Luau Fruit Display

One of my very good friends is getting married this fall and we celebrated her wedding shower today with a Luau!  One of my bridesmaid duties was to create a fruit display for her and I was so excited that she asked me to do it!

She sent me two photos (a palm tree platter and a pineapple tree with monkeys) that she really liked to give me some inspiration and set me loose to create something.  This was by far my favorite fruit adventure yet.  I loved this display more than anything I have done in the past, even more than the Sesame Street fruit and veggie trays that I made in February for our son's birthday party.

This is the entire display which included a pineapple tree with a bride and groom monkey and "coconuts" (kiwi), fruit bowls made from the rinds of a watermelon, two pineapples (one cut vertically, one cut horizontally), and two honeydew melons.  I added whole bunches of bananas, green and purple grapes and strawberries to decorate around the fruit bowls, a palm tree platter, banana dolphins eating grapes and a bowl of fruit salad.

Pineapple tree and monkeys.  The fruit needed to make this exact display is 4 pineapples, 2 mangoes, 2 oranges, 1 lemon, 1 tangerine, 2 grapes, 1 bunch of miniature bananas, and kiwis.  I used wooden bamboo skewers and toothpicks to assemble.  The most important part of this display is your base/dowel rods.  This is a VERY heavy tree and the monkeys add weight as well.  You need a sturdy and heavy base and a sturdy rod (or two).

The pineapple parrots were my favorite part of the display and they couldn't have been easier to make.  The watermelon bowl is filled with chunks of fresh pineapple and some bing cherries.

I also loved how this little bowl looked.  Once I started cutting up fruit for my fruit salad I couldn't stand to just compost all of the "skins" of the fruit.  This gave me inspiration to use them as bowls to hold my fruit.  This pineapple was cut vertically (you need a very sharp knife) and I added a orange peel flower.

Honeydew melon was filled with cherries and you get a glimpse of the banana dolphins in the background.

Close-up of the banana dolphins.

Using fruit is a wonderful way to bring life to your food table, add to your theme decorations and make eating healthy foods even more fun for your guests.

Enjoy!!

Sesame Street Birthday Party

Last year for our son's birthday, we celebrated with an UNO party since he was turning one.  This year, we got into the Sesame street mood as he is now very much in love with all things Sesame street.  He loves the characters, the books, the songs, he got to see Sesame Street Live for his birthday present from my parents and although he has never seen the actual show on television, he doesn't seem to miss out on any of the Sesame Street fun!   Here is a glimpse into our party day decorations and festivities.

Front of his invitation was a photo from our day seeing Sesame Street Live

Back of the invitation was from a shot of him meeting Cookie and Elmo backstage.

Everyone in the family ordered some Big Face Sesame Street Shirts to wear at the party, we had Oscar, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Ernie, a shirt for our younger son with several characters, and then I fashioned together a Big Bird Suit for the birthday boy!

I decided early on what I DID NOT want for the party was to buy pre-made sesame street decorations like napkins, plates, balloons and so forth.  One of my favorite elements to our UNO party last year was using the bright colors from the UNO cards and creating our decorations and serving foods that were red, yellow, green or blue.  So for this party I wanted to bring the characters to life and focus on using the bright colors of Sesame Street.

Each of the six guests tables had a centerpiece and themed snacks.  This was probably one of my favorite two tables (Oscar the Grouch was another favorite and he is pictured below).  I made a Big Bird head using yellow balloons, I cut out his facial features from construction paper and made a nest for him out of a basket that I hot glued some twigs on and then filled with pretzel twists, and whole sunflower seeds.  He sat on top of a bright orange table cloth.  

Here is Oscar the Grouch, who by the time the party planning was over had become my favorite character. I didn't watch Sesame Street as a kid so I am just now discovering how lovely it is!  Oscar was so easy to make, maybe about 30 minutes in all and that included time of thinking what I wanted to use, how I wanted to make him and searching around for supplies!  He cost me under $4 to make and that include the Veggie chips (Green, Brown, Tan) that flowed out from his trash can.  I had a package of gummy worms to include in his trash can but I forgot to pack up them up!

Of course Cookie Monster seemed to be a favorite centerpiece with the kiddos and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the mini cookies spilled out on his table!  

If you haven't been around Sesame Street in recent years you may not recognize this little gal, Abby Cadabby.  She is one of our son's favorites characters and I love her bright colors so I just had to include her as a centerpiece.  She cost about $3 to make not including the Plush Doll.

