Garden Party

I only do parties for my kid’s odd numbered birthdays. It saves me from having to do 4 parties a year and it saves birthday parties from becoming a huge chore for everyone else. Even numbered years, the kids get a family outing of their choice on their birthday. (zoo, museum, botanical gardens, movie, etc.) They equally love even and odd birthdays. So this year, I only had one party to do. (Praise the Lord!) Imo decided she wanted a garden party. Not a tea party. But a digging in the dirt garden party. She asked her friends to bring plants for a “friendship garden” instead of getting her a gift. It did rain on and off, so we had to move the food indoors, but they were still able to do all their gardening activities.

First, we found a gnome. Gnome shopping was difficult for Imo. She liked them all. She finally decided on Bob. We had a photo shoot with Bob and used him to make our invitations. We made postcards. They are super simple and cheap. You just make a 4×5 image, then you create a postcard template, take both files to Staples and have them printed 4 per page with the image on one side and the postcard stuff on the other side of cardstock. Use their cutter to cut the paper into fourths. And ta-da! Postcards.

 

Instead of cake, I made individual mud pies. I put them in 3″ terra cotta pots. (If you’re serving food in terra cotta, just make sure the terra cotta isn’t made in Mexico. I found these Germany made pots at Joann’s.) To make mud pies, you make chocolate cake (just make a sheet cake). Let it set in the cool over overnight to dry it out a bit. Cut the cake into 1″ cubes. Place the cake cubes in a bowl and pour some liquor over them. (You don’t want them soaked, just a little moist.) You can use kahlua, cointreau, irish cream, or whatever you think works with chocolate. If you want a non-liquor option, you can use espresso. I made 2 batches of cake to fill 24 terra cotta pots (and I did have some cake left over) and soaked that cake with about 1/2 cup of liquor- so it isn’t much at all. I then made chocolate mousse (2 batches) and chocolate fudge sauce (1 cup cream heated with 2 T butter and 2 T light corn syrup in a double boiler then melt in 16 oz. chopped bittersweet chocolate).

Once everything is made, it is assembly time. Plug the bottom of the terra cotta pots with a mini marshmallow. Then add a couple cubes of cake, mousse, cake, and fudge sauce (in that order) into the pots. Crumble some cake on the top and add a mint leaf to garnish. Stick the in the fridge until you’re ready to party.

 

 

 

 

We had the party in the morning, which is my usual choice of party time. (You can offer a much more limited food selection, which makes planning much easier.) In addition to the mud pies, we had a fruit tray and a veggie tray. We also had snow cones before the kids left. (My friend got me an awesome snow cone maker  as a gift since I’ve been craving snow cones and slushies like crazy. I just premade 24 cups of shaved ice, then added the syrup of the kids’ choice as they asked. The kids seemed to prefer the Jelly Belly syrups I picked up at Kroger and the adults preferred the Monin syrups. If you’re buying Monin syrup- try the Lavender. It is amazing! And the Cupcake is nice, as well.) We had sweet tea, lemonade, and bottles of water to drink.

 

Before the party, The Pastor prepare a garden space for the garden. He also made a sign for the garden. (Tip: when you are painting something small or grabbing paint for a craft- try getting a sample of wall paint from your home improvement store. They cost a little over $2 and you’ll have more than enough paint for your project. One sample of paint is enough to cover about 5 of these signs.) He used Sharpie instead of paint for the lettering, which bled a little in the rain.

 

I picked up trowels at the Dollar Tree for the kids to use. I grabbed several watering cans, as well, but they ended up not needing those thanks to the rain coming and going.

 

 

 

The kids had fun planting a garden. And it actually turned out really nice, despite not having “planned” every plant. Each child brought the plant of their choice, so there is quite a variety, but the garden looks really nice.

I made little gardening aprons for the kids as a party favor. (Tutorial to come.) So each kid had a little apron to wear and take home. Boys and girls all seemed to like them.

 

After they ate their mud pies, we washed out the terra cotta pots. The kids went back outside and each planted some seeds in their pot to take home. (They planted lavender seeds, because I had a few unused packs lying around.)

