Happy "Bird" Day Celebration - Our Evie Bird's Birthday and Mother's Day Celebration.

Happy "Bird" Day Celebration - our Evie Bird's Birthday Celebration.

You may have noticed that we love giving each other nicknames (Evie, Feather, Peggo, etc.).

We also love personalizing every celebration and playing with words. 

When we needed a theme for our little Evie Bird's birthday, it just seemed natural that we would have a bird-day party instead of a birthday party!

As soon as we saw these beautiful plates covered in birds, lace, tea-cups and flowers we knew they would be perfect for her Springtime bird-day party, as well as Mother's Day!

The bird plates and napkins are paper (from Dollar Tree), so we pressed the paper plate between a silver charger plate and a clear glass plate. 

This is our new favorite way to dress up a place setting and create a custom looking party theme. We did this for Feather's birthday party as well. 

We added a grapevine wreath on top to give each place-setting its own little "nest." 

The table was decked out in a pink tablecloth with a white lace overlay and silver candlesticks wrapped in delicate spring blossoms. 

We added a lovely antique bird cage as the centerpiece.

Of course this birthday party would not be complete if we didn't serve all of the birthday girl's favorite treats(no matter how peculiar a collection of food items they may be!). 

We whipped up one of her favorites -- Rice Crispy Treats!

We made a batch of our family recipe for macaroni salad. 

Our family recipe brings me right back to so very many childhood memories. 

We used to have family gatherings so large that we would make the family macaroni salad and potato salad in such large quantities that we made them directly in the crisper drawers of our fridge!

Of course we had a birthday cake for blowing out candles and making birthday wishes. (I didn't get any pictures of the delicious Chocolate Sundae cake before it was cut, because we all gobbled it up before I could snap a single picture! Here is picture of the very last piece)

We also picked up some fresh ripe strawberries, shortcake and whipped cream for making strawberry shortcakes. 

Evie often tells the story of how she would have strawberry shortcake on her birthday when she was a child, and how it was extra special because strawberries were not available year-round like they are now. 

Strawberries were a springtime treat that always made her childhood birthdays extra sweet!















So there you have it --  Evie's 88th Bird-day party full of birds, berries, blossoms and blessings.

Happy Bird-day to you Evie!

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo Celebration!

Hola and Happy Cinco de Mayo!

This is one of my favorite celebrations to decorate! 

I just love all the bright bold festive colors. 

We've been collecting pieces for this celebration all year long! 

We scored a Mexican serape at Savers this winter for only $2.40. 

We folded it and used it as a table runner that gives a bright festive pop of color to the whole table.


We added the plates to our collection last May for Cinco de Mayo after admiring them for quite some time. 

The China pattern is Mambo by Royal Norfolk. We found these at Dollar Tree for a buck a piece. They sell the plates, bowls, mugs and they even have matching glassware and cloth items like tea towels.

We also scored some textured striped bowls at Savers -- all four for $4.00. They say Avon on the bottom, but I cannot find the name of the pattern anywhere -- it seems to be a retired pattern.

The Cactus Margarita Glasses are by Libbey and they are our newest pieces. 

We found ours at Dollar Tree, and they replaced a set of plastic cactus margarita glasses that we have had for many years. 

The plastic glasses were fun, but the new glass ones are so much nicer.











The centerpiece is more of a collection of colorful festive items -- silk Ranunculus in yellow and orange, salsa bowls filled with fresh limes, and a decorative rope of Mexican chili peppers.

















We also used lots of paper lanterns from dollar tree. We had these already for summer parties, and we plan to use them again in an upcoming birthday celebration. 

We LOVE when our decorations work for more than one celebration, it saves money AND storage space!

We finally tried Jarritos Mandarin this year after we found it on sale at Aldi with their Cinco de Mayo specials. 

It's sweet and yummy but way too bubbly for me - I guess I have a sensitive throat, because all carbonated beverages feel like I am drinking acid! 

I guess I'll just stick with water!








Peggo made awesome creamy cheesey filled peppers. 

We used some festive mini sweet peppers in red, yellow and orange, and she stuffed them with leftover Benedictine Spread from our Kentucky Derby Soiree. 

We garnished them with slices of the pepper and some chopped scallions. 

It was not spicy but it was delicious and some hot sauce would be awesome on top to give it some kick!


We don't have any pictures of our Cinco de Mayo dinner, but we'll be adding some soon. We have several Mexican recipes in mind that we are just dying to try, and we'll use any excuse to pull out our fiesta-ware again!

