What's On My Happy List?

Celebrating!

Boy, did we have a week of it!!!

👏👏👏

Usually on Valentines week
we have enough going on
with just Valentines and Emma's b-day.  

However... two holidays we generally like to recognize, 

Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year, 

happened to fall on the same week as Valentines this year.
😏

You add our Olympic party we just had, 

as well as throwing a bridal shower for my niece... 

It was an over the top week of celebrating! 

Even for me who likes to celebrate
anything and everything. 

😂
Anywho, we had a little Mardi Gras celebration....

Kudos to Harmons,
 as I know I can always find a
Mardi Gras King Cake there.

We went Louisiana Style with our dinner...

 *****
Our Valentines!

We made a Princess Castle for Kate's class Valentine's Party.
We used already made pieces from her
birthday castle
from a couple of years ago.

I got these Princess Valentines
personalized from
Steel City Magnolia Paperie on Etsy.
Totally worth it. For only $6 I could
download and print off as many as I needed.

 We put together a little school supply Valentine for Kate's teacher..
{free print-ables from gluedtomycraftsblog.com}

 Made Nutella heart sandwiches for the
kiddos lunches.

 Cupid gift for Kate!

 I helped at the food table at her class party that afternoon.
They had cherry vanilla ice cream floats with licorice as a straw....

 Made cupid arrows out of pretzel sticks and gummy heart candies...

I put together a Valentine's dessert bar
for the fam!
I found these Valentine-y paper fans at TJ MAXX.
Paper fans are my favorite decorating tool...
you can reuse them over and over again.

We had pizza and salad by candlelight.
Sort of. haha

This new book BAGEL IN LOVE is sooooo adorable.
I'm a collector of children's books and this one is one of my favs.
I had bagels and cupcakes to go along with it.
😉

 Sweet Valentine delivered to Hannah at work from some of her guy friends.

*****

Thursday was my Emma's birthday! 

The big 2-0!

No longer a teenager...

😳

She had had a long day at school...
All she wanted to do was open up gifts and
eat Indian take out while watching one of our favorite India inspired
movies...The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

 We went to Howdy's Homemade Ice Cream Shop in Holladay for her birthday treat.

I had Dr. Pepper Chocolate Chip and
Hot Tamale Ice Cream.
The hot tamale was the bomb.
So so good!

Luv u so much Emmsie!!!

*****

Friday night we celebrated Chinese New Year! 

 Had most of this decor stuff kick'in around from years past.

It's year of the Dog!

 World Market had the cutest Chinese New Year display...

 We had Rice King takeout for dinner!

 My Chinese inspired boots!

The cousins got together that night.
They came back and we hung out at the house and watched the Olympics.
Fun Fun!

*****

Saturday I helped throw a shower for my niece who is getting married next month. 

We did a travel theme....

Traveling from Miss to Mrs. 

{Etsy invite}

Old 1930 vintage suitcases of my neighbors...

the hot air balloon Emmsie made...
😉
She is my party decor sidekick!

We had desserts representing different countries......
Baklava from Greece
Tim Tams from Australia etc.....

 We displayed things we had around the house, like the carved elephant, giraffe,
 dolls, and Eiffel Tower to represent different parts of the world.

I'm a little obsessed with boxes...

This cute upward and onward world map one  

is one of Kyleigh's.

The gift!

A date night idea.

Box was filled with a gift card to the French restaurant Mimi's.
Two of our fav movies filmed in Paris,
bubbly and goblets...

  Shower food is the best, is it not?

I got the paper decor 

{fans, garlands, lanterns}

 at Zurchers...

*****

In other news.....

 Kyleigh attended a Galentine Party with girlfriends...

and had a fun night out for dinner and bowling up in Park City. 

*****

The hubs and I had our monthly dinner group.

Went Korean in honor of the Olympics!

So So yummy!!!!

 I was looking so forward to the Bing Su.
It's a milk snowflake shaved ice dessert.
So flipp'in good. I love it, but sadly it or something I consumed didn't like me. haha

*****

Dear Me Do! Do you have the flu bug
at your house?
We all got flu shots, but Kate still got the cold, cough, fever crud
that's going around.
Poor kid. It kinda lingers.
To pass time I caught her designing a pretend cake with a bag full of shaving creme
instead of frosting.
Too much of Zumbo???? haha

We've binged watched episodes of this Australian Baking Show on Netflix.

It has elements that reminds me a tad bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...
which I can not stand btw.
It gives me the creeps!
Yet I found this Zumbo Just Desserts fascinating.
I would never in a million years spend the kind of time
they do creating these desserts,
but they sure are incredible!

And I would LOVE to taste test them all!
It's a fun watch if you enjoy
baking competition shows.
*****
The celebrating continues this weekend as my older girls are hosting a bachelorette party for cousin Emily.
🙌