One Weekend, Two Showers

Last weekend I had the honor of co-throwing two showers; a baby shower and a wedding shower for two very dear friends of mine.

{A Rainbow Baby Shower}

Christina and I were friends from high school who lost touch during college. Shortly after we both graduated and I moved back to Minnesota I found myself attending the same church as Christina. Over the years Christina and I have thrown many parties together, were roommates, co-lead a Bible study together and had many other fun adventures. Last weekend my friend Kayla and I threw a fun and colorful baby shower for the happy mommy-to-be at Kayla's cute home in St. Paul.

We had all of the girls decorate onesies and they turned out so cute, everyone had such a fun time being creative. 

Our theme was a rainbow theme. Kayla made a beautiful and tasty colorful cake, we also served colorful fruit kabobs, meat, cheese & crackers and skittles. 

{A Wedding Shower for Kristi}

On Sunday we threw a wedding shower for my dear friend Kristi. Kristi and I first meet years ago when we were both in our friend Amanda's wedding. It was so fun planning a shower for Kristi since 5 years ago Kristi and I were helping to throw a shower for Amanda, and this time around Amanda and I were throwing a shower for Kristi.

We actually held the shower in the meeting space of the hotel that I work at. The space worked out perfectly for the shower!

We offered quite the spread of appetizers and snacks. 

Buffalo Chicken dip with celery and pretzel crisps for dipping, corn & black bean salsa, make your own fruit pizza bar, veggies and dip and chicken salad in wanton cups. 

One of the games we played was 'He Said, She Said'. We used mustaches and lips for the game to denote who said what. The 'staches and lips were quite a hit with the entire group snapping pictures and playing with them. 

(me, Kristi, Amanda and Tanaya)

You can't have a bridal shower without a picture of Kristi and her maids, and who can resist the lips and 'staches! 

December will be a very fun month for both of these ladies! Christina is due with her little one the first week of December and Kristi is getting married December 29th! 

{Resolution Recaps} January & February Edition

Remember that time I revealed my New Years Resolutions in February? 

Here is the January & February issue recap. 

{CREATING}

I made mini-baked donuts for my new recipe in January. They looked cute but the recipe could use some work. But they look cute - that's the important part!

In February I tried Minestrone Soup with Kale -- this is seriously a tasty recipe, super simple, healthy and chalk full of vegetables! 

 Become more crafty

Would you believe this took me on & off two months to crochet and I swear it's 10,000 feet long! But I love it. On to the next project now! 

{ENRICHMENT}

I am doing really well with pushing the H20

I must say I am having a hard time with reading the Bible daily

{MINNESOTA}

Curly Locks and I had a great St. Paul date including great food, twinkling lights & city views.

Stay tuned for more fun Minnesota adventures in March. 

{hint: think north}

Tale of an Infinity Scarf

Can I just say after two months of crocheting and 3.5 skiens later my 10,000 foot infinity scarf is complete. 

Oh happy day. 

I love it. 

It's comfy. 

It's soft. 

I made it. 

Now I want to crochet something else.

It's an addiction. 

A Shower of Love

Sunday  Amanda Sue & I hosted a bridal shower for our friend and my roommate. With the large amount of people invited from church we decided to host it in the lower level of our church. We made a great choice as we were able to use so many items from church; tablecloths, tables, serving wear, seating and so many more items. 

Amanda Sue & I spent HOURS upon hours planning the shower and brainstorming all of our ideas and making sure that we had all the detail just right. We looked to the bride for inspiration, the bride loves disney, princesses and all things dainty and girly so we came up with a tea party theme complete with doilies. 

The menu consisted of chicken salad on croissants, cucumber sandwiches, vegetable & fruit platter, and tortellini vegetable salad. For dessert we had mini chocolate ganache cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and mini pumpkin cheesecakes. 

The bride seemed happy and all the guests seemed to leave happy & satisfied and the bride received a wonderful array of items. I am sure the wedding on July 9th will be even more fun that they shower and look forward to it immensely. 

A little something, something

This past weekend I hosted a Autumn party for some friends of mine. I spent several days getting ready, purchasing supplies and other items, more trips to target buying the items I forgot the first two times as well as not giving into my to add more ideas and food items to my party list the NIGHT before.

For decor I pulled out the Martha Stewart tissue paper flowers, boy can Martha be a genius when she get's an idea in her head. For the color scheme I picked a variation of halloween colors in purple, black and lime green and hung the flowers all over the living room in varied heights.

For food I made a veggie pizza as well as mini pumpkin pies with whip cream on top. People also brought items to share.

Homemade with Love

Granola Making 101

Small group was hosted at my home this week and being me I wanted to make something tasty for people to snack on as they wished. I love making food for people and trying new things but my apartment is the home to three women, we don't always need a whole pan of brownies, cookies, or cake for the three us, actually we perfer that not sitting around tempting us. I'm not around enough half of the time to even eat my own food so what better way to enjoy cooking & baking as well as sharing it with others than to make food that I too get to enjoy but am not left with a ton of it later {hopefully}.  I also desired to make something that was not all sugar & sweets something a bit healthier. As I was talking to small group friend Amanda Sue she suggested make your own parfaits with homemade granola! What a wonderful idea! No wonder she is the culinary queen.

