today we celebrated ashton’s 1st birthday.

the theme was butterfly princess. the colors were lime green, purple, and hot pink.

it was so cute. and it was a blast.

ashton’s grandparents own a mexican restaurant in colleyville, costa vida. there was a taco bar at the birthday. last year, for the baby shower, it was a fajita station. the food just keeps getting better and better. i ate 3 plates today. veggies and ranch dressing, crackers and cheese (the cheese was in the shape of a CROWN. a crown!), fruits, and chips with salsa, guacamole, and queso.

and then there’s the dessert table. oh, boy.

ashton’s grandmother made the cutest butterfly cake. she has never worked with fondant before. you would have never guessed, the cake was sooooooo cute. i gained 5,000 calories just looking at the dessert table. there were cookies and chocolates and marshmallow lollipops. i made pink and purple rice krispy treats and butterfly cupcakes. i was going to make crown-shaped sugar cookies using the same crown cookie cutter from the baby shower, but i was piping grass on the cupcakes until 5 am, so i didn’t get to the cookies.

the decorations around the house were amazing. the entrance had a sketch of baby ashton that one of her relatives did for her. the staircase had all the gifts. there was a table for the guests to sign in and take party favors. balloons and tulle and butterflies everywhere. it was just so cute and fun and bright.

it looked like a million bucks and costed next to nothing. it’s all about shopping sales and finding great bargains.

the party was awesome. my friend’s family is amazing. they’re so easy to talk to and so much fun to be around.

here are a ton of photos from the party. i had a long day today (after the party, i had a work dinner to attend…and it was at a mexican restaurant-haha) and i am exhausted.

i hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

xoxo

for a butterfly princess who turns 1. remember that baby shower last year (that happens to be my most popular blog to date)? yes, a year has gone by. and it’s going down this weekend.

well, i love planning and coordinating and working with color schemes and making party favors and executing perfect displays and finding great food and gathering big crowds and making sure people have a good time.

but i don’t like the whole “burning the midnight oil” part. that’s the part that kills me the most.

i decided to do throwback thursday posts. earlier this evening, i was looking through some old photos and bumped into the pictures of the baby shower i threw for my sister. oh, the memories…..

it was back in 2006. during the first part of my sister’s pregnancy, we didn’t quite get along. we were doing our thing, going our ways…but of course, i had to throw her a baby shower. i’ve never really planned anything ON MY OWN before, so i had no idea what i was doing, but i knew that a baby shower had to go down, and i was the one to make it happen.

i did my research. what elements are involved in a baby shower? food. check. cake. check. decorations. check. party favors. woohoo! check. diaper cake. diaper what?

my sister and i were working for a department store, and we were close to a lot of our co workers, so invited almost all of them. i threw out baby shower invites, but being from saipan, i did not have anyone RSVP. because i did not know how many people were really coming, i just made sure there was enough of everything for everyone-food, cake, snacks, and party favors.

the bath and body works semi-annual sale was going on and i spotted votive holders for $1. a dollar! what a steal! i bought every single clear, frosted white, and blue votive holder in the entire dallas DISTRICT. i drove to malls that i STILL do not know how to get to today. their votive candles were 2/$1. i bought enough vanilla and cotton blossom votive candles to match each holder. i found mini baby confetti, white and blue tulle, and ribbons at different stores and had an assembly team of 4 people assembling the party favors for 2 nights straight-me, my boyfriend at the time, my brother, and his girlfriend at the time. we were like santa’s elves in the workshop, cutting tulle, sprinkling confetti, and tying little bows-and then hiding them in huge tupperware bins under the bed so my sister wouldn’t bump into them if she came over.

i heard that a particular bakery sold THE best tres leches cake in dallas. i don’t even remember who the bakery was but i knew i had to have that cake. all i knew about the bakery was that it was in a bad part of town, so i had my brother go get it. the baby shower had 2 cakes. “more is better than less (do you watch those at&t commercials? you’ll get that quote, haha).”

