Chocolate, Champagne, and the 1970s

What do Cadbury Creme Eggs, family, pink champagne, and 1979 all have in common? My week, that's what. It's been a busy week, so I apologize for the lack of posts. I was doing some super important things like baking these:

Oh yes, friends. Those are Cadbury Creme Egg BROWNIES! Holy goodness. I found the recipe here. They were ah-mazing.

My parents and sister came up from Jupiter to visit us this week. And just like the rest of the country, Mother Nature decided to play a nasty little trick on us and made Spring feel more like Winter. They came up on Saturday and naturally, the weather finally started getting nice the day they left. We had a nice time, though. We went to the aquarium, Coca Cola World, Piedmont Park, and my mom got to check out the Gone With the Wind museum (her favorite movie).

Now, here's some pretty awesome news...on Sunday, I got a phone call from a local casting company. Atlanta has become THE place for movies and TV shows to film lately (which is pretty exciting!). "Anchorman 2" has been filming here since last month, and we've seen them around town several times. I follow several of the casting companies on facebook and Twitter, and I've submitted myself to be an extra a few times when I've seen postings requesting extras with my age and look. I submitted myself for AM 2 a few weeks ago, and finally got a call back to play a waitress! It was such a cool experience. I had to go for a fitting and wear some pretty tacky 70s clothes. Granted, we spent more time in hair and makeup and in the holding room than we did on the set, but it was still fun and I would absolutely do it again. I couldn't take pictures and I can't disclose any info about the scene I was part of, except that it's a bar scene and I'm in the background taking drink orders. I believe the movie comes out in November, so keep an eye out for me!

I also had a very well-needed girls night on Thursday night. One of my friends decided to start a ladies wine league, which is pretty much just an excuse for all of us to get together once a month and have some food and try different wines. Since most of the other girls were bringing wine, I opted to bring dessert. To keep with the night's theme, I made cupcakes with pink champagne. Champagne cupcakes with champagne buttercream. They were quite tasty, I must say.

Remember that nasty weather I told you about? Well, the cold finally went away and we had a beautiful Saturday. I was actually able to go outside in capris and short sleeves! Mike and I packed up some cheese, crackers and wine, and took Penny to Piedmont Park for the afternoon. We had a little picnic and then took her to the dog park.

That's about it. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Vegas, baby!

This past weekend, we went down to Tampa for my friend Vermille's baby shower. She's due in late March and she's having a boy. Her and her husband, Ryan, have a love for Las Vegas. They (secretly!) got married there back in 2010, they have a dog named Priscilla, after Elvis's wife (Priscilla also happens to be Penny Lane's BFF), and now that they are pregnant, they don't have a name for the baby yet, so he's nicknamed "Elvis." Well, it only seemed appropriate to have a "Vegas" themed baby shower. However, when I was asked to do the decorations, that posed quite the challenge being that there aren't too many baby things that scream "Vegas!" So, thanks to an unnecessary amount of poker cards and chips that my husband had stashed away, I was able to come up with some cute stuff.

This is the wreath I made for the front door. Everything was tied with ribbon and not glue, so the diapers can be used when taken off. I also decorated it with baby socks and washcloths tied with tulle.

I took some poker cards and chips, glued them together and sprayed them with blue and silver glitter (there was a ribbon I laced through the chips to tie it to the wreath).

I absolutely LOVE the way these came out! Not that I'm bragging, but I totally love them. They were really easy to do, too. I rolled up pairs of baby socks and washcloths and tied them with ribbon. I had a bunch of plain wooden sticks that I painted with green paint, added some green tulle to be the "leaves," and then stuck the sticks through little openings on the socks and washcloths. I already had a plethora of beads from our Gasparilla bead stash, so those served as the "water" for the vase. 

I had some leftover diapers and baby blankets, so I made little chip buckets. We tied balloons to these at the shower and it looked really cute.

I rolled up the remaining diapers and tied them with a large rubber band. I wrapped the blanket around them and tied them with blue tulle. Then, I put some poker chips on top (sprayed with glitter spray, of course) to look like the bucket was full, and put cards around them.

Finally, I had Ryan send me baby pics of the two of them. I took four 5x7 black frames and sprinkled two with blue glitter and two with silver glitter spray to place on the main tables.

Also not pictured, were the blackjack and craps boards that also came from a set that my husband had (and rarely ever used). We were able to put those on the table and put platters on top of them. We also spread poker cards and chips on the tables to add some extra "Vegas" flair and of course, we hung old Elvis records up behind the food table. Pics of those will be coming soon - one of the other girls does photography as a hobby like me and was the official "photographer" of the shower. As soon as those are posted, I'll share them. One more baby shower down, one more to go in April! 

Monkeys and Cupcakes

This past weekend, Mike and I made the last minute decision to run the annual Gasparilla Distance Classic 5K. Note to self: no more signing up for races unless you have trained for more than one day. Preferably, more than a few weeks. I work out all the time but hadn't run in awhile so my muscles were like "What the???" It was hot out but it's always a fun race and we did OK. We've run it for the last several years so why stop now? On Sunday, I helped host a baby shower for my friend, April. Her first baby, Olivia, is due in just a few weeks! Since Olivia's room is baby jungle animal themed, we kept the shower in line with that (especially since monkeys are April's favorite).

How cute are these cupcakes? The animals were edible!

Go Gators!