Nail Spotlight: Party Nails & Other Details

Last year, some of you may remember this manicure and this post about it:

That manicure was for Levi's first birthday party (camouflaged-themed). It was really fun. This year, I had decided his 2nd birthday party (construction-themed) would be a bit more toned-down, without going to the extremes we did last year with decorations, food, manicures, gifts, number of guests, etc.....


And then I saw this:

{Courtesy of here, via Pinterest}

And then I realized my Pinterest board for Levi's party inspiration looked like this:

And Tyler brought me these from work yesterday:

The planning began months ago. Several things have been made and ordered... It's 2 months away. Here we go!

Another Anniversary Post...Part II

My parents' 30th Anniversary was the same day as my sister's 21st birthday. They celebrated her birthday on the day of, so we (the kids) planned to make them dinner at our house for a little anniversary celebration two days later.

They deserved (and probably wanted) a big party. We (the kids and various family members) have talked about a big party for a couple of years, but when it came down to it, we kept hitting road blocks and finally threw in the towel and realized that it wasn't meant to be for the time being, for a lot of reasons. (There are 5 "figures-of-speech" in that last sentence so my apologies go out to those who are banging their heads against a wall - I warned you in this post that this blog is very informal.)

So, Mom and Dad, get ready for an insanely huge party on your 40th Anniversary that will far exceed your wildest expectations -- or at least trump your 25th party. We will start planning right away!

Back to tonight - we threw a little intimate dinner celebration that I hope was special. We had a casual meal of smoked brisket sandwiches, grilled veggie kabobs, skillet corn, salad, and iced tea, complete with brownie sundaes, compliments of my sister. We threw together a few decorations and gave some modest, but heartfelt gifts.

The happy couple will be taking a lavish vacation early this fall to continue the celebration of their 30th year of marriage.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!



{A BIG thank-you to Megan Anderson! We enjoyed squash, green peppers, and jalapenos that she picked earlier that afternoon!}



Birthday Party Wrap-Up

{can you spot the birthday boy?}

Thanks to a lot of preparation, a lot of behind the scenes things getting done (mostly by Tyler), and a LOT of help from our family, Levi's first birthday party couldn't have been more perfect. The only thing that could've been better is my documentation. I am not used to hosting large crowds - I loved it, but I'm still not used to it, so there was a lot to do, and after the guests were here there was no time to clock out and take a million pictures. Oh well, we had a great time and that is what matters!


It was interesting cramming 30 people into our 1300-sq. ft. house - and that was only family. We wanted to invite some of our friends and extended family members, but there was no way of housing them all. I am sad to say that I got a few pictures of the party decorations and Levi, but I never went around and photographed our family members!


Here are a few favorite snapshots from the big day:

{a dear friend from Church made Levi this neat sign for his campsite-themed church baby shower}

{fascinated with balloons}

Nail Spotlight - Special Edition {Birthday Camo}

Like I told you before, several months ago I typed in "camo party" on Pinterest, and got a whole page of results. The cupcakes were one result I pinned and planned to create, and this was another:

{Original source here}

Notice my Pinterest caption...and that is obviously no joke. So, I knew I needed to buy at least two colors (my adaptations of camouflage "dessert tan" and "olive drab" as I frequently hear my husband refer to them), and I knew I probably had a third color that would work out - a dark brown or something.


I ended up buying "Westside Warrior" by China Glaze and "A-Taupe the Space Needle" by OPI (they have the best color names), and I used "Naughty" by Orly (they do not have the best color names) for my third color. I think the results were great! I got a lot of compliments (at the party) and few weird looks (at church the next morning), and I'm positive my little one-year-old pumpkin really appreciated the effort his mom made for his party :)

{Like the trailer in the background? We are high-class around here}

I know this is a large assortment of pictures...but I wasn't able to capture how they really look (high gloss top coat = glare, anyone?), so I just took a bunch and hope at least one comes close.

Project Post 11: Camouflage Cupcakes

I don't usually file recipes under "project posts," but this one was a project for sure. We partied hard over the weekend, and I don't know what Levi thought, but his mom and dad thought the party was pretty perfect. Today I am sharing the birthday cake cupcakes.

A few months ago, I typed in "camo party" on Pinterest and believe it or not, a full page of results came up. This was one of them:

{Found here, originally here}


After I found this, I decided to make these instead of ordering a traditional cake. They were challenging to make and very time-consuming, but it was definitely worth it.

I made butter pecan cake with traditional cream cheese icing, but those are standard. To get the camo colors, you use food coloring. I bought regular green, neon green, and brown food coloring (the greens were bought at the grocery store, and for the brown I went to Hobby Lobby). The regular green was too bright, so I mixed a little brown with it to get it the perfect shade. The neon green was way too yellow, so I mixed regular green and a tiny bit of brown with it to get it the right shade. Here were the colors I ended up with after some trial-and-error mixing:

Per instructions from the original source, you put a tablespoon of each color in each baking cup and just swirl it with a knife. That girl had an easier time than I did. I put a tablespoon of each in each cup and the top color was the only one that would show no matter how much I "swirled." So I had to get a little more creative with some trial-and-error. Surprisingly enough, they ended up looking great!

I used traditional cream cheese icing (butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar), a few brown and green sprinkles, and the little cupcake toppers that I made. They were a hit!

So there you have it - my camouflage birthday cupcakes, idea courtesy of Pinterest. This was such a fun project, I decided to link up with Young House Love and Bower Power Blog for their Pinterest Challenge (Fall Edition). You can check it out Wednesday when the challenge ends. I submitted my chalkboard in their summer challenge, and you can see it here (#212 at the end of the post).

{Lovely hostesses of the Pinterest Challenge}