Super Easy Cheesy Homemade Mac & Cheese..from scratch!


1 box pasta (you can use any, here I used whatever I had leftover: half elbow + half rotini)
2 tbsp butter (salted is what I use)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dry parsley
3 tsp all purpose flour
1 cup whole milk
2 cups cheese (any kind, I like cheddar/parmesan/mozzarella/whatever's on sale at Publix that week)


Boil pasta as per box instructions
in a separate saucepan on medium heat melt butter until completely dissolved. Add in flour one tsp at a time and continue to whisk. Once you see the flour has completely blended into the butter and has small bubbles coming up lower the heat and add in milk. Continue to stir slowly. Once the mixture thickens into a sauce consistency turn off the heat and add in cheese. Keep stirring. Sauce will thicken further as cheese melts into it. Add in all the spices to the sauce until they're completely dissolved. Put boiled pasta into a baking dish and pour cheese sauce over it, mix together well.
Optional: Top with breadcrumbs and bake for 10 mins on 400F.
More options: add in items like chopped onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, grilled chicken or cooked ground beef to make this a more hearty meal.

Sahar's Flower Garden First Birthday Party

Can't believe my little sugarplum turned 1! 

The party was in March and I'm JUST getting a chance to post about it. Better late than never right? Since she's a spring baby I wanted to incorporate that into the theme, in addition to finally being able to throw a girly party after having two boys! I felt what better way to be feminine while celebrating spring than a beautiful flower garden theme! 

I started the preps for this in January, because I knew my elaborate ideas would take a lot of time.  As usual, I tried to incorporate as much DIY as I could; with a homemade banner, cupcake toppers and multiple trips to Michael's. I also made all the backdrop paper flowers myself and if anyone is interested in tutorials, Youtube is the place to go! Send me a message and I can recommend the ones I found most useful.

I used my best planner friend, Pinterest, for cake table inspiration and I'm very happy with the result. I kept going back and forth if I should do all the work myself or hire a party planner. In the end I did use Bella Events who is located here in Tampa, Fl to set up all the decor for me. With a full time job and three kids I knew that I just wanted to hand that responsibility off to someone else. It was really wonderful having a Day of Coordinator to help everything run smoothly and I would definitely recommend it. Nearly all the decor  and desserts on the table were my own and the ideas for favor bags with a religious scripture for the magnet was mine as well. But having her execute it for me made a huge difference for my own peace of mind at the day of the party, when I had so much else to do. An added bonus is that she was wonderful to work with, which made it such an easy decision! The cake was done by a local baker Sonia from Sweeties Delights at a very reasonable price, it was true to the design I gave her and tasted delicious as well. 

We had a super cute flower fairy making station for the kids, but sadly I got no pictures of it! If you search Pinterest for fairy making you can find tons of great free printables. As you look through the pictures below I tried to include as many links as possible to where I got all the party decor. Hope this helps with your own party planning, for anything I missed feel free to reach out! 

Snapchat Filter via Etsy

FREE FLORAL ALPHABET BUNTING

Goodie bags and tablecover via Dollar Tree, Islamic Sign from Salaam Shop

Custom Magnets

First Birthday Poster ordered via Etsy, Flower photobooth frame made by me

macarons from Costco!

Cupcake toppers found here

Ikea lanterns and DIY vases

Customizable Snapchat filter, Free printable sign here

snapchat filter via Etsy

 

Tip: Have your balloon artist premake a bunch of balloons for kids to choose from to save time during the party, mine had to run to another event and was kind enough to bring about 20-25 along with her. I told her to choose the most popular shapes kids love and it worked!

Adam looking as legit as Mario can get

The following images were found from Google search and are not my own. I used them as part of table decor, favor tags and for sending out our Save the Date message. 

 

Full image here

The below coloring pages were found via Google Search and are not my own property.

Full image here

Ali's 5th Superhero Birthday Party!

How adorable does my little guy look!

Print POP/BAM signs here and Super Hero banner letters here all for freeee!

Here's the kid's tablescape, a shot of our photo booth backdrop (bought from Target) and a view of the dessert/party favor table. I got mostly all my decor items from the Dollar store, Walmart, and Target. 

