Block party!

As I blogged about here, our street planned a block party this year. We held it last night, and it was really, really swell! We had a fantastic turnout (about 40 adults and 15 kids) and  it was a snap to organize (we kept it very simple for our first go at it!)!

Here are the details of what we did:

- We charged $5 per person or $10 a household, which covered hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, chips, watermelon, mini-brownies, freezies, juice, and pop (almost all of this was bought a Costco)

- Folks brought their own booze and lawn chairs

- We made name/address stickers for everyone so there weren't any embarassing 'I should know your name but I don't' moments

- We used hardware store 'Caution' tape to quarden off an area of the street (technically we should have had a street permit, but whatev!)

- A few people volunteered to bring a BBQ, music, tables, picnic blankets, chip bowls, trays, water tables for the young kids, and a playpen for the babies

Easy peasy!

Birthday party bust!

Saturday was my daughter's 3rd birthday party and although I think the kids had a good time, it was a bit of a disaster on my end.

First, the City never showed up to open the facility I had booked (Withrow House Clubhouse) so I had to beg a random city worker to let me in.

Then, the Sportball coach that was supposed to facilitate an activity for the kids didn't show up!

...and would you believe I double confirmed both of these contracts in the preceding week?

I am spending this week with my Mom, who is the hands-down expert at writing angry letters. I am in training!

UPDATE: One of the founders of Sportball called me tonight. She was extremely appologetic and backed up her words with swift action.

Loot bags

Oh, loot bags. You are a tougher nut to crack than I expected! How to find items that are in keeping with the party theme, that 3 year olds will like, that parents won't throw out, and aren't prohibitively expensive.....mon dieu!

In the end I decided on:

- A paddle board (those rackets with the elastic cord with a ball attached on the end)...too advanced for 3 year olds?...maybe

- Sports stickers

- A twisty straw

- Lolly pops and pop rock candy

- A bouncy ball

- A sports medal

....all from the Dollar Store, Bulk Barn, and The Party Store.

A Bulk Barn birthday

This weekend was my daughter's birthday, and we celebrated with friends at Lake Simcoe (we're having her real party next weekend).

We had a Dora pinata (15% off at Bulk Barn; start the car!!) and a purple iced cake with creepy Dora faces on them (also courtesy of BB).

The pinata was fun until Dora got decapitated and my daughter burst into tears...ooops - perhaps I should have anticipated that. We did it, we did it, we did it, yeah!

Block party

We have awesome neighbors, and so this year we're organizing a summer block party....a chance for all the neighbors to hang out and for the kids to blow bubbles and decorate the sidewalk with colourful chalk. We are going to set up BBQs in our neighbor's driveway and hang out on a stretch of front lawns since we all have small back yards.

Since I don't have email addresses for all our neighbors, I did a paper invitation in addition to my email invite. For the paper invitation, the girls across the street designed this invite which I colour photocopied and dropped in everyone's mail box. Isn't it great? I love kid-art!

Post-party

My Dad's birthday party was a great success - the rain held off (and the sun was actually shining!), the food was great, and people from all stages of my Dad's life came to celebrate his 65th birthday.

We definitely had too much food though, so we spent the next few days eating our way through all the leftover hamburgers, salmon, salad, and fruit trays. ...and baby just loved playing with all the boxes that appeared around the house as we cleaned up!

We are now back in Toronto; the flight was easy, but the little guy is having some trouble adjusting to the time change! Groan!

Party prep

Yesterday we did a lot of prep for my Dad's party tonight. My mom expects about 100 people, and the weather has been a bit iffy here in Vancouver, so she's errected a ginormous tent in the backyard. Most of the food is being catered, but as an alternative to birthday cake my mom bought a bunch of mini brownies and topped each one with a dollop of icing - the perfect sweet treat!

Good from far, but far from good

For my daughter's birthday party we have rented a multipurpose room at the park clubhouse near our house. It's a great facility, but lacks personality. Last night I whipped up this simple construction paper bunting to add a bit of colour to the room. I think it will go well with our 'sports' theme. I have no patience, so the flags are not all the same size and many of the edges are jagged....I'll just have to hang it extra high so no one notices!

A dinner table for toddlers

I have blogged previously about how practical I find it is to have a 'kids table' around the house....colouring, crafting, reading,.....our table gets used by my daughter and her friends all day.

Tonight it is going to be the dinner table for my daughter and her friend Penny. The key components I used to make it kid friendly are:
- One of my Grandma's old card table cloths...it fits perfectly on a table of this size,
- Appetizer forks/knives at each place setting,
- Plastic 'crystal' glasses, from Red Letter in Yorkville
- A few tulip blooms in a votive holder (the vessel is nice and small so it requires only a few blooms, and if it spills there is minimal water to clean up!)

bon appetit, kiddies!

Seeing the world through rose coloured glass

We are having some friends for dinner tonight, so my daughter and I decided to do something a little different on the table.

We started with PC stemless champagne glasses (as an aside these are one of my favourite products- super cheap, super fun, and they fit in the dishwasher!!! Cheers to that!), filled each one with warm water and a drop of red food colouring, and a perfect tulip bloom from our local fruit market.

I am not sure I looooove it, but my daughter had a ball swirling the colour through the water!

Happy Easter!

My Easter centrepiece....the mini eggs didn't last long!!

Cheap and cheerful

As I've blogged about here and here, I am in the midst of planning my 3 year old's birthday party.

We are going with sports theme and I'm using lots of primary colours, so these trays are perfect.

I found them at my local dollar store - they were $1.50 (small) and $2.50 (large) minus 20%.

A STEAL, right? I love the colours and patterns.

