Surprise, ya'll!

I have been busy this week getting things together for a surprise dual-70th birthday party for my folks on Saturday and haven't posted so I wouldn't leak out any details. Now that the party is over I can post a recipe that was SOOOOOO delectably good I can't even handle it, ya'll.

My dad's favorite dessert is banana pudding and I searched the net for a perfect recipe and I can safely say I have found it!! Leave it to Ms.Paula Deen to give us a scrumptious banana pudding.

Here's the recipe:
(It's not for the faint of heart or those on a diet)

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies
6-8 bananas, sliced
2 cups milk
1 (5 oz.) box instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz.) container Cool Whip

Line the bottom of a 13x9 dish with one bag of cookies and layer the bananas on top.
In one bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well. Set aside.
In another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture.
Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir to blend.
Pour the mixture over the cookie/banana layer and cover with the remaining cookies.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.

This is simply divine, ya'll!!! No kidding!

And since the post title for today is surprise, here's another one for you:



Please pray that this one is a stick-around-er!

At least we look ready for the PGA...

We had a meetup at a local golf course. Even though D preferred picking up the ball and gingerly placing it in the hole, we sure looked the part! Check him out:



There were only three other ladies that showed up. It was pretty hot by the fifth hole so we decided, as a group, to head inside and order brunch. We had a great conversation and the kids were all well behaved.

I had one major SNAFU on the way out, my car wouldn't start. I figured this was probably the best place to be in need of jumper cables. I mean, the place is FULL of men!! Just as I thought, I found someone with some cables and he was nice enough to take care of it for me. Thank goodness for good samaritans!!

Insert witty title here...

It's too early to be creative this morning, so I hope you'll stay with me.

Friday we went to the Arboretum and met about 9 other mommies. For the first time there were more girls than boys. We paraded through the blooms until we found a nice, large, shady spot and popped a squat. Some of the moms remembered to bring a blanket (which is my sneaky way to say that I forgot) and we all shared the three blanket space together to eat our snacks and/or lunch.

I packed D an early lunch: peanut butter and jelly sammie, diced pears, banana yogurt and a sugar cookie. He ate it all!! One ingenius mother brought a plush soccer ball as well and D had fun kicking it all around the shady area. I DID remember to bring bubbles (shocker!) and L and I took turns blowing them for the boys. I always forget how quickly blowing bubbles takes the wind out of your sails!



After getting good and sweaty, L and I headed over to the frog fountains to cool off.



She invited a former co-worker of hers to join us with her 11 week old little girl. She was so cute, with her big bow-head. I got the feeling that I was a bit of a third wheel, however, so I tried to give them some space. Perhaps they hadn't seen each other in a while or something? Anyway, I know she may have felt awkward being with a large group of women who have known each other for over a year this closely. It was nice of L to stick close to her friend.

D fell FAST asleep on the way home! Perfection!! He transfered to the bed easily and gave me a great break.



Saturday we attended our neighborhood's welcome party. We did some dancing, rode a little train, checked out the fire engine (and got a shiny badge sticker), listened to a few stories and ended with a good 20 minute bounce in the bounce house. Needless to say, he took his longest nap EVER: 2.5 hours!!!

Today we are going golfing with the meetup group. They have child sized clubs so this should be a real riot!

Bunco (minus 25 years)

My Meetup group suggested we start a Bunco team as a MNI idea. I've never played Bunco, as I'm a good 25 years younger than your average Bunco player, but I thought this was an idea I could support! So I hosted the first Bunco night last night at my home. My husband took D to the IL's for the duration of the party and we girls got loud!



It was so much fun!!! We only had 6 ladies total, so we adapted the rules to fit our group. We played 4 games, each round you only needed 10 points to win, so the rounds didn't drag on and on like it would have if we played to 21 points.

Surprisingly, all 6 of us had a Bunco at one point or another. Our Bunco privilege was to wear a large scarf, babushka-style! Here I am sporting my best old lady look:



Since Bunco is traditionally an "older lady" game, I made these nametags to wear and we all wrote in our Grandmother's name, whether maternal or paternal. I was Fannie (story coming); we had an Ezal, Doris, Torah, Ida and one other I can't remember-oops!



