Thirty, Flirty and Fun!

Not me - I'm not 30 yet. But my sister is now! And last weekend, she threw a party to celebrate that fact. And since everyone in their thirties is sophisticated and very grown up, she threw a very sophisticated and grown up party, henceforth referred to as The Fancy Party.

There are a few things you need for a fancy party. These include bling - from head to toe:

(Tiara provided by Josh)

You will also need a Fancy House:

These can be found available for rent on Galveston Island.

And apparently you need LOTS of cheese!

Now tell me what party that starts out like that could possibly fail?

But a fancy party is more than just looking good and serving cheese. A LOT of work went into throwing this party. Brandi has been planning and shopping and getting ready for what seems like months. And when we arrived on Friday evening, Momma and Brandi were arleady at work. Pretty much what I did on Friday was bake the cake.

Since the cake was going to be extra tall, I had to mix it up in an extra large bucket:

Bucket-o-cake. More on the cake later!

We worked late into the night getting ready. Can you see what time it is on this clock?

That is one o'clock AM! And I'm pretty sure she stayed up for a while after that. I snapped this picture over my shoulder on the way up the stairs to bed!

 The boys were totally into throwing a Fancy Party.

(They actually helped a lot. Just not in this picture.)

Saturday was filled with setting up tables, arranging flowers and baking bread. (Isn't the table gorgeous?! I love how it turned out.)

 Brandi picked out pink peonies and made the placecards herself! The placemats she ordered online after seeing them at Spice in Waco.

Here's a good look at the whole place setting. (That's my seat!)

Okay - so the reason for all the cheese was pizza! Brandi wanted to make Fancy Pizza for her Fancy Party, and for that you need lots of cheese.

The pizzas were a bit of a team effort (we even enlisted the help of one of the guests! Thanks Jen!), but they turned out really yummy.

I think it was Lynette that gave Brandi the apron that just happened to match her dress perfectly! And that's me behind the wall of hair there in the bottom corner. Ha - I would've been irritated with me if I was the photographer! Show your face, lady!

The Fancy Menu included Chicken Alfredo, Marguerita, Hawaiian and Pepperoni & Sausage pizza, Lasagna by Nicole, Tortellini Soup by Momma and lots of appetizers. (PW's stuffed mushrooms were one of them and they were delicious!)

And then the guests arrived! They totally got into the Fancy part of the party and got all dolled up. The girls looked great, but I think Josh won Fanciest Outfit with his tuxedo. (Cumberbun and all! No idea how to spell that. He's on the bottom in the middle.)

I had not met most of these people before, but I felt like I already knew them because Brandi talks about them constantly. I think that fact made me forget the importance of introducing myself. Sorry if I skipped you!

Josh (the other Josh - top, right corner above) brought Brandi a tiara, and it suited her surprisingly well.

I love that she wore a tiara all night for her thirtieth birthday party!

These are just a couple of pictures I like. I obviously didn't take the first one, but I'm looking at Daddy like, "Oh, Silly Daddy!" and he's got, a "You shouldn't believe anything I'm saying right now," face. It characterizes our relationship quite well.



And, of course, the event that all the work had been..uhh...working up to:

Dinner! We all filled our plates with more food than we could possibly eat and chowed down. Or - you probably don't chow down at a Fancy Party...we...noshed! That's British and anything British is fancy, right? So that's what we did.

And even though it started as tub-o-cake, the birthday cake turned out looking quite fancy itself!

To top it off, I bought sparklers to use as the candles! They were supposed to read "30" but the zero wouldn't light. So it just said "3." I think I pretty much still got the effect I was going for!

(Cake photos by Michael!)

Everyone stopped for a few prom-style pics in front of my custom-made backdrop...

...and then we headed out to the patio to hang out a little more before everyone headed home.

And then the dishwashing began...

Happy Thirtieth Birthday, Brandi!