rushley & crew

I love to throw parties, but I don't get the chance (or have the budget!) often enough! However, when one of my good friends, Katie Allan, was having her second baby (but the opposite gender of her first baby), I jumped at the chance to throw her a little baby sprinkle :) And it turned out pretty great, if I do say so, myself :D I browsed Pinterest for ideas, and re-created this invitation. I was initially thinking I'd create a photo backdrop, which is why I hung the gold sheet, but then we didn't end up using it that way, so I probably would have liked the whole set-up better if I had just let the natural window light come through here, but oh well :) For refreshments, we had an ice cream bar along with a sprinkle-covered cake. The sprinkle-covered cake taught me to never work with sprinkles ever again 😂 They just bounce and fly EVERYWHERE! haha The cute mama! :) For activities/games, I just planned one game, and it was a total hit! I had guests se...

For Ada's birthday this year, I wanted to keep things suuuuuper low-key. It was so easy to go overboard last year , that I wanted to avoid that :) So we just invited a few of Ada's friends to meet us at a nearby park to play and eat cake, and that's exactly what we did! We were kinda sad not too many people could make it, since we invited like 10 families, but we were happy to have those who did make it :) Ada mostly just wanted to swing the whole time -- didn't care much about the cake (a school bus because she loves to sing "wheels on the bus") or her friends. Definitely wasn't too interested in photos! 😂 On her actual birthday (the next day), we had a family dinner with my family, so she got to open some presents and see her cousins. We're so grateful for our sweet little 2-year-old! :)

Well folks, I think I settled on an annual party I'd like to throw -- Pie Night! I first heard of pie night shortly after I entered Russ's family, because one of his aunts does this every year (for her immediate family I think, but that's how I heard about it). In case you're unfamiliar with it, the idea is that on Thanksgiving Day, you get too full from all the other good food, that by the time it's time to eat pie, you can't fully enjoy it. Thus, you have a "pie night" some other time, where you can thoroughly enjoy all the pie. Pie Night is a great party to throw because it's relatively easy and cheap! Decor is already taken care of because Thanksgiving decor counts; all I had to do food-wise is make (or buy!) one pie, and then I provided milk, cool whip, and reddiwhip; and my only costs were basically paper products, printing costs (for invitations, printable, and food tent labels), and I really splurged with the three dollar store p...

treats for harry potter and the sorcerer's stone -- jelly beans, chocolate frogs, and licorice wands Russ and I aren't scary movie lovers (we really don't watch them at all), so the only movie we always watch at Halloween time is Hocus Pocus. But in trying to come up with something festive to do in October, I decided we should have a Harry Potter marathon over the whole month. I can't believe I had never thought of it before, but Harry Potter movies are perfect for Halloween! They have witches and wizards, odd creatures, and sometimes even Halloween celebrations. Plus there were 8 weekend nights in October and 8 movies, so it was perfect! (Though we ended up only using 7 of the weekend nights so that we could attend our friends' murder mystery party ) treats and decor for harry potter and the chamber of secrets Rather than only invite specific people, I decided to open up the invitation to literally everyone. I posted it on my neighborhood Facebook pa...

A murder mystery been on my "party list" for ages, but I've never gotten around to throwing one (probably because there are too many other ideas on my party list haha). So even though we were planning to do Harry Potter movie parties every Friday and Saturday in October, when my friend asked if we'd be available for a murder mystery, I told her I would rearrange my schedule to be there! Haha :) When the actual invitation came, I was super impressed because it was so themed and legit! Diana went above and beyond -- the kit they bought (from  Night of Mystery ) came with invitations, but she had someone design different ones that were so awesome. Girl knows how to get the party started right from the get-go! I had heard about and seen other murder mysteries before, and the main thing I always heard about was people dressing up. It was so fun to arrive at Diana and Michael's and find that everyone had really gone all out with their costumes! Wigs,...