He'll start sewing.  
The button will remind him of the sock puppets his grandmother used to make. 
So he'll ask for some old socks.  He'll make sock puppets.  
When they're done, he'll want to put on a puppet show.  He'll need some cardboard and paints.  
Then he'll ask you to help make the scenery.  
When the scenery is finished, he'll get behind the couch, but his antlers will stick out.  
He'll ask you for something to cover them up. You'll bring him a sheet from your bed.  
When he sees the sheet he'll remember he wants to be a ghost for Halloween.  
He'll try it on and shout, "BOO!"  It'll scare him so much he'll knock over the paints. 
So he'll use the sheet to clean up the mess.  Then he'll ask for some soap to wash it out.  
He'll probably want to hang the sheet up to dry.  He'll go outside to put it on the clothesline.  
When he's out in the yard, he'll see your mother's blackberry bushes.  
Seeing the blackberries will remind him of her jam.  He'll probably ask you for some.  
And chances are...if you give him the jam, he'll want a muffin to go with it. 

Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving!  We had such a great time and I especially had fun setting our table for our big feast!  Take a look!


 My cute banner I got from the Queen Bee Market last weekend!




Pumpkin Pie Almonds...thanks Pinterest!  They were delish! 



Those are my stuffin' muffins!  Favorite part of the meal!  Have a great weekend and I hope you are all scoring on some black Friday deals! 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

If You Give A Moose A Muffin Party

My son turns F-O-U-R in about a month.  We've had camping, surfing, and the letter "B" parties so far.  This year selecting the theme for his party was super easy.  After reading Laura Joffe Numeroff's book, "If You Give A Moose A Muffin" for the 800th time, the idea just kinda came to me! 

This has turned out to be such a fun theme, since I really do love the book as well.  It is perfect for a December party. Looking forward to sharing more details with you soon!



Invitations custom designed with the very talented Alice at Qualls Creative.  We designed the invitation to look like a book. 
If you're familiar with the book, you'll "get" all the pictures above.  Can't wait to share more with you! 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Halloween

This was the first year our kids actually wanted to dress up for Halloween.  Well, dress up they did....and loved it.  Here are some of my favorites of mr. Power Ranger Ninja guy and "Rella" (a.k.a. Cinderella)!
 






Friday, November 2, 2012

Drew's party featured on Shop Sweet Lulu's blog

I'm so thrilled to share with you that Shop Sweet Lulu has featured Drew's Pretty Picnic Party up on their blog today!  Check it out here!



Shop Sweet Lulu is my go-to online resource shop for all my party supplies.  If you're planning a party, make sure to hop on over to Jessie's shop!  Micah's 4th birthday is fast approaching and I'm getting ready to place my order soon!  More to come on his party theme next week! 

Happy Friday!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Glitter Reindeer

Hi all!  Welcome to October!  The holiday season is upon us already, which is hard to believe!  Recently, the glitter reindeer I did for last Christmas has been making its way around Pinterest, most noteably re-pinned by the Glitter Guide, fittingly.  Here is the original post and tutorial.


Kristin from Bliss At Home found me from Pinterest and let me know that she did her own glitter reindeer, inspired by mine.  Love the way hers turned out!  Check out her post here

I have a bunch of new projects up my sleeve that I'll be posting soon!  In the meantime, if you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, find me here

Friday, September 21, 2012

Drew's Pretty Picnic Party

“Picnic: Originally, a fashionable social entertainment in which each person present contributed a share of the provisions: no, a pleasure party including an excursion to some spot in the country where all partake of a repast out of doors.” – Oxford English Dictionary

My baby girl, Drew Elizabeth turned two on September 2nd.  I started planning early on in the summer so that I'd have plenty of time to get all the details in that I wanted.  The theme I chose was a "Pretty Picnic Party", with a little bit of a twist.  No, there were no eating on picnic blankets or traditional picnic baskets, but we had a great time outside with our friends.

I ordered very simple invitations from Tiny Prints and lined the inside of the plain envelopes with this awesome pink ombre napkins from Target. 

This was a super easy DIY project.  I found the idea on Pinterest, which is hugely becoming a great place to find great inspiration for all things, but especially parties!  You can follow me here.  Once I had selected my fabrics, I glued them into Mason jars and used them as vases. 


Some of my favorite flowers were available at the flower market before the party and I was so excited.  Feverfew (mini daisies) and anemones!  I put them in these adorable berry baskets from Sweet Lulu

Here is the food table before all the food got set out.  

 The drink station...
The adults had glass Mason jars, but the kids had these awesome plastic bottles from Sweet Lulu that I added chalkboard labels to.



 To make the lemonade a little more "fun", we had mango and strawberry purees that guests could mix in.  It was delicious!
I used these cute baskets from Garnish.  Below are the kids baskets which included a heart shaped PB&J, a fruit cup, and mac n cheese.  Oh and a little Pocky on the side!  The bags, fruit cups, and zig zag spoons are from Sweet Lulu.  The chips bags were an easy DIY.  I got the craft paper bags from Michael's, as well as the doiles.  I found the "D" stamp in the $1 bin at Michael's and wah-la! 

Below are the adult picnic baskets.  I stamped the cute "2" from Paper Source on the treat bags, which included yummy turkey sandwiches.  I made the potato salad and the green salad in the cup. It was so fun for guests to be able to just go grab their basket and have everything in there.
This is our gelato stand!  My dad made this for me from scratch!  The backdrop is a vintage sheet that I found at an estate sale.  The cute chalkboard sign is from the $1 bin at Target.  My dad and I made the tarp on top and I did the banner. So happy with how it turned out! 
Next to the gelato stand is the cake and lace chandelier.  I had so much fun making the quirky toy mouse chandelier for Drew's 1st Kitty Cat birthday, I thought I'd try something again.  Thinking of hanging it in her room I love it so much!  DIY instructions coming soon!
 I made miniature #2 sugar cookies to stick on top of the gelato.



How amazing does this gelato look?  It tasted just as amazing!  We even had sample spoons for people to try.  The strawberry, salted caramel, and brown-sugar sour cream gelato was from EscoGelato.  If you live in San Diego County, you've got to check them out!  The lemon cheesecake gelato was from Bubby's in Encinitas, another local favorite. 
 There is my Micah, taking a break from the bouncie to get some gelato. 
 A Jones birthday party is not complete without a banana truffle cake from CAKE.  The wire topper was done by my dad, and we'll be adding a collection to our Etsy shop soon! 
Here is the birthday girl when we sang to her.  As you can see, she wasn't too excited by all the singing.  This is a preview of the face I get when I tell her "no". 
 Here she is a bit happier with her gelato! 
As favors, we had pints (from Sweet Lulu, as almost all of our parties supplies are always from!) of gelato for guest to take home and miniature "pie bits" from the amazing Elizabethan Desserts.  Some of our guests got inventive and combined the apple crumb pie with the brown sugar-sour cream gelato.  I had a taste and it was amazing!  Below, I got a simple chalk board and just attached a few doiles from Michael's.  P.S. A chalk pen is a must! 
 I had so much fun with this party!  It was girly and vintage and sweet.  It was really fun to spend time with our closest family and friends to celebrate my beautiful baby girl on her special day.  Hope you enjoyed!  Plan on seeing the gelato stand make appearances at many more parties to come.  Now, on to planning Micah's 4th birthday in December! 

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