 

Apparently I have set a standard in Imo’s mind. She now feels she needs an outfit made by me to match her parties. I didn’t realize I did this, but apparently I do. That is how most of our traditions around here get started. I don’t realize I do the same thing over and over until the kids tell me I do it and that they expect me to continue. Since it was a gardening party, a dress wasn’t the most appropriate choice. So we made ruffle bermuda shorts and a gardening apron. (Tutorials to come.) I didn’t get a picture of the outfit clean, but you get the idea. 

We also grabbed some extra paint stirs at Lowe’s and the kids decorated them with their names to mark their plant in the garden so Imo would remember who gave which plant.

And now she’s 7!

 

 

 

 

Milk and Cookies- A Review

Hands down one of my new favorite cookbooks. I know you’re thinking, “Why do I need a whole book for cookies?” Well, this isn’t JUST cookies. You’ll find recipes for cookies, brownies, biscotti, and a few other baked goods. Now, the cookies themselves are AMAZING! Most of the cookies are built off a base dough (vanilla, chocolate, oatmeal, peanut butter) and then you further customize each cookie. Measurements are in standard measurement and also in weight, so whichever you like to use is there. You’ll find very basic cookies (chocolate chip- though they’ll blow your mind), fancy cookies, unusual cookies, and unexpected cookies. Believe me when I say this is a fabulous cookbook! I have made most of the items in the book and every single one has turned out perfectly every single time.

Brown Sugar Peach Cobbler

Living in Georgia, there is one thing we have plenty of- peaches! Peach season comes and you end up with more peaches that you know what to do with. Of course, when they are firm and pretty, you eat them like an apple. But when they get ripe, you can’t just let them go bad! So, you can jar them, jelly them, or bake them. Here is my (fairly famous) brown sugar peach cobbler.

Ingredients:

- 1 stick of butter

- 1 cup granulated sugar

- 1 cup all purpose flour

- 1 t baking powder

- 0.5 t salt

- 1 cup milk

- 3 T brown sugar

- 1 t vanilla extract (or Fiori di Sicilia)

- 3 ripe peaches (You can really cook them anywhere from off the tree to overly ripe. It’ll come out fine either way.)

You’ll need an 8″ round or square baking dish. Place the whole stick of butter in your dish and put in the oven at 350. You’ll be melting the butter in the dish while you whip up everything else.

Cut up your peaches. Remove the pits. I leave the skin on, but you can remove it if you’re feeling fussy. In a bowl, mix 3 T brown sugar with the peaches. Add 1 t of vanilla extract. Set this bowl to the side.

Grab another bowl. Add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of granulated sugar, 1 t baking powder, and half a t of salt and whisk that up. Add 1 cup of milk and whisk it up. Your batter will be on the thin side. If it seems thick, add a bit more milk.

By now, your butter is all nice and melted. Carefully remove it from the oven. You’ll need to carefully add to the butter because it’ll burn like a devil if you happen to splash. Add the batter to the center of the butter first. Don’t mix it. See the picture above. Just pour the batter into the center of the melted butter.

Pour the peaches into the very center of the batter. Do not mix it up. Resist the urge. The batter will bake up around the peaches and the butter will brown up on the outside all nice and pretty. You mix it, you’ll mess it all up. So don’t mix.

Bake at 350 for what seems like far too long (about 45 minutes) until it is pretty and golden on the top and doesn’t slosh around when you move it. Believe me, everyone in your house will be begging you to just let them at it, make them all wait. You may have to stand guard at the oven door.

Once it is pretty and brown (or you can fend the hoards off no longer), remove it from the oven. Let it cool!

To serve, serve warm. You can add a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream if you’re feeling super fancy or just happen to like your cobbler a’ la mode. I’d say this serves 6, but more realistically, it serves 4. If 4 of the 6 are kids, yes, it serves 6. Don’t double the recipe. If you need more, you’ll need to bake 2. It just doesn’t come out so nice and pretty if you try to put it in a bigger pan. I’ve tried. I once baked 6 cobbler in one night because you really can’t double the recipe.

