#LiAR Throws a Party

#LiAR Throws a Party

Pretty sure in a recent post we mentioned that this entire year is just flying by for both of us!  Not only have we been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our babies (except now Teal’s is here!!), but we’ve also had quite a few friends also having their own major life events.  One of said friends is our dear friend, Bitner.  Now you’ve seen him before in race recaps because he’s also a runner and we’ve gone out to races with him (for example, Tour des Fleurs 2011, Rock n Roll San Antonio 2011, White Rock Marathon 2011, Tour des Fleurs 2012, Tour des Fleurs 2013 and some others that haven’t been documented on the blog).

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Bitner and his partner were tying the knot and he had asked both of us to be Bridesmaids in his wedding, so we decided we needed to throw him a proper wedding shower before the big day.  Sadly Teal’s due date and Bitner’s wedding date ended up being within two days of each other so she would no longer be in the wedding 🙁 , but this was a great way to still be apart of the festivities for her.

We like to think we throw a darn good party and we kicked it off by Beth’s sister, Kate, designing us the perfect custom wedding shower invitation.  This is the part of the blog where we say WE LOVE KATE!! No, really we do! She’s such a talented graphic designer and can custom make pretty much anything!  If you are ever looking for invitations, announcements, cards, cupcake toppers, signs, water bottle labels, etc. Kate’s Etsy shop is where you need to go! Just look at this beautiful invite that is now apart of her etsy shop!

ignore that we cut off the bottom so the address is removed and added a copyright

ignore that we cut off the bottom so the address is removed and added a copyright

We went with gold & silver for the colors since that’s what the wedding colors are.  They’re just such classic colors – you can’t go wrong and obviously, Bitner did not!  Since everyone loves a good brunch we figured we would center the theme around that and also to make serving mimosas acceptable.  Although these days amongst this group of friends we pretty much think any celebration calls for mimosas. 🙂 Are we really that far off?

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You might have already noticed but we opted to make a little photo booth for the shower too full of props and a cute background with a burlap love sign. Whoever it was that first thought up the idea of photobooths full of props at events such as these was a genius! They just add to the fun!  Just a little bit of the fun –

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All in all it was a very fun day!  We loved getting to honor and celebrate Bitner and his upcoming wedding. Bitner received so many gifts that centered around hosting his own party at his house we debated just heading straight there to continue the festivities for the day. 😉

We would tell you, Steven & Chaz, that we wish you a lifetime of happiness, but we in fact know you have a lifetime of happiness together in store.  We love you guys!

Tasty Tuesday: Bridal Shower Foods

You might have seen yesterday, that this weekend was Beth’s bridal shower thrown by the bridesmaids and since I’m a bridesmaid (highly doubt you would have missed that by now) I had a job to do. I volunteered to do the dessert part of our spread.

Kate (Beth’s sister) had us all pick what we wanted to do so I chose Cake balls and Oreo cookie balls. I’m on Pinterest so I totally thought it would be doable. I am going to give you the recipes and the how to make said cake balls, and even a few pointers of what they do when they completely fail at 10pm the night before the shower and a race you have to wake up at 5 o’clock to get to!

Kate is also blogging today about the other shower snacks! You can find that information over on her blog! You should totally check it out for any future snacking you would like to partake in and/or some other awesome recipes!

Oreo Cake Balls

1 package of oreos
1 8 oz package of cream cheese softened
White melting chocolate (for your sanity DO NOT buy this kind )
You really should probably buy this kind instead (trust me!)

How to:

Crush the Oreos in a blender, or if you are angry at the world you could pound them with a hammer. Just make sure they are as small as you can get it.

Mix in the entire package of cream cheese. It will end up being a ball of cookie mush.

Ball the mixture into the size you would like and then place in the refrigerator. I would recommend freezing them over night because when they are not hard enough they fall through the sticks and it is a holy annoying mess. You could also just never put them on sticks and life might be easier.

So you might guess, the next step is to place them on sticks and dip them in the melting chocolate and you are done.

Hint: Keep refrigerated until you are ready to serve if they are on sticks they won’t stay!

Cakeballs

Cake Mix
Icing
Melting chocolate (again use the candy melts not the other one)

How to:

Bake the cake using the regular directions. Once baked, let cool and crumble the cake into the smallest pieces that you can.

Mix in the icing- the original way I saw this was to use the entire jar of icing, I think this was part of the reason that these bad boys didn’t work, sooooo in the future I will probably use about half so that they are not as moist (eww I hate that word)!

Once mixed, ball the cake and freeze. Once frozen dip in the melted chocolate and you are done!

Hint: too much icing in the mix, not freezing and only refrigerating, and using the wrong chocolate will give you a holy mess that looks much like the picture! While my cake balls failed miserably, I did figure out how to fix them by using the hints above.

If all else fails you could always get your husband on the phone with every Starbucks that will wait for you to get there before they close and ask them for all their cake balls. Then you can buy melting chocolate and cover them in whatever color you need. See! No one would ever know!

I figured I would include some extra pics of the shower just because it was so cute! Beth also has a super crafty Sister in law (She blogs too- Shocking, I know) Tiffany made tons of cute decoration pieces and snacks as well!

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So there you have it! The showering aspect of our weekend! 🙂  Please be advised we are not claiming cake balls are healthy….we are sharing the recipe and parts of our lives right now with you. Ha. Tomorrow we’ll finally let you  know ALLLL about Tour des Fleurs! 🙂

Oh, and additionally it should be noted that Teal’s Oreo cakeballs were WAY BETTER than Starbucks! Sorry Starbucks! We know we are already kind of a traitor to you with our Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf obsession! Only 10 more days until a CBTL opens in Dallas! 🙂  Ok, that’s all from us for real now.

Racing & Showering!

Yes, our weekend included a little bit of both of those things! 🙂  Our race this weekend took us to the Dallas Arboretum where there is currently a Chihuly exhibit, so we got to see a few of his installations there.

Us with our friend Bitner waiting around for the 10K part of Tour des Fleurs to start.

After the race we all rushed back to Beth’s house to get showered and cleaned up for a wedding shower hosted by the Bridesmaids.  Just one of the MANY cute decorations at the shower.

We clean up nice don’t we?? 🙂

How was your weekend? Did you race? Get in a training run? Or just take it easy?

Calling All Tour des Fleurs Racers

There have been  a few of you out there that have mentioned to us that you are running Tour des Fleurs and so are we!

The sad thing about this is the moment we are finished with the 10K we will be booking it out of there to get back to  Beth’s so we can shower and be all purdy for a wedding shower.

Why are we telling you all of this? Well, we would reeeeally like to see people there, so if you happen to get there early we will be at the arboretum at 6:45 a.m. and hanging out by the area where bands normally play.

Look for us in our orange Lululemon skirts again and possibly the same top? We just discussed wearing the same skirt! =)

 

If we happen to not see you before TDF we wish you the best of luck and send you speedy vibes!