the diaper cake situation. i discovered that it wasn’t edible-darn. but it was creative-yay! so i made one. you roll up diapers and form them into a wedding cake. easy. i don’t think my first one turned out bad at all.

six years ago was such a blur, especially when i had no idea what i was doing. i remember being so dang tired the day of the baby shower. there was only one picture taken of me from that day and i refuse to post it. i was holding a BUNCH of helium balloons and i wanted to cover my face with them because i looked and felt so terrible. i thought i had thrown a successful baby shower, but looking back at it, i think to myself, “oooh, knowing what i know now, i could really have made it 10 times better….” i would have made party favor tags. i would have done RSVPs. i would have made the cutest little cupcakes. i didn’t bake back then. i don’t think i started baking until about 4-5 years ago. but i could have made some killer cupcakes.

here are some photos i found online of the baby shower. they might not be much, but i thought they were pretty cool!

it was fun.

i hope i find other good throwback thursday ideas moving forward!

xoxo

it was awesome.

the event was held at the texas rangers ballpark in arlington. it went on from yesterday to today, benefitting the american cancer society. my sister, nephew, and i went to check it out. the parking was free around the ballpark, which was nice. it costed $10 to get in per person, $5 for children. i believe it was the ticket money that went to the american cancer society. there were about 30 food trucks that participated in the event. i was hoping that the sahm bbq (gourmet korean bbq tacos & burritos-they make killer kimchee fries!!!) food truck was going to be there. i had tried them at the taste of dallas last year and they were amazing. i was also looking forward to the cup cakin’ food truck (i had never tried them before), but i didn’t see them today. in fact, the cupcake trucks were closed when we got there. i was pretty upset. some food trucks ran out of food, but re-opened once they got replenished. there were all sorts of food trucks today that offered different types of cuisines: greek, vietnamese, american, indo-chinese, south american, latin, cuban. the lines were not that long, which was great. there was one food truck that had a noticeably long line, but i wasn’t interested in getting anything from them. aside from the cupcake trucks being closed, i really had nothing bad to say about today’s event. there were TONS of seating available to guests, outside the stadium and inside if anyone wanted some shade. there were bounce houses inside the stadium for kids to play. there was a huge screen that was available for everyone to watch the rangers game (unfortunately, we lost to the minnesota twins, 2-7) while they had their away game. there were trash cans available every 10 feet that were emptied out by the staff, and everything was clean. the rangers ballpark really knows how to throw and event to make sure everyone has a good time. and the weather was great. that always makes for a huge bonus in texas on any given day.

here are some pictures of the event, as well as the winner that beat all the food trucks. guests had the opportunity to vote for their favorite food truck by texting their votes in. i got to try them without knowing they were going to be the winner, so that was pretty cool!

home of the texas rangers, yeehaw!

a row of food trucks…

maui wow. i noticed quite a few articles online about this food truck coming to DFW but didn’t get to try them. all-natural fresh smoothies and gourmet hawaiian coffees.

what’s cook-n chef food truck. latin-infused menu. i got the 3 street tacos in all 3 flavors. it was mind-blowing deliciousness. the tacos were so tiny but WOW, did it taste awesome! i would say it was my favorite food truck. i would totally break into this food truck to steal what magical sauce they put in their tacos.

what’s cook-n chef street tacos…at first i didn’t think they were tacos. underneath the lettuce and cheese toppings is pure deliciousness.

short-n-sweet food truck. very clever name for the tiny food truck owned by tiny and “sweet” people. serving locally-made paletas (latin-american ice pops made from fresh fruit), i got rice pudding and my nephew got watermelon. i loved this truck because i love ice cream and popsicles and it was a mixture of both.

rice pudding paleta! next time i want to try coffee and pecan!

the food trucks along the stadium side and some of the seating area.

taste of cuba, called one of the best cuban food trucks in the DFW, but i didn’t get to try them.

watching the game on the big screen.