Now, if you aren’t in peach country and have tons of fresh peaches around for you to use, you can use canned peaches. It isn’t quite as good, but still more delicious than anything your mother-in-law ever cooked. Instead of mixing the peaches and brown sugar, you just make sure you buy a can of peaches in heavy syrup and pour the whole can into the center of the cobbler. You can also use other fruit. Blackberries make a lovely cobbler, too!

Professor Party (includes recipes!)

The Professor had his first birthday party yesterday. I know, I got out the calendar to make sure he was really one! It didn’t seem like it was time for this just yet. The Pastor assures me he was, indeed, born in June and is, in fact, a year old. He doesn’t seem like he’s a year old. I threw together a little shin-dig for his birthday. Old man themed, of course. The above is the invitation. (I took pictures, edited them on PicMonkey, uploaded them to Shutterfly, and then had them printed at the local drug store. Cost me all of $4 for all his invitations.) Cute, huh?

I read on this blog about turning Frappuccino bottles into glass milk bottles. (Removing the labels and date stamps.) It was pretty easy to get them nice and pretty. I found the paper straw on Amazon. I found the candy cigarettes at a small gas station in south Mississippi when we were coming back from a week at the beach. I made the little chalkboards myself. I painted my red, white, and blue party jugs to match. You can sort of see the stamp on the paper in one of the pictures above. I had it made for Ransom by Asspocket Productions. If you don’t have your own book stamp or family book stamp, you need to contact Asspocket and let Stacey make you one. I plan to get one for each child in addition to the family one we already have from her.

I made a few burlap bows. I was hoping to find burlap ribbon, which does exist, but the store I went to did not have. Instead, I bought 3 yards of burlap and cut it into 3″-4″ strips. I then used those strips to make the bows. This bow is one strip (3″ x 3 yards) with a small piece cut to tie the center. I made bigger bows for the door and mailbox. (Our neighbor decided to have a yard sale the same day as the party. They marked their mailbox with balloons. We had more than one yard saler coming up our driveway only to realize ours was not the yard sale. Fun times.)

Now, for the recipes. I decided I wanted something different than cupcakes. I’m a horrible cake decorator. Perhaps I’ll take a class one day and get better at that, but currently I’m the person who makes great tasting cakes that look terrible. I usually stick to cupcakes for that reason. I decided the party theme leant itself to something a little different. I opted to make mini bundt cakes! I got two different mini bundt pans. One from Target (made by Nordic Ware), that didn’t have deep holes and the pan really, really browned the little cakes. The other from Joann’s (made by Wilton) that made the perfect  mini bundt with a hole almost completely through. The cakes are Blue Ribbon PoundCake with Chocolate Ganache. They were tasty.

Blue Ribbon Pound Cake

2 cups butter

6 eggs

1 t baking powder

1 cup milk

1 t nutmeg

3 cups sugar

4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 t salt

1 t vanilla or lemon extract

I figure you know what to do with that. Mine made about 2.5 dozen mini-bundt cakes per batch. I used vanilla, but next time I make this, I’ll be using Fiori de Sicilia.

Chocolate Ganache

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

3-4 bars of good dark chocolate

The trick to great ganache is great chocolate. If you use cheap chocolate, you’ll get ugh ganache. Use great chocolate for impressive ganache. I used SweetRiot 70% chocolate bars.  Chop the chocolate into smallish pieces, heat the cream in a pan, stir in the chocolate small amounts at a time. NEVER STOP STIRRING! You cannot multi-task while making ganache. You have to give it all your attention for the few minutes it takes to make. Funnel it into a squirt bottle and then use the squirt bottle to squirt it onto your cakes, cookies, whatever.

I got cute little mustache cookie cutters and made these adorable little cookies.I also found a sugar, chocolate, and coffee bean grinder at Trader Joe’s to top these simple chocolate cookies. I edited a recipe that I had for chocolate cookie dough with less baking powder to create less lift so the shape would stay in these cookies. I am usually a tea cake kind of girl, but I went with a classic chocolate cookie for this one.