Easy Homemade Granola

from "Baked: New Frontiers in Baking" by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole almonds [Note: I used slivered almonds, and they worked fine.]

1/3 cup whole hazelnuts

1/3 cup golden raisins

1/3 cup dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, toss the oats with the cinnamon and salt.

In a medium bowl, stir together the oil, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla. Whisk until completely combined.

Pour the honey mixture over the oats mixture and use your hands to combine them: Gather up some of the mixture in each hand and make a fist. Repeat until all of the oats are coated with the honey mixture.

Pour the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet. Spread it out evenly, but leave a few clumps here and there for texture.

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and use a metal spatula to lift and flip the granola. Sprinkle the almonds over the granola and return the baking sheet to the oven.

Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from the oven and use a metal spatula to lift and flip the granola. Sprinkle the hazelnuts over the granola and return the baking sheet to the oven.

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven. Let cool completely. Sprinkle the raisins and cherries over the granola transfer into an airtight container. Granola will last about 1 week. 

{Yogurt Parfaits}

For the Build Your Own Parfait Station I provided vanilla yogurt, as well as several different flavors of other yogurts in smaller personal sizes. I offered pitted cherries and blueberries as well for fruit in their parfaits. Days later I'm still eating yogurt and homemade granola. But that's ok, it's a much better combination than cookies and other sweets. 

The homemade granola would look so cute in a little decorated bag or small jar with a cute tag and a bit of raffia and given away as a present. Maybe around the holidays or as a housewarming present for a new neighbor.

ps. I omitted the raisins. Raisins only belong in oatmeal raisin cookies and hot oatmeal with brown sugar. 

Candy Bouquet

I interrupt the regularly scheduled WA Vacation Recap to bring you a project by yours truly!

For my roommate and small group member's birthday I made a candy bouquet. It was thrown together last minute and it was definitely trial and error but it turned out ok. 

I picked up several bags of various candy for my project. I really wanted to put a disclaimer on my shopping basket that this candy was not for me. I can just imagine what was going through peoples' minds seeing my basket full of candy and gum!

My co-worker had suggested using  kebob sticks. Originally I thought great only one stop to target vs. stopping at Target for candy & Michaels for popsicle sticks or candy sticks. But looking back the kebob sticks were not strong enough and I had a very difficult time using them. Popsicle sticks or candy sticks would have been much easier to use and more durable. 

When C got the bouquet she immediately exclaimed "It's like the State Fair on a stick!"

The finished project was ok. I would like to tackle this project again but maybe try a homemade cookie bouquet, or bakerella cake balls bouquet. The possibilities are unless. 

Check out my friend Amanda Sues' blog for more pictures of C getting her Candy Bouquet. We presented her the bouquet at Snuffys a wonderful old time malt shop with various locations around the Twin Cities area. 

Flowers and Pies in the sky!

A few months ago I bought a pack of mini tart pans from Albertville! Monday was the first chance I got to use them. I LOVED working with them. I made mini pies and mini quiches. They were fantastic! So much fun and fast and easy!

For the pies I used canned filling and store crust... I personally like making my own crust - I enjoy it but I was constrained on time. I did enjoy doing the "semi-latice" and other decorating on the pies to make them a bit cuter. I also made smaller pies in muffin pans. They were definitely shorter and smaller but great! The quiche I whipped up on my own. Just eggs, pepper, cheese, and sour cream. I would have liked to use some sort of veggies and/or meat but the pans are a pretty tiny and I wasn't sure if I would be able to fit everything in the pan. 

Como Conservatory

I had a huge to do list for myself on Monday (as I had the day off) and I got pretty much all of it done. Since I got so much done I wanted to get out of the house and enjoy myself, I took a little trip to the Como Conservatory. I feel like I grew up at Como Zoo and Conservatory. I went there so much as a kid and always had a blast and I loved going there on Monday. I could walk around at my own pace. I did not go to the zoo though this time. e.

all pictures taken by me

A Cake... A Truffle... No it's a CAKE BALL

The Tasty Suprise I made the other day was..........

.......... (drum roll please)...........
....................
.......................
................................
.......................................
.................................................. Cake Balls!

Cake Balls you say?
Yes Cake Balls.

Cake Balls were made popular by Bakerella. If you have not seen her site please click on over. She makes gorgeous and creative yummy desserts. I followed her recipe for Red Velvet Cake Balls.


My verdict?
They were good, not as good as I imagined... but also better than I thought they would be.

Makes sense right?
No...
I know it doesn't.


They are very putzy though. And I can't quite figure out how Bakerella got the chocolate so smooth. Would I make them again? Possibly.


But SO unhealthy for you I am sure. But I am not sure If I want to find out how truthful that could be.