Super Mario Bros. Success!

After having such success with BabyGirl's birthday at the Y Pool I was luckily able to convince BabyBoy to do something similar for his 7th birthday party. The Y has what they call and "inflatable" party where they set up this huge inflatable obstacle course in the gym, let the kids play for an hour, and then send them up to the party room for food and cake. Easy, right?
BabyBoy being the budding computer genius that he is was determined to find the perfect cake to go with his chosen Mario Bros. theme. So, he googled "super mario bros. cake" and here's what he came up with...

Ummmm. Yeah. Mommy can bake a little but Ace of Cakes I'm not. I had to bring him back to earth just a bit. We did end up with a pretty cool cake, though. I actually ran out of time and the option became I could EITHER bake the cake or ice the cake. Sooooo, I headed off to Ukrop's and purchased the largest sheet cake they had, scraped off the oh, so delicious icing, colored my purchased icing bright blue, and went to town with the pre made fondant I had purchased. Here was the result...

The fondant was actually really easy to work with. I wasn't really doing anything 3D or crazy like that so it went pretty smoothly.

For the favors I found some cute ice cream cups at the dollar store and filled each with crinkly shreds and a gift card for a kids cone at Maggie Moo's.

The invitations were purchased from a seller on Ebay and I have to say I was really pleased...you simply send them the info and they send you a pdf of the invitation that you print out yourself. You can find them here.

I purchased all of the birthday supplies from Celebrate Express. This was the only place I was able to find them. They had really cute blue balloons with white clouds and I added yellow balloons with white stars and solid red balloons. It was definitely a cheap way to add to the theme. Overall...another successful party and very low stress!

Preppy Chic!

That is the term my aunt coined to describe the wedding we planned for my cousin, Emily. In keeping with that theme Jettaka and I hosted a very Lilly inspired Bridesmaids Luncheon at Jettaka's best friend Betsy's house. If you're from Richmond, or maybe if you're not, you may have heard of Turnkey Interiors. This is the design firm that Betsy owns. We had the priveledge of entertaining at her beautiful home and it was fabulous! We decided on a poolside theme hoping that the girls would be able to relax in anticipation of the big day. We had everything catered by Mosaic Cafe. Can you say delicious? We even let BabyBoy and little Carter invade our girly day so they could get some well needed outdoor time. Enjoy the photos!

First, the invitations...

We chose the Lilly Pulitzer cloud nine pattern because it had navy and hot pink, which were Emily's colors.

More details...

Oh, if I could, I would...

Have you forgotten me yet? I hope not! I know it's redundant to say...but it's just been so darned busy around here! End of year parties...my year as president of our medical alliance ending...BabyBoy's birthday coming up...redecorating rooms in the house...swim team...gymnastics...are you exhausted yet? 'Cause I definitely am! We've had a great several weeks. Last weekend we had the honor and priveledge of attending the Virginia Republican Convention and got to hear Sean Hannity speak. It was awesome! He gave such a great speech. We would have loved to have heard Mitt Romney speak at the Gala the evening prior, but we just couldn't get there in time!

I've had so many new ideas for blog posts...Etsy is my new obsession! I will be posting a lot about that soon.

I know I also promised to post pix of our "complete" master bedroom. However...it just isn't perfect yet. Soon...soon! We're renovating BabyBoy's bathroom right now and I can't WAIT to post pix. It should be a great transformation.

Today, however...I want to escape from reality. I want to do an I SO would if I could post.

I have always wanted a beach house. Unfortunately, Dr. Daddy is very much a glass half empty kind of folk and is terrified of hurricanes!!!

SOOOO, I'm going to do a post about my dream beach house. If I could I would have this house

with this kitchen

and how about this entry?

Imagine the blogging I could do from this master suite...

BabyBoy would LOVE this bedroom...don't you love the Hermes blanket? (atleast...I think it's Hermes!)

And BabyGirl's room...

And if the friends or cousins come to visit? We'll definitely need both of these rooms!

Of course...Mimi will need a room as well...and every girl needs some LV!

And since we all need a place to hang out and watch our back episodes of Weeds and The Real Housewives...

There are certainly a zillion more rooms I would love to post...but for now...this is my dream beach house!!!

Cookie Monsters Take Note!

I've searched high and low and I think I've finally found my favorite online baker! In case you haven't noticed from some of my past posts...I love baking and decorating cookies. I just hate the clean up! I also LOVE to look at photos of other baker's cookies. While perusing the net I stumbled upon Zoe Lukas' Whipped Bakeshop. Her cookie creations are incredible! Check them out...















Kim, these are for your boys!





And did I mention she bakes cakes, too?





Each one better than the next! See more here!