Chocolate Cookie Cutter Cookies

2.25 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1 cup butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 T vanilla extract

1 small bar of dark chocolate, shaved

You can shave the chocolate with a cheese grate or you can put it in your blender or food processor and chop the devil out of it. Either way works. You just don’t want chunks of it in your cookies. Just shavings. You know how to mix this. Add the cocoa as your first dry ingredient. Roll them out of some flour or cocoa and use your cookie cutters to cut them out. If you want the sugar to really stick, take the white of one egg, beat it, then brush it over the top of each cookie before sprinkling with sugar. (And sugar before baking.)

Orangeade

I know you know all about lemonade. We make that here, too. And I know you know limeade. We have that on occasion. The real hit around my house is orangeade. My kids love it. I love it. The Pastor loves it. Guests love it (for the most part). And it is super duper simple to make. Basically, it is just like making lemonade, only with oranges. Nothing ground breaking or revolutionary here.

- 4 medium oranges

- 1 cup of sugar

- water

- a gallon pitcher or jug of some sort

Put a couple cups of water on to boil. (I have friends who just microwave water in a pyrex measuring cup. I use my tea kettle on the stove because I have no microwave.)

Pour the cup of sugar into your pitcher. Cut 4 oranges in half. Squeeze the oranges into the pitcher. Throw at least half of the orange “skins” into the pitcher. (If you skip this, for some reason, your orangeade tastes a little weak. Same for any other citrus-ade.)

Pour the hot water over the orange juice, orange skin, and sugar. Stir until the sugar is melted. Add cold water to fill the pitcher.

That is it. And you’ll love it. You should also try with grapefruits. It is fabulous! (3 medium grapefruits or 2 huge grapefruits)

Southern Squash

Yellow squash is a staple food here in the south. It grows crazy easily. (If you’re looking for a vegetable to plant that kids will enjoy tending to, plant squash. You’ll get results for sure. Unless you live in Greenland. I’m not sure squash would grow all the way up there.) There are lots of ways to cook yellow squash. You can fry it. You can cover it in cornmeal and bake it. I prefer to cook it this way.

Get yourself some yellow squash and some shallots. (If you are unclear on what a shallot is and you don’t care to try it OR your local grocer doesn’t have them- you can use any onion for this recipe.) I usually cook about one squash per person, 1/2 for kids. So, on this day, I had 6 adults and 9 kids, so I cooked 10 squash. As for the amount of shallots, I use 1 per 3 squash. So, on this day that I cooked 10 squash, I added 3 shallots.

Step 1: Slice your shallots and your squash.

Step 2: Add a few T of olive oil to a pan. (The size of your pan depends on the amount of squash you’re cooking. If you’re cookin’ for less than 4 people, a skillet is big enough. If, like me, you’re cookin’ for the masses, you need a big ole pot.) Once the oil gets warm, add the shallots. Stir. Cook until the shallots are softish. Add the squash and sautee with the shallots for a few minutes. Add salt to taste. (Pepper if you’re feelin’ it.)

Step 3: Add just enough water to cover the squash. Once the water comes to a boil, lower the heat, cover it, and let it simmer.

Step 4: Well, the simmering was really the end. You just simmer it until everything else is done cooking. Or, until the squash is your preferred consistency. I’ll tell ya, the southern way is to cook it to mush. That’s it. Sometimes an older Southern lady will tell you to “cook it down.” That just means cook it until you’re ready for dinner. You can “cook it down” in 15 minutes. Or you can “cook it down” in 45.

It doesn’t look pretty, but everyone in your house will love it. Kids will even eat it. (Shocking, I know!) Enjoy!

Cucumbers and Onions: A Recipe

 

 

 

 

Pecan Spice Cupcakes with Rum Icing

I decided to make these cupcakes for the Faith Methodist Church Christmas party. Let me tell you, they are yummy! I think these are my new favorite cupcakes.

For the cupcakes:

2 and 3/4 cups AP flour

1 and 1/2 t baking soda

1 and 1/2 t baking powder

1 T ground cinnamon

2 t ground nutmeg

1 t ground ginger

1 t salt

1 and 1/2 sticks butter

1 and 1/2 cups packed brown sugar (I used light)

3 large eggs

1 T vanilla

1 and 1/2 cups of buttermilk (buttermilk for cupcakes makes them so light and fluffy!)

1 cup roughly chopped pecans

In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. I use a whisk to make sure they are well mixed. Set this bowl aside.

