Cars Birthday

I was going through old files today and found a ton of pictures that I never posted!! So I will start with Will's 2nd Birthday Party. We did "Cars" since that is his all time favorite thing ever. I found most of these ideas on Pinterest and just tweaked them to add our own touch. Here was the set up:

I had the idea to make the food labels on black paper with neon markers to make it look like all the signs in the movie. It turned out really cute. I also came up with most of the ideas for the food:

Flo's V8 cafe- V8 Juice

Sarge's Surplus Hut- Plates, Knives, Forks etc.

Piston Cup Trophy- Gold Cups

Fillmore's Organic Fuel- Veggie Cups

Cozy Cone- Ice cream Cones

Luigi's Casa Dela Tires- Doughnuts

Ramone's Art Shop (not pictured)- Puzzles that the kids could color, tattoos

Saw this Sprinkle Cake on Pinterest and just loved it. I hate baking... so I thought it was kind of a pain in the buns... but it turned out really cute. William loves, loves, LOVES the birthday song:

Yet another Pinterest find... you can't really see the actual pictures, but his 2 year old pictures were taken by Papa's old cars and his mustang. Pretty cute. We also made a "road" that lead guests from the driveway into the kitchen. I will need to find those pictures. I made him a "Cars" banner too. 

 William really enjoyed his party. Thanks to all the family that showed up, spent time with us and spoiled William with gifts! He is one lucky boy. Happy Birthday my little man!

On his birthday we took him to City Creek Mall and shopped at the Disney store and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. We had a great time spoiling our boy. 

1 year

I can't believe that my baby is 1 year old... where does the time go!??? Honestly! I have been planning and preparing for this party for a few months now and I am glad I did! There were so many cute details and good food! I better get all the Special THANKS out there right now because I couldn't have done this party without all the help I received! Thanks Aunt Bri and Kylee!! You girls always help me so much and I don't know what I would do without you. I love you!! Thanks to my Mom and Mother-in-Law for bringing so much food and tables and chairs and EVERYTHING. Thank you Kim for decorating William's smash cake. It was perfect!! Thanks to my man for letting me go a little crazy on everything and for helping out with all the grilling, setting up, and watching the baby while we do it all! Thank you to everyone who showed up and brought gifts!! You are all seriously the BEST!

My Best Friends:

Without further adieu... the Birthday BOY!!! MY Sock Monkey!! :)

I made him lots of decorations for the festivities. Here is his Sock Monkey wreath. I found this online and copied a blog (that I have failed to find the link to since I did this so long ago.... whoops). And thanks to Aunt Colleen for the PERFECT Sock Monkey to complete the wreath. He is holding a sign that says "William".

I wish I could take credit for this adorable sign... but alas I can not. I found this on Etsy. And how adorable is it??? Added the perfect touch to our party.

The girls and I put this together for everyone to see how much William has changed over the last year. We did one picture from the day he was born and one picture for every month until his 12 month pictures. We put little sock monkeys and the month on each picture. Everyone loved to see all his pictures!

We also made these center pieces for the tables. I bought some tall red cups, filled them with rocks, and used skewer sticks to tie the balloons to. I had to search every Target in the area to find matching baby Sock Monkeys for this. But it was worth it.

Here is his gift table... he is not spoiled at all!! ;) Again- thank you to everyone who brought him a gift. He is SO loved!!

Here is the smash cake. My sister-in-law Kim is SUPER talented at decorating cakes. So she was nice enough to drive down from Idaho to join us at the party and to decorate Will's cake. I think it turned out just perfect!!

Here are the cupcakes that we made as well! I saw these on Pinterest (of course!! I see EVERYTHING on Pinterest). How stinkin' cute are they!? I know they are not sock monkey... but they were still super cute and soooo yummy. I did NOT follow the recipe from Pinterest... we made our own cupcakes and I used my Sister-in-Laws recipe for the chocolate frosting. We just borrowed the instructions for decorating them on Pinterest. One word of advice if you ever want to make these for a party or gathering: Make them the night BEFORE. That way the vanilla wafers are soft. They were SOOOO much better the day after the party, cause we made them the morning of the party. I wish I would have known that!

