Cinco de whatever

Happy Cinco De Mayo friends! There was a time when this was a big event for me... no other reason besides I like an excuse to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas! (ok, lets have a moment of silence for the Mexican Revolution and Battle of Puebla...)

A few years back my co-worker and I went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch on Cinco de Mayo... we had so much fun that we decided to go on the fifth of every month... Cinco de whatever... that co-worker has since moved on and now, Cinco de Whatever has faded away....
This reminds me of a pattern I see a lot....

I often find myself planning monthly gatherings... I used to plan monthly Happy Hours, but the attendance started to dwindle as friends got pregnant... I then had a monthly neighborhood get together which turned into a monthly Dinner club... but that attendance may fade as well as the summer arrives...
I am now part of a monthly craft club.... oh and remember my monthly blog club (where are you blog club)... I am a member of the local Young Professionals Executive Committee, we meet once a month and host monthly events....

I love to have things pre arranged and scheduled for each month, it gives you something to look forward to, but when is it too much??

Do you have any monthly events that you take part in? If you do, how long have you done it... do your monthly traditions fade as well.....

Ready To Pop

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
My neighborhood friends are basically all expecting babies. Some of them are on their first and a few are on their second and third!!

There are three of us that are not expecting and so we got together to throw a celebration for our prego friends!

A "Ready to Pop" Party!!!


For the menu, I of course had to have a theme. POP! We served:
Popcorn (3 varieties)
"pop"perroni Pizza
fruit pops (fruit on a stick)
snap, crackle, pops (rice krispie treats)
popscicles
Soda Pop

I even threw in some blow pops and pop rocks!

Since there were a total of 7 girls invited, 4 of which have buns in the oven, I asked everyone to bring a gender neautral baby gift. We had a white elephant style gift exchange. before they could pick their gifts, I made them pop a balloon to see what order they would go in, inside each balloon was a piece of paper with a # on it.


The gift exchange worked out great. The girls were allowed to steal gifts from each other, so that was entertaining. Each mom to be took home 2 gifts in the end! The hot item for the night was a hand-made blanket by one of the ladies!

It was a lot of fun. I am happy to host events like this! These were 4 of the about 10 or more pregnant woman that I know right now! It is crazy how many girls are pregnant at the same time. We are happy to be 7 months into our marriage and we look forward to starting our own family some day, but for now it is fun to see others go through it... I am learning so much!

going and going and going

I am running on auto pilot this month... I have over extended myself once again! It is only April 5 and I am exhausted...

This week alone I have the following events:
Wednesday- "Ready to Pop" Party- a gathering for my neighborhood friends who are pregnant
Friday & Saturday- Garage Sale
Sunday- Swap Party

sounds fun right? Well, mix all that in with a jam packed work schedule and after working classes... cleaning the house... cooking, pricing and painting... UGH I am TIRED.

I really should not complain because I created this stress for myself.

I guess I can just look at this as blog material... so lucky you!

Stay Tuned Blog Friends

Storybook Shower

I can finally post about the baby shower I planned back in January.
(thank you to Jill for taking pictures, after my camera broke)

As I talked about in previous posts, my friend was expecting a baby boy and I (along with some others) planned a Storybook Baby Shower.

You can view the invites here and the theme items here
The shower was a success, everyone had a great time. While my decor was limited, the theme was great!
Each menu item coordinated to a children's book.

Menu:
Veggie Tray- The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Fruit Tray- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Cheese and Crackers-The Cheese
Ham Sandwiches- Green Eggs and Ham
Green Deviled Eggs- Green Eggs and Ham
Chicken Salad sandwiches- Chicken Little
Crock Pot Meatballs- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Monkey Bread- Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Mini Muffins- If you give a Moose a Muffin
Candy- Hansel and Gretel
Cookies- If you Give a Mouse a Cookie
Dirt Cups- Diary of a Worm and The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Baby Block & Cute Clothes Pins

For the storybook baby shower I am planning this month I found these super cute blocks that double as decoration and a holder.
I am borrowing a lot of ideas from Kojo Designs Storybook Shower... I can't resist it looked so cute.

I found these blocks at an antique store, I think I got 10 for $3.