Beat butter until it is light and fluffy. Add brown sugar to the butter and mix until smooth. Once butter and brown sugar are well mixed, add one egg at a time. Once eggs are well mixed, add about half the flour mixture. Mix until well combined.  Add vanilla and buttermilk- mix until well combined. Add the rest of the flour mixture. Mix until well combined. Add in the pecans and mix them in.

Spoon your batter into cupcake cups. (Will make between 2 and 3 dozen cupcakes, depending on how full you make your cups.) Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, rotating halfway through.

Now the rum icing! Yep, I said rum! Yum! So, I was sitting there thinking, “What kind of icing will go with pecan spice cupcakes?” My usual cream cheese icing has a bit of a citrus taste, which I didn’t want. I come up with the idea to make cream cheese rum icing. It turned out so yummy! Here’s what you need:

3 blocks of cream cheese

3 sticks of butter

powdered sugar (amount is up to you- probably between half a cup and 2 cups)

rum (use what you’ve got. Don’t have any? This Tattoo rum by Captain Morgan is on the sweet side- perfect for desserts.)

You can scale this recipe down. I find that 2 blocks/2 sticks is not quite enough for 2 dozen generously iced cupcakes, so I use 3/3 and have a bit of icing left over. (Which The Pastor eats with graham crackers for a midnight snack.) If you don’t like a lot of icing on your cupcakes, 2 blocks/2sticks will be enough.

Set out the cream cheese and the butter while you’re working on your cupcakes. They’ll be room temperature by the time you get around to making the icing.

Mix the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar. Add a few T of rum. Blend well. Taste. (I keep plenty of spoons on hand when making icing because I taste quite often.) Add more powdered sugar as you see fit. (Some folks like super sweet icing. Others like not overly sweet icing. I fall in between. I use about a cup of powdered sugar.) Add more rum to taste. I used about 1/4 cup of rum. I didn’t want it too rummy. But you may want it more rum tasting, so add more if you like!

Once your icing is mixed to your liking, spoon the icing into a gallon size freezer bag and place in the fridge. When your cupcakes have completely cooled and you’re ready to ice, knead the bag of icing a bit, cut off one corner of the bag, squirt icing onto cupcakes. Top the icing with a pecan. Eat and enjoy!

(You can also drizzle a little rum over each cupcake before serving. Adds a little extra zip to it!)

Big Foot Cannot Hide From Me!

Bugaboo Creek left us. I know! So sad. I began thinking about their menu and what exactly I’d miss. Wedge salad? I can get that elsewhere. Steak? On every corner. Big foot cookie? Oh. My. Milk. Where on earth am I going to get a big foot cookie?!

What? You don’t know what a big foot cookie is? Giant chocolate chip cookie cooked and served in an iron skillet and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Now you see my panic! Now you are going crazy trying to figure out how you’ll ever have one of these awesome treats! Calm down. I figured it out. (With the help of The Pastor. That man can cook!) Now you can have a big foot cookie at home! (Send your waistline my apologies!)

Sorry that I couldn’t stop myself in time to get a picture of my cookie uneaten. I got too excited!

Get your iron skillet. We have a huge one and a not so huge one. (Very specific, huh?) Our not so huge skillet is bigger than the ones Bugaboo had, but what can you do? Rub butter all over the inside surface of your skillet. Sprinkle in crushed graham crackers in the bottom. (If you don’t have graham crackers, which I didn’t, use wheat germ and a pinch of brown sugar.) (I know. It is probably weird that I had wheat germ on hand but not graham crackers. That’s just how it is around the parsonage.) Take chocolate chip cookie dough and make a “pancake” out of it roughly the size of your skillet and about half the thickness of your skillet. Put it in the oven (on a typical 350 – 375 cookie baking temp) and wait! (It takes a good 40 minutes or so to bake, depending on your skillet size.) Once your cookie looks done (same eye you use for regular cookies- brown edges, golden top) take it out to cool. Don’t let it cool completely! Big foot cookies are best eaten hot! (Just not so hot you get 3rd degree burns in your mouth.) Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream straight on top of the cookie in the skillet, grab a spoon, an dig in! (You can share if you are so inclined.)

My Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Recipe:

- 2.25 c all-purpose flour

- 1 t baking soda

- 1/4 t salt

- 1 c butter

- 3/4 c sugar

- 3/4 c brown sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 t vanilla extract

- 8 oz. chocolate chips of choice

Tea Party Birthday Party

Imogene turned 5 last week. I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. On one hand, yes, it seems like she was just born. But on the other hand, it does seem like she’s been with us forever, not just 5 short years. Anyway, for her party, she wanted a tea party. I declared that the party had to be outdoors and I would be “keeping it simple.” I somehow managed to stick to the simplicity despite her constant nagging about how fancy the party should be. I think I pulled off simple and fancy. (Though, it is my version of fancy, which is very shabby chic.) She was thrilled and I didn’t go into labor with all the work, so I’m calling it a job well done!

Remember me raving about the cookbook Sweet Chic? Well, these vanilla cookies covered in colored sugar came from that cookbook. They look amazing. So pretty. (The trick to get the sugar to stay on in such quantities is to use an egg white wash on the cut cookies before baking and sprinkle the sugar on before you bake. The egg white glues the sugar onto the cookie.) They tasted amazing. I didn’t have a single cookie left over.

I got 3 pots of Mexican Heather to put on the tables. (Which will now be planted in the yard.) I just put some pink tulle around the pots to make them look fancier.

I searched high and low for cups for the party. Imogene insisted we use fancy cups and not just plastic Dixie cups. It finally occurred to me the week of the party what to do! I went to TJ Maxx and looked in their clearance section for cups. I found several boxes of random glasses for $4 and $5 a box. So, I bought 26 random glasses (some wine glasses, a few highballs) for $20. I figured if the kids broke them, they weren’t my crystal glasses or anything, so I really wouldn’t care. Turns out, not a single glass got broken. (Had I used my crystal, at least half of them would have been broken. But since I planned for the breaking, none got broken.) Kids love drinking out of wine glasses. I’m not really sure why, but even the boys thought it was great.

Also from the book Sweet Chic came these yummy little cupcakes. These are vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing. I colored the icing the yummy yellow color. I’m really not very good at cake decorating. Actually, truth be told, I am very bad at it. So, I make cupcakes. Imogene picked the pearl sprinkles and the icing color. They were also very, very yummy. Seriously, this vanilla buttercream icing is some of the most tasty icing I’ve ever had in my life. I know they aren’t beautiful, but they were super yummy. And since it was so hot, the icing was getting a bit melty sitting out. So, it is probably a good thing I didn’t try to make them beautiful.

It was a tea party, but not a hot tea party. (It is summer in Georgia, after all.) We had a sweet tea bar instead. We had blackberries, peaches, lemons, limes, and mint to mix into your sweet tea to make in fancy. It was a hit! Everyone, kids and adults, seemed to enjoy mixing their fancy sweet tea and experimenting with flavors. (Blackberry mint was a big hit. My personal favorite was lime and mint. Yum.)

The birthday girl getting ready to blow out her candles. I realized when putting up pictures, that I completely failed to get a good shot of her in her dress. Ugh. Fail on my part, since the dress was so very cute.

Here is the closest to a full shot of the dress. It is a pillowcase dress with one bigger ruffle around the bottom and 3 rows of ruffles on the top front. I didn’t use a pattern, I was just winging it. Imogene picked out her fabric (she loves picking out her own fabric) and then asked that I make a dress with “fruffles on the bottom and lots of fruffles on the top.” She was thrilled with the outcome. It did look a little busy once she put on several necklaces with the ruffles at the top.

I put pillowcases on the backs of the folding chairs, then tied pink tulle (she picked that out, too) around the chairs. I made the pillowcases with fabric from my stash. I’ve been trying to get my stash down to a normal size and use a lot of it up. This party turned into the perfect opportunity to thin my stash!

