Bachelorette Beach Bash

I cannot believe we just had my best friends bachelorette party! Stevie and Tommy have been together since we were 16 and are FINALLY getting married in October! We had a wonderful weekend in Destin, Florida, laying on the beach and soaking up the sun! We left late Wednesday night but before then I had some prep work to complete...

 

The plan was to have a pajama party Thursday night. Like real deal pajama party, facials, mani/pedis, pj gifts for the bride! I put together pajama party gift boxes for all the girls...

Inside the box was nail polish, lip gloss, toe separaters, a facial mask pack and adorable (if I do say so myself) monogrammed headbands!

 

 

These are all the headbands. I think they are just too adorable!

 

I even got Kyle to help fluff the bows on the boxes...I think he did a pretty good job!

 

 

 

After Stevie opened all her pajama gifts we were all too tired for facials and mani/pedis so I am saving mine for another day!

 

The beach was beautiful the whole weekend! The water was as clear as I have ever seen it! We timed the trip just in time because there was a tropical storm moving in the week after we left! There was a wonderful breeze and cool waters!

 

 

We had a blast going to dinner and out Friday and Saturday nights. Here are a few pictures from the trip...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was an amazing kick-off weekend to all the wedding festivities!

Birthday Boy!

Kyle turned the big 2-7! Ok so not such a big birthday but a birthday to be celebrated none the less! He had an outdoor show to work at in Atlanta so we decided to spend the whole weekend there and go to a Braves game. My girlfriends and their boyfriends/fiances/husbands all joined and Kyle's brother Cam and his girlfriend Lenzee came as well! We had such a great time with everyone! My friends were so sweet to help us celebrate Kyle's birthday!

The whole gang while we were tailgating! We had such a blast!

The BIRTHDAY BOY!

All my girls! It was so wonderful to be able to all get together! It had been almost a year since we were all together at one time! (We vowed to not ever let this happen again!)

Kyle got a card in the mail from his Aunt Sherry and it had a balloon on the inside, we blew it up and needless to say Maci LOVED the balloon...until it popped!

I hope Kyle had a wonderful birthday! I can't believe he is getting so old :) hehe!

Cake Balls

I know, I know! It has been a long time since my last blog, but we have had a BUSY month!

We had a Fall Preview event at Sugarplum Tree at the end of July and I wanted to make yummy refreshments. I didn't want to just do the usual cookies and brownies but I wanted to keep it simple for peopl to eat while they were shopping. I have been wanting to try my hand at making cake balls so I figured this would be a great time!

I read several recipes and just kind of took what they all said and went to cake ball town! The concept is actually really simple. Make a box cake just like the box says, let the cake cool then crumble the cake into tiny tiny crumbs, mix coordinating icing into the cake crumbles, let sit in fridge to harden then roll up the balls. After you have a ball, you put them back in the fridge to harden again, then you can dip them in the melted chocolate. It would have been just this simple if I had a few extra hands. But is wasn't so bad that I wouldn't attempt them again...maybe just inlist more help next time.

So this is what I started with. I wanted to have a selection so I went with yellow cake, strawberry cake and chocolate cake. And the coordinating icings.

I was so happy to use my mixer! I haven't used it since we moved and for some reason I just love pulling it out!

Once the cake was finished baking I let it cool then used a fork to start crumbling.

Next was to mix in the icing. This was about how much I had left in the container after I mixed with the cake crumbles.

My balls varied in size but I tried to be consistent. While I was rolling I noticed the cake/icing mixture sticking to my hands so I popped it into the freezer to chill for a few minutes. This was the longest step in the process and I noticed the closer I got to the end of the mixture the bigger the cake balls got because I just wanted to be finished!

Once I had the balls formed I put them in the fridge to chill over night. Almost every recipe I read said to do this because it made it easier when dipping them into the melted chocolate.

I just used chocolate and white chocolate chips and melted a cup or 2 at a time so it didn't harden up while I was trying to dip. I read that if the chocolate seemed too thick to add a little oil and it would make it creamier, they definitely helped!

I thought a toothpick would be simple, just stab the ball then dip but of course it didn't want to stay on the toothpick. So, I found this technique to be the easiest when trying to coat the balls in chocolate. Just drop the ball in the bowl of chocolate, spoon it around to coat it, then pick it up with the spoon and beat the spoon on the side of the bowl so the excess chocolate falls off. Then, just slip it off the spoon onto your wax paper covered cookie sheet!

After all the cake balls were coated  I let them sit in the fridge for about an hour to harden up before I drizzled chocolate on top. Kyle really liked this part and decided he wanted to help.

This is the finished product...

Not beautiful but they were delicious! Strawberry was my favorite! They were all a big hit at the Fall Preview but, we had TONS left over! I will definitely make them again when we have a big event going on and I can get more help. They were time consuming but worth it in the end!