Author Archive

We did it again! Collaborated, that is!! Miss Courtney Jade and I joined forces (only for good, I promise) to create an adorable House Warming Party, appropriately title, “Welcome to our little nest.” Courtney and her boyfriend, Mark recently moved into a new home with their furry “baby” Quincy and I was so excited to be a part of their special day! On your moving by hiring a removalist you can get a level of service that ensures a happy and successful transfer.

Courtney came up with the theme which I thought was perfect. Our color inspiration came from the Arbor Mist Brunch featured on Hostess Blog which was styled by my hero, Jenn! This was a fun, bright color palette to work with!

Courtney wanted to keep the menu pretty simple. We mixed both sweet and savory foods that complimented the color palette. Normally, I only do a dessert buffet because I love sweets, but by adding in the savory foods we had a few more options. I finally got to use my tall shot glasses that I was obsessed over. We added hummus to the bottom of them and placed brightly colors green and yellow pepper slices in them! Courtney was super creative and made heart shaped lemon bars and heart shaped cheese crisps.

We also set up a drink station which wouldn’t have been complete without stripy straws. I just love stripy straws!! Thanks to Jesse from Shop Sweet Lulu for carrying amazingly pretty party supplies. I also added yellow sanding sugar to the glass rims (see, I told you I love sweet things), Any excuse to add sugar, right? Though all the drinks were non-alcoholic, I thought the sugar rim was a fun touch, but mostly because it looks pretty.

Here are some more pictures for you to enjoy!

I had to include this cute one of Emerson. Of course he was hanging out by his Mama at the food table!! That boy loves to eat!

I just went to Happy Hour with Courtney last night and she said people are still complimenting her on the House Warming Party!!! Comments like that make me feel so happy!!! What do you think of the party we put together? We have many more projects up our sleeves. Watch for them soon. . .

****** VENDOR LIST:

Styling, Designs, & Cupcakes: Modern Moments Designs Photography: Courtney Jade Photography Table Cloth: table vogue Moss Table Runner & Birds Nests: Save on Crafts Stripy Straws: Shop Sweet LuLu Napkins, Serving Tray, White Photo Frames, Fabric backdrop, & Polka Dot Cups: IKEA Cupcake Toppers: Two Sugar Babies Macarons: Jade Teahouse Banana Chips, Laffy Taffy, & Waffle Butter Cookies: Trader Joes

The word of today is “official.” Just in case you missed it, I am “officially” an author for Hostess {with the Mostess} Blog. Actually, I have been for a little while, but Jenn, the Founder & Editor-in-chief, has been super busy working on an exciting new project and just put up “official” author bio pages. I’m in good company too. Courtney Dial, stylist and editor behind Pizzazzerie and Jessica Kirkland (nice name girl), designer of Pen N’ Paperflowers Studio & Design are fellow authors.

There are some amazing opportunities and projects in the works. I can’t wait to show you the “fruits” of Jenn’s hard labor. It’s going to blow you away! It’s been killing me not to tell you about her “top secret” project. I have a really big mouth and am having problems not blurting out all the amazing details, so stay tuned!! I’ll keep biting my tongue for a little bit longer!

If you have time, go check out my bio page and the incredible parties that I have been fortunate enough to write about. Ooh!! I feel so official now to have my photo (and my handsome boys too) on Hostess Blog. Keep your eyes out for more exciting news really soon (I promise you are going to love it)!!! Thank you all for your continued support! You have no idea how much all of your kind comments mean to me!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!

xoxo,

Jessica (official Hostess Blog Author)

Now that I’ve been 30 for 20 days now, I think it’s time for me to recap my birthday! Before I get into all the details, I want to thank my amazing husband for planning an amazing weekend! My birthday was so special! He did an incredible job planning everything. Thank you Lincoln for loving me, being my best friend, and an amazing party planner (who knew, right?)!!!

Okay, now where was I? Oh right, my big 3-0 weekend extravaganza!!!! Lincoln came home early from work on Friday (3/18, two days before my birthday) and presented me with the most amazing cake ever!!! It was another beautiful creation from my aunt Honey (you might remember the guitar cake she created for Jackson’s Rock Star Birthday Party), inspired by this cake by CakeJournal! Pretty Amazing, right? It was a banana cake (my favorite) and tasted like a little piece of heaven. I know that I probably gained some lbs after eating a good portion of this on my own! I have no regrets!

