Nom, Nom, Nom (yes, Octonauts again!)

Yes ladies and gentleman, we’re in the final stage of party planning! Food was the final thing to be planned. I had these amazing intentions of making all the food myself, and then the RSVP’s came in (did I mention around 60 peeps?). I was ECSTATIC, don’t get me wrong! The more the merrier. But, a woman can only do what one woman can do (well, one woman and her AMAZING mother). And I couldn’t pull off everything else, cook for that many, AND be healthy and sane for the party.

Enter…our local grocery Bel-Air and Sam’s Club! My lifesavers I’ll tell ya! Here’s what we served up (along with printables if you’d like! They’re tent cards, that’s why half is upside down)…

We got sandwiches from Bel-Air. You can order them online and they’ll have them ready to go for whatever time you request.

Next up was the famous broccoli salad! We considered buying this from Costco instead of having to cook the bacon, etc., but we didn’t for two reasons. #1 – It tastes SO much better when it’s homemade. #2 – It’s way cheaper, too! I was already splurging on ordering out on so many other things, stick with better taste AND cheap on this one! Here’s the link to my recipe. Yum! And here is what was left…I didn’t get pictures of the food “pre-party”, TOO busy!

Oh, and p.s.? Cook your bacon in the oven! So much easier and comes out nearly perfectly each time! Here’s a fabulous tutorial over at Our Best Bites. Love that site!

Next up was artichoke dip and crackers. We had one that had some jalapeno in it, hence the “A bit spicy” label!

Then, for the kids we had homemade mac-and-cheese (although adults dove in, too – I think they couldn’t resist Panera’s recipe, yum!), with shell pasta! In one dish, we added bits of broccoli (hence the “watch out for seaweed” sign, hehe).

Finally, we had goldfish. What would a kid’s undersea party be without the classic goldfish snack?! To drink, we had lemonade, tea and water.

When I was buying the cups, they had buy one get one free, so I got a bag of coffee cups (with the lids) to use as the kids cups. They worked great, and looked cute.

I didn’t bother to make a label for the cupcakes, I figured that’d be a bit redundant. But here’s the dessert table again.

And a close up of the cake and the cupcake toppers.

And…here are labels for your cupcake pleasure! =) I took out the personalization, so it doesn’t say 4th birthday or Cooper. Hope it makes your future Octonauts birthday extra special!

Only one more Octonauts post. I know, stop crying…it’ll be okay.