Farewell to Stella!

Stella has been visiting here in Southern California since the beginning of March. I'm so glad that she was here to welcome Spring. As a farewell gift, I made Stella a bed (sleeping bag and pillow) so that she will be more comfortable traveling.
She loved my neighbors pink flowers.

She even played a game of hide-and-seek.
Can you see her?

She loved the smell of my Wisteria!

And my Meyer Lemon Tree blossoms!

I gave Stella that purple party hat because I am "The Party Queen" :)

Stella's next stop is OKLAHOMA! Sing it with me...

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A...Oklaho--MA!

Visit her on Darlene's blog.

I hope Stella had a good time even though I had to quarantine her when I was sick.

Childhood Crush

I love this!!! When I was 8 years old (1973) I saw Davy Jones as the Artful Dodger on stage at the Dorothy Chandler in "Oliver". I loved him on The Monkees and this was my first introduction to live theatre. Of course, I'm a big Brady Bunch fan. I wanted to be Marcia probably because she was on the "Entertaining committee" for the prom---so me!

7 Things

Chris over at Celebrations at Home

has asked me to list 7 things that I love.

Here they are whether you want to know or not!

1. I LOVE my family! Hands down #1. Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to be a mom. My family makes me happier than anything I could ever imagine. I would be nothing without them!

2. My girlfriends. I have the best friends in the world. Whenever we get together we have so much fun and laugh all the time. People constantly come up to us and say "You guys are having way too much fun" and we do!

3. I love tea. And I love giving tea parties. I love to decorate the table, figure out the menu and shop for and arrange the flowers.

4. I love scouting. I am my daughter's Brownie Girl Scout leader and before I was married and had children of my own, I was a Girl Scout leader for 3 years. The girls in my first troop are now 23 years old.

I love that my son was in Cub Scouts and bridged to Boy Scouts and wants to earn his Eagle rank.

5. I love Halloween! It is my favorite holiday. I love the theater of it. Dressing up and pretending you are someone else. I love to decorate my house and pass out candy to the kids. 6. I LOVE Disneyland. More than that, I love Disneyland at Halloween. I could live there! We live an hour away and have season passes. When I turned 16, I really wanted to work there but the commute would have been terrible so I settled on working at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Spillikin Corners in the doll shop. We live 5 minutes away.

7. I love baseball! It started when my grandpa took 8mm film of Dodger Stadium being built in 1958. I have been bleeding Dodger Blue since birth. We try to attend several games a year and my kids are always members of the Blue Crew Fan Club. I'm so happy that my son has such a passion for baseball and that my husband and I are able to coach our kids.

This is Sheridan and I meeting Steve Garvey last May.

Well, there you have it! A few more things about me.

I will tag the following people...

The Stone Rabbit

Living Locurto

Little Shindigs

Stem Parties

Slumber Party!

Wanna come to a slumber party? I had so much fun putting together my newest party theme. I was inspired by so many blogs that I just wanted to share.

First, the table is made up like a bed. I got the idea from Hostess with the Mostess from one of her baby showers. I got the duvet cover, sheet and pillowcase from IKEA all for $15. The solid green is a plastic tablecloth to protect the table from spills.

I bought TALL glass cylinders and filled them with gumballs and added some festive flowers.

Another inspiration from Stem Parties.

Robyn over at Mix Mingle Glow showed some fabulous St. Patrick's Day tables on a budget.

She featured these great swirl bowls from Michael's that are $1 each.

I thought they would be perfect for popcorn or morning cereal.

I found the drink tub at WalMart for $6 and bought Gatorade in the coordinating colors.

If I had time (LOL), I would have gone to Cost Plus to buy Jones Soda in coordinating colors. :)

One of the activities for the slumber party is to stuff Teddy Bears to sleep with. Of course, the guests will be able to choose from an array of different pajamas for their bear.

I put candy bracelets around the stem of the glasses.

A great tip from Risa at the ParTea Planner.

I found these giant candy pillows at Party America for $10 each.

I made the other pillow slipcovers with fabric from Wal Mart.

Pillow fight anyone?

Of course, no slumber party is complete without a game of Twister!

I will also be offering popcorn and cookie dough to make fresh, hot cookies. There will be a nail kit to give each other manicures and a candy bean bag toss game. I will also have an option for breakfast of pancake mix or ready-made muffins and orange juice.

Thanks for coming to my slumber party!

Bite Catering

At my Mary Poppins party this weekend, the hostess hired Bite Catering.

All of the food was "bite-sized".
They served mini cheeseburgers and tomato soup in shot glasses with mini grilled cheese sandwiches hugging the edge of the glass.

Macaroni and cheese was served in parmesean cheese bowls that could be popped in your mouth! They also had mini chocolate milkshakes and mini banana puddings with tiny spoons.
Mary Poppins would surely approve of such a tiny presentation!

Hail?

We are 2 days into Spring and it's hailing in Southern California!

My son's baseball game was cancelled.
We just had a major downpour.

My flowers are not happy!

Tomorrow should be sunny. :)

Hope your weather is getting better!

Pink Strawberry Saturday

Dawn over at Not Just a Mommy gave me this lovely blog award a few weeks ago. I'm finally feeling like myself again so I would like to pass it along.

Queen of Good Intentions

Me & My Insanity

Personal You Parties

Totally Tabletops

Your blogs inspire me on a daily basis!!!!