The above photo is the cake created by Cake Journal (photo courtesy of Cake Journal). Now, look at my cake below. They look pretty similar, right? I love this cake so much!!

Lincoln also gave me one of my birthday presents. He was so cute. All week he kept trying to give me my presents. He was so excited and totally adorable. A few weeks prior I was blogging or something and he said, “It would be cool if you could turn your blog into a book.” I agreed with him. That would be cool, right? Well, that’s exactly what my husband did. He did a ton of research and ended up finding a company called SharedBook. They take blogs and makes them into books among other things. Yahooo!!!! This was by far, one of my most favorite gifts! It was so thoughtful, personal, and something that is near and dear to my heart. Here are some shots of my book. My blog as a book, so much fun!

I included a few pages on my DIY Mini Cupcake Stand Tutorial. I choose those pages because that is one of my posts that is re-posted over and over. It makes me happy when people repost my blog posts! That’s one of the best compliments!

We went to dinner that night at PF Changs (one of my favorite restaurants) with many of my closest friends. If you didn’t get invited, it was Lincoln’s fault. He did his best to remember everyone, but keep in mind, he is new at this party planning thing! We ate, we drank, I played match maker (you know who you are) and we had a wonderful time. I drank a few “Poolsides” too, which is one of my favorite drinks. We ate some of my enormous cake and Laura made these adorable place settings. I couldn’t get enough of them. I saved every single flower too! Watch for these to appear in an upcoming party of mine! Well, that was a great birthday, right? Oh no, it wasn’t over yet!!! There was much, much more to come!!!! It was like the party that never ended!

Saturday (1 day before the big 3-0) was a normal day. We woke up. I took Skyler to baseball practice. We dropped the older boys off at my amazingly talented brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s house for my nephew’s birthday party! My adorable nephew, Finn was turning 4 and having a super-heros party. Skyler and Jackson even got to have a sleepover. They were super excited. We dropped Emerson off at Lincoln’s Mom’s house and we were kid free. This was the first time that I had ever been away from Emerson overnight (remember this because this will haunt me. Did I mention that I am still nursing him?). Before we even left Lincoln’s Mom’s drive way he said, “I already miss my dudes.” He’s super cute!!!

So, no kids whatever should we do with ourselves? Check into a beautiful, trendy hotel, yes please! Lincoln had planned a night away at the Nines which is a beautiful hotel in downtown Portland. I’m always talking about wanting to go on vacation or have a good nights sleep. All that nagging really paid off! If you’ve never been to the Nines, you really must stay there! I can’t say enough wonderful thing about it! When I walked into our room, I almost died. I couldn’t have done a better job decorating it myself! Okay, so I would pick different bedside lamps and make a few other changes, but overall it was my dream bedroom! I am going to try and recreate it. So, if anyone knows where I can find this incredible hanging light and the beautiful fabric on these arm chairs, I would be very grateful!

What do you think? Isn’t the room amazing? The hotel is beautifully decorated. I’d love to just move in permanently! Wouldn’t that be fun? In my dreams, maybe! Ahaha! Okay, snap back to reality. I guess I wasn’t totally dreaming, we were kid FREE. We really didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We almost always have the kids with us except for the occasional date night out. We sort of had to ease into the kid-less mentality, but it didn’t take too long for us to get back into the swing of things. We packed as many things into our “stay-cation” as we could. We went to happy-hour at Departure, an almost Jetsons like restaurant and lounge located on the 15th floor of the Nines, shopping at Pioneer Place, and then we came back to get ready for our night out on the down. We decided to go to dinner at a local bar, Thirsty Lion. Lincoln and I love pub food and we enjoy going to new places (plus, a ton of our friends go there). Lincoln really wanted to go listen to live music and to our surprise The Bradley Band was playing! They are a cover band that played a ton of awesome music like Sublime! Linc and I use to listen to Sublime when we were dating in high school. After dinner and a few too many drinks, we made our way to the dance floor and danced for what seemed like hours. To be honest, I have no idea how long we danced.

