A Tennis Gathering

This spring, Gretchen and I co-captained a USTA tennis team.  When we were asked to captain we considered saying no because we had absolutely no experience and had only actually played on a team once before.  However, we wanted to be able to play doubles together so we agreed knowing that our tennis facility would help as much as they could.  It's been such a wonderful experience and really lovely getting to know our teammates (many of whom we didn't know).  And those doubles matches?  We haven't played together once since we were needed to play singles!

To celebrate our season, Gretchen and I hosted a little gathering for our team.  Everyone brought something to munch on and we provided the cocktails.  Our drink of the night was a Pimms Cup as a nod to the official drink of Wimbledon!  I'd never had a Pimms Cup and was surprised at how good it was!  Plus, we decided the addition of the cucumber spear made it healthy.

I also made tennis ball cupcakes and I just love how cute they are!  The tennis ball is actually a gumball and  they really couldn't have been simpler to make.  I also discovered how handy it is to have a giant tip to pipe out the icing.  I've always wondered how people got that ball of icing on the top and now I know.

An Olympic Gathering

It's been well documented our love for the Olympics.  So when we had a school event to go to on Friday evening, during the opening ceremonies, we were a tad disappointed.  Instead of missing out we just recorded and watched Saturday evening.  Our friends joined us since it wouldn't be a Winter Olympics without them!

(how great is Ron's vintage sweater and Elliot's vintage hat?)

I went with a winter sports theme for the night!  I saw these adorable drink stirrers on Oh, Happy Day and just had to make them.  I went with plastic dowels, that Bryce cut in half, instead of wooden dowels, and I glued the little HO scale figures directly to the top.  They are high on the cute scale!  Everyone enjoyed picking out their sportsperson for the night.

The children drank Sprite with Olympic rings on the bottom (aka: lifesavers).

Gretchen brought an around the world cheese plate with cheese from different countries- complete with appropriate flags!

For dinner, we had Shepherd's Pie because that's all I could think of that had a "snowy" surface.  I think it turned out so cute, my favorite part being that the "snow" is groomed with a fork!   It's the details that make me happy!

We also had a salad with mini mozzarella snowballs.

For dessert, I made a downhill skiing cake that I spotted on You are My Fave.  I followed her instructions to the T and it turned out adorable.

We don't have laurel growing in the back yard but we do have ivy!  Grace made us ivy wreaths for the occasion!

Invitations for a Magic Party

Grace has a friend who is quite good at card tricks and from the moment Harris met him, and witnessed a few of these tricks, he has been really taken with performing some of his own card tricks.  Therefore, when we were deciding what to do for a birthday party it was an obvious choice to choose a magical theme!
 

We designed an invitation that resembled a playing card with a picture of Harris on the front and the party information on the back.  Harris has always had a fondness for "getting into character" so he was game for throwing on his magic cape and hat that he has had for years.  Also, I love that he arranged the front card to be a 9 (his age).  I didn't even notice this until after we made the invitation!

Since the invitations were so little, the size of a playing card, we just made small pocket envelopes for them by cutting a strip of paper and gluing the sides shut with hot glue.  Harris stuck some star stickers on the front for a little extra pizzaz.  The only problem with the envelopes?  They were so small that at least one person didn't even see it in their mailbox!  

Grace Hosts a Halloween Party

Grace has wanted to plan and host a family Halloween party ever since last year.   She made it happen this weekend and I couldn't be more proud of the job she did!  It turns out that my girl is quite the party planner!  She was organized and well prepared by the time the party got here (which I cannot always say about myself!), and though she handled the majority of the planning and preparing herself, I so enjoyed spending this time with her as we shopped, cooked and prepped together.

Invitations

She made the invitations herself.

The Food

Grace chose the menu with minimal help from me.  She also made the food with the exception of the main course.

Moldy Cheese Plate

Mini Mummies and Eyeball salad

Rotten Pumpkin and Squid In Pasta with Bone Breadsticks

Ghostly Cake

The Drinks

Grace made ice cubes with worms and critters to serve with Sprite at dinner.  

To serve with the Ghostly Cake she painted the inside of glasses with melted chocolate and then poured milk in them.

We also had a few adult drinks but Grace didn't plan those!

Activities

Grace also planned several party activities.  Using various candies, our candy bin came in handy, they made Halloween monsters.  This was a super fun activity and the monsters turned out darling super scary!

We also played Halloween Bingo!

Favors and Thank You

As the party wrapped up, Grace gave everyone party favors and a thank you note!

A Dinner Party in the Drive

Several years ago, I dreamed up the idea to have a dinner party in our driveway and over the weekend we finally made it happen.  And it was just as fun and wonderful as I envisioned it.  We are very blessed with wonderful friends who make having a party loads of fun!

I always knew that I wanted one long table where we could eat family style, and I was thrilled to learn that farm tables are available for rent!  Having the farm tables (the legs actually fold up for transport and storage) made it possible to have a runner instead of fussier table linens, which was the look I was hoping to have. Also, instead of water glasses we used mason jars.

I wanted the informality of having a mixture of chairs so we used our own Tolix chairs, a friends painted wooden chairs and four rentals mixed in.  Bryce strung lights from the garage to tall bamboo poles that he rigged to hold them.  As soft light tends to do, they made everything (and everyone!) look beautiful!

The morning of the party, I went to the farm and picked lots of wildflowers.  I used bottles that I've collected at rummage sales and antique stores to hold little bunches of the wildflowers.  These were staggered down the table along with votive candles.

We made the decision early on to have the meal catered so that we didn't go crazy trying to make enough food for everyone and I'm so glad that we did.  We served southern comfort food and it was delicious!  Our menu included fried chicken, pulled pork, jalapeno corn bread, herbed macaroni and cheese, biscuits, salad with pecans and peaches, coleslaw and balsamic drizzled tomatoes.

I wanted to keep things simple for the drinks so we had one "signature" drink and then beer, wine and champagne.  Of course, you can't have southern food without sweet tea so we had a cocktail that was made with Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka and Lemonade.  They were served in small jelly jars.

I felt like I wanted to contribute something to the menu so I made the desserts.  We had cherry pie,  bourbon pecan pie and a peach upside down cake.  A funny note about this picture; I took it earlier in the day when I was figuring out placement for everything.  When it was actually time to serve dessert they were not presented in such a sweet way.  The reality was that they were sort of just thrown on the table and offered up to anyone who wanted some!  Oh well, the best laid plans...

I used this opportunity to wear a vintage skirt that I found last winter!

It turned out to be a chilly evening so we had a fire on the porch plus several fires in fire pits (we borrowed one from a friend!).  It was the perfect way to end summer and kick off fall!