I mistakenly bought adhesive ribbon for another project, but was able to use them to cover the front side of the clothes pin, I also used this ribbon for the invitations that went out for the shower!

I used a hot glue gun to adhere the clothes pin to the block.

I am going to use these to display storybook covers along the food table. I am then going to give them as a gift to the mom to be so she can use them in the nursery.

storybook baby shower

Some of our close friends are expecting their first child in March. Of course I had to offer to host a baby shower!

I chose a storybook theme filled with childrens books and a menu based all on stories.

The first step was finding the perfect invitation. With help from my crafty co-worker and friend ABK she helped me create these awesome bookmark invitations!

Each one was different, from the color to the ribbon to the detail at the bottom.

Card Stock- $ 10

Printing and Laminating- Free

Creativity- still waiting for the bill.... ahem... ABK

Ribbon- $8 ( was only $4, until I got home and realized I bought adhesive ribbon, but it created the cute borders on the bottom of each bookmark)

Envelopes- free, had them at home

Postage- always too much

TOTAL- $18 for 35 invitations (excluding postage)



Swap Party

As if I needed something else to plan I went ahead and hosted my 2nd Annual Swap Party.

What is a Swap Party? It is a great reason to clean out your closests and get rid of old treasures that you can no longer use. The beauty is you get to swap for other peoples treasures!

I sent an Evite explaining to everyone how it works, here is an overview of the invite:

By popular demand, I thought it would be fun to bring people together again this year to swap the stuff they don't want for stuff that you might want!
Last year we had a succesful swap! Many great things were traded and lots of fun was had!

For those of you that did not attend last year, here is an overview:
This is a way to shop for free and have fun! You know the phrase, "Someone elses trash is anothers treasure", well lets see how true that really is, but please DO NOT bring your trash.... Here are some ideas of items to bring:

* Clothes(gently worn)

* Accesories* Shoes (nothing Stinky please)

* Books* Kitchen Items (that work...)

* Furniture (that you can carry yourself because I will not have movers)

* Household Accessories (knick knacks)

The list can go on and on. The point of this is to see your stuff go to good use and not end up in the garbage. Heres how it works:
- For every item you bring, you can take home one item (Bring 5, take 5)... based on last year I would try not to bring more then 10 items (unless you just want to get rid of it) It can be hard to bring 20 and expect to go home with 20 new things.


- Each Person will be "Color-Coded" I will assign you a color post it for every item you bring and you will put a color Post it on other peoples stuff you might want. When you run out of your # of earned post its, then you can collect your stuff!


- Whatever is left behind that no one wants, I volunteer to pack it up and take it to the nearest donation center. If you bring something and no one takes it, and you want it back, that is fine too.


A few hot items from last year:

- A Faux Coach purse... this was a BIG item

- Books

- Designer Clothing and Shoes

All you need to host your own swap is:

Guests with fun stuff to share
Post its in different colors (one color for each swapper)
Space to display your items!

It is that easy!

People arrive and you sort the items by type, such as Clothing, Households, book etc...
You give everyone time to browse the room to get an idea of what there is.
Once everyone has arrived, you can "Open the Swap"! Thats when the fun begins!

Last year there was a little bit of a fight among ladies over a Faux Coach Purse... this year there were no battles, but girls were racing to get to the hot items!

We Swapped: Cute Summer Dresses, Work Clothes, Christmas Decor, Jewelry, Books and Kitchen Ware!

I gave prizes to 3 Winners for the following Categories:

Most Swapped Items: my college roommate came and brought bags of CUTE clothes that everyone wanted.... I remembered one of the reasons she was a great roomie!
Most Random/Hilarious Item: an old co-worker brought VHS copies of Paula Abdul work out/dance videos.. these were actually taken for someone to give as a white elephant gag gift, Perfect!
Most Wanted Items: A local neighbor brought the cutest cake stand with dome lid and many girls had their eyes on it during the browse... but the quickest lady to tag won!

I did not any pictures of the action, but it was fun!

Below are some pics of the snack table. I served Popcorn, Pretzels, Peanut M&M's and Berry Triffles(Yummy, but not pictured)... check out the adorable plates and napkins that I got at Michaels, Laura Ashley line.

Happy Swapping :)