 Of course, I couldn't forget Elmo!  He ended up looking a tad bit silly but Elmo is a tad bit silly himself ;)  He is made out of shades of red ballons, and sits on top of a homemade "crayon" box filled with goldfish crackers.  His box read "Elmo loves his golsfish" and "his crayons too!"

Ernie is enjoying his bubble bath with his rubber duckies.  How simple is this?  I had planned on making a head centerpiece for Ernie but last minute decided on this instead.  I really love how it turned out!  The organic seas salt popcorn was all gone by the end and I pretty sure all of the peeps were munched up!

I made about a dozen party hats for our little guests.  I had never made party hats before so it took a little while for my brain to figure out how to shape and staple and cut the paper but after I figured it out, it was a cinch.  I will definitely be making hats for future parties, so much cuter than buying them and the ribbon is so much nice on little faces than those elastic pieces!

Here is the Birthday Boy sporting his Big Bird outfit that I fashioned together for him this week.  I also made him an embellished Big Bird Party hat which he barely kept on long enough for the picture ;) 

Hooper's Store was a last minute addition that I made the night before the party to put on the table with the favor bag items.  I LOVED the way it turned out and gave a more authentic feel to our theme.  It had all kinds of goodies for each child to shop for.  Sesame street coloring books, crayons, stickers, granola bars, fresh fruit, and bubbles!

This is a favorite photo of Anakin sitting on his toddler couch with my laptop and phone pretending to be hard at work.  I wanted to include it in the party decorations so I placed it inside Hooper's store with a sign that read:

Every little one had his or her own personalized cloth shopping bag for gathering up their favors in either an Oscar, Zoe, or Abby themed bag.

My favorite favor was y homemade Sesame Street character crayons!  A friend of mine made homemade heart shaped crayons last year for Valentine's Day.  Her's were swirled in color and oh so cute!  I thought about trying that same concept with S.S. lollipop molds and it turned out perfectly!  I found these "Thank You" templates online and used that as a tag for my crayon bag.  We had Elmo, Grover, Oscar, Ernie, Bert and Cookie Monster crayons.  I recycled old crayons and crayon pieces from a big box at my mom and dad's house.  They still had it from back when I was little.  So my total cost was under $8 for both my molds plus the favor bags and I will probably resell the molds at a discounted cost.  These would be awesome favors just by themselves.  Can't top that!

 Some shoppers :)

Other activities included a "Library" of all of Anakin's Sesame Street books.  I loved the way this decorated the room and used items we already had on hand!

We also had a costume/dress up area. with tutus, hats, a homemade Count Von Count cape, a homemade Oscar the Grouch garbage lid hat and "Go Away!" sign, a few Sesame Street clothes from Anakin's closet and two Elmo/Cookie Monsters costumes that my mom had bought for the boys a few months ago.  We also had a bin of musical instrument toys for play.

Elmo (along with four live "Dorothy's") directed the guests to the restroom area.

Food time!  We are always determined to serve our party guests with nutrient rich and healthy fresh foods.  I saw a picture online where someone did a Cookie Monster and Elmo fruit tray which inspired me.  I made something similar and then included a Pineapple Big Bird, a Carrot and Pepper Ernie, a Cucumber/Broccoli/Celery/Mushroom Oscar, and a Black Olive and Purple Cauliflower Count Von Count.

This is a better angle of them that I took at home before I packaged them up to transport.  It is so much fun to use the party food as decorations and a much better idea than serving a sugary and fatty dessert cake.  What a fun Sesame Street Birthday Party Idea to encourage your guests to enjoy their fruits and veggies!!

In the middle of the food table, I framed a black and white photo of the Birthday Boy that I had taken earlier that week while we were outside playing ball.  I put words and phrases on the photo describing all of his favorites: foods, activities, people, book characters and more.  Then I scattered about 20 4x6 prints of the photo around so that guests could take one home with them.  Again, it seems the last minute details tend to be the biggest hits, I got a lot of comments about this and folks liked having a photo to take with them.

The end of the table included some Plant-Based Chili, three dips ("Oscar's Guac....Yuck!" that was served in a large washed out can that I used for tomatoes to make the chili, Homemade Hummus by Snuffleupagus and some sweet salsa) and some blue corn tortilla chips. 

I made a little sign as a play on Bert's famous paper clip collection to display in front of the chip bowl.

I think this was the only Sesame Street item I bought for the party, a GIANT 5 or 6 foot tall banner with the characters standing in front of the famous green doors of Sesame Street.  It also has a Happy Birthday Banner on top.  For about $6 it was worth every last penny.  It was a great back drop for photos and would like really neat on Anakin's wall at home.  You can see him here pointing out and naming the characters for Momma!

