Octonaut's to the HQ - Take II

Beau Turns 3!

After seeing his brother have an Octonaut's Party back in December, there was no denying Beau his own Octo-themed celebration when he turned 3 in January (I know I am very tardy with writing this blog post). 

After all the work that went into making the decorations for the first party, I was more than happy to get some more use out of the 3 foot high Octonaut characters and the schools of jellyfish we had made! But after all the hard work of hosting parties (Ruby Wedding Anniversaries and Octonaut Parties) I was feeling too tired for another huge extravaganza at the house. So we headed to the park, secured a cabana early and set up the Octonaut decorations around the playground.

It was fantastic. I didn't have to spend a week before the party cleaning and tidying (& cleaning & tidying & cleaning & tidying &…). The kids could run wild and they were not in fear of break anything in our house. We had fruit, croissants, cheese and an Octo-Alert cake. We had the Octonaut party game which we had created for Noah's party - "Peso's Rescue Mission" where all the kids were given "creature cards" and had to rescue their animal from a huge fishing net . Once again it was a huge Octo-success. 

We had beautiful weather and the kids exhausted themselves! Happy Birthday Beau!

A Ruby Wedding Anniversary - A Photo Essay

Way back in November, my sisters and I hosted a surprise 40th Wedding Anniversary party for our parents. We invited 30 of their nearest and dearest family and friends and created a 3 course sit down feast. For months beforehand we met and talked and planned and trialled and created dishes and scoured Pinterest and made decorations and deceptions {it is no easy feat to keep a secret from ones parents for several months}.

The theme was easy. Ruby. We added a hint of blackboard chic, and simple elegance. I created a "blackboard" poster with facts about our parents and their 40 years of marriage. The table was decorated with personalised black bonbons - which contained trivia questions, and a black and  white photograph of each guest with our parents taken some time in the last 40 years. We set up a Photo booth for the guests including some vintage frames, a few "ruby" accessories and fake mustaches for guests to don.

The tables were set up outdoors and we decorated the back yard with glass jar lanterns which my brother-in-law made. Some were dyed red and others left clear. These made the garden look truly magical. We inserted black and white photographs of our parents into all the photo frames in my sisters house, making every room a little tribute to our parents and their marriage.

The menu centered around our parents favourite dishes. Starting with a tomato and a watermelon gazpacho amuse bouche, the entree was a prawn cocktail (Heston style), the main was a slow roasted lamb shoulder, and for dessert my sister created a spectacular ice cream and affogato bar.

With a lot of preparations, I think it was an amazingly successful and special night for our parents.

Octonaut's to the HQ! A Photo Essay

Noah Turns 5!

Way back in February, just a couple of weeks into the school term, Noah announced he was having an Octonauts birthday party this year, and that he had already invited his entire class. His Birthday is in December!

Well, over the course of the year, and a fair bit of too-ing-and-fro-ing on Noah's part, we managed to whittle him down to inviting only his cousins and 5 of his "crew" from school for his Octonaut's party. We spent countless hours making a Giant Kelp Forest, Giant Jelly Fish, Baby Octopus', Sea Anemones, and Paper Plate Fish for decorations - the best part of the decorations was that they used up all the leftover decorations from previous parties, whether that be paper lanterns from the Baptism, Hungry Caterpillar Party and the Mexican Fiesta, or paper plates and cupcake holders from the same.

We set about creating Octonaut Invitations and making paper Octonaut hats for all the guests. For the food we made blue bowls of jelly with fish swimming in them, marshmallow pops and chocolate dipped Oreo cookies with the Octoalert symbol on them. 

My amazing Sister-in-law offered to help with decorations and did she deliver?! 3 foot Octonaut figures complete with all the details and nuances that make the characters come to life! My boys were blown away. So we used these as a backdrop for an Octonaut photo booth.

We booked a reptile show, Walkabout Reptiles, which was a huge success and all the kids were so brave holding lizards and snakes and even a salt water crocodile! We played a "Peso's Rescue Mission" game where all the kids were given "creature cards" and had to rescue their animal from a huge fishing net, and we had a treasure hunt for Calico Jack's hidden treasure.

Here is my photo essay of how the day went.

Anybody need any Octonaut Decorations?

Butterfly Baptism

For my daughter's baptism I was excited to decorate a party for a little girl (after 4 years of boys parties). I wanted pink and orange to be the colour scheme (that way decorations for the christening could be recycled into decorations in the nursery) and following on from my recent creative outbursts with butterflies I wanted to incorporate them into the theme too.

