Curious Colin's Curious George 1st Birthday Party

This is my sweet baby boy Colin. He just turned one. He is actually my niece Paula's sweet baby boy but he is the joy in my life right now. I've turned the party planning reigns over to Paula for her kids' party tables. I just steer her to the right blogs and places to order stuff and it's fun to see what she can't resist ordering. I think she wants to go into the party planning business now. She has really caught the decorating bug for these things. Her husband Allan though is not too fond of the idea of her giving up her nurse practitioner job though.
I do believe Paula's been planning this birthday party since Baby Boy's baby shower. It could have started at Kelsey's Harry Potter Party but I know she's had it on the burner for quite awhile. I think Curious Colin had a lot to do with the party theme. He's into everything and he started out making monkey noises early on.

Love the backdrop? I told Paula about Angie doing this for her New Year's Eve party in peacock colors and how pretty it was. I steered Paula to the Devra website and she ordered away. She had already purchased a bunch of Curious George books and toys off of Ebay a long time ago. I helped her display some of the sweets using the toys to keep the colors working together. She went to town on the backdrop. I thought it looked great!

This is an old toy gumball machine I think and I took the lid off of the space ship and added the Twizzlers. To add height I stacked some red and yellow blocks and plopped it on them.

I took Colin's little workbench toy with the pegs in it and stuck the popcorn bags in between the pegs.

Paula candy coated these pretzels and I found some old huge Lego's that I had and turned them over to use for a display for them.
I put the straws I ordered (along with the popcorn bags) from The Sugar Diva in the candy coated marshmallows Paula made and stuck them in floral foam inside Colin's shape-sorting toy. I then put together some waffle blocks I had and set it on them to equal out the height on both sides. Paula bought these candy jars full of candy at Walmart right after Halloween for a dollar each. Just tied on a different colored ribbon. Ta-Da.
Paula covered three different sizes of boxes with yelloew paper to make a stand for these candies. I found Curious George fruit snacks at Big Lots and cut the Man with the Yellow Hat and George off of the box and taped it to the front as directed by the MaddyCakes Muse blog who also has a great Curious George party.

Paula did a fantastic job of hanging these fans above the cake table. She ordered most of them online from Luna Bazaar.

Red Valentine cupcake stand purchased by Paula at Walmart for $5. Can't beat that.
Paula's cupcakes turned out beautiful. She made the toppers with her new Cricut she got for Christmas. She also made the birthday banner with it.
Colin's sister Emma and Paula baked his cake and Grandma Nora decorated it.

Instead of doing my usual fruit display I decided in honor of monkeys everywhere to make a banana display instead. The top was lacking something without the usual pineapple so I took a glue gun and glued the toy on at the last minute.

We dug around in out cabinets and found our colorful bowls and such to display some of the food on. The food in the slow cookers (the good stuff) of course we didn't photograph.

Paula has these shelves in her kitchen and we filled them with the toys and some of the paper plates for the guests to grab.

Colin had his own monkey cake from Walmart Bakery. We took his shirt off before we gave it to him. He wasn't interested in eating it though. Can't say that I blame him there. It didn't look very appetizing. It did however make for great shampoo for his hair.

Colin received plenty of gifts but was most interested in the punch balloon as they were being opened.

This party is listed at

and http://catchmyparty.com/

Valentine's Day Tablescape

Saturday night I had my friend's Debbie and Penny over for a get together along with their other halves. It had been so long since we've been together to talk. They both have birthdays in February and Debbie's is actually on Valentine's Day. I've had some plates that I bought for Angie a long time ago and never ended up giving them to her so I decided to get some black wine glasses to go with them and put them to use in a Valentine's tablescape. Hobby Lobby (my favorite store) is the source of almost everything on this table.

The tablecloth is from The Christmas Tree Shop and bought by my niece Paula to use for Sweet Baby Boy's first birthday party this weekend. A Curious George party coming up.

I had been snowed in (or rather iced in) all week so I hadn't been able to shop for this dinner until the day of. Even then it was snowing so much that we were questioning whether to cancel this thing or not. I didn't have any flowers for this pot and really didn't have time to be making a floral arraignment since I also had food and hair and make up and cleaning to do. I walked in Walmart and the first thing I came to was this Bromeliad marked down to $5.00. The color matched the tablecloth so in the cart it went.