Table sign and Super hero cupcake toppers found here and here for free!

Just an AWESOME day at the park, light breeze no humidity. Tampa winter weather FTW!

 

 What more can a kid want than a party in the park with his buddies, some facepainting and balloons?

 

Photo Booth Fun: All the masks were printed from here and here, just need a colored printer! To make them fancier/sturdy I glued them onto poster paper and taped them to wooden dowels found at Michael's/Walmart. 

And then...THE BEST THING EVER happened!! SPIDER-MAN HIMSELF SHOWED UP!!!

Spiderman (and a few imposters) with his posse!

The boys loveddd this. Spiderman did 30 minutes of stunts/backflips and posing with everyone. The kids got to ask him all sorts of crazy questions like how do you eat if you have no mouth lol it was great.

Now a closer look at the food/dessert table:

 

Menu

Snacks: Thors Hammers with cheese, Spidey Dip with chips, Avengers Cheez Its, PopBAMcorn,  Entrees: Chicken/Egg Salad Sandwiches, Pizza, Baked Ziti

Dessert: Cupcakes, Brownies and Cake. 

Simple yet perfect for a fun birthday party. 

I really loved how the cake turned out. The girl who did the cake was amazing, it tasted so good the fondant wasn't super hard and the cookies and cream filling was delicious. Success. 

Food labels from here and water bottle labels from here again all for free!!

check out that glowing smile, my little guy soaking in all the singing just for him!

Because I didn't have the heart to throw out the banner/signage I worked so hard to print/cut/paste, I decided to reuse it as... Door Decor!

Behind the scenes: 

Favor bag designs printed from here

Also, inside each favor bag I had Ali draw a picture (of course he draws Sully and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc instead of superheros!) and write thank you to all his friends using this template  then we filled it with the usual superhero party favor items you can find at Walmart/Target.

Another Win: Post Halloween, these Avengers/Spiderman kits were on sale at Target for 75% off, I knew they'd come in handy. Kids thoroughly loved the glow sticks! 

Since Ali is blessed with an accountant mama I had a budget for everything before I started working on it. I knew we didn't want to spend a ton, but I did want to make it super fun. Here's how the finances all panned out:

Facepaint/Balloon/Spiderman			$275
Superhero Cake			50
Park Shelter Fees			50
Party Favors			50
Food			150
Paper Products/Table covers			50
Total Cost			$625

The main things were the entertainment, cake, and venue. To me it was worth seeing Ali's excitement to pay for Spider-man and the cake was something he was really looking forward to so I got very lucky to find a girl who made the fondant cake for so cheap! The park location (Ballast Point Park in South Tampa) was also important to us, this park had a kids splash area (ended up being a little to chilly for water play but on a sunny day this is ideal in Florida), a really big non messy playground (no mulch!), big covered shelters (it randomly rains in Tampa a lot) and this beautiful pier/dock area where lots of families went post party to take pictures. It can get very crowded on a nice day, so I'm glad we booked the shelter ahead of time. 

I purposely kept the menu very simple/affordable, because being so pregnant I didn't have a ton of energy to cook up a storm plus I knew with being outdoors it had to be easy finger foods that didn't require a lot of effort to prep or eat. I think overall everyone enjoyed the food. I did bake the cupcakes and brownies myself along with the sandwiches and pasta. Ali's talented dad made the Spidey dip. We had plenty of food to feed 40 adults and 35 kids. I also used a lot of paper products leftover from previous parties. I'm probably over estimating in my cost of that. I only did the themed matching items for the kids table.

Printing out the decorations really saved us a TON of money and made everything look way fancier; it was a relief not to pay the prices some people were charging on Etsy for these same items! The boys superhero costumes were old Halloween costumes, I got the Superman bow tie from H&M on sale a long time ago and held onto it for this event. The reversible Batman/Superman cape I wore was a gift my mom gave Ali years ago. I also decorated the cake table with Super hero figures Ali had been gifted in the past (you can find them all at Target/Walmart though). I got mine and hubby's shirts from Walmart, $7.99 each I think? So yeah it was very easy to stay within budget for me and thankfully everything turned out great. Kids had a blast, what more can you ask?