Brown paper packages tied up with string.....

These are a few of our

I have wanted to throw a favorite things party for at least two years now.

Luckily when I moved out here, I met this girl....

and she had been wanting to do the same thing!

Annie and I have both been hard at work planning our Favorite Things party for over two months now.

It all paid off last Thursday.

We made these cute invitations (free by the way)...

and attached the instructions......

Here’s how it works…

You bring 5 items of one of your favorite thing $6 and under (not 5 different items….5 of the same item)…examples are kitchen utensils, lipgloss or nail polish, food, anything that you LOVE and want to introduce the group to. Have fun with it!

There will be no judging…..unless your item totally sucks. Just kidding!

And then we did A LOT of other planning to put some fun stuff together. I sent out a survey to all of the guests asking them about favorites including:

perfume, cleaning product, make-up, vacation spot, date idea, hidden gem....etc.

All the girls were asked to send me a copy of their favorite recipe as well.

So after putting all of that together, each guest had a bag with all of these fun results and recipes in them.

The day of Annie came over so we could set up.

We were a tad excited and started about 6 hours early.

We baked up a storm and had enough drinks to feed about four times our crowd of 23....oops.

On the menu...

Red sangria, white sangria, champagne punch, sparkling lemonade, decaf coffee

Oh, and there were desserts too

mini lemonade pies, baked brie, cookies, Heath brownie trifle, Biscoff cheesecake bars, and peanut butter cupcakes.

Where were the kids in all of this?

With an exceptional sitter....thank you Christa!

Finally, everything was ready to go!

When the girls arrived, they put their name 5 times in a bowl and grabbed a tag from the tree

Each tag had a number (for order of gifting) and an icebreaker question.

We had a lot of fun with those.

And then there were all the favorite things.....

Did you really have any question which one would be mine?

Before we got started, there was a lot of visiting, scoping out favorites, and a little bit of eating.

Seriously, I have enough desserts left in my fridge to feed an army.

Or at least Andy for a few days.

Amanda & Annie

the good stuff

Then it was time to begin!

Soula answering her question and drawing her lucky 5 people..

Lots of laughing going on....

Speaking of laughing....

This is my funny friend, Jamie.

She's also my gorgeous friend, Jamie.

Karen showing off her Starbucks card....dangit, I missed that one!

Mary brought Starbucks Java Chip ice cream.

My name wasn't called.

But someone who's name was called forgot theirs.

And as of 7am the next morning, I claimed it as lost property.

Our whole group

And since one of our very favorite things is music, each guest got a cd on the way out.

Annie and I put together a very eclectic playlist, complete with O.P.P.

And I don't want to play favorites, but these happen to be some of my favorite people.

This party was an absolute blast and Annie and I had so much fun hosting it.

We are thinking about putting a different spin on it come holiday time.

We just may need a few months to recover first!