BaByQ

This past Sunday was BaByQ day in preparation for little Ellie Cavness. 

There were 4 girls that helped host the shower.  And I guess you could say 4 guys as well helped with the shower...it was a couples shower.  The boys obviously grilled.  And was SUCH a good idea.

We decided to have a BBQ or BaByQ and grill burgers and hot dogs. 

When I presented this idea, I had a power point with all of the baby shower ideas that I loved.  The girls all made fun of me so I will never show them my ideas in a power point again.  haha.  So mean.

We had a ton of fun at the shower.  Below are the pictures!

I made 6 tissue paper pom-poms all out of Abby's colors from the baby room.  You can also see the invitation that we had our friend Miles design.  He rocks and made the PERFECT invitations.

The elephant was part of the theme.  The curtins in the baby room have pink baby elephants on them so we used the elephants where we could.

3 of the pom-poms were used inside over the dessert table and the other 3 were used outside hanging in the trees.

I bought Sixlets during Easter because that is the only time they use the colors above.  Aren't they just so bright and fun?  They are also her colors.  I also bought salt-water taffy and rock cany in the colors as well at Redmonds on the way to St.Louis.  Redmonds is one of the biggest candy stores and I am so lucky because everytime I drive to St.Louis I get to stop there.  Haha

We also used mason jars and made pink lemonade.  The jars we wrapped in silver and pink ribbon and then added raspberries on the bottom as well as straws.  They were super cute and made the table look fabulous.

Yummy!



The dessert table.  You can see the rock candies.  I also made the sugar cookies and cupcakes.  The cookies are in shapes of elephants, onsies, E's, and polka-dots.

Necco's were used as polka-dot decoration on the table.

Just an FYI- the elephant cookie cutters are actually the Republican Elephant. Ha.  The other elephants I found didn't have trunks that I liked.  These were perfect!



This is the backyard.  We had pom-poms hanging in the trees.  The wind was really blowing so they got blown around.  Abby ended up taking all 6 pom-poms home with her to possibly use in the baby room.  If you would like instructions on how to make them go to Martha Stewart and it will take you there.  They are super easy.  To start you just need 8 sheets of tissue paper for each pom-pom.

Walmart has these cute multi use buckets in the gardening section.  They are about $5.00 and come in different colors.  They are a little flimsy and just perfect for multiple purposess.  We used them for water, filling with ice and then adding the bottles.  And we used the other for all of the single chip bags that were outside by the food table.  They were the perfect color and we added the pink ribbon to dress them up even more.

Emily made the BEST sign.  It was placed in the front flower bed at her house.  You couldn't miss where the party was!

The Mommy and Daddy to be.  Ellie is due to make her appearance on July 2 and everyone is so excited to meet her!

Dessert or Desert?

Teacher Appreciation week was this past week at Elm Tree Elementary.  We had a fun filled week but today took the cake.  Subs covered every classroom from 11-1 today while we ate and played games.  Really we all just relaxed at the workplace.  I participated in a three-legged race and won an iTunes gift card and another teacher won a broken toe...

There was also a dessert contest.  Of course the tables were full of desserts that teachers and staff brought.  Gues what?  I was the only one that brought cookies.  There was cake after cake.

And everyone ate the cakes.

There was no cookie love.

Thanks guys.  Only 5 hours of work...

To make the below cookies :)

It's cool.  Maybe I will take a cake decorating class next year so that I can make a better cake then the art teacher.  I think that is my new goal.  haha

To all the ETE teachers and all the teachers out there that have a harder job then anyone gives you credit for; you rock!

To this day I remember the spelling difference between Dessert and Desert thanks to my 7th grade teacher.

Dessert has 2 s's because you always go back for seconds....

Italian Chicken

Hey All!

It's been a while hasn't it?  I guess I got a little busy.

Here is a dish I made a while back.  It is one of my "safe"dishes.  That means I can make it for Matt and I KNOW he is going to be eating it.

Isn't it sad that I have to go about fixing dinner that way?  Ha  I guess we all need those kind of dishes don't we.

Does anyone ever buy the Italian Dressing packets?  You find it by the ranch dressing packets.

I bought the Italian Dressing packets once because I like to use the seasoning on fresh green beans.  Talk about yummyness.  But one day I looked on the back of the box.

I found just about the easiest recipe ever.  It calls for like 4 things.

Wanna know what they are?

1.  Chicken breast (the cut used for chichen fingers is what I use...I can't think of the correct term. ha)
2.  Parmesan Cheese  (1/2 cup.  I use both fresh grated and the kind we shake on spaghetti)
3.  Garlic Powder  (Just add a tsp. or two depending on what you like)
4.  Italian dressing packet

Obviously the box will have the real recipe if you want to get technical with me.

Stick it all in your GREASED dish and mix

 

Coat the chicken with the seasoning

Then bake at 350 until the chicken is done

(can you tell I just wing it now?)

 

And there you have it.

Italian chicken with green beans and garlic bread.

Oh---the white small casserol dish I used is from Crate and Barrel and is PERFECT for making dishes for 2 and was like only $7.00 or something cheap like that. :)

Happy Cooking!