Construction Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated my favorite 4-year-old's birthday.

I can hardly believe my sweet little boy is 4! He has brought so much joy and laughter to our lives, and it's so bittersweet watching him grow from a baby into a little kid. I'm thankful he still loves to snuggle and yell "I love you mom!" from down the hallway at school. I pray those little moments last as long as possible!

Riker actually turns 4 on Saturday, but we'll be in Philly for the weekend - and I'll be going out on the town Saturday night to the Philly Pops / Andrea Bocelli concert with my sister, mom and Grandma (a gift from my sister on her wedding day, which I am SO excited about). We're going to take Riker to the Philly Zoo on his birthday since we'll be in that area, but since I won't be with him the whole night, I wanted to throw him a festive celebration the weekend before. We kept it small, just family, but I still wanted him to feel like it was a birthday party and not just a dinner; I let him pick the theme, and he went with construction. He loves all things dump trucks and bulldozers.

I got a lot of ideas from Pinterest of course, but came up with a few of my own as well.

The place cards were paint sticks that I nabbed from Home Depot. I bought a few small paint trays to use as dip holders while I was there, and honestly we buy so much stuff at Home Depot, so I didn't feel bad taking 12 of them. ;)

I found this little traffic cone at Party Fair, which actually had a sticker on it that said something about turning 30. I pulled the sticker off, and stuck a balloon weight underneath it so it could serve as a construction balloon holder.

The "lumber" were pretzel rods - and I was excited to find organic, whole wheat pretzels in my grocery store, finally!

Those little silver buckets came in handy yet again. Such a great buy - I can always find a use for them.

For dinner, Riker chose his favorite foods: homemade mac & cheese, chicken tenders (Matt made those) and roasted broccoli. It's the exact same meal he chose last year. The kid knows what he likes.

Riker also picked his cake design. Thankfully he picked one off Pinterest that I could actually pull off, since I'm not much of a cake designer. The one on Pinterest was absolutely huge, so I had to improvise using a smaller cake, but he loved it. He was so excited about the edible "dirt" on his cake.

Happy birthday my sweet boy. We love you!

Party Season (and a recipe for Jalapeno Corn Dip)

I know in my last post I had talked about getting into a routine and being able to blog more frequently, but the more I settle into parenthood of two, the more I realize that a routine just isn't in the cards right now. When Carson's napping, Riker wants to be played with, and when Riker's napping, Carson needs tending to, and there is a constant rotation of laundry, dishes, food-making, clean-ups, diaper changes, breathing treatments (Riker's asthma is back and requires 3 treatments a day), dog walking, and of course...our daytime jobs. Having these two amazing little people in my life is better than anything I ever could've imagined, and I grow more in love with them each day. But it is definitely busy!

Aside from all the busyness of regular day-to-day life, Fall was the beginning of a party season around here, and with Christmas right around the corner the celebrations continue! Baby showers, birthday parties and a big family Thanksgiving all were to be had over the last few months, but we've hosted our own handful of events as well.

In October Carson was baptized, so we held a small family brunch at our house after the ceremony. We hosted Riker's baptism lunch at a restaurant, but this time I wanted to do something more intimate, and I had a lot of fun planning it and cooking brunch favs like baked French toast, quiche and Everything Bagel Dip (tastes just like a bagel & cream cheese!), and building a DIY Bellini Bar.

Fun Fact #1: JWow's baby was baptized alongside Carson. And Snookie was the Godmother. Is this real life? 

Fun Fact #2: Carson wore the same christening dress that MomMom wore when she was baptized over 90 years ago. Matt's mom and aunt wore the same dress as well, over 50 years ago. The dress was handled with such love and care all these years, and I love the tradition that our baby girl was able to wear it as well.

And then there was brunch...

In mid-November Matt and I threw a "Fall Party" for about 40 of our friends, sans kids. Cocktails, pumpkin beers and plenty of appetizers were to be had, and with the late night dance party that ensued in our living room, you'd think we were all back in college again. So fun!

I spent days (weeks) scouring Pinterest for the best fall appetizers and drinks (hello apple pie shots!), and we ended up with quite a spread.

Highlights included an Ina Garten style cheese board...

Cranberry Brie Bites

Pear, Blue Cheese & Walnut Strudels

Pumpkin Pecan Baked Brie (made by my sister)

French Onion Soup Crostini

Pumpkin "Fluff" Dip (I adapted this recipe from 100 Days of Real Food by adding double cream cheese, maple syrup and spices, and folding it together with a batch of homemade whipped cream - it was super fluffy!)

Pesto Pull-Apart Bread (I also made a Rosemary Parmesan Pull-Apart Bread with some rosemary olive oil I had, and it was just as a big of a hit as the pesto one. Just depends on your herb preference)

There were a few other snacks around as well, but I would say the absolute biggest winner of the night was a very unassuming dish of baked cheesy Jalapeno Corn Dip. This stuff got devoured so fast and I've had multiple requests for the recipe. There are tons of versions out on Pinterest and elsewhere and really they're all good (my friend Cathleen started this dip trend at a BBQ over the summer, and my friend Heather makes a great version in the crock pot), but I think this is one of the best ones I've tried. I had some leftover gruyere cheese from the French onion soup crostini, so I spread that all over the top of it before baking. The gruyere sends it over the top!

It doesn't look like much, but it's creamy, cheesy, a bit sweet, a tad spicy, and overall one of the best spoonfuls of anything you will ever put on a tortilla chip. Recipe below!

The party season continued this weekend with Riker's 3rd birthday party (3rd!). I cannot believe my sweet little boy is three years old already. The time has flown. Rather than doing a big party this year, we had a small family dinner & cake at home.

I let Riker pick his birthday dinner, and he picked all his favorites:

- Cheese & crackers (He picked two special cheeses from a gourmet cheese shop at a Christmas Village we took him to last weekend)
- Carrots & hummus
- Baked chicken
- Steamed broccoli
- Homemade mac & cheese (do you think I grated enough cheese for 12 people?!)

And birthday cake of course!

The day after his birthday we took him to Storybookland for their Christmas light show and rides. He's actually big enough now to ride roller coasters and all. I'm in shock. Love this little man and all the joy and laughter he has brought our house!

The next few weeks will be filled with Christmas festivities and then a family ski & waterpark trip to the Poconos, all of which I'm really looking forward to. I hope your holiday season has been wonderful so far as well!

P.S. I don't get to blog as often as I'd like these days, but if you're on Instagram, I post lots of kitchen happenings and updates there. I'm at @MLBaratta if you want to check it out. :)

And now for that recipe...

Jalapeno Corn Dip

Ingredients
8 oz. package cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
8 oz. block of Monterey Jack, freshly grated2 jalapeños, seeded and choppedSalt and pepper (about a teaspoon each)

1 can corn, drained and dried on paper towels
1 cup gruyere cheese, freshly grated 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients except gruyere cheese in a large mixing bowl. Spread into a 2 quart baking dish and top with gruyere cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, until bubbling and slightly browned. Serve hot with tortilla chips (I like Garden of Eatin blue corn chips) or crostini.