Real Parties: Kids Carving Party

Sorry for the blogging silence!  I really don't have any specific excuse other than the normal busy with kids and playing catch up!
My family grew up carving pumpkins together every year and we still regularly get together to carve.    This past weekend we had a casual carving party at our place.  Super easy and fun! The night before I ran out to the dollar tree, grabbed a few things for some decor, and that was that. The best thing about this party was that from the set-up to the clean up it was kid friendly. Asa (he's two in a half by the way) was able to help me decorate everything.  He helped me make the cookies, cut them out, and patiently sat spreading the icing with a toothpick.  I was impressed at how careful he was! He even held off eating them until his friends and cousin came over. (My mom's sugar cookie recipe is really the best. I did a faux royal icing which tastes better than actual royal icing, but nothing beats a buttercream so I added on some canned last minute.)

I got a bunch of googly eyes at the dollar store and Asa and I taped them on the cups and plates.  He saw Monster's Inc recently so this made him extremely excited.

Yup.  Here's my crazy helper.

I despise mice.  I have a phobia of them.  My sister-in-law picked these up for one of our parties a couple years back and I held on to them.  But it really took a lot for me to handle these things.

Plastic tablecloth from the dollar tree works great for cleaning up all the pumpkin goop. 

Mummy dogs have been popping up all over pinterest so we got some crescent dough, cut it into strips, and wrapped them up.  Asa helped wrap them up too!  Great kid activities.

When it came to the actual carving part, well the kids headed downstairs and we carved.  My brother does extremely detailed pumpkins.  He created cinderella's pumpkin coach a week ago for his daughter!   (The garland in the background there is just a package of foam pumpkins from the dollar tree stapled to black ribbon.)

They spent the evening doing a bunch of this.

The finished product.

Fall Market Preview

This past Saturday was also the Logos Fall Market.  I teamed up with Vicktrola Prints and Urban Rose Photography to create a wedding inspiration table.  Vicky took more pictures so I'll share hers when she passes them on - but here's a few I grabbed of the flowers.  We went for a rustic vintage look with dusty pink, blue and gold accents.

My sister-in-law helped with our design and also penned a few signs for me.  

With two weddings, the market, some deliveries, and attending one of the weddings - this is what my kitchen and work area looked like when the day was over.  A small bomb exploded flowers and cake in our house!

Supper Club: Small Plates

This past weekend we had our second Supper Club!  We're still trying out different methods/ideas to see what works best for organizing it - but the food was definitely a success!  This time around we split up who was in charge of various courses/dishes and they prepped most of it ahead of time.  I naturally forgot the camera, so these are from Mike and Isaac's iphones (and we're missing a bunch of plates.)
Katie made this amazing deconstructed salad: whipped brie with tellicherry pepper and baby water cress.

Katie also made these braised short ribs with garlic confit mashed potatoes.  (In the car on the way home Mike was ready for a whole plateful of this!)

Poached salmon with olive and basil butters.

lemon chill with strawberry coulis 

We also had Wasabi Gougeres, Pumpkin Filled Tacos, Pear and Brie Crisps, Asapargus Soup with Goat Cheese and some fantastic wine.

Real Parties: Cat in the Hat Party

This past weekend we had the Cat in the Hat Party for our now 2 year old! 

We set up our IKEA kids table with craft paper for the kids to color on.
Ties -made from cardstock (almost all the decor was from cardstock - diy details coming!)
Treat bags for the kids (included Cat in the Hat stickers).

Umbrella Sugar Cookies (recipe)

Red Velvet Cake (recipe from epicurious - after making it and being unhappy with the color and texture, we re-made it with these alterations)

BLT Bites (Snack for the adults!  This was an idea that I got from my friend, Katie - easy to do and really tasty!)

No surprise that only the babies were willing to wear the hats!

Green Eggs and Ham Cupcakes

Our poor little guy is sick on his birthday!  Fever all day long.  We'd planned on doing a laid back celebration with the family but Asa's spent all day in his pjs not wanting to eat (which is a first for him - no exaggerating - he LOVES food).

  

 Don't worry, we're not eating all these ourselves - we'll save them for tomorrow! 

Since we're doing so much Dr. Seuss theme for his bday party we decided to keep on going and do it for his actual bday.  So yesterday, before Asa was sick, Mike and I made these (from What's New Cupcake's Cracked Eggs).  Such a fun cookbook!

  

We used Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cake instead of the box mix yellow (just be sure not to overfill your liners, this is a very runny batter and it's easy to do!), dyed the lemon curd green for the yolks and used a canned vanilla frosting as recommended in What's New Cupcake.  The shells are white chocolate formed from plastic Easter Eggs.  *note - make a nice thick coating of chocolate - chilling and adding more in order for them to come out without cracks*  (Took us a number of tries!)

Supper Club: Salmon Beurre Blanc and Baked Alaska

  Pommes Frites from Thomas Keller

Salmon Beurre Blanc from Thomas Keller

Martha Stewart's Baked Alaska (featured in the Feb issue) 

Cat in the Hat Party Hats

Sneak peek of the party hats for Asa's 2nd bday! I had to wait for his nap to work on these because he kept wanting to try them on! I'll try to post a tutorial later.