the bacon lover’s truck. as much as i wanted to try them, i ended up missing out! i must find them in the future!

empanda armada food truck. since april 8 was national empanada day, i decided to try their pulled pork empanada and their buffalo chicken empanada, since they had sold out of other flavors. they were the FOOD TRUCK FESTIVAL winners this year!

the winning menu. surprisingly, i liked their buffalo chicken empanada more than the pulled pork empanada. i love pulled pork and i am really not fond of buffalo chicken, but i wanted to try one of each. what a surprise.

the guava tree food truck. cuban american family recipes with a twist. i spotted their cuban donuts and had to try them.

cuban donuts filled with cream cheese and guava jelly! yummmmmy! it was worth the 25 minute wait.

that is the food truck with the longest line. and i don’t know which truck that is.

cravetopia bakery food truck. homemade mini bundt cakes….CLOSED.

nammi food truck. vietnamese fusion. i got an asian bbq banh mi sandwich.

i was obsessed with the marinated radish and carrots on top. the sandwich was awesome, but i just wanted a bowl of the topping. haha.

i was desperately looking for a soda and i bumped into this!!!! i bought 2 and i’m scared to try it!!!!

my nephew took this picture. cheers to an awesome day! oh, and this is us trying to dress alike again. haha. 

i bet that next year’s food truck festival will be much bigger. i think this first year will get great reviews and all the food trucks will want to get in on next year. well, that’s what i’m hoping for. haha.

did any of you do something exciting this weekend?

xoxo

aside from dressing alike, i have taken my sister out to dinner or have arranged for birthday dinners for her. we had fondue one year, just the two of us. i took her to her favorite restaurant another year, the old warsaw. a big group of us took her to dinner at a japanese buffet restaurant, tokyo one. dinners are always the main part of birthdays, but i wanted my sister’s 30th birthday to be very different than the others. for my 30th birthday last year, i had an awesome dinner with friends, followed by an after-party at a bar. i pretty much celebrated my 30th birthday all week. well, my sister doesn’t do that. she doesn’t go out much, she doesn’t go to bars, and she surely does not go to clubs. she’s on her last leg of school and currently student teaches third grade. she gets up at some ungodly hour of the morning, goes to school, comes home, prepares for her next day, and is in bed by 9. her birthday was on a monday and i wanted to do something on her actual birthday instead of on the weekend prior, so i took all that information and came up with giving her 30 gifts for her 30th birthday. before i came up with the idea, she would always say she needed “teacher’s clothes” and i would hear stories about the rules that teachers had and stories about her students. after i came up with the idea, i took the stories and incorporated them into the gifts that i would get her.

i started my 30 for 30 project by listing all the things i wanted to get my sister. aside from the teacher theme i was going for, i also had down a list of things that i knew she wanted or thought she would enjoy. she’s very much into the paris theme at the moment, so that helped with some gifts. i called my dad the day i came up with the idea, and he made some great gift suggestions.  i told some of my friends, too, and they came up with some neat ideas. of course 30 gifts would cost a ton of money, but i tried to play it smart-to shop sales, shop clearance, use coupons, etc. i had about a month to shop, so i did every chance that i got. working in a mall helped because i was able to swing by a store on a break or look around for ideas. she had been wanting good eyeshadows in neutral shades so i got her the latest mini naked palette that came out by urban decay. i love my naked 2 palette, it’s amazing and i use it all the time. she had been obsessing over a bobbi brown lipstick of mine, threatening to steal it, so i brought it out while shopping and found her a few lipsticks in a similar shade. i got her some gift cards so she could buy whatever she wanted from certain stores. i studied her closet to see what she had been recently purchasing to figure out what to buy as far as teacher’s clothes go. some major department stores were running ridiculous sales on top of their clearance so i would spend what seemed like forever going through every piece of clothing. i found amazing dresses and tops and belts and accessories at ridiculous prices. the prices were so low that i was putting multiple gifts in one box. my 30 for 30 was probably 80 for 30 or something, if we counted every item. haha. some gifts were gag gifts. bath and body works had an anti-bacterial soap sale and i got her a bunch of full-sized soaps “because her students have germs.” she student teaches third grade. i also hand made her a “survival kit for naughty students” which consisted of a yardstick, a roll of duct tape, a bar of soap, and a dunce cap. as far as the paris theme goes, i got her an eiffel tower necklace, sets of notecards with her name personalized on them, and the very last gift she opened was an amazing memory board that my friend/co-worker handmade for her. my friend, amber, makes memory boards and sells them on etsy and she couldn’t have made it any more perfect. i was SO excited when i got to see it in person and i was SO sure that it was going to be my sister’s favorite gift out of all of them, so i made it #30, the grand finale. if any of you want custom-made memory boards, you really should check out my friend on etsy. she is very talented. i’m having her make one for my new black/gray/pink bedroom and my co-workers have thrown their orders in as well. if you want to look at her work, click here.

