Our Little Lady’s Baptism

Our newest addition was baptized a few months ago, and I can’t believe I’m just now pulling all the photos together!

When our boys were baptized, we were back in Ohio and closer to more family and friends. Their parties felt like a bigger deal because they were packed with people. (The only thing I actually remember about David’s party was barely being able to move around the crowds created by our extended families and never knowing who had the baby)

We knew Kate’s party was going to be small, but we still wanted to make it special. We hoped that throwing a little more thought into the decor would accomplish that.

I had a vision of a centerpiece of pure hydrangeas running down the middle of the entire table. Do you know how many flowers that would require?? I thought I could just grab up all the white hydrangeas I could find the week before the party and have enough. What you see in these pictures was all I could find across 3 or 4 stores. I could have gone to more places, but with two or three kids in tow at any give time… No thank you. Getting the kids in and out of the car multiple times a day is enough for me.

DIY Floral Hoop Wreath

DIY isn’t currently my thing, but I’d really like it to be someday. (#goals) I’ve been obsessed with these floral hoop wreaths lately. Believe me, I tried to buy one already made on Etsy, but the size I wanted was ridiculously expensive. I figured that now was as good a time as any to jump into the DIY world.

I bought some hula hoops, spray paint, eucalyptus stems, faux florals, and some floral tape. The link below the picture is the one I referenced for direction. I’m obsessed with her finished product, and mine doesn’t look nearly as good, but I was still really happy with how it turned out!

The only “hiccup” was that I apparently don’t know how to use floral tape. Thankfully, I had a glue gun on hand, and things moved MUCH quicker once I whipped that out. I also couldn’t find eucalyptus stems that looked dainty and delicate like the ones she used. The stems were super thick and wouldn’t bend around the hoop. Oh well…

Another decoration I’ve been eying lately are these letter balloons, and I clearly took advantage of those for this party. They’re so affordable, and they make a big statement. I’m a fan!

The Food

Per usual, I try to keep the food as easy as possible. It was supposed to be a lunch, but last minute, we changed it to be more of a brunch timeline. I couldn’t change the menu, so we stuck with the spinach and artichoke dip, sesame meatballs, fruit, and mini BLT sandwiches.

Ummm these BLT bites are incredible. I feel like I’ve been missing out on these all my life. I blame it on moving to the East Coast. I used to order a version of the BLT almost every chance I got. Now it seems to be all about the crab cakes. I may have just been really hungry, but I ate the rest of these for dinner and enjoyed every second of it.

And we can’t forget dessert! Along the lines of my DIY goals, I’ve always been envious of people who can decorate cookies well. My mom’s cutout cookie recipe is the most amazing cookie I’ve ever tasted… So good, they don’t require fancy decorating. However, I really love the element that decorated cookies add to a party.

I used store-bought icing for this round. I think I’ll have better luck making my own icing, just so I can play around with consistency to get the look I want. These didn’t turn out nearly as smooth as I had envisioned.

My family is very nice and told me that the cookies tasted delicious, but I was not in love with the store-bought icing taste either. Fortunately, I also had an ice cream cake for dessert because the boys don’t typically like my cookies anyway (knife to the heart).

The funniest part of this whole party is that I was terrible at planning the timing of it. The baptism itself was at noon, and we thought that an hour beforehand would be enough time to party. Nobody even got a chance to sit at the table. These sparkly champagne flutes almost went unused (I spilled my mimosa all over the countertop trying to race to cut the ice cream cake) because nobody had time to have a cocktail. Oops! You live and you learn:)

We even had to take our family photo the next day!