We learned from my South African neighbor that to them Fannie is the front part of the bottom area. When she first moved here to NY she saw a commercial (advert) for the Fanny Lifter. You can imagine her shock until her husband (who is American) told her that here Fanny means the actual bottom. HA!!

The next Bunco night is already on the calendar and I'm definitely going. I'll be inviting some of my neighborhood ladies again. This time there is no conflict with the adult group so we should have a better turn-out.

We are off to the Arboretum this morning with my neighborhood girls. I've got some cool ideas to bounce off of them and am excited to catch up.

Siete amigas y margaritas!

Well, I am afraid I don't have any pictures to show from last night. I know, right?

As the coordinator for my neighborhood toddler group, I wanted to do something a little special for my local hostesses who had a playgroup at their home during the month(s) of June, July and August. I had to figure out a way to have something nice while not breaking the bank- there were 10 hostesses in this time frame.

I finally settled on a Mexican Taco bar theme. I had chips, salsa, dip, taco meat, taco shells and all the fixin's for a taco salad or tacos. I had pineapple upside down cake for dessert and margaritas, of course!

One of the guests brought some awesome chocolate chunk cookies and we munched on those as well.

D hung out at my MIL's house during the party so we were totally kid-free for about 3 hours. I have to admit it was a little weird not having him run around. We had a wonderful talk, though and got to know each other a bit better with no interrupted conversations.

Here is the recipe for the dip I made. It was a real hit!!

Monterey Jack's Dip

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1 (16 oz.) can chili (with or without beans)
1 (4 oz.) can diced green chilies
1 (8 oz.) pkg. Monterey Jack cheese
1 (4 oz.) can chopped black olives

*Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
*Layer cream cheese, chili, green chilies, cheese and black olives in a baking dish.
*Bake for 30 minutes.
*Serve with chips.

Try it, I know you'll like it!!!

Searching for my lost shaker of salt!

I'm busy busy busy today getting ready for a neighborhood shin-dig tonight and don't have much time to post but here's a little something to pique your interest:



And for giggles, here's what mommy does when she's spent too much time playing kitchen and watching Toy Story:



Notice Buzz doing his business and Mommy taking a nap in the baby's bed. HA!

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name...

Yesterday was the school's back to school pool party at the club pool and my husband was on the volunteer grill team. We made an obligatory trip there to say hello and to let D see Daddy before he went to bed. Check out the slide!!!!





I've got to say this impromptu trip really pumped up my ego a bit. I walked in and immediately had three ladies coming over for a hug and to say hello. This is big time, folks. I actually felt comfortable arriving somewhere alone. Well, the little man was with me, but you know what I mean.

I was ushered over to a table to meet some other moms and ran into a church buddy from a few years back. She just moved churches just like we did and it was great to see her friendly face. We caught up on the church news and had a great chat!

We had to leave pretty quickly as the dreaded bedtime was looming before us. I drove home feeling renewed with my friendship odyssey. This was exactly what I was looking for when I started this blog 5 months ago. I have managed to come out of my shell and make some AWESOME new friends!!

Speaking of awesome...I was invited over to R and G's on Wednesday afternoon to make sock puppets. D has really enjoyed the two sock puppets we have here at the house so I knew this would be right up his alley. We used an old pair of socks, some pieces of felt, some googly eyes and some craft glue to make a cute puppy puppet. Here's ours:



We had a meetup yesterday afternoon that was cool. It was a football theme and the kids all wore their colors. D of course wore burnt orange. There were 8 of us present and we were able to sit back and chit chat while the kids played amongst themselves quite nicely with little parental interference. It's great when there's a group that genuinely gets along nicely.

This has been a great week friendship-wise. I feel like I am solidifying the friendships that I do have while continuing to cultivate new ones. Gosh, I sound like a gardener or something.

I know I've slacked on the monthly progress reports. I'll post one soon for June and July, I promise. I want to see just how far I've really come with my goal.

