A Simple Sprinkle

Happy Monday!  Are y'all ready for Thanksgiving?! Or are you making last minute preparations and trips to the grocery store like me?!  I'm not hosting Thanksgiving at my house, but I can tell you I'll wait 'til the 9th hour to head to the grocery store and grab everything I need for my dinner contributions and then I'll be saying all sorts of unkind words about the insanity that is the market the day before a holiday.  Whew.  

In other news, this is my current view...

The boys have the week off, my baby niece arrives in the morning, and I'm going to stuff my face FULL on Thursday.  You could say I'm JOLLY as all get out :)

The house is officially decorated and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Since we spend quite a bit of time out of town over the holidays I love to decorate early so we have lots of time to enjoy it all.  Last year at this time I was hosting Christmas Week here on the blog.  I posted some of my favorite Christmas traditions, some Elf on the Shelf Ideas, Christmas decor, and a little Gift Guide.  Since my mind is focused on my new niece (arriving tomorrow morning!!!!) and Thanksgiving festivities, I'm going to hold off on Christmas Week and wait until Monday, 11/30, to start.  Here's how we'll kick off the holiday season...

If y'all are planning on doing some shopping this week, I'll be back with a few gift guides on Wednesday.  I think this is the first year I have lots of gifts already purchased.  The women in my families are all taken care of and Mr. Spouse will tackle all the men.  We haven't started shopping for the boys yet, but that won't take long.  We like to go by this gift rule:  something you want...something you need...something to play with...something to read.  Plus a few stocking stuffers and a traditional Christmas Eve gift from mom and dad.  Our families always do so much for the kids so Santa only delivers a few things.  Nothing crazy!  

In honor of my sister who is currently in her last few hours of pregnancy, I wanted to share with you the shower I helped host for her at the beginning of the month.  The theme was "Sprinkled with Love" because we were really just giving her a "sprinkle" and not a full blown invite everyone kind of baby shower.  She already has one little man so she didn't need anything huge, but since she's having a girl this go-round we did want to sprinkle her with a few girly things she doesn't have already :)

As you can see, the decor was super simple.  Her sprinkle was a week after Halloween and I didn't have time to decorate for Christmas, so I took down all the Halloween, kept all the white pumpkins out, and then strung together the pennants for baby Olivia's banner and hung it from the mantle. 

You can't really tell from the picture, but in the middle of the mantle is a set of 4 candle holders (from the Dollar Tree) filled with sprinkles and a tea light.  Couldn't have been easier!!!

Hobby Lobby carries the wooden pennants by letter.  I think they come in black and white, too.  They're $2 per pennant, but only a dollar if you wait 'til they're marked half off.  #winning

This is the table you see when you walk in the front door and we kept that as simple as possible.  I did a little chalk art and then set out a couple more sprinkle filled candle holders with tea lights.

Speaking of "sprinkle", here's what we did for the statement decor.  I made those very sad looking tissue paper clouds and the raindrops (using a pack of assorted pink cardstock).  I hung the clouds using fishing wire and did the same for the raindrops, too.  I wish I would've gotten a picture of the table completely decked out with food and whatnot, but this is as good as it gets.

I tried to mimic the same feel in the kitchen next to the drink station using balloons (for clouds) and those same raindrops.  I just taped the balloons and strands of raindrops to the curtain rod.  I'm not ashamed to tell you that there's still a rogue strand hanging from the curtain rod 3 weeks later.  #lazy

You might be able to see a chalkboard display in the picture above.  Here's how that looked up close

I just strung a few pieces of jute around the chalkboard and then attached mini clothespins to it.  I found those little kraft envelopes at Hobby Lobby and then cut the white pieces of cardstock to fit.  I set out a little pitcher of pens and labeled all of the envelopes with baby Olivia's name.  The idea behind this display was to have each of the guests write a little love note to Olivia...maybe a favorite scripture, a piece of advice, or whatever they wanted.  Then they put their notes in the kraft envelopes and hung them on the chalkboard using the clothespins.  After everyone had a chance to write a note to Olivia, my sister chose one note off the board, read it aloud, and then that guest got to take home a door prize (a chalkboard with the verse, "every good and perfect gift is from above" and a $5 Starbuck's gift card).  I wanted all the envelopes to have matching handwriting so that it would be fair :)

Speaking of gifts, here's what we gave to our guests....

These darling little test tubes full of "sprinkles" :)  We tried to find bath confetti, but dear Lord...it was an exercise in futility.  I couldn't find any anywhere.  Even Amazon failed me.  Instead we used the chiclets gum for the sprinkles and it was a perfect fit.  And let's be real...there probably wouldn't have been many party guests who would actually put the bath confetti to good use, so I think the gum was a great substitute!

Last but not least, we decorated my little buffet with a "Ready to POP!" bar.   I found the cutest little confetti sprinkled goody bags at Hobby Lobby and set those out so that our guests could fill their bags with whatever they wanted....popcorn with sprinkles, blow pops, ring pops, and bubble gum. 

This was a hit with the kids (are you surprised?! Ha!)

The shower/sprinkle was at 1 in the afternoon, so we served a light lunch and drinks.  Here's how the menu panned out...

DRINKS

Iced Tea

Pretty in Pink Party Punch

LUNCH

Aunt Gina's chicken salad served with crackers and croissants

Ham & Cheese Sliders

Sara's Favorite Pasta Salad

Fruit Salad

Chips and Spinach Dip

DESSERT

Cupcakes with Sprinkles

Donuts with Sprinkles

Sprinkle Cookies

Hard to believe that I'll be holding that sweet little sack of sugar by this time tomorrow!!!!  My heart is full!!!