At some point we stumbled back to our hotel room and called it a night. We had every intention to go to late night happy hour at Urban Farmer, which was also located in the same building as our hotel. In fact, our room looked down upon the restaurant. Even though we didn’t make it there. Here are a few shots from our room. Someday we’ll make it back there!

The next morning, late morning, we woke up in our luxurious bed! Finally, it was my 30th birthday! I was hung over, still in some of my cloths from the night before, and oh yeah, in a ton of pain! You remember the part about me still nursing? Well, that was the most uncomfortable feeling of my entire life. WARNING!! This is going to be some major TMI (too much information) so if you can’t handle it, skip down to the next paragraph! Last chance! I woke up with rock hard boobs. I mean, I don’t think I’ve felt pain like that since my milk came in with Skyler almost 6 years ago! What should I do? I had no idea how to fix this problem, short of hooking up a make shift pump and turing it to overdrive! I really had contemplated bringing my pump, but had already packed away all of the key components in storage! Honestly, I didn’t think I would be in so much pain! So, I did what any desperate Mom would do! I self-expressed as much milk as I could to relieve the pressure! I literally, by hand (pun intended!) pumped off a huge glass of milk. After I recovered from severe pain, we showered, got ready, and said good-bye to our incredible hotel room!! I missed it the moment I shut the door!

Notice something unusual about my milk? The color perhaps? Well, it was “teal” from the Poolsides a few nights before. YIKES! The dye in those drinks can’t be good for you, but they do taste yummy!

Still recovering from the night before, after all, I am 30 now and I just can’t bounce back like I could in my younger days, we went and got coffee at Starbucks. Okay, so I don’t even like coffee. I always get Caramel Sauce Hot Chocolate, but Linc loves coffee! After that, we stopped by William-Sonoma and I bought my cupcake core (which I have already used several times, I might add) and then headed to breakfast.

We were meeting my Mom, Dad, sister’s, Jamie and Kellie, my grandma, and my babies for breakfast. The talented Miss Courtney Jade had told us about this really cool pancake house in Southeast Portland called Slappy Cakes. I knew we had to check it out! It is a full service breakfast restaurant where you can make your pancakes right at your table! It was so good and really fun! I can’t wait to go back there. They had this “house” syrup that was a Strawberry vinegar based syrup. Sounds gross, right? Actually, it was so yummy! I’m hoping they’ll share their recipe with me!

I told you we had a full weekend extravaganza!!! I know it was killing Lincoln, but we went back to my Mom’s house and FINALLY opened all of my birthday presents. To be honest, at my age there’s nothing I really need. Just getting together with friends and family was enough of a treat! With that being said, I did get some amazing gifts. I got several gift cards so I can take myself on a shopping spree (I always enjoy buying new cloths and not having to pay for them out of my own pocket makes it even better), some cupcake earrings, a ton of awesome cookbooks (and one that I already had which you will benefit from), some incredible Rosanna pieces, bottles of wine, and a bunch of other thoughtful gifts! It seriously was the best birthday that I could have ever asked for! I am the luckiest girl in the world to have such wonderful friends and family! I could not have asked for a better weekend! Now, I just can’t wait to do it again (everything except the whole engorgement thing) next year! I’ll leave you with one of my beautifully wrapped presents in cupcake paper, no less!!!

This Sunday, I will be the ripe old age of 30. Yes, I said it. I am turning the big 3-0! I will do a full recap of my birthday weekend. My incredible husband has a full weekend planned (isn’t he cute?). I feel bad because he feels like he has to live up to his Surprise 30th Birthday Party that I planned. Oh silly man, anything you do for me will be perfect because I love you!

Lincoln has already kicked off our weekend festivities with this AMAZINGLY PERFECT cake, courtesy of my Aunt Honey! I am so in LOVE with this cake. I can’t wait to tell you about all the other fun things we are doing. You’ll have to wait until Monday though, I am officially taking the weekend OFF!! I’ll miss all of you!

xoxox,

Jessica