Baby Shower Games-Simple and Hilarious

Shower games are always hard.  You don't want to be lame or cheesy or make anyone feel weird (or be forced to eat baby food) so it can get tough depending on who is attending the shower and what the mother-to-be likes.

Mrs. Curly J aka the Brayer was in charge of games for the shower.  She decided to go simple and hilarious.

Our simple game involved guessing how many bookworms (to go with the Book Theme) were in a jar.  Curly T, below, actually tied as one of the winners.  She won the bookworms.  The other winner got a Target gift card.  (PS-Hobie did not grow by 20 billion times.  That is my friend's dog Barkley, Hobie's Wise Old Man friend)

The second game was Baby Shower Bingo that we played while Beezus5 was opening her presents.  Each person filled out a Bingo card with baby related items that we thought B5 would get.  When she opened one of the items, we got to mark them off our card until someone got Bingo.  It was fun/hard to come up with 25 baby items if you are not used to babies.  My mom had no idea of the plethora of breast feeding supplies that are out there today.

The hilarious part came courtesy of the free space on the card.  We decided that although this was a girls only event, the Dad should be present in some way.  So Mr. Curly J did some photo shopping (or something) to create a baby version of the Dad to be, E.

I died laughing when J first emailed me the 'free space' pictures.   Fortunately, I don't think E reads my blog and therefore won't see that I posted this pic on the interweb.

Luckily, I think most people found this funny and not totally disturbing. 

Good job on games, Brayer!

What do you guys think?

Wordless Wednesday-Fall Themed Mantel Decor

As part of my 31 for 31 goal, I have decided to decorate my mantel for each season.  Here is my weak attempt at Fall.  Considering I will probalby decorate for Christmas next week, I didn't go all out on this one.

Amazing, right?

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Baby Shower Craft Hour-Alphabet Book

This weekend, my friends and I had a baby shower for Beezus5 who is having a baby in January-ish.  I think that the most important thing about party planning is trying to make it personalized to the individual.  Beezus5 likes reading so we had a book themed baby shower (with some owls and Harry Potter and Fall stuff thrown in there too).

I kind of like making stuff, so I thought it would be fun to force people to make a craft at the baby shower.  We made an alphabet book for B5 and her baby that also doubled as a guest book so one day mini B5 will know who came to her mom's baby shower.

I bought a photo album and made a page for each letter of the alphabet (by adding alphabet sticker).  Then we had each person draw or color a page and sign the back.  I was concerned that some people would not want to draw (or think they were not good enough at drawing) so I found some alphabet pictures at the Dollar Tree that people could just color if they did not want to draw.

Shanzie and my mom were so excited to be getting their craft on...

This ended up working much better than I thought it would.  I have come to realize recently that not everyone loves crafting or making stuff as much as me, but everyone at the shower willingly participated in this craft.   Some of the drawings were realllllly awesome (not my drawing of a jar of jam per se)...

Have you ever been to a baby shower where you had to make a craft?

Don't you wish you had your own ABC book?

My Italian Food Birthday....

My birthday got of to a good start.  On my birthday I found it acceptable to have dessert for breakfast.  So B and I headed to a local bakery, Ollie's, and I selected this raspberry tart as my breakfast.  We also picked up 2 giant loaves of Italian Country bread....

because later that evening some of my friends (and parent friends) came over for an Italian feast.  Here's our appetizer meat and cheese platter (including some fig chutney we got in Italy).

I made bruschetta that was similar to how we had it in Italy...
Bruschetta with Capers Recipe
-1 pint cherry tomatoes (quartered)
-1 to 2 garlic cloves minced
-2-3 tablespoons of capers
-some good quality olive oil (probably just a couple tablespoons)
Mix together and serve with toasted bread.

My mom got me some Italian spices to mix with oil and dip bread in.  It was awesome.  We had four types of spices and used our olive oil from Italy.  This was a big hit.

The pregnant girl made a fig and ricotta tart.

And my husband made some tiramisu.  (He also bought a backup tiramisu in case his failed.  They were all awesome.)

There was also a lasagna in there somewhere.
Obligatory girl photo.

Obligatory girl photo where I awkwardly touch baby.

It was an excellent birthday party!

Wordless Wednesday-Halloween Baking

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars from What's Gaby Cooking...

Cast Iron Skillet Apple pie by Beezus5...

Both were delightful.

Did you do any Halloween baking?

Evolution of a Baby Shower Invite

When my friend, Beezus5, told me she was pregnant, I was obviously excited for her to have a baby and start a family and stuff but I was pretty much equally as excited about planning a baby shower.  I knew from the start that I wanted to make the invitations.  Somehow.  I'm not a pro, nor do I have any special software.  Also, I've never actually made invitations before.  But after some trial and error I was able to make something that I deemed acceptable and something I think she liked.  I used colored pencils, paper, a scanner, a computer, Microsoft Paint, Picasa, a printer and my trusty paper cutter.

B5 likes the following things....orange, green, books, owls and Harry Potter, so I tried to incorporate those into the invite (which also goes with the theme of the shower which we can discuss later).  She also likes Christian Bale, Pearl Jam and Liver Pudding but I didn't really know how to work those in.

I started by trying to 'draw' something in Microsoft Paint.  I didn't really like those that much.

Then I made a sketch and scanned it onto my computer.  This seemed like something I could work with.  The sketches started out very rough and evolved over time.

Finally I used colored pencils to draw this.

Then I scanned it on to my computer and saved it in the highest resolution I could.  I opened it up in Picasa and added text with all the shower info.  I printed it out (using the high quality photo setting) onto card stock from Michaels and trimmed them up with my paper cutter.

And here's the final product (ok I altered the text a bit).

And here's a picture of it on my fridge so I remember to go and stuff.

What do you think?

Should I have used pastel colors to be more babyshowerriffic?

Have you ever made your own invitations?

Would you read 'Hedwig Flies Again' if it were a real book?

Faux Baklava aka Honey Pie

I went to a local Greek Festival a few weeks ago and since then I've had baklava on my mind.  Then my latest issues of Taste Of Home came in the mail with a picture of what appeared to be a baklava pie on the cover.  I knew I had to make this.  It was actually a Greek Honey Pie but it seems pretty baklava-ish to me and I'm assuming much easier.

So I made it.  I halved the recipe though so it was a mini Greek Honey Pie...

Mini Greek Honey Pie (based on Taste of Home's Recipe)-Makes 4 servings

1.5 cups of walnut pieces
1/8 cup brown sugar
a couple sprinkles of cinnamon
1/2 package of phyllo dough (from freezer section) thawed
3/4 of a stick of butter (I cut this down some from the original recipe)

Syrup-
a little more than 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract


I used a mini deep dish pizza pan to make this.  You  need something that's about half the size of a regular pie pan (like a small casserole dish).

-mix walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon and set aside
-brush pan with some melted butter
-layer 8 1/2 sheets (I cut the sheets in half since I was using a smaller dish) of phyllo dough (slightly larger than the pan so it hangs over the sides) and brush each one with butter
-then add 1/3 of the nut mixture
-then four more sheets of butter/phyllo dough
-then 1/3 of nuts
-4 sheets butter/phyllo
-the rest of the nuts
-8 sheets butter/phyllo
-then fold the hanging edges of phyllo into the center of the pan and put one last layer of butter
-cook at 350 for about 35-40 minutes
-to make syrup, mix the remaining ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat until it boils, then let it simmer for 10 minutes
-pour the syrup over the warm pie and serve

This was delightful, although probably not the healthiest thing ever.

Do you have a Greek Festival in your city?
What's your favorite Greek food item?