Real Festa: Farewell School Party

It has been long time since my last post. I have many parties to share and I will start with a special one.

Last school year, when my husband was deployed, we received so much love and care from the Holy Redeemer Community where my two children go to school. I wanted to say thank you to all the moms and teachers for the support and help and I found a good opportunity.

I was invited to style a Farewell reception for Mrs. Beverly Langston, Founder and Director and Mrs. Pat Messalle, Teacher. Both spent almost 4 decades in Holy Redeemer Nursery School.

I worked with a great team of moms to put the event together. We wanted the traditional school theme. I chose light pink, sage, beige and red colors. We had lunch boxes, real apples, pencil pretzels, apple cake balls, black board cookies and more.

Former students, moms, dads and children stopped to say thank you. It was an event full of love!

Take a look to the details..

Main table

To give a school touch I set around the room decorated objects like books, glasses and fabric flowers and ribbons.

Plates, napkins and utensils

Kids enjoying the treats.

Apple Wishing Tree.

Here my little ones leaving their messages.

Flowers from my garden

After a very busy weekend with lots of kids' classes, a big event and a birthday party, I was craving peaceful time by myself. I am enjoying my morning around the house and the garden, but I couldn't stop sharing these beautiful flowers from my front yard. I wish I could share them with mom. She loves flowers more than anyone I know.

Thinking of you..

.

My Mother's Day celebration

I celebrated Mother's Day with a small group of friends. I wanted a simple stress-free event, no cooking and washing dishes, but at the same time something chic and tasty. I came with the idea of a salad bar full of vegetables, meats and delicious dressings.

Between laughs, good food and wine you can't go wrong. Thank you ladies for sharing such a delightful night.

Mexican friends you celebrate tomorrow. Happy Mother's Day!

Salad Bar

These bands were given to the moms according to their personality and character. It was a fun activity.

For dessert we had chocolate truffle cake, cookies and apple pie.

Feliz 5 de Mayo {sweet treats}

When I think about Mexican sweets, I always think about coconut and chocolate. Love them in any type of treats: cake, ice cream, flan, pudding. Today is a beautiful day, sunny with a pleasant breeze and I thought a perfect treat could be a popsicle. Coconut popsicles!

I found a recipe here. I made a some slight adjustment. For the milk, I used skim. For the coconut milk I chose low fat from Trader's Joe and added two cans instead of 3 cups, a couple more teaspoons of sugar to find that rich and sweet taste I was craving.

Happy "5 de Mayo".

Green Elephant Baby Shower

Last night some friends and I threw a baby shower and I designed this Green Elephant Baby Shower dessert table especially for Adriana and her baby David.

I used as a focus point a trunk-up baby elephant for good luck. The elephant is probably the most positive animal symbol known.

While looking for the theme and colors, I found matching fabric and napkins that inspired me to combine some shades of greens.

This table is an example of simplicity and fun. Just by adding some special items like the elephant and bringing together other matching elements you can turn a plain table to a very special one. Not much needed: a piece of fabric, napkins, couple of small vases, few flowers, neutral color plates and bowls and few sweet treats.

Corsages made of napkins.

Napkins and utensils

Some sweets

Elephant cookies made by Eunice. They were amazingly cute.

Congratulations to Adriana and thank you to all our friends that were there. It was a wonderful and fun night.

Dr. Seuss Cake Pops

Tomorrow is Dr. Seuss' birthday and my son, Joseph, will have a celebration at school. He is taking some cake pops to share with his classmates. This is my version of Dr. Seuss Hat Cake Pops.

I made marshmallow fondant to make the bottom of the hat. Marshmallow homemade fondant is much tastier than the one you buy in stores. The recipe is very simple and you can find it here.

I followed the basic recipe for cake pops from Bakerella using white cake and glue the fondant circles with some candy melt.

I covered them with the vanilla candy melt.

and using strawberry fruit roll-ups I made the stripes and the top.

Ready to be delivered.

Let's try them... They look good and they taste better.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Real Festa: Mommy & Me Mexican Cooking Party

I started my new year of FESTAS with a very special one: my daughter, Marianna, 4th birthday celebration.

Every year, I have problems deciding the venue and theme for her party due to the cold weather in DC. It is hard to execute a good indoor party with space limitation. What it wasn't hard this year was choosing the theme. We all knew, it had to be a Chef party. Marianna keeps telling everyone that when she grows up, she will be a chef. She loves spending time with me in the kitchen and creating new dishes.

I came with the idea of having a Mexican Mommy & Me Cooking Party. We invited a small group of friends, well, small for a Mexican that loves big gatherings. It turned to by a wonderful event. I was very happy and pleased with everything we had. The kids and the moms had lots of fun. We cooked in the kitchen with the kids and without them, too. We had games and crafts, pinata, cupcake decoration and lots of food.

Thank you to all our friends that made Marianna's birthday unforgettable and I am happy to share pictures from this special FESTA.

I created rustic signs using black boards and chalk signs

All the inspiration for this party came from a piece of fabric my mom, Rossy, and I found in a store while she was visiting from Mexico. She hand made all the hats and aprons we gave the kids. She is very talented and had the ability to make so much with such a small piece of fabric. Thank you mom you are the best, I wish you could have been here with us!

The craft tables.

Personalized hats using colorful letter stickers.

Tables decoration.

The kitchen full of items in the same color palette.

I used yellow paper lanterns and ribbons to decorate the lamps in the kitchen.

The kitchen utensils.

The dessert table had typical Mexican candy as: mazapan, banderitas, chicles, duvalin, pelones, paletas de elote y gomitas de fruta. For a Mexican twist, the birthday cake was a Choco-Flan. I decorated the table with Mexican toys like fabric doll, yoyo, maracas, toma todo, etc.

The kids made Tamales and fixed their own Nachos. They also made Strawberry jelly to take home with them.

Chef Irene taught the moms some Mexican tips to make an authentic and good guacamole.

We decorated cupcakes.

This is me teaching the kids how to use the different types of piping tips.

We had a play corner with a toy kitchen full of kitchen toys.

While waiting for the food they created their own necklaces.

The kids had nachos & meat balls.

And for the moms delicious authentic Mexican food: Quesadillas de Huitlacoche & flor de Calabaza, tamales de puerco, pollo y rajas from Connie's Mexican Authentic Cuisine, frijoles refritos y salsa de elote con aguacate.

A piece of chocoflan

Marianna

At the end each guest took a typical Mexican shopping bag with kitchen toys.