Monday, May 7, 2012

Blue Punch and Chicken Salad

I thought I would combine these posts into one since they were both featured at JJ's first birthday party. We'll start with the punch. It was a variation of a baby shower punch which I found at this Web site. We tweaked it a little bit because we didn't want it to look like bath water, but more like a body of water. Our recipe is below.

Blue Punch:

1 2 liter bottle of Sprite
1 64 ounce bottle of white grape juice
1 packet of unsweetened blue Kool-aid (we used the blue raspberry iced tea)
8 scoops of pineapple sherbet

First add the white grape juice and Kool-aid. Then cut a small hole in the Sprite bottle and add that to the mix. Slowly add 8 scoops of sherbet in small amounts so that it won't bubble.














Now the chicken. My family has used this chicken salad recipe for many showers and other events. We love it! As with any chicken salad recipe, you can add other ingredients or take some away, but ours is very basic. We also put them on croissants from Gordon Food Service.

Chicken Salad Sandwiches:

Salad:
Chicken
Celery
Grapes

Dressing:
Mayonnaise
Sugar
Lemon Juice
A little salt and pepper

For about 25 people (not including children) we made 18 cups of the salad and had some left over. For the dressing, we mixed 2 full jars of mayonnaise (one at a time) with the other ingredients until it tasted "right". It's difficult sometimes to figure out what it needs to taste right but you just don't want it to taste like straight mayonnaise.

We put the first full mixture onto the salad before making the next batch. When we put the next batch on we added half first and mixed, and then added a little bit at a time until the whole salad was moist (it didn't take the whole second batch).

Sunday, May 6, 2012

JJ Turns One!

Yesterday we had JJ's first birthday party! It was a great time with wonderful family and a few close friends.

The theme was jungle/safari. We had lots of food which I added themed names to such as "Monkey Mash" and "Cheetah Chips". The punch was blue and we set toy animals around it to make it look like a watering hole. This was all topped off with a great monkey cake!

For decorations we had white and orange striped balloons that represented zebras and tigers. And the valence from his bedroom set, which we've never found use for, worked great as a banner on the fireplace!

Of course, the best part was having such wonderful family and friends around to celebrate with. We had a great time and enjoyed watching JJ experience his first birthday!

Below are a few pictures from the party for you to enjoy. :)









Monkey Mash











Safari Sandwiches












Watering Hole - Blue Punch














Monkey Cake!













While this wasn't at his party, this was JJ's first taste of cake which I just had to share. He really loved it! :)