Cally's Graduation Party

We made it through.  Oh what a busy and fun day it was.  We ended up with beautiful weather, could not have asked for a better day.  It was hot, near 90 degrees but we had a nice little breeze going.

All the cooking and baking went as planned.  Here is the menu that we had:

Pulled pork
Shredded Chicken
Green Beans
Hash brown potato casserole
Pasta Salad
Cheese Ball and Crackers
Chips
Fruit tray with dip
Pickles and Olives
Cookies
Brownies
Little Cheese Cakes
Chocolate covered Strawberries
Cake
Sweet Tea
Pop
Water

It was all really good.  Thanks to my sister, Mom and Mother in Law for keeping all the dishes full for me!  Thanks to my Mom and Mother in Law for putting food in the roasters and bring it up to the party for me!  I kept some of the food to prepare in the roaster on Saturday morning while I gave some to my Mom and Mother in Law to get going in their roasters for me.  I had baked my cakes on Friday and iced them on Saturday morning.  They turned out just as Cally wanted.  She had a high school cake (Northwestern Warriors) a college cake (Shawnee State Bears) and then she had a little cake with fresh flowers and her graduate statue that she received as a gift from her Aunt Evelyn.  Thanks Aunt Evelyn the statue was beautiful on her cake!

I do have a dish to share with you today..... Cally and I made this Pasta Salad.  It was a hit.  It is so easy to make and on a hot day getting this out of the fridge to eat is a real treat!

Here are a few more pictures I have to show you before I leave you to go clean up and put more stuff away.

 Here are the desserts 

(my Mother in Law made the cookies and brownies ..... yummy!)

This is the buffet table (also my Mom and Dad and Niece Marley)

A shout out of thanks to our friends, Todd for supplying us with our buns and The Kaffenbarger family for allowing us to use their sheets to hang up in our garage. Greg for helping us get our chairs and the Ray family for allowing us to use their tent and games!

These are Cally's pictures, awards and accomplishments

Pasta Salad

Pasta of your choice

Red, Yellow and Orange Pepper

Block cheese cubed

Pepperoni

Zesty Italian Salad Dressing

Boil pasta to desired tenderness.  Drain and cool.  Cut up peppers, cheese and pepperoni.  Add all together and pour Italian dressing over top.  After being in the fridge overnight, the dressing may absorb a little into the pasta so I just keep an extra bottle on hand and pour a little bit more on if needed.

I made a big batch for the party and I used 6 boxes of pasta, 6 blocks of cheese, 3 peppers, 4 bottles of dressing, 3 regular size bags of pepperoni.  You can adjust the amounts to the size dish of salad you need.

Congratulations Cally......You did it!

So proud of my baby girl.....Love You Cally Marie <3

Prom Queen 2012

Congratulations Cally !

Cupcakes with Pudding in the middle

This week is getting crazier as it goes on.  Prom is this weekend and we are soooooo busy right now.  We had the final dress fitting on Saturday, Hair appointment is this Saturday and then since she will have her hair all pretty we are going to do more senior pictures in her prom dress.  Later more group pictures before she goes to eat.  And finally we are going to head over to the dance for the crowning of the Prom Queen.  Since Cally has made court we are able to go into the dance and watch........ it is an exciting time around our house right now.  Here is a sneak peek of Cally in her dress at the dress shop on Saturday.  More pictures to come.......

And with all this going on we are trying to get the house ready for the graduation party.  We have grass growing in the area where the pool use to be, the porch has been remodeled and is ready to paint so now we are going to start on the inside painting and putting tile up in the kitchen, moving my home office into the living room and lots and lots of cleaning and washing.  It will be nice though to have all this work done at the beginning of summer so we can relax and enjoy to time we have before the kids both move out.


So needless to say, these cupcakes were fast and easy.  I used a box cake mix, can icing and instant pudding.  Of course you can make your favorite homemade cupcakes and icing and I am sure they would really be delicious.  So here is how I did the cupcakes as I did not have any recipe to give you.

Cally gave me this plunger as a gift.  You insert it down to the first line on the plunger for standard cupcakes.  Twist it and then pull out the center.  Then you just use the plunger handle to push out the cupcake center.

Next just fill the cupcakes with pudding and then put the cupcake center back on the top.

Finally ice the cupcakes and enjoy!

Picture Wednesday

Wanted to share a picture of my Cadet.  We took some more senior pictures tonight