Moms In Paradise

Mother’s Day is fast approaching and if I could give you one bit of advice it would be this….slow down! Put your brakes on and enjoy every sweet moment. I have to remind myself of this all the time. To savor these moments before they are gone. The days are long but the years are short and it goes so fast. Motherhood can be challenging though and not every day is another day in paradise. Between being a mom to three kids one in high school, one in kinder and one in preschool I feel like most of my time is spent being a taxi driver & glorified snack wrangler. Tack on to all those mom responsibilities like bathing them, feeding them & just keeping them alive I also have a husband to keep happy, a household to maintain and I’m trying to slay it at this boss babe thing. I do my party styling for companies & still take on private parties when my schedule allows. I think I can now officially call myself a photographer as well which has fast become a second way of life for me. Then I offer party rentals because I have a crap ton of props & the only way to justify keeping them all to my husband is to somehow make money off of them. 🙂 Then there is my Etsy shop. Could someone please stop me and send me on vacation? Keeping it real though…I don’t have time to go on vacation. So if I want to escape into paradise I have to do it myself by throwing a paradise themed party. Which is exactly what I did here & I rounded up a few of my mom friends to join me. Just a quick shout out to my friend Carmen to say thanks for lending me your home for the day. I’m sure you’ll never do that again! 🙂

I’m gonna start you off with our pretty little dessert table because my paradise always includes cake. I really wanted to keep it simple and not go overboard which I have been known to do. I picked up the stand on Craigslist and gave it a quick makeover from basic brown wicker to this gorgeous deep turquoise from Rustoleum. If you follow my Instagram then you would have seen this as one of my Transformation Tuesdays. The tarts and cake I picked up from Whole Foods. They have an amazing dessert section if you haven’t shopped them before check it out. The cake was a simple white cake that I covered in shredded coconut and it made my tummy smile.  Seriously….these key lime tarts…amazing! Believe it or not there were a few leftovers and believe it or not I ate them all for breakfast the next morning. I know you believe it and don’t judge me….you’d do it too! 🙂 This rectangle vase can be found here. So simple and pretty to just fill it with water and float some orchids.  Onto the table setting….I am so used to playing with kids tables that I was giddy to work on a more grown up setting. I rented the chairs from Baker Party Rentals and draped these pretty little wisteria on the back.  Placemats are from Target Room Essentails and only cost $1.99 each. Yes, I said a dollar ninety nine. Crazy!!! Then I layered with a palm leaf ,  bamboo plates, a hot pink napkin and an orchid to finish it off.  My favorite hurricane pillar candles in the perfect shade of petal pink from Creative Candles  looked so elegant inside these gold lanterns filled with sand.  Hey that’s me!! And those pineapple placecard holders can be found here. All the beautiful printable designs like these placecards were created by the talented ARRA Creative.  What’s paradise without some tiki torches? Leave it to me though to forget to buy the stuff that goes inside them to make them actually burn. 🙂  Now lets get serious and talk drinks. The only thing that was missing from this tiki bar was one of our hot husbands to serve them to us. Our two signature drinks were a Bahama Mama & a Mango Momtini. I thought a non alcoholic option might be a good idea as well so we put together a Coconut Cooler using coconut water infused with some fresh fruit.  These are my new favorite wine glasses. I love that they are stemless and just look so pretty sitting there all tall & skinny.  What mom doesn’t need a little mom juice in her life? Especially with these customized glasses it just makes it that more fun!  I know at the end of the day as a mom you’re pretty tapped but if you have any love leftover make sure you put it in the coconut. These cute coconut cups that is!
I will never be able to use a plain old bottle stopper ever again after having adorned my bottle with this adorable pineapple goodness! Now let’s talk food….cause a mama’s gotta eat.

Have you used Facebook marketplace before? It’s like craigslist but for Facebook. It awesome and helps me find cool pieces of furniture like this bamboo desk for sale that was only a few blocks away from my house. Score!! I asked all the other mamas joining me for dinner to pitch in a dish worthy of some tropical vibes. It was delicious! I covered the top of the table with some bamboo fencing and then draped with these tropical ti leaves. A few more tabletop tikis without their forgotten torch fuel 🙂 and we were ready to grub.  While in Hawaii many moons ago I saw a taco street vendor using busted coconuts for bowls of salsa. I thought it was genius so I stored that little styling tip into the back of my brain for later use. Thanks taco street guy!!  Be careful with these fancy drink stirrers because when you really go to chug your drink you might just poke your eye out…like I did here….2 seconds later.  So what else is there to do for a bunch of moms in paradise without any kids around? We play limbo…duh!
My favorite part of the night. Cake time.  Yes, you can have your cake & eat it too!  Last but not least before the moms all went home I made sure they had a little bit of paradise to take with them. One thing every mom should do to help unwind is to take a hot bath so I put together this paradise pamper kit to help make that a little more enjoyable. I used Young Living’s lavender & stress away essential oils to scent some bath salts for the moms to choose from. I included in the kit an eye mask, nail file, loofah, and a notebook & pen for jotting down some dreams. This bamboo hutch was also a Facebook marketplace find. I started off by originally painting it coral but woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t stop thinking about how much I hated it. My husband said just go back to bed you crazy woman. I laid there until 5:45 am and finally got up to be at Home Dept at 6 when they opened to find a new color. Sometimes I just can’t let things go. 🙂 Scope out my Instagram page for the before of this transformation tuesday and find out exactly what color I chose. 

Look at this little peacock…I mean come on. When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Hawaii we were driving down some back road and saw a field of wild peacocks. It was the most amazing thing to see. They weren’t gold but absolutely beautiful! So when I saw this in the new Target Opalhouse collection I had to have it. I call him Pete the Peacock and he now resides in the comfort of my living room.

It was such a fun time to relax for a bit and enjoy some adult company but there truly is nothing better than coming home to tuck your kids into bed. Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there. I hope you take some time to slow down and enjoy every sweet moment it has to offer.