To make the pillowcases: Cut the fabric length to between 32″ and 36″. (Finished length should be between 31″ and 34″.) You’ll use the whole width of the fabric. Just fold the fabric in half, selvage to selvage, with the wrong side of the fabric together and sew the top and side. Finish the seams the way you like. (I serge mine.) Hem the bottom open end. And you’re done. Once you figure out how to make a solid one, you can experiment with piecing different fabrics together for different looks. Add piping, ribbon, bias tape, ruffles, etc. as you see fit. They really are quick and fun. (Plus, you could make them as gifts. Kids LOVE having their own special pillowcase. With all the fun novelty fabric out there, you could make a special pillowcase for every kid in your life.)

I also made the tablecloths with stash fabric. My tables were 8 foot long folding tables (borrowed from the church). I cut random pieces of fabric in random lengths. (I kept a pad of paper next to the ironing board and wrote down the lengths as I cut them.) When I got to around 9 ft. (108″) I quit cutting. I pieced all those together, lining up one side of the selvages. I sewed the cut sides together. When I had all of them sewn together, I used a yard stick to even out the selvage side that was uneven. (Some fabrics are 44″ wide, some are 45″, and some are closer to 42″. I just picked the shortest side and cut all the others to match it.) I then had a 9 ft. long (maybe a couple inches more) and about 40″ (plus an inch or two) wide piece of fabric. I knew that would cover the table, but wouldn’t give much “hang” over the sides. So, I grabbed another piece of fabric and 3 pieces 10″ long. I sewed those strips together selvage to selvage. Then, I sewed that long strip down the side (just pick one of the 9ft. sides) of the larger piece. You’ll have some leftover when you get to the end. Just grab a rule and cut it off, making sure the corner is squared. I serged all the seams on the back of the tablecloth. I then serged around all the edges. That is it. If you don’t have a serger, you’ll have to finish you edges some other way. (I’d recommend a double fold hem, even though it’d take some time.) You could tuck under your serged edges and finish them, but I just left them. I used blue and green serging thread, so the edges looked pretty neat just serged.

I also made homemade popsicles. Of course, I have no pictures of them. They were Southern Sweet Tea Popsicles from the book Pops! I bought a popsicle mold (well, 2) that I could use wooden popsicle sticks in. I made the popsicles and put them into little Wilton bags. (I think they were large sucker bags or something.) Then, everyone had a little bag with a popsicle inside. They were a big hit. Very yummy. They were super strong, super sweet tea base with peaches and mint added to them. The frozen peach slices in the popsicles were heavenly. Seriously. I’m not sure I can ever go back to buying boxes of popsicles now that I know I can make my own gourmet popsicles for half the cost that taste 10x better! Kids and adults LOVED the popsicles.

As far as activities went, I didn’t plan any. I’m not big on planning out birthday party activities. It just isn’t my thing. It stresses me out to keep things on track and I stress the kids out trying to keep them on task. We put our kid size play tables in the driveway and set a box of sidewalk chalk on them, several containers of bubbles, and a few jump ropes on them. We also had a few of the kids outdoor riding toys out (not planned, I just forgot to put them in the garage). That was plenty to keep the kids all entertained and happy for 2 hours. The adults sat sipping sweet tea and eating cupcakes and cookies while the kids ran around the yard, drew pictures in the driveway, and blew millions of bubbles. Aidan also showed everyone how he rides his inchworm down our front sidewalk. (It really isn’t something for the faint of heart. That boy is going to be into extreme sports, I just know it.) Of course, none of the other kids were really brave enough to try it. (Or their parents were really into letting them try such a feat.) But he had fun showing them how fast the inchworm could go. (And if you have a reckless boy of your own, I will say that an inchworm down a hill is much better than most of the other riding toys we own. The inchworm can only move forward, so there is no accidental rolling backward down the hill on their way up the hill. It also only goes straight. No steering wheel. That greatly reduces the turn overs on the way down. You may want to look into buying your little daredevil one.)

All in all, I think the party was a success. And it was pretty easy to pull off. (I did have to make a schedule for the food making, since I didn’t want to get stuck having to do it all the day of the party. A week before, I made the first batch of popsicles. The Monday before, I made the second batch of popsicles. The Wednesday before, I made the cookies. The day before, which was Thursday, I made the cupcakes and the icing, but didn’t put them together. The day of, I iced the cupcakes. The Pastor made the tea and the ice. Then, an hour before the party, we set up everything.)