also, my sister was not a big card person. how funny, since i’m the complete opposite. so…i thought it would be funny to attach a card to all her gifts. hahahaha.

if any of you think of doing this for a birthday, for any age, it’s really fun and it doesn’t have to cost much if you shopped like i did. sign up for email alerts or rewards memberships from stores and use coupons. shop sales and clearance racks. hand make things. but allow yourself enough time to get everything together-and wrapped. i am a professional gift wrapper, so of course everything had to look perfect-and it wasn’t as hard, because i think wrapping them all was the most time-consuming part.

aside from the 30 for 30 gifts, we took my sister out to 2 nice dinners within her birthday week. it was fun and delicious.

here is a captioned photo gallery of my 30 for 30 project. enjoy!

xoxo

one of the first gifts i wrapped…with a card.

hiding gifts results in only one thing: putting them in the trunk.

hiding fully wrapped gifts in a closet.

while she was at school, i took the day off from work to set up.

i had my sister blindfolded when i brought her in the house. this is her shocked face.

gift #1: bread pudding, one of her favorite desserts.

teacher’s kit for naughty students. the dunce cap.

this was a gift that wasn’t on my list but was perfect for the teacher’s kit. like a boss!

dad’s idea. chicken soup for the teacher’s soul. we grew up reading chicken soup books. it was perfect.

she knew what this gift was. i made her try on a NIQUEA.D necklace from papyrus and she fell in love with it and wanted it so bad. so i got it for her.

putting her necklace on.

oooooohhhh…..

gift #30!!!!! the memory board that my friend hand made for my sister!

we used my niece as a prop. she’s a great actress.

one of my sister’s 2 birthday dinners.

don’t forget to give your mom a mother’s day card.

I REPEAT: DO NOT FORGET TO GIVE YOUR MOM A MOTHER’S DAY CARD.

and anyone else who is a mother that you care about (boy, do i have a list).

for all the foodies out there, here are 3 food/drink-related cards that you might enjoy from papyrus:

the macarons are starting to take over, but they will never replace cupcake cards. i wouldn’t even be able to post a blog on all the cupcake cards that papyrus has-there are so many cute ones. i have yet to see a cupcake mother’s day card, but i am SURE they have one this year. i am so sure of it……………i hope they do………

xoxo

that’s such a neat gift to give someone who wants to start baking! jessica got so many cool gifts, i was keeping a mental inventory of everything i wanted for my kitchen.

i am SO excited for jessica and steven’s wedding. i have watched the couple evolve over the years and i can’t believe the big day is quickly arriving. jessica was one of those girls who knew what she wanted before she got engaged. i slowly start to realize how much easier it is when a bride has a sense of what she wants for her wedding before she gets engaged. i’m going to be in deep trouble in that department. you’d think that since i work in a stationery boutique i’d know what i want. haha! not at all. i did jessica and steven’s wedding invitations and it took all of 5 minutes or something (totally over exaggerating but you get the idea). i didn’t expect to be able to go to the wedding because last year i had left the country, but i came back 3 months later, and now i get to go!!!!! i can’t WAIT to take photos of the wedding. the venue is SUPER BEAUTIFUL and absolutely breathtaking. it was voted as one of the best venues by the knot for 5 years in a row. i am looking forward to everything: the ceremony, the food, the cake, and everything in between. i think my photos will come out great because it’s a daytime wedding.