I couldn't believe how perfectly it plopped right into this pot from Hobby Lobby.




All of these black things with crystals are from the party room in my house. I have a ton of them that we bought for Angie and Erik's reception and then ended up not using. Soon they will be listed for sale somewhere.

Penny brought this bottle of wine and it went right with the decor. The lead crystal water glasses are from Sam's Club. Twelve of them for $20. I thought that was a bargain.

You can't really see it but the word LOVE is sitting here. Letters are from Angie's candy table from her wedding. (Pictures should click bigger)

One decanter was used for wine and one was for water. I thought the large diamond made the perfect topper for this decanter.

This was for Angie and Erik's champagne bottle at their wedding. She forgot to take it home with her I guess. I used it as an ice bucket.

The napkin rings are diamond rings leftover from Angie's shower. The napkins were purchased at the last minute at Walmart along with the bromeliad.
The table I had moved from the kitchen to the sun room to accommodate seating (not to mention we are getting ready to redo the kitchen. ) The chairs however looked horrible with the tablecloth so I grabbed some black fitted sheets and black curtains that were around here and threw them over the chairs. I only had four so I used two more of Paula's red tablecloths for the end chairs. With no time left and no idea what to use as chair ties, I went into the party room and spotted some crystal strands and grabbed them and tied the around the chairs. Tada.

I tried to get all Amy Atlas with the food table but ran out of time to make it like I pictured it. I did actually remember to snap a picture with Paula's camera while I was cooking. I forgot however to plug in the block of lights that were supposed to add some pop to the table. I also took the picture before all of the food was on the table. But at least I remembered to snap a picture during the chaos of trying to get everything done before the guests arrived. That is pretty good for me. I even remembered to borrow a camera. This table however was just the show food. The real stuff was on the kitchen counter on warming trays and in slow cookers. Those things just aren't very photogenic. We had a good time but the men were thrown off by the table. They didn't seem to want to sit down with us. It was as if the table, real plates and chair covers were not manly enough for them. I should have done it in a Super Bowl theme I guess.
Please go visit Susan and a bunch of other Tablescapers at Between Naps on the Porch where ths party is listed.

"Now You Know How I Feel"

• I have a confession to make. I've been a bad Christian lately. I'm not proud of it. I'm just stating the facts. I haven't been spending my time with God. I haven't been going to church much lately and since my eyes have gone bad I rarely open my bible to try read what He has to say to me. In fact, He has brought to my attention recently just how little time I've spent with him since the day a computer entered my home. Even less time has been spent since "twitter" came along and since I started this blog. Every since "All About the Tables" started, it's been pretty much just that. All about the tables and all about me.

Sure, I still pray (for others) and remember to thank Him when I feel blessed or when he answers my calls for help. But not like I used to. I don't feel that closeness that we once had and I know it is not God's fault. It's because I don't make the time for Him.

The closest I feel to Him is when I'm listening to K-Love on the radio and that is usually when I am in my car or alone at home.... which are both pretty rare.

Anyway, it makes me sad and I know it makes Him sad too. How do we like it when our children obviously don't want to spend time with us?


I was looking at the stats to this blog again a few minutes ago and noticed once again that though there seems to be more visitors than I would expect in a day, there is rarely a visitor that spends much time here. Zero seconds is about as much time as most people spend here. I actually heard myself as I was reading these stats say out loud, "Nobody wants to spend anytime with me." Immediately I heard God speak into my spirit "Now you know how I feel. When was the last time you read my word? When was the last time you went to see what I had to say?" How much time have you been spending with me?

Immediately, I felt convicted about how much time I spend on this silly blog like it makes me be somebody. When in fact, I know I already am somebody. Albeit undeserving, I am a child of The Most High God and I have a platform right here to tell others about Christ that I have never really used. So I decided to follow His prompting and try to make it up to Him by writing this little post that maybe only one person will read. But then again maybe that one person is who God wants me to write it for.


People have asked me why I believe in God. I would have to say that it's because He believed in me first. He is the one that has made me believe. I've always heard Him speak. But I haven't heard Him speak quite like that in awhile. It's because I haven't been listening. That's the key. You have to be still and listen.


You can hear Him too..... can't you?


I'm going to get off this computer now and try to spend some time with a Father that I surely don't deserve but do love. Thanks for reading.


Look God! A post with no pictures! :)