Early games call for the best breakfast tailgate foods. Here are easy, make-ahead recipes, tips, and a downloadable checklist for a fun game day experience. What do you do when a neighbor offers to sell you lower-level tickets to a Redskins game at a discount? If you’re our family…you move heaven and earth […]
How to Host a Last-minute S’mores Party
Need a last-minute party idea that is easy to pull together? Try hosting a s’mores party! This awesome theme is all about the ingredients, which makes decorating so much easier! Nearly three years ago, I spent 10 days killing myself to create a party for my oldest daughter. Our house was transformed. It […]
How to Make the Most Adorable Kids Chef Hat | Easy Crafts
Find out how to make a personalized kids chef hat with a store-bought hat and fabric scraps. It’s super easy and only takes a few minutes! You want your party to be unique and coordinated, but you don’t feel like spending hours upon hours creating custom items from scratch. Same here. One of […]
This is the Most Adorable Baking Birthday Party for Kids
Come in and take a look at the cutest baking birthday party for kids of all ages! It’s filled with ideas that you can recreate, including games and decorations! I’ve taken everything from six weeks to six months to plan a party, but the most labor-intensive party I ever hosted was my oldest’s […]
The Best Kids Treasure Hunt Ideas, Tips, and Tricks
Want to host a treasure hunt for your kids’ birthday party? Read on for the best kids treasure hunt ideas, tips and tricks to make it as much fun as possible. Confession: While I love to plan parties, I do not like to plan structured activities for those parties. While the kids […]
Thanksgiving Tablescapes | Using Nature for Decor
Budget friendly Thanksgiving tablescapes start with using nature for decor. Learn how to make a table setting using leaves & branches from your own backyard. This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for this […]
How to Make a Frozen Inspired Ice Cream Cake
Summer birthdays are made for ice cream cakes. Find out how even you can make this amazing Frozen inspired ice cream cake. A Frozen themed birthday party held during the summer NEEDS an ice cream cake. It’s just the perfect marriage. Summers in the mid-Atlantic are hot and sweaty. So ice cream is the perfect […]
How to Make these Adorable Floating Olaf Jello Cups
These floating Olaf Jello cups are surprisingly easy. In 3 simple steps, you can have the perfect Frozen-themed snack for your kid’s Frozen-themed party. Have you ever seen something awesome on Pinterest, only to realize that there’s no explanation on how to make it? That’s what happened when I started planning my 4-year-old’s Frozen themed […]
How to Make Adorable Party Favors with Glassine Bags
Find out how purchasing glassine party favor bags in bulk saved time and money, and how to make unique and adorable favors every time you use them. Financial gurus say that to save money, you should buy in bulk. While that advice makes sense if you have the space, I hesitate to follow it when […]
How to Make an Olaf Snow Flurry
Learn how to make your very own Frozen-Inspired Olaf Snow Flurry, including what worked, what didn’t, and ideas for making it even better! Elsa is everybody’s favorite Frozen character. It’s no surprise. She has magical powers, can change the weather on a whim, and has an awesome sister. But, as always, our middle child surprised […]
Yes, You Can Absolutely Make this Frozen Luau Party
This stunning Frozen luau party is full of easy DIY projects and simple tips that you can absolutely recreate for a special little girl in your life. My first daughter was born in 2009. My second daughter was born in 2012. The movie Frozen was released in 2013. I was doomed from the start. At […]
An Elegant Woodland Holiday Tablescape (You Can Actually Afford!)
Disclosure: I received free products in exchange for providing my unbiased review of Oriental Trading Company products. All opinions expressed are my own. Even though Christmas is my favorite holiday, we’ve only hosted one Christmas dinner. We have no plans to host dinner this year, yet I stll got an itch to pull together winter […]
Bless This Child: Baby Boy’s Fall Inspired Baptism
What do you do when you’ve got 20 people coming over for a baptism, and all your time is taken up with a baby and a 3-year-old? For us, the answer was to keep things simple and to find a way to combine kids activities with fall inspired baptism party preparations. You might say that […]
Make Your Own Ombre Cake
Do you want to know a secret? Ombre cakes are a lot easier to make than you think. It’s no surprise that I love to plan and decorate parties. And I also love to bake delicious treats, but I’m still learning how to make beautiful cakes. I can’t level a cake to save my life. […]
A Mermaid Themed Party Filled with Budget-Friendly Ideas
I like to hold our kids’ parties at home in our back yard. It allows me the freedom to decorate just about however I want…and within my own time frame. But every once in a while the kids convince me that a party outside the home is better. Last summer, T decided she wanted to […]
There is a Better Way to Plan a Birthday Party (and this is it!)