I am going to use them to serve the food and drinks (Ceasars and pulled pork sandwiches for the adults, lemonade and pizza for the kids!) to our guests at the party.

Next I have to work on loot bags!

An egg-stra special Easter craft

I recently signed up for Martha Stewart's 'craft of the day' email. So far, the ideas have been far more elaborate than I can manage with my 2 year old. But yesterday's idea (here's the link) was simple, fun, and festive. Just crack an egg near the top, rinse it out, and fill it with some water and your favourite spring blooms. If you're not into flowers, you could fill each egg with some jelly bean treats as a table favour for each of your Easter dinner guests.

I love this craft for a few reasons. First, it's perfect for toddlers (as long as you can get them to be gentle with the egg shells!). Second, it fits well with my table dressing approach. I love a series of small arrangements on my dinner party tables instead of one large one, as they don't obstuct anyone's view. I often do a flight of small flower arrangements in small cups scattered around the table, or down a line in the middle. It's also a great way to get a lot of milage out of a cheap groceria bouquet.

We decided to one-up Martha and dip our eggs in various bowls of water dyed with food colouring. This increases the mess factor, but my daugther loved watching the egg absorb the various colours, and it was a fun way to learn about how mixing different colours create new ones.

Would you believe that the glass egg cups belonged to my Great Grandmother Smith?

Cake pops!

As I mentioned in this previous post, I am beginning to put together the details for my daugther's third birthday party (though it's the first time we've had a real party for her). I have been trolling other blogs for ideas, and ended up marrying inspiration from Lindsay and Shannon.

I loved Lindsay's idea here of using Tim Bits to make cake pops. We're going to have birthday cake, but I think cake pops are the perfect alternative dessert for little hands. I am going to keep it simple and not even ice them....Tim Bits are so delicious on their own!

Shannon blogged here the other day about Omiyage, a company that sells Japanese paper and tape. I decided to order myself some of the tape, and in keeping with the party's sports theme each of the cake pop sticks is going to have a little 'flag' on it. I just wrapped a piece of tape around each post and then cut it on the angle on either side.

I bought a bag of 35 lollipop sticks at IQ Living on the Danforth for $3.99, and cut them in half so I'll have 70 cake pops for the kids to feast on.

Fun!

Hosting a birthday party 101

My daughter is turning 3 in June, and I have decided that this year I will finally host a little birthday party for her. I know I am probably getting started a bit early, but I have no idea what is required for kids' parties, so I am trying to make sure I don't miss a step!!

I haven't made many decisions yet, other than that I am going with a sports theme and am going to use a lot of red. I have rented the Clubhouse at Withrow Park, and the folks from Sportball are going to come and do some sporting activities with the kids.

For our invitations, I checked out lots of amazing ideas online (including this one and this one from Jen at Rambling Renovators), but I decided that something this elaborate was just not in the cards this year. Instead I designed the e-invitation below. It was easy - I just used auto shapes in Powerpoint, saved it as a Jpeg, and emailed it out to Izzy's friends (well actually to their parents)

What ideas do you have? What are the cool things to put in 3 year olds' loot bags these days?

Brew masters

How do you make your perfect cup of coffee?

Both my Mom and Grandmother drank Nescafe instant coffee when I was younger. This is a family legacy that I chose not to carry on. Reeeevolting sludge.

Since I'm the only coffee drinker in our house nowadays, I make most of my coffee in my Bodum* or my beloved espresso machine.

But my favourite coffee maker is my vintage GE percolator, which I inherited from my Grandmother, and which she received as a wedding gift (talk about standing the test of time!!). It has an elegant shape that goes from counter to table, makes perfect coffee, and even has a 'warming' function. Best of all, it makes enough coffee for a crowd, or for a lazy day of coffee drinking and newspaper reading for one.

I have since bought two more of these beauties - one off of Craigs List and another at Eclectisaurus, a fabulous vintage store on Gerrard East in Cabbagetown. I am keeping one as a backup in case mine breaks, and the second was given to my friend who developed a life long passion for percolated coffee at his cottage on Lake of the Woods.

While I adore my collection of coffee makers, I will not be turning down a cup of drip coffee made by someone else anytime soon.....after all, coffee tastes best when someone else makes it!

* I previously bought a very inexpensive french press coffee maker at Canadian Tire that worked great. It was just as good as my Bodum. But my mom cracked the beaker while washing it, and so at that point I upgraded to the Bodum. Somehow its shape is just a little more beautiful and its stainless steel frame just a little more sparkly than its no-name cousin.

In praise of PC...paper napkins

I have an eclectic assortment of linen napkins - some bought used, some bought new, and some inherited. But all of them tell my guests they are deserving of the work that goes into a cloth napkin; perfectly washed, ironed, and folded.

I wish I could send this message every day to those I cook for, but it's just not practical. ...and who would bother now that PC has created such a beautiful assortment of paper napkins? From cocktail to dinner sized, from whimsical to modern patterns...they have it all.

I keep hearing how much better Joe and PC are in the suburbs, but for us urbanites I have found that the Home section at Don Mills and Eglinton is pretty darn good....and if you don't care to venture that far North, the Loblaws at Leslie and Lakeshore has a mini home section, as does the 'hidden' Loblaws on Redway.

What is your favourite place for Joe and PC?

Chocolate wine

Years ago my friend introduced me to this wine,Yellow Tail Shiraz Grenache. We call it chocolate wine, because it is so delicious, and so drinkable. It is soft yet a bit spicy. It's easy drinking, and stands up well to meat. Perhaps best of all, it is very affordable at only $11.95 at your local LCBO.

Before our friends came over last Saturday, my husband picked up a few bottles at the LCBO. We all had a good laugh when our friends also brought some over too. Clearly it's a crowd pleaser!