Potpourri Mommy: party

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"Little Man" Baby Shower

Disclaimer: I am posting this a year and a half after I started this post.

I am an aunt! I still haven't met the little cutie. But can't wait to. To welcome the little guy and celebrate with my sister-in-law we threw her a baby shower. We had the theme "Little Guy."

Decorations:

1. I used my friend's Cricut to cut out ties and letters to make a "Welcome Little Man" Sign.

Food/ Utensils:

1. Napkins/Forks: I wrapped forks in napkins to make them look like bow ties. I placed a fork on a square napkin, wrapped the napkin around the fork, and then put a piece of ribbon around the middle of the fork. To attach the ribbon I used zots (sticky dots).

Here is another way to fold napkins

We added paper bow ties to glasses.

We played a few games. One of the games was to smell the baby foods and guess what flavor the baby food ways.

Things that Go Birthday Party

It seems like not very long ago I spent tons of time planning a Mr. Potato Head 1st birthday party. Time sure flies by. My little guy just turned 2. He has a love for anything with wheels and moves. He absolutely loves trains, cars, trucks, and airplanes. With moving, and being extremely busy, we just had a small little family party and I only spent a few hours planning and getting everything ready.

Car Cake: I am not a cake baker. I always see adorable cakes that are perfectly smooth made with fondant. I just am not that good in the baking and decorating department. Thus, my cakes always look very homemade, but it's the thought that counts. Rylan loved his car cake. He was more interested in playing with it than eating it though.

Stoplight Brownies: Bake brownies in a pan. Let cool. Cut them into rectangle shapes. Add a red, yellow, and green m&m to each. Rylan loved helping with these birthday treats by pushing each m&m down.

Birthday Banner: I didn't have time to be crafty, so I bought a birthday banner from the dollar store and printed, cut out, and taped the vehicles to the banner. Simple, cheap, and incorporates the theme. (oops, I didn't get a picture of it)

Tablecloth: I bought wrapping paper from the dollar store that had cars, trucks, and airplanes on them. Then, taped them to the table.

Like I said, these was very low key, simple, and cheap. Did my little 2 year old have a great time and enjoy the party. YES! He got a train set from Grandma that will keep his attention for hours!

I made the "happy birthday" decoration a few years ago and get it out for all of our family members' birthdays,

Baby Sprinkle

I learned something new. Did you know that when you have a baby shower for somebody that already has a child it is called a "Baby Sprinkle"? I threw my first Baby Sprinkle in February (I know, I am way behind) for my friend who was having her first boy. A baby sprinkle usually isn't as "big" of a party as a baby shower. The day of the baby sprinkle I was extremely busy and had a toddler to chase around, so I didn't do a very good job taking pictures.

I had a bunch of circle cut outs that I used to put on a plain white table cloth. The color scheme I used included different blues, greens, and cream. The circles kind of gave you a "sprinkle" feel.

Ignore the wrinkled tablecloth :(

We had ice cream sundaes as treats that included vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, caramel sauce, crushed strawberries, bananas, crushed oreos, cookies, brownies, and of course sprinkles. I was in such a hurry that I didn't get any pictures of the food or final baby sprinkle decorations.
For drinks I covered water bottles with labels. I just sliced some scrapbook paper into strips and added a sticker to the center. Then I taped a strip onto each water bottle.

I put sprinkle streamers on the wall. I made these by sewing a straight line of circles together, leaving a little room in between each circle.

We didn't really play any games, but did a fun little activity. We explored a variety of gender wives tales to see if the mommy to be "really" was going to be having a boy. Luckily, according to the wives tales, she was having a boy, only by one extra wives tale. Here is a list of wives tales that we asked and checked with her.

	Boy	Girl
Carrying the Baby	Carrying low	Carrying high
Cravings	Salty	Sweet
Morning sickness	Not a lot	A lot
Face shape	Gets longer and narrow	Gets fuller and rounder
Carrying the Baby	Carrying in front	Carrying horizontally
Nose	Getting wider	Staying the same
Ring on a string	Swings in a circle	Swings back and forth
Dreams	Dreams about a boy	Dreams about a girl
Sleep preference	Prefer to sleep on left side	Prefer to sleep on right side
Headaches	Yes	No
Dad’s weight	Stays the same	Gains
Shows hands	Shows hands palms down	Shows hands palms up
Clumsiness	More clumsy now	Nothing changes
Picks up a key	Round part	Narrow part

Hot Chocolate Bar

One of the first things that come to mind when I think of winter is "hot chocolate." I love sipping hot

chocolate on a cold winter night. It always tastes better with a little bit of toppings. My favorites are peppermints and whip cream.

We had a fun activity at our church for all of the ladies. Afterwards, we had a hot chocolate bar.