He was so excited to see his cake and he was all smiles while everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. He really likes being the center of attention :)

He knew to dig right in!! He seriously ate tons of his cake. I should have stopped him sooner because he had a tummy ache that night. I just felt bad spoiling his fun. Look at how much he enjoyed that cake!

We had a big BBQ that included:
Hot Dogs &  Hamburgers from Snyder's in Salt Lake (The BEST!!)
Lots of Salads, Jello, Fruit, Chips and Lemon Water that the family all brought (Thanks Guys!!)


For Dessert we had:
Monkey Cupcakes (Shown Above)
Tres Leches Cake (that I made. I found a recipe online and it is to DIE for)
Strawberry Dream Cake (found on AllRecipes.com)
Banana Flavored Creamies
Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas (from Target)


Here are my favorite 12 month pictures of him (We went to the University Mall again. I really like that place).

He is the best baby I could ever ask for. He is so sweet, smart and fun! Thanks again to everyone who helped out and attended William's First Birthday! Love you Will!! Happy Birthday!!!

Luck O' the Irish

We normally don't do anything for St. Patrick's Day... I think the most we have ever done is go out to dinner at MacCool's (an Irish Pub in Salt Lake). However, since we have William- I want to make all holidays extra special. So for St. Patrick's Day we all wore something GREEN...

He is DEFINITELY my Lucky Charm

I also made us a traditional Irish dinner: Corned Beef and Cabbage! I purchased the all ready seasoned Corned Beef from an amazing butcher shop, Snyder's. All I did was put the corned beef in a crock pot, added cut-up parsnips and carrots, frozen pearl onions and 3 cups of water. I cooked it on high for 4 hours. After the 4 hours, I added 6 wedges of cabbage and let it cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes more...

It was seriously the BEST corned beef and cabbage I have ever had. William even liked it!!! His favorite was the cabbage and carrots.

I also made some traditional Irish Soda Bread. Our friend Eric gave us his recipe. All it contains is flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. You knead it for one minute and form it into a flat circle, cut a deep 'X' in the middle and bake it on 375 for 45 minutes. SOOOOO yummy!

I am NO photographer... but here is our meal!! It was SO good. We are definitely doing this EVERY St. Patrick's Day.. and maybe even more often than that :)

For dessert I made Green Velvet Cupcakes (found the recipe on Pinterest). I topped them off with an Irish Cream Frosting (also found on Pinterest AND not pictured). They were awesome as well!!!

Our little family!! I had a fun and festive day with my favorite boys. I am glad they enjoyed the food and we all had a great day. Hope everyone had a fun St. Patrick's Day!

Our Days of Birth

We have just about finished celebrating our birthdays. We tend to celebrate all month long... First up is Scott's birthday: Scott with the cake I made him.

I can't take credit for this cake... I found it off of Pinterest (of course!!) and here is the blog that I copied: http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2011/09/mint-chocolate-chip-cake.html

This frosting is PERFECT for Scott. Mint Chocolate Chip is his all time favorite ice cream. I only made her frosting recipe and of course followed her decorating pattern :) Scott's cake is marble though. I thought it turned out pretty well. I am not so much a baker as I am just a cook. I would much rather cook a dinner meal than cakes and cookies. BUT here is the end result:

Scott wanted car parts for his birthday, which seems to be the growing trend for birthdays... I also surprised him with a coin that he collects and some earmuffs for the trax stop! Lots of family came over to celebrate and gave such generous gifts as well. Here is the birthday boy opening gifts.

And Dubs with his Aunt Boots... he is always pretty excited to hang out with his favorite girls.

My birthday was next! (Just a few days after Scott's). This sounds so lame but all I wanted for my birthday was to watch the Bachelor in peace. Ha ha. So Scott made us a spaghetti casserole for dinner and a tres leches birthday cake! They were SUPER delicious. My family came over and watched the bachelor with me. It was lots of fun.

Scott spoiled me (as per usual!). He gave me every season of Parks and Recreation on DVD, as well as The Office Season 7. He let me get my hair done- and I LOVE it. My family also spoiled me with their generous gifts. Scott found these super cute slippers... they are basically the definition of Elise: Gray, Purple, Green and BIRDS:

They are from Fossil and I love them.

Thanks to everyone who made our birthdays so special!! Our families are the best and really do spoil us!! Happy Birthday to my man. I hope you had a great day.