girls' night Christmas party!

I'm all for girls' nights, and I'm all for Christmas. Combine the two and you've got yourself a pretty fun and festive evening! My friend, Lauren, and I decided to make it happen, so we threw a few games and activities together, and set up a hot chocolate bar. Homemade hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows, and cinnamon sprinkled on top...combined with Christmas cookies? Too much goodness. And probably a thousand too many calories. ;)

The best thing we did was slap some wrapping paper up on a wall, hang some colorful lights, and buy photo booth props from the dollar store. So. Much. Fun! Such an easy and fun activity, and now we have (a million) pictures from the night!

 (If you want to know more of the specifics, check out my post here!)

Easy-Peasy Oreo Pops.

I'm a sucker for desserts that require hardly any effort or attention. Probably because I'm more likely to mess up something with 30 steps and I often forget that there's food in the oven.  

(Last week I accidentally left a pan of mini cupcakes in the oven and went ahead and preheated the oven for something else. Ten minutes later I smelled something burning and discovered some pretty charred mini cupcakes in the oven. Not knowing what to do with them and wanting to get the burning smell out of my house since people were coming over soon, I set the pan outside on a rock. That night when I went to take care of the mini cupcakes all I found was the pan and I was so confused. Apparently squirrels don't mind burned food. The end.)

I'm happy to report that these easy-peasy Oreo cake pops are fail-proof, delicious, and perfect for any occasion. Especially perfect for baby showers! My cute friend, Lauren, had her baby boy earlier this week . . . but not before we had a chance to celebrate Mom and baby with presents, games, and Oreo pops. :)

Easy-Peasy Oreo Pops

1 pkg. of Oreos

2/3 pkg. of cream cheese, softened

white melting chocolate

lollipop/candy sticks

1. Use a food processor to grind up the Oreos, or throw them all in a bag and smash them into itty, bitty pieces if you don't own a processor.

2. Mix together the cream cheese and crushed Oreos.

3. Roll them into 1" balls and throw them in the fridge for 30 minutes.

4. Melt however much of the chocolate you think you'll need in the microwave by following the directions on the package. I ended up melting mine by 2 chunk increments, for 30-45 seconds at a time. 

5. Dip a lollipop stick in the chocolate to cover 1/2" and stick it in your cake pop. Repeat until all have a stick. 

6. Spoon the melted chocolate over your Oreo pop and place on wax paper to cool.

7. Add sprinkles immediately if you are going to do so. The chocolate dries faster than you'd think!

Enjoy!

a valentine's day themed "favorite things party."

*Note: I'm just going to apologize for the number of pictures beforehand.  Sorry!

I love parties.  You know that emoji with the two heart eyes?  That's how much I love planning parties, hosting parties, and going to parties!

My friend, Lauren, and I have been wanting to throw a "favorite things party" and invite a bunch of our friends, and with Valentine's Day coming up, we knew it'd be the perfect opportunity.

Here's how our "favorite things party" worked:  

1)  Everyone picked something that they love that cost between $1-$5 and they brought three of that item.    

2)  Upon arrival, everyone wrote their name on three slips of paper.

3)  When the time came, we went around in a circle and showed everyone our item, described why it's our favorite, and drew three slips of paper.

4)  The people whose names were read got to go home with that item.

Basically, you bring three of the same item and go home with three different items!

After deciding on a date, I began scouring the internet for some party inspiration and decided to base the feel of our party around this cute invite from Tiny Prints.  The mix of bright and light pink and the cute striped pattern on the back caught my attention, and wanted to incorporate them into the party somehow.  I customized the invite so that instead of adding photos to the card, I added different squares of pink that we used for a game.

Here's how our "favorite things" game worked:

1)  Since there were four empty pink squares, we asked four random questions.

(Favorite actor or actress, favorite movie, favorite vacation spot, and favorite jellybean flavor.)

2)  Everyone filled out their card without showing their neighbors.

3)  I collected the cards and read something off of a card.

4)  Everyone had to pick three people from the group who it could be.

("This person's favorite spot they've vacationed is...Paris.")

5)  I'd throw a small treat to everyone who guessed the right person.

It was so much fun to get to know other people's favorite things!

I'll admit... my favorite thing about parties (besides friends) has to be the food!  Nothing beats enjoying some treats and chatting with some of your favorite people. :)  I definitely begged my awesome friend to make her fabulous White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (you can find the recipe here!).

I also customized these address labels from Tiny Prints to make a "thank you" tag for little gift bags.  To be completely honest, I had a lot of fun looking through all of the different fonts and came up with quite a few variations that I loved.

I'm already itching for another "favorite things party" and it hasn't even been a full 3 days since this one!  I just love hearing about new products that people adore, and I love getting to know new things about friends. :)

invitations (used as a game):  Tiny Prints c/o

address labels (used as a "thank you"):  Tiny Prints c/o

black & white striped table runner:  Floratouch

pink chevron paper straws:  SweetCarnival

white & black polka dot paper straws:  PetuniaCrafts

white platter:  World Market

red cake stand:  World Market

pink cake stand:  Michaels - painted it pink myself

a baby shower!

For the past week or so I've been feeling like my life has been monotonously passing by.  Work, sleep, repeat.  Don't get me wrong... I'm so grateful for my job and we're truly so blessed, but I've just needed a little something to kickstart my vivacity.  And throwing a little baby shower for a friend this weekend was just what I needed.  I'd forgotten how much I love putting together little gifts and planning things, and now I feel the need to plan a million get-togethers.  

Bring on the holidays, because we are ready to throw some parties! 

(I'm kicking myself for forgetting to pull out my camera at the shower.  So this is all I have.  Oops.)