Ellyn's Graduation Open House

Ellyn's graduation party was 2 weeks ago and we are finally catching our breath. May is such a whirlwind month for seniors (and their parents).  Graduation was yesterday, so we are done with her school events and I have a little time to catch up on the blog.

We had so much fun preparing for her party. As a matter of fact, Ellyn decided not to go to college, so that we can become party planners! Not really... but we both really like planning parties.

Ellyn had been collecting ideas for her party for a long time. One of her ideas was to have a "cookies & milk" party rather than a meal. I loved the idea for it's simplicity. I knew I could bake yummy cookies ahead of time and freeze them, which would help with the last minute rush of the party.  Ellyn also chose her color scheme: dark coral, apricot orange, light pink and teal.  I started gathering cookie serving pieces that matched her colors from around the house or while shopping.  We baked snickerdoodles, monster cookies, chocolate chip, lemon crinkles, peanut butter with Reese's miniatures, strawberry shortbread cookies, Oreo balls (400!), and bought Oreos and wafers. The final cookie count was 1200 homemade cookies!  We ordered square cardboard milk cartons from our grocery store and cute striped straws. I think these helped us all feel like school kids again. :) And just in case our guests needed to dunk their cookies in milk, we had cups available with extra skim, chocolate, and almond milk.

The three-tiered stand with Oreo balls was made from plastic dishes from Target and a tube of Krazy Glue. The aprons were also homemade for our kitchen helpers.  They baked cookies during the party which made the house smell wonderful.  Goodness gracious, we love these three ladies!

Ellyn did a ton of work planning the photo display. We went through a lot of paper and ink!
I was so glad to have our own little printing shop, since she was sometimes working late at night.
I let her cover a big wall with chicken wire.  What am I saying??? Her idea...but I am the one who stood on the ladder with the staple gun, screwdriver, rolling pin, and hammer! It was hard work.

I sewed miles and miles of bunting from fabrics Ellyn picked out. I had help from some high school girls, so it really only took a few hours. Ellyn made a bunch of tissue paper balls and used some older ones from her bedroom. This ceiling display required quite a bit of time on the ladder as well!

She pinned lots of pictures to the chicken wire with clothes pins and we hung several framed prints with nails in the wall.  She sewed Mandie a coordinating bandana for the party--isn't she such a cute pup?

Ellyn had around 250 people come to her party and we only had about 50 cookies left over! We were shocked to not have an abundance of leftovers, but very happy with the turn out. She was so happy to have her grandma, uncle, aunt, and cousins from Missouri here for the weekend. They were great help!!

It was such a great party, but we all felt a little like this by the end. 

A bit more Valentine's Day love--three days worth

I just can't bear to let Valentine's go without sharing a bit more. I stretched Valentine's Day out for three days and loved every minute of it.

Day 1, Feb. 14:
Did you have heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast?
I don't know if kids ever outgrow loving heart-shaped pancakes.
(I certainly haven't yet.)

We ended Valentine's Day with a fun, but not very healthy supper.

Delivery just for me, from my sweet Valentine...

Day 2:
Friday night, hubby and I had a fancy restaurant dinner with friends. I didn't take pictures, but we had a great time.

Day 3:
Saturday night I hosted a Valentine's progressive dinner with some other friends.
I was having way too much fun to take pictures, but I snapped a few at the end.

Our dog got a manicure and bow just for the party:
(poor thing)

These were the signs for the doors of the homes who were hosting courses of the dinner.
We had appetizers at the first house, salad at the second house, and main course and dessert at the last house.

The table, the day after. Why didn't I remember to snap a picture in all its glory!?!

Lots of relaxing conversation after the meal:

This awesome tiered dessert stand was made with thrift store treasures by my friend's mom.
The pieces were glued together with E6000 adhesive.
It was perfect for holding the beautiful desserts!

This yummy, layered mocha dessert featured each of our initials cut from brownies:

 My favorite Valentine's decorating:

Let's Have a Party--BINGO

I love to think of an excuse to gather a bunch of people in my house or yard for a party. Sometimes my family tires of my party ideas...other times they enjoy the fun I scheme up. This summer we had a chance to host a few parties and I am finally going to blog about each of them this week.

In June we had our third BINGO party in the back yard. You can read about another one we had by clicking here: BINGO party.

We pulled out the BINGO cards, buttons for marking the numbers, all the tables and chairs, and some cheesy prizes. We had root beer floats to finish off the evening.

You can tell by the faces in these pictures that everyone had a great time...
and that they LOVED their awesome prizes. : )