Hot Chocolate Bar goodies:

Hot Chocolate

Cream Puffs

Peppermint candy and crushed peppermint

Cinnamon sticks (Bulk at Winco is cheapest)

Marshmallows

Peppermint Taffy

Whip Cream

Pretzel bites (pretzels with chocolate)

Inexpensive Christmas Party Table Centerpieces

Sometimes I daydream about how I would decorate my home and for parties if money wasn't an issue and there was no budget involved. However, that is never the case. I was in charge of decorating for a church Christmas party. We had less than 50 dollars to spend on decorating tables for 200 people. With little money and lots of table centerpieces needed, we had to be creative. Many of the supplies we used for the centerpieces were reused items.
We put wrapping paper squares on top of the table clothes to add more color and variety to the tables. Half the tables had wrapped presents and the other half had Santa cans with evergreens and berries.

1. Presents:
Wrap empty boxes with pretty paper and tie ribbon around them. This looks great and is very expensive when you have to decorate a ton of tables.

2. Evergreen Santa Cans:

I got emptied number 10 cans (large metal cans that contain food) from an elementary school kitchen. I spray painted them red. It took 2 coats of paint. Then I cut a long strip of black felt for Santa's belt and attached it with glue to the can. Next, I cut out a gray square with an empty square in the middle for the belt buckle. I glued the buckle on top of the Santa's belt. That's all to make the can. For the greenery, I used the extra pieces from our Christmas tree that we cut down. We still didn't have enough greenery for all the tables, so we went up to the mountains and collected some more evergreen branches. I bought the berries from Michaels craft store.

What do you do with all the centerpieces when it's done?

I took all of the wrapped presents to the elementary school I taught at. They put them under their huge tree which is used for kids to throw gloves and scarves on that they are donating to people in need.

I emptied the Santa cans and used the cans to put gifts in.

Colorful Fruit Kabobs

I absolutely love fruit. I think I passed on my love of fruit to my son who is now one years old. For his birthday I wanted to have a variety of fruit. Fruit kabobs are a great party food. They are easy for guests to grab and go and no utensils are required. They are simple to make. Just wash and cut up fruit, and put on a skewer. It's just that easy.

Some great fruits to use are:
* cantolope
* watermelon
* whole grapes
* quartered strawberries
* pineapple
* kiwis
* blueberries

Mr. Potato Head Birthday Party

My little guy turned 1! It's amazing how a year ago he couldn't do much and now he is walking, climbing, interacting with others, constantly on the go, and the list goes on and on. We had Rylan's 1st birthday party a few weeks before he turned one so that we could celebrate with family while we were in Oregon. It was also nice having my creative mom around to help out a ton. Here is a recap of all the fun and festivities of the party.

Decorations:

Mr. Potato Head Banner: We drew, traced, cut, and glued the Mr. Potato Head banner.

Photo Banner: Picture of birthday boy each month of his first year

Potato Heads: I found some at a garage sale and borrowed some from a friend. Thanks Kelli @ fingerprintsonthefridge

First Year Smash Cake: I wanted a smash cake that was bigger than a cupcake but smaller than your typical 8 or 9 inch round cake. So we got a 4 pack of foil round pans from the Dollar Tree. They were the perfect size. I made the best homemade frosting (recipe to come soon)and decorated it simple with sprinkles. I then piped frosting around the edge of the cake. This was my first time piping. I always have dreaded the thought of making homemade frosting because whenever I would try to make it, it never turned out right. Thanks to my cousin Jen, I have a recipe for homemade frosting that I’m going to stick with.

Food:

Mr. Potato Bar:

o Baked potatoes, sour cream, green onions, chili, shredded cheese, frozen broccoli, butter

Mr. Potato Head’s spare parts (Veggie Tray)

o Tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers

Fruit Kabobs

o Grapes, pineapple, watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe

Drinks:

Water and Lemonade

Activities:

Mr. Potato Head: on table to put together

- Pictures of Mr. Potato Heads laid out for people to rebuild

Huge Floor Mr. Potato Head- Made out of fabric. Put Mr. Potato Head together on the floor/grass

Decorate your own Mr. Potato Head cupcake

Candies used for body parts:

o Eyes-York Peppermint Pieces with black icing

o Nose-Reese's Pieces

o Mouth- Life Saver gummies cut in half

o Ears- Licorice tidbits or Life Saver gummies cut in half

o Mustache/Eyebrows: Chocolate twizzlers

o Feet: Orange candy slices and fruit candy slices

Clown (aka my brother): Made balloon animals and juggled

Photo Booth: Get your picture taken with Mr. Potato Head

* Props: Hats, wigs, glasses, microphones, mustaches, party hats

* My mom made this Mr. Potato Head out of fabric and put it on burlap.

* Each family got their pictures taken with Mr. Potato Head. We put these pictures in with their thank you cards.

Party On!

Luau Party

I help plan the activities for the women at my church (Relief Society extra meetings). In March we celebrated the Relief Society's Birthday by having a Luau Party. We had a wonderful time!