Party like a rock star!

We weren't really rock stars but when 11 p.m. rolls around and there are still good times happening then it was a good night.  In fact, i am so tired from all the prep and getting to bed well after midnight and a little boy that just did not cooperate for sleep last night that I am not sure I should even write this post right now.  I want to get it done though before I forget everything.  So here it is.

Last night I hosted a "favorite things" party at my place.  I want to say that I am a huge nerd.  I got the idea from Pinterest and did a lot of the same things that the post I got it from talked about. 

I made invitations that I thought actually turned out pretty great and I totally stole the look of them off of pinterest and then did my best replication of them in my pathetic word program.  Here they are:

So pretty much how it works is you think of your favorite item that costs less than $6.  You buy 5 of that item and bring it with you to the party.  Once you arrive at the party you write your name on five pieces of paper and toss them in a bowl.  Once everyone has arrived and gotten their name in the bowl then you go around and everyone shares what their favorite item is and then chooses five names from the bwl and those people get to take home that item.  At the end of the night you should go home with five new "favorite things".  It was really great.  Here was my "sign in" station.

 

 

I tried really hard to have everything be matchy matchy...I even had a blue bowl for everyone to put their names in!  Nerd.  Seriously.

I made bags for everyone to put their loot in to take home.  I thought this was really easy and fun.  I bought the bags at Walmart in packages of 5 for $4.  So it was an inexpensive way to add another element to the party. I then did up some tags to add to the front of the bags with the favorite things logo from my invites.

 Once everyone had arrived at the party we all filled our plates and snacked and visited for a bit.  Once everyone was ready we started the reveal of our favorite things.  I started and shared my Burts Bees and Lindt Chocolate bar.  I then picked five names out of the blue bowl and gave my items to those people.  I then picked another name out of the bowl and that person went next in sharing their favorite thing.  It was so interesting to see what everyone brought as their favorites and we had next to no overlap at all.  Awesome night! 

Here is a list of all the favorite things:

Audrey ~ Euro Scrubbie - amazing scrubber to clean your pots and pans and it won't scratch Teflon coating off.  They are so great.  I was sad when I didn't get one.
Brandi ~ Body Lotion - so nice!  And all of the "flavors" (is that what you call them?!?!) were divine!  I scored and picked the vanilla and grapefruit one.
Lois ~ 3 piece tool set - this was brilliant!  A hammer, wrench and needle nose pliers.  And they were all pink.  Pretty sure the husbands won't steal these tools.
Jen ~ dry-erase markers - great for organization and lists for groceries and a million other things!  I gotta get me a wipe board or something so I can use mine!
Joci ~ 5 gum - this is one of my favorite things too.  Joci brought the green flavor and it is the best gum ever.
Tiff ~ CHEATED! lol she had floor tiles at home and she does vinyl lettering too so she made up 5 tiles with a variety of sayings on them and each person she picked got to choose one of the tiles.  So amazing and I was really sad when I didn't get my name drawn for one of those beauties!  Tiff is amazing.
Mandy ~ Mini-muffin tin - so good and necessary to make my new favorite dessert! lol  These were a hit.
Faith ~ Hot Chocolate and candy canes to stir it with.  Such a great idea!
Heather ~ made the cutest mini Nativity sets on wooden blocks so that if you have small children around they can play with them and they are virtually indestructible.
Chelsea ~ Super Magnets, Binder clips and skewers - I never would of thought of the uses for skewers that Chelsea gave and I am going to try them!  She has never cooked with them and only used them to clean...never would of thought!
Kalinda ~ Oreo's - Yummy!!!  Matt was sad when I missed out on this one.
Celeste ~ Aveeno Lotion and Ferrero Rocher - amazing lotion and you can't go wrong with anything hazelnut and chocolate.  

  This is the loot that I scored minus one item.  I got a package of Dry-erase markers, vanilla grapefruit body butter, Hot chocolate with candy canes to stir it with and skewers, magnets and binder clips.  The Burts Bees and Lindt hazelnut chocolate bar are what I gave out as my favorite thing.  I also got some Aveeno lotion and Ferrero Rocher as well but we had a bit of a glitch in the handing out of the items so in the end one of the girls was going to get two of the last persons favorite thing so I gave her a mini muffin tin that I had gotten because I already have a few of those tins.  It all worked out in the end.

As part of the invite I asked everyone to bring either their favorite dessert or appetizer to share as well.  I am so mad at myself because I didn't get a picture of the table with everyone's food items on it.  They were amazing and we had so much great food for the party.  Some of the items were: Shrimp, Salsa layered dip and chips, chocolate caramel brownie bites, fruit pizza, no-bake chocolate cookies, pina colada (sp?) slush, brownies and lemon loaf.

 

These are the chocolate caramel brownie bites that I made for the party.  So delicious!! And addicting.

 

 I also made little tags to put in front of each dish to let everyone know what that item was.  

Again, NERD alert!

 The centerpiece on the food table was my Schleich Nativity set.  I love it.

 

I tried to pull off Christmas decorations as well before the party started and this is the best I could do seeing as I had about an hour before everyone got there to put most of this up.

 

Maitland and I put up the Christmas tree in the afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't even try to pull it over.  I did forgo ornaments on the tree though, just in case.  Just lights, a star and ribbon for us this year.  Oh, and Matt put our Mickey ornament on it from our honeymoon...can't miss that one.

 I even had Matt help me string our lit garland across the window.  Can't open my curtains anymore but that's okay.  It helps keep the heat in and the cold out.

 I also hung up this Nativity wall hanging that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I love it!

 And of course I couldn't have Christmas this year without sharing my favorite quote from my favorite Christmas movie "Elf".  

And last but not least, this is the advent calendar that we made in YW's the past two weeks.  They are each a little envelope and tucked inside are little cards that have all sorts of different activities to do as a family over the holidays to count down to Christmas.  Some items I have in mine are: drive around and look at Christmas lights, write a letter to Santa, take treats to the neighbors, go to the ward Christmas party, have a sleepover in front of the Christmas tree, watch the Muppets Christmas Carol, and read "T'was the Night Before Christmas".  I also stole this idea off of pinterest and just tweaked it for the YW.  It think it turned out pretty cute and you can always update and change out the activites as your kids get older.