3!

Helloooooo! Hope you all had a great weekend. We had a birthday party for our little Lily girl on Sunday. She turns three tomorrow and I can hardly believe it (!). Lily is such a vibrant girl and I am so grateful that I get to be her mom. Here are some pictures of her pink birthday party. I have two tutorials that I'll post in the next few days on how to make the dot garland and the hanging yarn balls that you'll see. Both are super easy to make and you'll have fun putting your own spin on them.

Post edit: I neglected to mention the dinner that we ate....Ooops! We had two hot panini machines ready with an assortment of meats and cheeses to build your own panini sandwiches and then we had two different soups! Kara will be posting the chicken and wild rice soup that was served soon and I'll post the tomato basil soup recipe soon as well. I also served a big platter of fresh cut veggies and a homemade ranch dip. It all was really good and fairly easy to pull together. Here is a picture of my cute niece munching:

I used happy tape to make the stripes on the dessert table. The tiered donut cake is something my mom has been doing for birthdays for awhile and I can't get enough of them so I had to do one for Lily (ordered the donuts from a bakery). The lower cake stand has some macaroons and sugar cookies on it (ordered these as well). The birthday cake is white cake with a strawberry cream cheese frosting. YUM. Here are the recipes:

For the cake:

1 box white cake

Follow instructions on the box. In addition to the eggs, oil (I used canola oil), and water. Add one cup of sour cream. Fill 2 greased and floured 8 or 9 in round cake pans (for a three layer+ cake you will need to use 2 cake mixes). Mix and bake as it advises on the box.

Recipe for strawberry cream cheese frosting:

2 sticks butter (not unsalted), room temp

1 8 oz cream cheese, room temp

1 1lb bag powdered sugar

5-6 tablespoons strawberries pureed (frozen strawberries thawed then pureed using a blender, food processor or hand mixer)

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium bowl, mix butter and cream cheese on high speed until light and fluffy. Turn mixer off and add powdered sugar a few cups at a time until fully incorporated (medium speed), scraping down the bowl as needed. Turn mixer to low and add vanilla until fully incorporated. Now you are ready to add the puree. While mixer is on medium, add strawberry puree a tablespoon at a time. Allow each tablespoon of puree to fully incorporate before adding the next. Scrape down the bowl as you see fit. The frosting can be thinned with a little milk if it needs.

Mom and sisters.

I wrapped some decorative yarn around a pillar and attached pictures of Lily using mini clothes pins. Mini clothes pins are one of those life changing doo-dads...I use them so much. I took this picture the morning after the party when the light was better.

I took this picture the morning after the party, too. Notice the wrapped cake. :)

images by Briana