Baby Shower for Memphis

 This was for my sweet sister and her baby boy Memphis.  We are so excited for her!

 She is decorating his nursery in airplanes using these colors so we decided to use this as our theme.

 You can't see the airplane garland very well but I loved how we did this for Courtney's airplane shower and wanted to try it again.

 I didn't get a close up of the "airplane food." On the water table we made nut and pretzel cups.

 Love the candy airplane runway!

 My sister doesn't like cake but loves cheesecake so we made these mini cheesecakes instead of cupcakes. We used Tollhouse Macadamia Nut and Oreo cookies for the bottom and this recipe for the cheesecake.

 Airplane sugar cookies.

Thanks Mom, Dee, and Janae for helping.  It was so fun doing this together! Congrats Bree, we love you!

Airplane baby shower

Have you ever had a friend that you love to spend time with because they make you want to be a better person but your lives are so busy that it doesn't happen very often? That's how I feel about Colette.  I am so happy and blessed that I got to plan and execute this shower with her.  It was so wonderful! I love her goodness in so many ways! 

 Her house made this shower look so good.  I loved it! We did this airplane shower for our dear friend Courtney. Her nursery colors are gray, green and white.

We folded a bunch of paper airplanes and Colette made garlands by adding string and white pom pom balls that looked like clouds.

 More garland! Aren't those lights fabulous?

We made sugar cookies.

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup butter (creamed)

1 cup sour cream

Combine & beat until creamy. Add 61/2 cups flour and 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt. Mix well. Roll out on floured counter 1/2 inch thick. Or like Colette taught me place between sheets of parchment paper roll out, freeze for 20 minutes, then cut shapes out and put on cookie sheet. (This method will keep you from having to use so much flour which makes cookies taste like flour.)   Bake for 10 min. @ 350.

 I really liked these colors together. His nursery will be so adorable.  I am so sad that I didn't get a picture of the banner Colette made for him. But trust me it was super cute!

This cake is amazing and is perfect for a brunch! I didn't think I liked pound cake until I tried this (thanks Bonnie Agee)

 Sour Cream Pound Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. lemon extract
1 tsp. orange extract
8 oz. sour cream
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven 325. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer about 2 min. or until soft and creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at med. speed 5 to 7 min. Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until yellow disappears.
Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt, add to cream mixture alternately with sour cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Mix at lowest speed just until blended after each addition.  Stir in flavoring.
Pour batter into a greased and floured 10 inch bundt or tube pan. Bake 325 for 1 hour 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes. Remove fro pan and let cool completely on a wire rack. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Super fun take home favors.  I loved the idea of covering the gum stick and smarties with paper to match your theme.  I saw some for Valentines that I might have to try.

 Thanks for flying by... and thanks for the memories Colette!
*I didn't get a picture of the quiche but I had several people ask for the recipe.  Give it a try.
Colette made a delicious homemade crust (sorry I didn't get the recipe from her) but I have just used the pre made crust which isn't as good but still tastes yummy.
6 strips bacon, crumbled
3/4 cup cooked diced ham
1 cup grated swiss cheese
3 eggs
1 c heavy cream
salt and pepper
Place bacon, ham and cheese in cooked crust. Beat eggs and cream, pour on top. Bake 375 for 30 to 40 minutes.

Baby Carriage Baby Shower

 Mindi, Jill and I made these for Mary's baby shower.

 I used this recipe for the cake.
Chocolate Buttermilk cake
1 box devil's food cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines)
3 TBSP cocoa powder
1 1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Combine and mix for 2 minutes.
Put about 1 TBSP of cake batter to the bottom of a cupcake liner. The original recipe says to place the cookie on the bottom with no batter but my first batch burnt the cookie so adding the batter really helped.  Add 1 Oreo cookie on top of the batter. Then add a mini Reese's peanut butter cup on top of the cookie.  Add enough batter to cover the PB cup which should be 2/3 full. Bake 325 for about 17 minutes or until cake is done.

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

Patti's Chocolate Frosting:

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup softened butter

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/2 cup powdered sugar

*For the decoration I traced Letters and a carriage from the 2010 Wilton Yearbook with chocolate.

 Baby carriages:Bake a cake in a jelly roll pan. Use carriage cookie cutter to cut carriages out.  Dip in colored melted chocolate.  Add chocolate melt discs for wheels and the handle (I used a swirl mold from the Wilton Dessert Accent Candy Mold but you can just pipe some out if you don't have one.)

I googled baby carriage cookies and found this design to copy with frosting.  I added a candy pearl to the center.

 They took a long time to do but overall they were worth it.  Next time I won't do so many.

Thanks Mindi and Jill for helping with the cakes! Congrats Mary!

Ethan's 9th Birthday

 I can't believe I have 2 boys and this is the first sports birthday party theme we have done.  I loved it and can't wait to do it again.

 Front door flag. Ethan loved all the flags.

 I borrowed this awesome turf from my friend who used it for her boys golf themed party. If you don't want lots of holes in your wall from the nails then don't hang it.  My friend used it as a table cloth which was so adorable. I just didn't have a big enough table to use it that way.

 Ethan chose the sports he wanted me decorate with.

 He wanted the big ball to be a basketball.  I tried so hard to make it look right but it doesn't.  Oh well.  I wish there was an eraser for frosting.

 I did however have a good time decorating the cupcakes and cookies.

 For the cookie pop box I wrapped a shoe box in white paper.  I used styrofoam to get the sticks to stay, and cut grass out of construction paper.

Having a 9 year old makes me feel old enough but some of the kids at the party had never heard of or had Cracker Jack's.  What!

This was everyone's favorite "sport" game. We also played football, soccer, wrestled, decorated sugar cookies, played X-box (least favorite because it was a beautiful day after 3 days of rain and we all wanted to be outside,) and played with confetti eggs which are the greatest thing for a party.  I got them after Easter to try them.  They are hollowed out eggs filled with confetti.  The kids ran around breaking them over each others heads.  Sounds silly but perfect for a bunch of crazy boys. You should try some next Easter.

Football cupcakes!

 Ethan wanted to take football cupcakes to school for his birthday.  He requested they have a A on them for Alabama.

It was so cute seeing his friends get so excited about the A's.  I love this age and their football pride! Roll Tide!

Teacher Appreciation Day

 Today is Teacher Appreciation Day. For Ethan's teacher we decided to cover strawberries and almonds (her favorite) in chocolate.

Her favorite color is purple.  I found these boxes at Wal-Mart last year on Easter clearance.

Accessory Cupcakes!

 Jill and I made these for Mindi's Shower.  They were so fun!

 Since the high heeled shoes took so long to decorate and we knew no one would want to eat them with all the sprinkles we made these as well.

 We made a few purses...

 My dad was in town and helped mold the pearl necklace and the purses.  He was so cute!

 The high heeled shoes were a process but well worth it!

 We used a white cake mix so you could really see the design on the liners.  We did use some grease free but they don't have many designs.

 Next we dipped Milano cookies in white chocolate and cut a L shape off the end of the cupcakes.  We frosted the cupcakes(including the L shape) and the edge of the Milano cookie then dipped them in a bowl of sprinkles covering them.  Try not to get any on the L shape.  We used white chocolate to add the Pirouette stick(which we cut to the size of heel we wanted) to the cookie and stuck the end of the cookie in the L shape. Most of them dried pretty good that way but others we had to hold until they dried. You may need to add more sprinkles to the edges where the cookie is.

 Now the fun part...decorating! We used bubble gum and frosting for these.

 Fondant bow.

 Pre made fondant flowers I found at Wal-Mart.

Thanks Jill for the fun!