Mini Derby Pies - Kentucky Derby Soiree

Mini Derby Pies

This recipe is a family favorite that we have been making for at least 25 years. 

Our traditional recipe uses Walnuts, but to celebrate Kentucky Derby, we wanted to make mini pecan pies -- so we swapped the walnuts for pecans.

Some folks call these Tassies, others call them Tartlets but today we are calling them Mini Derby Pies because they are part of our Kentucky Derby Soiree!

Read more about that here - where you'll find lots of Kentucky Derby decorating inspiration and some winning recipes for yummy treats like Benedictine Spread and Kentucky Hot Browns!

Here's the Recipe! (sorry, no pictures of the baking process here -- my hands were too buttery to hold the camera)

3 oz Cream Cheese
1 Stick of Butter
1 Cup of Flour

Combine all and mix well.
Shape into balls approximately 1 inch in diameter.
Shape Balls into cups by inserting a finger into the center of each.
Chill 15-20 Minutes

Filling:
3/4 cup of Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 teaspoon Vanilla
3/4 cup chopped Pecans
1 Teaspoon Butter
a pinch of Salt

Mix Together.
Fill each of the muffin cups with filling.
Bake 30 Minutes at 350 degrees
Sprinkle powdered sugar on top.

In my family, we always made these for the big fall and winter holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we always doubled the recipe so we would have enough for the whole house full of guests - I miss those days a lot.

I doubled the recipe this time and was shocked that it yielded a whopping 79 mini pies. 

I believe the original recipe yields 24, so I should have only had 48 -- I may be making them a lot smaller than the recipe says, but that is how we have always done it!


The original recipe says to use a mini muffin tin, but we have always just used the mini muffin cup liners and placed them all on a cookie sheet. 

It would just take way too long cooking them in multiple batches.

I'm not sure if we'll get to the Mint Julep Brownies I had planned to make, so that will have to wait until next year. That brings our very first Kentucky Derby celebration to a close.

We had lots of fun trying new things and look forward to discovering many more reasons to celebrate!

For more Kentucky Derby check out the links below to other Magical Giggles articles packed full of Kentucky Derby decorating inspiration and winning recipes for yummy treats like Benedictine Spread and Kentucky Hot Browns!

Kentucky Derby Decorating Inspiration  
Benedictine Spread Recipe 
Kentucky Hot Browns Recipe
Mini Derby Pie Recipe

Pssst....Hold on to your sombrero -- Cinco de Mayo is next! 

Festive fiesta festivities are in the works!

Benedictine Spread - Kentucky Derby Soiree

Benedictine Spread Recipe

This Kentucky Derby staple was brand new to us, and it definitely received rave reviews from all in attendance at our Kentucky Derby Soiree!

I didn't take any pictures of the process of making the spread or the canapes, but I'll do my best to describe it all!

The ingredients were just the basics:

1 block of Cream Cheese
1/4 cup of Sour Cream
1 whole Cucumber, finely grated
1/4 of a White Onion, finely minced


The key to this recipe was the draining of the excess moisture from the Cucumber and the onion. 

The way we accomplished this was by pressing in a fine mesh colander lined with paper towels. 

It was a lot of pressing and squeezing, because cucumbers hold a tremendous amount of water, but it was well worth it in the end!

Combine the Cream Cheese and the Sour Cream and then add the well drained minced onions and cucumber  -- that's pretty much it! 

We made ours the night before to give it some time for all the flavors to mingle.

The canapes were made by spreading the Benedictine Spread between two slices of soft fresh white bread and then stamping them out with a canape cutter. 

The garnish is thinly sliced cucumber.

In my research I found that many people make this spread with green pepper Tabasco Sauce, which gives it both a little kick of spice as well as it's signature light green coloring. 

We didn't have any of the green Tabasco Sauce, and it just didn't feel right to add green dye, so ours is in it's natural white. 

I slightly regret the lack of green now because it makes it very difficult to see the spread between the slices of white bread (especially in pictures) -- it still tastes fantastic though!

In my research about this Derby Day treat, I found that Benedictine Spread was created in Louisville Kentucky by a fellow Jenny (Jennie Carter Benedict)-- so you know I had to give this recipe a try!

For more Kentucky Derby check out the links below to other Magical Giggles articles packed full of Kentucky Derby decorating inspiration and winning recipes for yummy treats like Benedictine Spread and Kentucky Hot Browns!

Kentucky Derby Decorating Inspiration  
Benedictine Spread Recipe 
Kentucky Hot Browns Recipe
Mini Derby Pie Recipe