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I delivered 2 parties for this weekend - Mary Poppins and

Strawberry Shortcake Best Friend's Tea party.

Remember I painted that strawberry tree mural a few weeks ago?

Well here is the party that it goes with...

The guests dress up in pink feather boas and Strawberry Shortcake hats.

They play musical chairs and have a tea party.

No, I didn't make the cake. It's from Regal International.

I did make the napkin rings though :)

The best part of the party is when the girls get to stuff their own dolls and decorate t-shirts for them. The dolls also get cute little denim skirts to complete the ensemble.

Happy Pink Saturday!

Click here for more yummy pinks at Beverly's!

Spring Tea

The first day of Spring is on Friday and Amy over at Living Locurto was sweet enough to post the Spring Fairy tea party I had with Sheridan last year.

I served scones and lemonade on my 100 year old Haviland china and Sheridan popped bubbles with her butterfly wand.
Sheridan and I love to build fairy houses together. We go around the neighborhood following the rules of the forest-
Only pick up items on the ground.
Never pick live plants or flowers.
Only use natural items to build houses.

We always celebrate after by having a tea party.

Go check out Amy's blog. She is a graphic artist that has such a kind heart. She has lots of freebies for you to download. She also has fabulous party ideas. Is it any wonder we're friends?

Pink Potential Saturday

The "Bug" finally caught up with our family this past week. You know the one that gives you a runny nose, hacking cough that makes your chest feels like it's on fire and makes you so tired that you sleep all day and are up all night coughing. I have been going crazy on putting together my Alice in Wonderland party and last week I found these amazing GIANT stacked tea cups and saucers at the LA Flower Mart.

I plan on painting them and using them for the centerpiece of the table with colorful flowers bursting out of the top. But "The Bug" told me I would have to wait a little longer for my project.

I can't wait to make them look like these...the Tea Cups at Disneyland!Last weekend, I did have enough energy and sunshine to paint this 5 1/2 foot mural for my Best Friend's Doll Tea party. It is a Strawberry Shortcake theme where the guests stuff their own dolls and create a t-shirt for them and have a tea party together.

I know that strawberries don't grow on trees but it IS a cartoon depiction.

This is for a photo op where the girls are dressed in their pink feather boas, Strawberry Shortcake hats holding their new doll friend.

I used a black paint pen to outline and threw a little red glitter on the strawberries.

Hopefully I'll do a better job on the tea cups.

Have a wonderful Pink Saturday!

Please go to Beverly's blog to check out more than 100 "pink links".

PS- I had to quaratine Stella. I don't want her getting sick. I'm afraid I haven't been very exciting this week!

I'm Featured!

To tell the truth, I'm an oddball. I think differently from my friends. They often ask "Do you have the same number of hours in a day as the rest of us?" or "Where do you come up with this stuff?".
So I was wondering if there were any other "oddballs" out there just like me. You know the ones who plan parties that are over the top; have a slight case of OCD when it come to details. Well, it turns out that there are others out there like me and I found them through blogging!

One fabulous party sister is Amy from Stem Parties.

Isn't she just the cutest?

And she is sweet and talented and featured me on her blog!

She posts amazing ideas from other "oddballs" as well.

If you are stumped for an idea for a party, chances are, you will find a slew of them on her blog. And if you need a fabulous party planner in the St. Louis area, give her a jingle.

Thanks Amy...you're a doll!

Friends Forever

Pink Ballet Saturday

This week has been unusally busy for us. (yeah, right!) Chasen attended his first Court of Honor with the Boy Scout and had 2 baseball games. My Brownie troop made butterfly SWAPs for Camporee, parent/teacher conferences, orthodontic appointments, and had MAJOR work done on my car i.e.-expensive work on the car. To top it all off, I had a very special houseguest all the way from England. Her name is Stella and she has dedicated the next year of her life to travel the world. What a wonderful luxury! She has been hosted by some very generous bloggers. Her most recent hostess was Dana from The Stone Rabbit. Dana showed her all around Independence, MO and then sent her off to visit sunny California. She was quite tired from her trip so I offered her a homemade chocolate chip scone and some Vanilla Chai tea. She said she liked the tea better than her usual Earl Grey.

A few days into her visit, we had a bit of rain. Stella didn't seem to mind very much. She said it reminded her of home. After a long day of showers we were rewarded with a beautiful rainbow.

On Wednesday, Stella attended ballet class with Sheridan. At first she was a bit shy since it was her very first dance class. Sheridan's teacher, Miss Wendy, danced with the San Francisco Ballet.


Then she warmed up on the barre. She really got 1st position down pat!

No way she was going to try the splits!
Then she decided to take a break and just watch the rest of the class practice their jumps.
She really enjoyed learning something new and admired the young girls and their commitment to dance. Sheridan is receiving her 5 year award next Friday for dance.

On Friday afternoon, Stella joined Brownie Troop #1182 to help sell Girl Scout cookies.
This is Emily introducing Stella to all of the different flavors. She likes the Samoas best!
American Girl Scouts are a branch of Girl Guides that originated in England.

Since it is the first day of outside cookie sales, the girls sold out of all of the boxes. They are trying to earn enough money to spend the night at Sea World in San Diego.

Stella was quite tired from all of the activity this week but she is looking forward to watching Chasen play in an American baseball game this weekend.

Please visit dear Beverly's blog for MANY more pink lovelies to visit!