Are you sick of going crazy over your kids’ birthday parties? There is a better way to plan a birthday party, and it only takes 10 simple steps. Most parents I know plan a birthday party for their kids one of two ways: They start months in advance, with lots of homemade decorations and projects, […]
{Real Parties} It’s Raining Sprinkles
This year was L’s first birthday party with other kids from school. It seems like all of her classmates were born between May and July, because it has been non-stop birthday parties for the last couple months! With all of the character parties we were going to, I wanted to keep things a bit simpler. […]
Favorite Kids Easter Books & a Fancy Nancy Easter Party
Find out our family’s favorite Easter books for babies through early readers – and how we celebrated Easter based on Fancy Nancy’s Elegant Easter. We read a lot of books around our house. If there’s a theme involved, you can probably bet we’ve got at least one book about it. Books about being kind, dealing […]
A Rustic & Gold Thanksgiving That Anyone Can Recreate
We officially survived hosting another Thanksgiving dinner. It’s almost hard to believe that seven years ago I swore off hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Two years ago, I broke that promise with a table covered with the colors of fall leaves. This year, I pulled together a gold Thanksgiving tablescape that has me looking forward to […]
{Real Parties} It’s an Octonauts Party
It’s been a month now, but I still have a hard time believing that T is actually five years old. Just the other day she was sitting on my leg and I realized that it was starting to actually hurt. Something about age 5 just feels so big. And as much as I promised that […]
{Real Parties} Super Sweet Girly Baptism
I should be ashamed of myself. Really, there’s no excuse for how long it’s taken me to get these photos up. L was baptized nearly two years ago. Two years. Better late than never, no? L was baptized the same day we celebrated T’s third birthday. I wouldn’t typically recommend hosting two parties in one […]
{Real Parties} Splish Splash 4th Birthday Bash
It happens every year. My little girl is another year older, and it just doesn’t seem possible. Which means that it was also time to throw another birthday party! Ever since the beginning of Summer, T has wanted to be involved in helping out with everything from cooking to folding laundry. So, of course, I […]
{Real Parties} It’s Fun to be One!
A few weeks ago, my baby girl turned one. I can’t believe that she’s already a year old! I didn’t go overboard with her birthday the way I did with T’s first birthday. There were no organized games or activities. It was just a few hours of food, cake and close family. (Please accept […]
Getting Creative with Casual Yet Elegant Thanksgiving Decor
Taking the stuffiness out of Thanksgiving decor can make everyone relax and have a good time. Find out how to design casual yet elegant Thanksgiving decor. This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means […]
{Real Parties} Colorful Third Birthday
It’s been nearly a month, but I have finally gone through the photos from T’s Third Birthday party. Like many parties these days, it was held at a local gymnastics-type place. Ironically, I planned her party outside the home to reduce any stress of having a party at our house so soon after having a […]
Pastel Bunny Buffet
Last year, I pulled together a fun little Bunny Buffet for T and her cousins. Perhaps it was overkill to make a whole buffet of treats for just three kids, but I had a lot of fun working with a theme and color pallet. Best of all, I found a way to celebrate Easter that […]
{Real Parties} Christmas Eve Dinner Party
I hope everyone had fantastic holidays! The last week and a half has been a complete whirlwind. In the last ten days, we’ve hosted a dinner party, had family come to visit, visited my family in Richmond, recovered my computer, reconfigured our entertainment system and played a ton with the little one. To say my […]
{Real Parties} A Christmas Tea Party
I mentioned earlier this week that I actually helped put together two different parties last December…merely days apart! Yesterday I shared pictures of the Cookies & Milk party we had for the little ones last Christmas. The next party was actually a birthday tea celebrating the 60th birthday of one of my husband’s aunts. I […]
{Real Parties} Christmas Cookies & Milk
I don’t usually like to re-post, but it seems appropriate to share again the first party I put together to kick off the year of parties. The party was somewhat small, with just the parents and kids from T’s daycare class. I still remember how much fun all the kids had together. We served a […]
An Adorable Halloween Harvest Party for Preschoolers
This Halloween harvest party for preschoolers is full of simple ideas and decorations that are fun for little kids and easy to replicate! Quick! Think of 5 different Halloween parties you can host for a bunch of 2-year-olds! I never realized how difficult that was until our little 2-year-old became scared of nearly every Halloween […]
Chili and Beer Football Kickoff Party
Do you celebrate the start of football season? Even though my father always enjoyed watching college football, I never really understood the sport until I was older. The Husband didn’t grow up in a sports-loving household and learned to love his local team by hanging out with friends. Ever since those days in his youth, […]
An Amazing Backyard Luau You Just Have to See
The luau is the quintessential summer party and this amazing backyard luau is full of decor you can easily recreate…even if you’re on a budget! What do you do when you’ve got the sweetest little girl turning seven years old and you’re too busy with work and your younger child to do much […]
{Real Parties} July 4th Sweet Treats
I mentioned last week that the Husband and I were traveling to Pennsylvania for the holiday weekend. Originally, we were going to have family and friends over to our house for a barbecue, but it had been far too long since we last visited our PA family. So we loaded up the car and brought […]