Um. Patriotism, S'mores, n'Stuff.

Happy 4th, errr... 6th of July! We spent Independence Day in high style up on my mom's roof where the mojitos are strong, the hot dogs and purple chicken are plentiful, and s'more making is an artform.

After Finnegan was born, my mom and Rico stopped having huge parties up on the roof for the 4th and instead we have a quiet(ish) family dinner on the roof, followed by the best firework watching in town. Click here for a round up of last year's festivities. I kid you not, it's like a movie screen filled with fireworks right in front of your eyes. No neck craning. No porta potties. No fighting for a spot of grass.

The boys even used Papa Rico's tickets and went across the street to catch a few innings of the Hen's game in between dinner and the main attraction.

Finn actually behaved after Captain Safety (aka: Lyndsey) told him that if he stepped off the deck, gators were going to eat his feet. Nothing like a scared shitless 2 year old to harken in the celebration of our nation's independence. Right?

All in all it was a great, quiet (except for the BOOMING fireworks) night and let's face it... you can't beat the views.

Hope you had a safe, happy wonderful 4th!

Dear Blog,

I miss you. I really do. I'm not sure why you've been pushed aside like an old toy, but I was reading you tonight and laughing and finding recipes that I totally wanted to use again and wondering why I ever gave you up. Sure, you're time consuming, but you're also a fun reminder of how things really were. Just the pictures of Finnegan alone made me smile. I'm thinking of coming back to you. Don't get excited, maybe just slowly at first. A post here and a post there. I still have Finn's 2nd birthday to document and Elise's grad party and Annabelle's fundraiser and Megan's wedding... enough to keep me busy. And then there is the whole do I keep it private or make it public thing. Is it worth it to go through and scrub real names? Is anyone besides Em still checking in (and giving me shit for not posting!) from time to time?
Cheers,
Michelle

Elise's Grad Party

After a heated poll, we ended up going with a hybrid of Elise Yellow and Elise Posh Picnic. Her favorite colors are yellow and red so we went with black, white, grey, yellow and red and it really worked with everything. Elise specified that she didn't care about anything except the desserts so that left us with free reign over most everything. She piped in opinions here and there but mostly left the concepts up to me. She is also all about anything retro so we went with a slightly retro feel while still keeping it young.

The invites! I dreamt these up and had them printed to postcards that we slipped into her graduation announcements for the adults and she was able to hand out the cards to her friends as well.

Since she only mentioned desserts when we were brainstorming food ideas, we went with an INSANE dessert buffet. It, by far, topped anything I've ever done in scale and variety. We used old fashioned 1 & 2 gallon jars to fill with candies and cookies, each with a custom tag in the party colors.

Try as I may, there wasn't a good angle to get the whole thing in at once! We set it up in an L shape in the corner of the screened in porch.

Elise's mom made this collage and we also framed lots of pictures of her throughout her school years to add to the food tables, the dessert tables, and the gift tables. We also had all of her senior pics in a stand up frame for people to look at.

One of the drink stations! This one had pink lemonade and iced tea. We also had soda & bottled water for the kids and beer for the adults in a commercial cooler outside. Both drink dispensers were picked up at Costco and have been used a TON all summer!

Each of the tables had a centerpiece of different flowers in reds and yellows. I made a super EASY cuff to go around basic vases out of scrap paper and stickers that I printed with Elise's picture on them.

The best idea we had was to have a tent put up. It kept people outside and enjoying the pool and the backyard rather than inside the house. We used the inside to set up the food, appetizers in the kitchen and the dining room held the two buffets, half Mexican food and the other half picnic foods. There was so much food I can't even list it all!

We set up black bistro tables along the pool and long banquet tables under the tent. There was also seating on the deck and in the tiki bar. We also had the dj set up under the tiki bar.

Finnegan bought Elise the book, "What Would Audrey Do?" for her graduation gift. She's a big Audrey Hepburn fan so I thought she'd get a kick out of it.

Finnegan's Seussical 2nd Birthday!

{Edited Jan 2010:  UPDATED POST HERE}

Remember this?

Well, here is the real live version of my Dr Seuss inspired party board. A Seussical time was had by all!



The food was great and because I am slightly OCD in the party planning department we came up with names for everything we served and had little tags saying what it was and which book it was from!

Here is the menu:
Thing 1 & Thing 2 BBQ - pulled pork
Praries of Prax - coleslaw
Poodles with Noodles - pasta salad
Diffendoofer Fruit Salad
Yot in a Pot - baked beans
Schlott's Knotts - rolls
Green Eggs - deviled eggs dyed green by Bakka
A crumb that was even too small for a mouse - empty plate
Pink Ink Yink Drink - pink lemonade
Beezlenut Splash - iced tea



And the awesome dessert display!
The dessert menu:
Valley of the Vungs Chocolate Rock Blocks - brownie bites
Who Cakes - cupcakes
ABCs of Seuss Cookies - frosted cookies with ABCs on them
Yertle's Caramel Turtles - Rolo turtle candies

Since we had a pretty big mix of ages (from 1 - 87) we wanted really simple games and activities. We set up Finn's ball pit and tunnel activity set so the little ones could play. We also had crayons and giant coloring pages set up along with every Seuss book known to man for reading. We had this sign and 4 jars set up in the entryway along with pieces of paper for people to guess the correct number of candies in the jar.

These adorable cupcake toppers were made by Cassandra in her Etsy Shop! I found her by doing a request for Seuss ideas on Etsy and her concepts won me over. She went above and beyond to help me come up with a fantastic invitation and also these cute cupcake toppers. She was SO quick and easy to work with. I highly recommend her!

Another Etsy find! Along with my request for Seuss ideas came this BRILLIANT idea from Mommy's Little Critters. She made me red & blue fish soap! She was also awesome to work with, she gave me an endless list of scents to choose from, I went with cotton candy and blueberry. Even months later they still smell awesome and the kids thought they were very cool! I designed the cute favor tags and packaged them up and put them into the favor bags.

And here are the favor bags! I ordered Seuss hat tags and glued them on to bags that we filled with awesome Seuss stuffed animals that we bought at Kohl's during their Kohl's Kids fundraiser... thank you so much to DentaLori for calling me to tip me off about this! Our original idea was to purchase Dr Seuss books for all of the kids at Costco, but they stopped carrying the 4 pack of board books just before I needed them! We also included m&m's just in case someone didn't win the count the m&m game above, they wouldn't be left out!

We printed images of Dr Seuss book covers and had them sitting on the tables.

"Finn - I - Am" paper bunting I made and strung with some of the extra Dr Seuss hats I had left over from the favor bags.

We had a table set up at the entrance with Dr Seuss' Happy Birthday To You book and this sign. We asked guests to write a message to Finn on any of the pages and had lots of really colorful sharpie markers set up. There are some great entries and he's going to be able to keep the book forever.

Sign in the entryway says "Welcome To Seussville! Mayor Finn is 2!"

We had a smash cake for Finn... he apparently didn't get the memo that he was supposed to smash and went for a fork instead! I also had paper bunting around his high chair. He wore a Hop on Pop t-shirt. Daddy had a Wocket In My Pocket t-shirt. We also had Thing 1 and Thing 2 and other funny Seuss shirts show up.

Aunt Lisey and Midge in their Seussical t-shirts!

There are some unbelievably creative ideas you can do with a Dr Seuss theme. My biggest problem was narrowing down to the best stuff. I highly recommend it as a theme.