Weekend Recap // Cora's Birthday Party & Mother's Day

Monday, May 12, 2014

My happy little girl.
Happy Monday you guys! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Ours was jam-packed with tons of prep for the party on Sunday and then tons of fun with family & friends. I won't talk much here because I've literally given you guys a huge recap with photos (and captions) below, so I'll just let everything below do the talking for me.

An outtake from the party. One of the pom poms fell at the end of the party and Cora thought it would be fun to wear it as a hat.

Cora's Flower Market! We had our own flower market so that anyone and everyone could make their own bouquets to take home. It was a great way to get our guests involved in a fun activity and where the moms could take home a little gift from the party. We were, after all, celebrating Mother's Day too ;)

I bought gift wrap from Target and cut it into squares to make these paper cones to hold the bouquets. I saw that Caitlin on Glitter Guide had done the same and thought that for this flower market themed party, it would be perfect.

Thank goodness for Michael's and all of their amazing products. I picked up two of these little chalkboards from there and have to say that they really added that extra touch to the decorations.

Another item I picked up from Michael's were these wooden plaques on sticks. I painted chalkboard paint on them so that we could make them look like the ones at real flower markets.

A lovely bouquet by my brother's girlfriend.

Our menu: Mini chicken salad sandwiches, Mandu, Tomato/Mozzarella/Basil salad, and a variety of quiches.

Had to have mandu of course! It's one of the birthday girl's favorite foods.

I was so happy to finally use this serving platter from my wedding china set. It fit in the theme perfectly, don't you think?

Sooo, I made these cupcakes (Pig Cake by The Pioneer Woman) for the first time for the party and they came out quite tasty. BUT, I didn't realize until too late that I didn't have any powdered sugar (I could've sworn we had some), so I made do (sort of) and mixed Cool Whip with pineapple chunks and topped the cupcakes with them. Even though it came out soupy and less than ideal, it actually tasted good. Thankfully, I picked up these flower icing decorations which really helped conceal the fact that the frosting didn't look that great. Moral of the story: make sure to have powdered sugar when making frosting.

My new favorite drink right now, "The Serendipiti". The hubby found this recipe in a cocktail book we have and thought it would be perfect for the party. And he was right! This is a must-try recipe.

We had 4 little girls at the party so I thought it would be nice for them to get a goodie bag filled with some treats, such as a sticker book, a flower wand, some crackers with strawberry & chocolate dip, and a polka-dotted party hat. Always helps to have fun items for the kid guests to keep them occupied and happy, right?