Rainbows and Gold Party

We LOVE rainbows and I've been wanting to plan a rainbow party so St. Patrick's Day was the perfect excuse. We had lots of rainbow goodies, cake, push pops, chocolate covered oreos, fruit and of course our traditional corned beef dinner.

The rainbow cake was a hit!

Chocolate covered rainbow Oreos and rainbow dot garland (inspired by Oh Happy Day) were SO fun to make

Of course the leprechauns left behind little pots of gold around the house for the kids to find.

Our rainbow pancakes were a HUGE hit!

"Can I just eat my breakfast already?..."

I was so excited with how the inside of the cake turned out!

St. Patrick's Day Rainbow Party Preview...

We are getting excited about our St. Patrick's Day rainbow themed party coming up next week! We've already started making fun treats and decorations in anticipation!

DIY dot garland HERE

Great tutorial for the chocolate covered oreos HERE

Dr. Seuss Party

It's always fun to use Dr. Seuss as an excuse to celebrate reading on his birthday and get a few new books to add to our collection. Our little breakfast party wasn't quite as extravagant as last year's Green Eggs and Ham party, but the kids still loved it! We had fun eating Seuss food, reading Dr. Seuss books and watching a couple of the Dr. Seuss book short films. The Dr. Seuss book look-alike cookies were probably the biggest hit with the kids. They both sorted through all the cookies and set aside their favorite titles for themselves to eat (luckily they have different favorites!).

I stocked up on Dr. Seuss crafts at Michael's during clearance time.

These little Dr. Seuss book sugar cookies were SO simple to make! I simply printed the images of the books I wanted to bake and then took the print out to Publix to have them print it on their edible paper. It does cost about $8 a sheet and I fit 8 book covers on each page. I cut the sugar cookies based on the book cover size, frosted with royal icing and placed the printed image on while the icing was still wet.

Valentine's Picnic

We wanted to do something special together as a family for Valentine's dinner so a picnic it was. We planned an exquisite menu, packed up our goodies, Joey's old six string and headed out to Kenneth Meyers Park to plant ourselves with a lovely bayside view. The kids loved the excitement of it all and what a big deal it was. They were such awesome helpers preparing with me all day. The best part was Joey serenading us with love songs and improvising to make it fun with our names. 

Valentine's sugar cookie party

We decided to host a Valentine's Day cookie decorating party for the kids and a couple of their friends on Saturday. Afterall, what's Valentine's without a few sugar cookies to share?! The kids were SO excited to invite their friends over and loved setting up the party. Ellie was a little confused about why grandma didn't come to town for this party since grandma always seems to be around for our fun parties. Nevertheless, we carried on and the kids all loved it! They actually sat and decorated cookies for a lot longer than I thought they would. The best part about outdoor parties all year long?...easy peasy clean up and the sprinkles stay outside. 

New Year's Slumber Party

Since we are party poopers we decided to hide away in our little place for the night. We pulled out the hide-a-bed, got the movies, books and games ready and of course had plenty of treats to last us through to the New Year! The kids were so much fun the whole night and thoroughly enjoyed each moment reading together, playing board game after board game (we even stuck to the rules!!...for the most part) and watching movies while we waited for the ball to drop. Since we had been practicing staying up so late with all the fun we have been having the past couple weeks it didn't even phase them that it was so late by the time we were banging the pots and pans and blowing our horns.

2012 was awesome. I would relive this year a million times over if I could. I can only imagine the fun adventures 2013 will bring!