Of course, my first port-of-call was Pinterest and after injecting myself with a good dose of pinspiration I created this invitation for the christening. The best thing I learnt from making this invitation was that there a entire fonts of butterflies (and many are available for free!)! In fact there a fonts for everything, making creating my own personalised invitations fun (though still very time consuming). I took the opportunity to include a photo of Kyah I took when she was only a week old using a quote from 1 Samuel 1:26-28. It was perfect for her christening invitations.

Next up I had to think about decorations. Paper pom poms, paper lanterns, paper bunting, fairy lights and flowers. The paper pom poms I made myself (a lot cheaper than paying $8/pompom and I could incorporate any color/pattern of tissue paper I wanted/could find - apparently there is not a huge demand for orange tissue paper...). I bought the paper bunting, but it only came in pink, so I inserted some orange flags to tie into the colour theme using orange scrapbook paper I bought for the nursery art works. Lanterns, lights and flowers I bought. The decorations were not over the top, but they looked sweet and made the party feel special.

Then the cake. I decided to outsource this time. And what a spectacular result! White chocolate and dark chocolate layers. Pink and orange butterflies. Just beautiful.

This formed the centerpiece for the dessert table. To accompany this masterpiece on the dessert table, I really wanted to make marshmallow pops after seeing them on Pinterest. They turned out spectacularly and were a huge hit (not just with the kids either). I chose pink sprinkles, pearl balls, sugar butterflies and coconut to decorate the marshmallows with. The coconut were the favorite. Paper straws added some beautiful detail as the sticks and I presented them on the dessert table in a few tall tumblers.

Together with the cake and glass jars of strawberry milk for the kids, the dessert table looked divine - with a wonderful balance of pink and orange!

We had around 70 guests join us for the service for Kyah's baptism. It was so special to have our friends and family with us to celebrate Kyah and our faith. Kyah now has 2 beautiful Godmother's and a wonderful Godfather to guide her through her life. We feel very blessed to have these 3 wonderful children, to have such amazing family, and to have some truly special friends.

After it was all finished, I created this Thank You card to send to all our wonderful family and friends who shared this special day with us and our daughter. It was another opportunity to put Kyah's gorgeous Christening dress on and take some oh-so-adorable photos of her. I couldn't decide on just one, hence the Thank You card has 3 photos! I decided to keep some of the elements the same as the invitation - the fonts and the butterflies but I changed to the peach/orange color to compliment Kyah's dress.

Next party...Octonauts. Stay tuned.

Margarita & Taco Fiesta

What better way to celebrate the New Year and my hubby's birthday than with a margarita & taco fiesta. Sombrero's, taco's, limes, margarita's, Ole!

It was another occasion of cooking for several days beforehand, buying too many sombrero's, juicing what felt like 100's of limes, and feeling pretty shattered by the time the party came around. Hello being pregnant in summer!

So what was on the menu?

It was decadent and delicious - even if I do say so myself! It was definately a feast if not a fiesta and I think everyone enjoyed the margarita's, swimming in the pool and chill-axing on New Years Day.

So, what were the superstars of the day? The goat cheese and roasted pepper quesadilla's, the chipotle pulled pork and the the desserts. Martha Stewart came to the rescue when hubby said he wanted a chocolate cake whilst we were at the supermarket shopping for all our supplies - I had planned on making my tried and true Scandinavian almond cake with cream and berries. So I googled and chose the Sweet & Salty Chocolate Cake from Baked Bakery in NYC as it was described as satisfying "every chocolate lovers appetite". It took me a good 3-4 hours to make, set back my other food preparations a fair way, and was responsible for some swollen cankles. But it was well worth it!

My sister-in-law made the amazing Death by Chocolate dessert which comes from Symon's Suppers TV Show. It was rich, decadent and delicious. Jess substituted Heath Bars for Crunchie Bars and omitted the wafers. I think I could feel my arteries clog up a little as I ate it and it is best served in small portions! Amazing!!

The goats cheese and roasted peppers quesadillas came from my hubby's "Authentic Recipes from Santa Fe" cookbook and are pretty straight forward to make. Simply scrumptious!

