June 26, 2012

Awesome Sugar Cookies

For Spencer's birthday party, I made these sugar cookies using a recipe from my step mom's mother.  It is the best recipe and I will use it over and over for all of my sugar cookie needs!  The thing I like the most about it is that after you take it out of the refridgerator, it is so easy to roll out with just a little flour.  As always, make sure you have a nice, floured surface to roll and cut out your cookies.

Ingredients
5 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup Crisco
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Cream Crisco & sugar; add eggs.  Add lemon juice and mix.  In a sepearate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder & salt.  Alternate the flour & milk to the Crisco mixture; mixing  well after each addition.  Refriderate for a couple of hours or overnight for easier handling.  Roll out on a well floured board.  Cut into desired shapes.  Bake at 350 for 6-7 minutes.


Go here and see what they looked like when they were iced!  :)

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June 25, 2012

Spencer's 4th Birthday Party

Saturday was Spencer's 4th birthday party.  We had the first part at Lowe's (a Build-n-Grow workshop) and we left there and went to the park near by.  (Look here for the post on the party preparations.)  All in all it was great!  The park was busier than I thought it would be so we didn't get a table, but we made do.  Spencer (and us!) are blessed beyond measure to have such great friends!


At Lowe's...




 
We hardly got any pictures at the park.  This park is huge and so much to do.  It was like herding cats to get them all in one place to just eat, drink and open presents!




June 22, 2012

Party Preparations - Building/Tool Party at Lowe's

I always do a party preparations post with Spencer's birthday parties because I search and search for cool stuff and I hope I can make this easier on someone else that has a party like this.

We had Spencer's birthday party at Lowe's Home Improvement.  You're saying to yourself right now, "I didn't know they do birthday parties there?"  Well, they don't.  But, they have their Build-n-Grow workshops every other Saturday and we took full advantage of that!  All you have to do is register the kids for the party here and they get to attend a building workshop.  The workshop for his party was the Madagascar 3 luxury vehicle.  They put the vehicle together and get to take it home.  An added bonus is that they get a Lowe's work apron and goggles.  Talk about super cute!  And by the way, this type of stuff is right up Spencer's alley because he loves him some tools!

I made the invite and the insert using photoshop.  Again, I do have a small invitation business on the side, so please holler at me if you need anything or even want this particular inviataion.  We can talk prices.  :)   I've made some for people that saw what I did last year with the ivitation.   My hopes are that my website/blog will be up the summer.



This was the insert.  I didn't have room to put an RSVP on the invite, so just added these hammers in with the invite.  I cut the hammer out.























These were the thank you notes/cards.  I also made these and they were 4.25" x 5.5" cards.



There was no room for the rest of the party, so we went to the park that was close by and continued the party with cookies, drinks and presents.  We needed something that wouldn't melt in the car while we were in the building workshop, so I opted for cookies.  And I found these to die for cookie cutters!
I made them from scratch and iced them all.  I'll be posting the sugar cookie recipe I used on Tuesday.  I iced them differently than I usually do my Christmas cookies.  I used all the tips and the royal icing recipe from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  As you can see I have a long, long, long way to go, but it did get easier as I went.  Outlining and flooding the cookies is definetly the way to go.  I just had trouble with the consistency.



We needed something to put candles on and I think this worked out perfect!




For the party favors, I ordered the yellow plastic hats from Oriental Trading and put the kids names' on the hats using black vinyl and my Silouhette.  My intentions were not to add stickers to the hat, but Oriental Trading put a HUGE stamp that said 'Made in China' on the brim and you could see it.  (Morons!)  I put tool bubbles, tool silly bands, more cookies (because the recipe makes 5 dozen), rest of the stickers I didn't use on the hats and candy in the treat bags.









I hope you can get some inspiration with this and feel free to holler at me with questions and/or ideas!  Are any of you planning this type of party?  If so, what are you doing?  I'd love to hear about it!  Check out the pictures from the party here.



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June 20, 2012

What I'm loving...

What I'm loving Wednesday...

I'm loving that we had a great Father's Day Sunday with my wonderful husband and my sweet dad.  To add to the love, Spencer did this interview with one of his teachers at school about his dad...



I'm loving that Spencer had his first swimming lesson on Monday without crying a single tear!  The previous two, we cried and cried.  He was quite the show off Monday! :)



Going off the diving board last week (this was his very first lesson too)...


 
 
I'm loving that Spencer's birthday party is finally here (this weekend)!  I've been getting things ready for it for over a week.  Stay tuned for the party preparations post on Friday!


I'm loving that I'm finally getting into Instagram (@kswin33).  It's so fun!
pool snacks


I'm loving Tamara and Gretchen!



Linking up with Jamie at This Kind of Love.



June 10, 2012

Parties, parties & more parties!

First off, I'm taking a break from the weekly meal plan.  I find that during the summer we eat very simple and usually don't try a lot of new things.  I will post if we try new things.  I'll start the meal plan posts back up at the end of summer.  :)

It seems like every weekend Spencer has a birthday party to go to.  So many of his friends have birthdays in May and June.  We've had the best time at each of them and now we're gearing up for his birthday party in less than two weeks. 

Last weekend we went to Emie's birthday party.  Emie and Spencer have been friends forever and I can remember when these two could barely walk.  Emie is just precious and we're so lucky Spencer has her as a friend.  On a side note, these two like to hold hands...A LOT.  Ha!




Then we had Spencer's best guy friend's birthday party yesterday.  Hudson and Spencer are two peas in a pod...which is scary sometimes!  Hudson had a fireman birthday party.  A retired couple here purchased an old firetruck and they do parties for kids.  The birthday boy/girl gets a ride in the firetruck.  The let them shoot water from the hose, play tug of war with a fire hose and pin the tail on the Dalmatian.  It was so much fun and these kids played so hard.  Spencer was dripping in sweat when we left!



Now onto Spencer's party in two weeks.  I'm so excited to show you all the fun things we're doing.  Just for a hint...bring your tools and be ready to build something!!

June 3, 2012

The Glades

One of our absolute favorite shows is back on!  Most TV shows have two seasons in one year, but The Glades only comes on in the summer.  We LOVE it!



Tonight is the first episode of the season and what better way to celebrate it than with a theme dinner???  We're going for a Floridian coastal theme...

Up on deck:
  • mojitos by Rick
  • roasted corn & black bean salsa for a light appetizer