Saturday, January 29, 2011

Popcorn Party!

So last night i threw a "Popcorn Party" for an amazing lady! My best friend Brittany Andrews is getting married in September. I didn't know some of the other bridesmaids and I thought a movie night would be the perfect idea for a "getting to know you" event. I would say it went over perfectly!
                                                 
[Brittany and I at my wedding in November!]


[I decided for my January party (I get one party a month...yes, i have an allowance!) I would use some goodies we got from Christmas (A wonderful popcorn maker and all the fixin's from my amazing MIL!). I love hosting parties and hope to host many more this year...like, oh, eleven more!]

The Line Up:

Since I was just coming from work I needed something a little more solid before i filled up on popcorn so I thought i would fix some finger sandwhichs and then have a dessert to round off the evening. So the menu ending up looking like this:
Honey Mustard Finger Sandwhichs
Popcorn
Toppings
Chocolate Shooters
Apple Dumplings-Tinis
I bought these cute little shot glasses and mini martini glasses at my new favorite store Pier1. I think they are the cutest thing in the world. Mom and I bought one each and stood in the store for over 30 minutes trying to decide when "mini" glass we wanted. They had a lot to choose from for hot OR cold dishes. So you can image we had to list all the possible ways in which to use them...and then decide what we would do most.


So for the shot glasses we did a chocolate dessert...super easy. Pudding, Oreo, cool whip. Done. I added a Vanialla Oreo stick to the glass to dress it up a bit. Super easy and I was able to make a head of time. Last minute, I just put the Oreo stick in the glass right before everyone walked in. So it looked like this:

The Apple Dumpling-tini was even easier. We made a 9x13 dish of Apple Dumplings and then put them in glasses...super hard, I know. Again, I was able to make it ahead of time and them placed them in glasses right before them came over. These need to be served warm so I just had the girls heat them up before they ate them since they wouldn't be eating them the second they walked in the door. These looked like this:

So for the popcorn, I just got shakers of different flavors: cheese, kettle corn, butter. I also had M&M's and white chocolate to mix in with the popcorn. I had the popcorn ready to go in a fish bowl so everyone could mix and match what they wanted on their popcorn. This is my table after I had everything ready to go:
I also had a fun little pink punch that I just kind of found the ingredients for in the freezer...Kyle had some crazy things in the cabinets and freezer when i moved in and I'm finding things and saying "Why did you need this?!"...pink lemondae was one of those things...ha! So I had some frozer pink lemonade, raspberry lemonde, lime juice, splash of cranberry juice and Serria Mist and mixed it all together, topped it off with some Strawberries and TA-DA! PUNCH!


One little trick that I saw in another blog was lining the rim of my glasses with Kayro Syrup and them dipping them in sprinkles. A you get them super cute glasses!! I love the added detail. Also my silly looking framed sign...well, if you are going to throw a party, make sure you have a printer that has ink...so my cute sign didn't turn out so i made a make shift one 5 minutes before...i think i should have just set up my computer witht the picture intended...haha.

All in all we had a wonderful time. So much fun that we didn't take any pictures because we were talking and laughing too much!

I'll post recipes later, I need to jet off to a Mary Kay party...If you see me today and I blind you, i'm sorry. I just really really wanted to wear shorts today...i'll self tan tomorrow. These arent the end of 65 degree weather. Hurry spring!


Friday, January 28, 2011

Mantel upgrade!

Another post about decorating...but when your married and without kids, what else is there to do in Janurary!

Pretty stocked about this post...I found the two plants at Kirklands on clearnce AND i had a gift card...best purchase all year! I already had the print from last year hanging in the kitchen (again a Kirkland's clearence find!) but the wall on the mantel was HUGE and could hold a large pring like that one...so thus...i moved it.
This room is next on the remodeling budget. Picking a color soonish.

When spring gets here Kyle will be more excited...i'll be outside running and having lunch in the park with a good book rather than running around town spending his money. Ha!

I poromise the next post will be about food! I have some recipes that i need to share!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Ideas...

Okay bloggers...facebookers and anyone else reading this...I need your help! I need some ideas about what to do with the bathroom...more so the tub area. Here are some pictures:





I have brown towels...rustic/natural is my feel that i want to achieve.

Comment with you ideas!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Back in the groove...

So I'm crediting this blog to my best friend, Danielle. She started a blog and asked for my blogger name so she could follow me.My first thought was "Why the heck does she want to follow me?!" Mostly because I haven't blogged in a loooonnnggg time. So...of course i signed back on to my blog, reread my posts, found some online that i fell in love with and now I'm back to blogging again...and rambling? I have to get this out of my system- bring my blog up to speed before i can blog about cool things...makes sense to me.

So...married life...the question Kyle and I hear the most is "How is married life?"...well if it sucked, what would you say? ha! Good thing i don't think married life sucks. We're having a lot of fun. We both lived with roommates in college so we both know how to live with someone (thank goodness). It's fun waking up to someone every morning and doing those silly things...like fix his coffee or Kyle will turn the heater on in the bathroom so it's warm when i get in there...those things are fun. We've kind of divided up the "household duties" if you want to call it that...kyle cooks most of the time (if not, he wouldn't eat dinner till late since i don't get off till 5:30) and i do the laundry and keeping things clean...it works for us and that's all that matters.
However, there is a slight downfall about marriage...NAME CHANGE!
The worst part about marriage is the name change and the combining of the "assets" (if you call a couple hundred bucks and a mutual fund assets). You don't realize how many places your name is until you go to change it...there are STILL places i'm thinking of that still has Ellyn McEwen and more than likely will stay that way!

So we're doing those adults "things" that I've always wanted to do...(get your mind out of the gutter...!)...Savings accounts, mutual funds, IRAs, and bills! yyyyaaayy! The saving and planning is kind of fun. We're both pretty responsible with our money so saving is like second nature to us. Our parents did a pretty good job of teaching us the value of a dollar. My proudest savings account we started in titled "Future Baby"...we're both putting back money for our children just like our mothers did when we were just thoughts in God's head. It's fun to watch it grow with every pay check...and with compounding interest + what we're adding biweekly, we should have a nice little pot when we're ready (in 30 years...no joke.)

On to more exciting news...

So our latest "asset" we're preparing for is a new car for ME! YAAYAYYAY! Who's excited?!ME! After sorting through dozens of car websites and reading customer reviews we have finally narrowed it down to two choices...
 The Toyota 4Runner
2011 toyota four runner reviews
OR  Acura MDX2011 acura mdx colors


Now on to phase 2 of buying a car...the test drive. It took me over 4 months to decide on these two cars so lets hope the process goes a little faster...however since my weekend time is limited, it looks like it might be close to March before we can test drive these babies! Oh well, wish us luck!


Okay, i feel like I have rambled enough to move on in the blogging world and post some "better" things later...Hope to keep this up!

Danielle, you're my accountability partnet! :)