Can you stand more Gabba???

Too bad!! I've got some more Gabba goodness to share. I've had some requests for some more shots of the cake, more precisely, the other characters I made so here they are:

Here's my version of a Muno:



And here's Plex:



Here's Foofa:



And one of the front with Toodee on top:



Here are the cookies I made for the favors:



Halfway through the present opening, D had enough and had to thrash around in all the paper for a bit.



It's funny, but without my little friendship odyssey we'd have had a very different looking party. I'm so glad that my little man was able to turn two with all his best buddies by his side!

On that note, I attended the welcome coffee mixer for my church's mom's group. Since we plan on putting D in school there I thought it would be wise to join now and get to know some of the mom's there. I already know 3 kids that will be in D's grade! How cool is that??

Two ladies are also in my neighborhood group so we know them quite well by now. The other one lives in my neighborhood, but isn't really that friendly. I've met her on a couple of occasions and she wasn't real chatty. I'll have to make a point to try and talk with her at the upcoming meeting. Maybe she's just shy like me and comes across as snooty, much like I think I did before becoming aware of it.

I'll keep you posted!

Yo Gabba Gabba birthday style

So, we made it! We had a rockin' Gabba party and we survived to tell the tale. Little man is now officially two and MAN, did this kid get a lot of loot!! Check it out:



This is why Christmas at D's casa will be slim this year. :-D

We had a house full of guests, both young and old. The youngest was my friend, Sarah's little girl, Brooklyn at just 11 weeks old. It's hard to believe that had we not had the first miscarriage I would have a 3 month old right now. Crazy!!!

This party would definitely NOT have happened as it did. And I'm so glad it did, we had a blast!! I'm happy to say the cake was delicious, in addition to cute as a bug!



The little Gabba creatures are made out of Starburst! What a neat idea, huh? I can't take credit for it and sadly I don't remember which blog to give credit to for the idea. Just know that it was from some party planning site. Goodness the time I can kill surfing those blogs!!!

Anyway, we had 8 little ones + their parents, 2 sets of Grands, 3 aunt/uncle combos + their combined 5 children, 4 relatives from out of town, and a co-worker of DH!! The bouncehouse was ready for action, but it was a bit on the toasty side yesterday so there was minimal bouncing. My neice and nephew monopolized the swimming pool while the little ones kept cool inside playing the fishing game.



We waited until company left before we let D tear into his huge pile of presents. We took photos of him opening each one to use on their thank you card. I already have them all designed and saved. I just need to go to Office Depot and pick up some 4x6 photo paper and I can get these babies out in the mail tomorrow!!



His favorites?? The Buzz, Woody and Bullseye posable figures from Aunt Suge and the play kitchen from Nana and Papa. Thanks guys!!!

A bad case of Palmolive hands

With just 4 days to go until the big birthday party, the dishwasher has decided to go on the brink! My brother, the handyman supreme, promised us that he will take a look at it on Sunday before the party, but that means between now and then we either eat on paper plates or I have to hand wash everything. Not a good thing when I have to bake a cake AND cookie favors for the big day.

I have been hard at work getting ready for my little man's party. This "Toodee-inspired" shin-dig is coming along famously. I have outdone myself on one craft in particular:



This is a cardboard cut-out that I hand drew, cut out and painted. This little gem will be outside holding balloons around her arm, welcoming guests to the party.

I also finished the balloon wreath. Here's a picture of the unfinished product:



We are hosting the first neighborhood playdate of the season here tomorrow. Crazy, I know, what with us having a birthday party two days later. As the coordinator it is only right that I host the first one and it'll be a doozy! We are having a bouncehouse (that I secretly hope to use for D's party Sunday), a photo booth (well, sort of), swimming (if it doesn't rain-40% chance that it will), sandbox, sidewalk chalk, wagon rides, and my favorite: a Root Beer float bar! We have had 5 new faces RSVP so far. I am excited to meet all the new members.

And just for giggles, here's what shenanigans my husband gets up to when I'm not looking:



Nice, right???