Photo time!  Bert and Ernie showed up at our party compliments of Gammy and a surprise to everyone else.  So we got a nice photo of everyone sporting their character shirts.

Another shot of the hubs with his family who all made a special trip in.

By the end of afternoon we had two little boys who partied til they dropped!

 Happy Birthday, my little one!

Trash belongs in the Garbage Can

This concept has taken me the better part of a year to really implement into my philosophy of life.

Striving to become the ultra-frugal, frontier-longing, Godly steward, pioneer woman wannabe that I am, I have used to have a real hang-up/issue/problem with throwing food away.  I just hate to be wasteful.  There is no need for it.  We eat boxed food that is "expired," always ask for a to go box if we can't finish our meal, take home leftovers.  We never would think about never used to throw away food.

So when I really started feeling the tug to take care of myself and our family better, I always thought I needed to wait until we ate the food that we had in our cupboards, refrigerator, pantry and so on.  That in the "spirit of Christianity" we couldn't be rude and had to participate (by eating) in the many doughnut fests and pizza parties we were invited to for "church."  I could never bring myself to throw away food and hated offending people by simply enjoying the fellowship without indulging the junk.

I needed to change my idea about the idea of "food" and the idea of "wastefulness."

In order to do this I had to start thinking about and referring to food as food and trash as trash.  I needed to start thinking less conventionally about being wasteful vs. being a steward.

Examples?

Frozen store-bought chicken tenders are not food.

Boxed Macaroni Cheese is not food.

Bottled Ranch Dressing is not food.

Nutrient depleted processed white pasta is not food.

A whopper, a soda, an order of frozen-deep fried french fries....they are not food!

They are edible.

Some may consider them tasty (myself included).

But they are not food.

They are processed, robbed of all nutrients that once existed in their ingredients, they are chemical and preservative saturated, and they are not food.

Apples are food.

Wheat is food.

Onions are food.

Beans, tree nuts, berries are food.
Raw honey is food. 

This change in understanding (not just that I have the knowledge, but that I actually understand and practice this) will undoubtedly set me on a better path of taking care of myself, our children, our family.

So what are the first list of items if not food?  I'm so glad you asked.

IMHO, they are trash.  Garbage.  What other word can I use to describe something that is no longer useful for anything?  Let's pretend you were to buy a television, and you brought it home, took out the television, the necessary cords, the instruction manual, the remote control, set it up, checked to ensure it worked properly, was satisfied with its recpetion and picture and took the carboard box along with the plastic bags, the Styrofoam inserts and the twist-ties and set it in your garage out of the way.

Later that day your beloved husband is changing the oil in your car (isn't he the sweetest thang?) and while he is carrying his oil pan over to pour into a covered container near his work bench, he trips on a toy that your sweet baby "angel" left out and down he goes, "tripping over the truck that *your son* left out, spilling *your* dirty, nasty oil everywhere, including all over the packaging from the TV that *you* just had to have!"  These are his words, not mine!!

Now....even *if* (and this is a big IF) you bought a television that was packaged with cardboard that can be added to your compost bin, lived near a polystyrene recycling center that would accept the Styrofoam, were planning to save the twist ties and plastic bags (then why did you put them in the garage? ;-p) for future homemade loaves of bread....it is now all soaked with 10W-30.

What would you call the box of material leftovers?  I know what I would call it...garbage!  It was useful and beneficial at one time.  But you have taken out the Television and all the useful items, the good stuff, and what is left over is covered in motor oil which is a toxic and harmful chemical to both animals and plants.  Starting to see a resemblance? 

To keep it simple (because if you really want to know all the details, you can find a wealth of information about the actual process and names by doing a few internet searches and reading reliable documents and articles) this is what happens to our food turned garbage.  

Wheat is food.  Then it is "processed" = all or almost all nutrients are removed, the good stuff, then "additives" are mixed in trying to make it taste better, look better and last longer.  Some food are "enriched" (like that white pasta in your mac n cheese) which simply means "stuff" is put back into it to try to add nutritional value that was lost during the "processing."  Nutrients that, in most cases, existed in the wheat before it was processed.  How silly!

To make it even more simple, something we do in our own homes.....we take potatoes, zucchini or onions (all are HIGHLY nutrient-rich and SUPER beneficial for our health---check out some great ideas about the usefulness of onions here) and we do one or more of the following to them: peel them, bread them, deep fry them and dunk them in ranch dressing.  In the words of Brooks and Dunn, "Only in America."

They started out great foods and ended up complete garbage for our bodies.

So what is the better choice of stewardship?  What is more wasteful?  To put the garbage in my body?  Or to put it in the trash can?