until those photos make it to the blog, here are some of the bridal shower photos. enjoy!

did i mention how excited i am for the wedding?

xoxo

this is what $16 looks like.

i got home around 1 a.m. and had to jump right into bed because i had a long day on friday-work and then the texas rangers/seattle mariners game with jennifer. i love watching sports live, but i absolutely LOVE watching the rangers play. i love the food, i love walking around, i love taking a ton of pictures, i love going into the gift shops…and of course, watching the actual game. i never care about where i am sitting-i don’t ever mind sitting in a $6 seat because i know i am going to spend a million times more on food. friday’s game consisted of a cheeseburger, a huge order of garlic fries, cotton candy, and an ice cream sandwich. i also got me a yu darvish shirt! finally! two awesome highlights of the night (aside from the fact that everything during the game was a highlight): darvish was pitching and it was fireworks friday. I….LOVE….FIREWORKS….

here are a few pictures from the game:

texas beat seattle, 7-0. it was a great night.

i don’t remember much about what happened last night when i got home. i was so exhausted that it was all a blur. i’m surprised that i even took my shoes off. i didn’t even set my alarm to get up but i’m so glad i did. i was so excited for today because there was a taco festival in deep ellum. you know that if there is food, i will be overly excited. and, of course, so are half of all the dallas residents. because it was the first taco festival, the vendors did not know what to expect. let’s just say they are going to have to triple their food next year. we got to the festival around 1 and it started at 11. by the time we got to our first vendor, they were already down to 2 taco flavors-which were really good, though. they felt bad that they were down to only 2 flavors that they gave each of us coupons for $15 off our visits to the restaurant. by the time we left, which was around 4, we had only been to 2 taco vendors. that’s how long the lines were. i don’t mind long lines like that, it’s always expected at a festival. i thought it was a fun day. i brought my nephew along and he had fun. he only wanted one taco but after having it, he wanted 2 more. and then he went home and couldn’t stop raving about how awesome it tasted to his mom/my sister. what i didn’t like about the event was that there were not enough drink vendors. it was hard trying to find a drink other than beer. there was a booth that gave away free bottles of sparkling water, but i don’t like water. another downfall of the event was that the lines were so long that they were weaving in all directions. it was hard to tell which line was for what vendor. clearly, the space was not big enough to hold all the people (it was held on the street and it definitely needed to be spread out one more block). there weren’t enough tables and chairs for people to sit, so people were sitting in random spots all over the place. if you weren’t walking through people who were in line, you were trying not to step on people. but these are issues that i am confident would be resolved by next year. what i liked about the event was that the tacos were said to be no more than $2.50 each. they had live entertainment that we got to listen to while we were in line. the people watching wasn’t as great as the dog watching. there were lots of cool dogs walking around, so my nephew was pretty entertained by them. and the tacos i had were awesome, and definitely worth the wait since i got a $15 coupon. the taco festival was obviously such a hit, and i am definitely going back again next year…

here are a few pictures from the event today:

and my weekend is not over yet. tomorrow i have my friend’s bridal shower to attend. i can’t wait. i have a ton of events coming up that i hope i can catch a breather in between.

what is the most exciting thing you have done or will do this weekend?

xoxo

my sister’s boyfriend invited 3 of us to the game, and i was excited ALL DAY TODAY.

i love watching sports live!!!

final score: dallas stars win vs. los angeles kings, 5-1. i even got me 5 coupons for free tacos at taco bueno!

derek and i during 2nd and 3rd period!

next up, dallas cowboys games and longhorns games!!!!

xoxo