Ingredients:
8 flour tortillas
250g grated monterey Jack cheese (I used Coon tasty cheese)
200g crumbled goat cheese
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, roasted & cut into thin strips
1 yellow bell pepper, roasted & cut into thin strips
1 or 2 New Mexican green chiles, roasted & peeled, deseeded & cut into thin strips (I substituted large green chillies)
Salt & pepper to taste
Fresh basil or oregano (I forgot about this ingredient)

Recipe:
Preheat oven to 180C.
Sprinkle tortillas with jack cheese and 1 tablespoon of goat cheese.
Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat, add onion and sauté until translucent. Add garlic and continue to cook until just golden. Add the bell peppers and the chile. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Divide among tortillas and top with additional goat cheese.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cheese melts.
Cut into 4 pieces, sprinkle with fresh herbs and serve warm.

Hubby was responsible for the chipotle pulled pork, and that remains his secret. I was in bed the night before the party when he began making and cooking that little beauty. It involved a pork shoulder, lots of marinating ingredients and a lot of slow cooking. It was divine!!

Happy Birthday Nathan!!

4th Birthday Morning Tea

Yesterday, Noah turned 4! It is hard to even describe how fast the last 4 years have gone, but then if you are a parent you understand this phenomena. Last year for his 3rd birthday we held a huge firetruck party, with all the trimmings. This year was a quieter affair, and we decided on just inviting our family to share in Noah's celebration. With everyone so busy at this time of year, we decided a morning tea still allowed everyone to get to their other commitments for the silly season. And so it was that we hosted a high tea of sorts for our 4 year old son!

Our menu included a cheese platter, a fruit platter, a bowl of berries (Noah was so impressed to find this included blackberries - which are hard to come by here in Sydney and super expensive when you do find them), oreo truffles, hazelnut truffles (for my gluten-intolerant mum), fresh baked scones (baked by my handy hubby from my Nana's recipe), tea and coffee. It was a delicious spread for  a warm, and slightly muggy, summer morning.

Of course, there was also cake. Noah had been telling anyone who asked that he was having a "Bob-The-Builder" party for his birthday. So running with that theme for the cake, I set about deciding on a cake. I saw this pin describing "super fancy cake decorating...that would make [me] look pretty clever" - hard to resist right? So I picked a simple drawing of Bob, and set about making my buttercream icing and drawing the cake decal to place on top of the cake. And I think it turned out pretty damn good. We had a minor arm amputation and some running of the icing due to the hot weather, but it looked good and tasted great.

Noah was certainly pretty excited to see Bob on top of his cake!

After much candle blowing and lots of eating and playing it was time to say bye to Noah's birthday for another year. No doubt the next year will fly by just as quickly!

High Tea Baby Sprinkle

Way back in May I hosted a small intimate Baby Sprinkle for my sister who was expecting her second baby, an adorable little boy, Aidan, who was born with a full head of gorgeous black hair just like his big brother.

As I live in a small townhouse, we were very limited on numbers, so we decided to host a High Tea with just family. Pinterest, immediately became my source of inspiration and it did not disappoint for invitations, for menu options and for decoration ideas.

We decided our menu would have a mix of savory and sweet - bruchetta, smoked salmon roulettes, mini sandwiches and quiches, macaroons, mini lemon meringue tarts, mini scandinavian almond cakes, mini chocolate hazelnut tarts, ANZAC slice and rum balls. My Mum, sister and I had a huge cooking day before the shower to have all the food prepared, and I was making decorations for about 4 weeks before the sprinkle. We had a huge range of teas on offer - black, green, raspberry and lime, nougat. It really was a smorgasbord of tea and so I created some cute little "tea-bag" labels for the teapots describing each of the teas.

I was so lucky to borrow from my mother-in-law her beautiful bone china teacups and saucers. Some were hers, some her sister's, some her mother's, and even some her grandmother's! Together with some beautiful lace tablecloths and napkins, and some bone china platters and teapots I borrowed from my grandmother, the table looked stunning. I loved the mismatch of gorgeous bone china teacups, the mix of lace and linen, and the used tea tins for vases.

I had imagined hydrangeas and orchids for decorations, but instead found some gorgeous roses and peonies, which turned out stunning. Paper pom poms, twine wrapped vases, and a photo-line of guests baby photos formed the rest of the decorations.

We had some great favor bags for guests which included little jars of home-made lemon butter, curash baby samples and a small tub of delicious niyama maychang ylang body butter. They were pretty awesome favor bags, if I do say so myself!

We asked guests to bring a book to add to the Baby's library in lieu of traditional baby gifts, given that Shey already had most baby gear from her first son, Elliot. Shey went home with a treasure-trove of classic children's books, a bag of baby-products, lemon butter and body butter, and a wonderful afternoon of memories. All up it was a wonderful afternoon of women celebrating Shey and her soon to-be second baby. Great food, great teas, and great company. What could be better!