My Oscar Viewing Party! It was a BLAST!!
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Prepping for our Oscar Viewing Party……
Tonight we had a fabulous party to see the Oscars! It was a real treat for us since we haven’t thrown a party in a little while! You can check out my whole shopping trip to Walmart for my party food & supplies here! Since the date & time was already set- all I had to do was plan for the food! After making my list, and shopping at Walmart, I had a lot of work to do!! How did I decide what to make? I found a great Party Planner Idea at Party BluPrints! It was FREE & they even had great pictures & recipes to go with it!
My husband so kindly helped me run around like crazy all weekend and clean our house! With 2 little boys it gets messy very quickly! There was a lot to do to prep for the party!! And so little time! The first thing I did was set out all the simple stuff….the plates, candy, etc. Everything that didn’t require any extra work. We decided against alcoholic drinks because I didn’t want any of my kids accidentally getting into them with so many people around- so I chose to have all the candies in our wine goblets! I loved it! It made the party look so much fancier! I had nuts, skittles, M&M’s, Hershey’s chocolate bars, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
The sodas of course required no work so those went out on the countertops too! I set up everything all across my kitchen counters so it was like a big free-for-all buffet! Plates, cups, and napkins went our too! We also bought some of Orville Redenbacher’s NEW Pop-Up-Bowls of popcorn for our special night!! They were also displayed for easy access on the countertops. All my simple pre-prep was done! On to everything else now!
My kiddos have issues with dairy, and since I could only find the Pop Up Bowls in butter flavors, I decided to set up a little station for them to make some plain popcorn.
The next thing to prep was the delicious Red Velvet cupcakes. I had actually never made Red Velvet cake believe it or not, so in the interest of saving time I did buy a cake mix! I went with the only Red Velvet cake mix that I could find at my Walmart- it was from Duncan Hines. It was SO simple to make too! Just add water, oil, & eggs to the cake mix. Stir stir stir, and pop them in the oven!
A little while later I was able to pull them out of the oven and put on the Creamy frosting! I chose the creamy frosting over the whipped frosting (although I think my husband would have preferred the whipped!)
While the cupcakes were baking I made a little snack tray with carrots and crackers! (I had some hummus and dipping sauces on the side!) Surprisingly at least half of this tray disappeared before the end of the night!
As the afternoon progressed things started coming into place! I had the salsa poured, the chips were ready to be poured into their bowl, I had the Orville Redenbacher Pop-Up-Bowls ready to grab, the carrots & crackers were done, and the cupcakes were all nicely frosted!
It was time to pull out the shrimp! I was SO SO happy that I had bought the pre-made party trays. It was so much easier to put out then having to make my own platter. The only problem was that I couldn’t open the crazy tray!! I tried for about 10 minutes before I finally gave up and made my husband try! At least I wasn’t the only one who had problems opening them!!
They were delicious though and looked very nicely once we were able to pull the cover off! I loved that it also came with the cocktail sauce! Even my 1 year old & 3 year old LOVE shrimp!
Now onto the biggest time consumer- making quesadillas!! While my husband was running around frantically cleaning and trying to keep the kids from getting into mischief, I started on the quesadillas. I cut up Tyson’s Grilled Chicken Strips into tiny pieces, then put them on a tortilla with cheese. Once my quesadilla had pan-fried I used a pizza cutter to slice it up.
I am just now realizing that I actually do not even have a picture of my delicious quesadillas! 🙁 They looked great too! They took so long to individually make that everyone was eating them before I could finish them! I made 7 HUGE oversized quesadillas and they were almost ALL gone!! Wow!
The Guests Have Arrived!!!!
As you can see we all headed straight for the food that I had spread out buffet-style in the kitchen!
And of course having a drink is a must!!
Since we were all a little early we decided to have the fingerfoods like the cheese sticks, quesadillas, chips, etc. at the table and socialize a little bit first. It was easier with the kiddos anyways not to have any huge spills in the living room! We didn’t exactly all fit but no one seemed to mind!
Here’s my little guy just enthralled by all of the commotion going on!!
As it got closer to the starting time we all shifted into the living room- although with the kids and everyone wanting more snacks and drinks it was impossible to get everyone in the pictures all at the same time!! Did you see some of those outfits? As every year- there were some absolutely gorgeous dresses….and horribly hideous ones as well! Ugh. I think some of them should have to have their outfits checked!
Even my little one was helping to make sure that everyone had their drinks filled!! It was really cute! He kept stealing the empty cups!! Other than Toy Story 3, I actually have not seen any of the other films that were being nominated for Best Film. (in case you missed it- The King’s Speech won that area)
Now that everyone seemed pretty situated we decided it was time to bring out Orville Redenbacher’s NEW Pop Up Bowl! It was really cool! The box had 6 ‘bowls’ of popcorn. The bowls were in a tri-fold, so it looked initially like a regular microwaveable popcorn bag, but when you opened it this is what it looked like.
Once the popcorn was all popped the container could be stood up at the bottom as you see below, and you just open the red plastic top! It was great because instead of a bag falling over and spilling out everywhere- it was a neat bowl- no more problems with popcorn falling out!! What a novel yet innovative idea!
My kiddos LOVE popcorn!! As you can see my oldest just shoves it all in!! What they especially loved? Was Toy Story 3 & How to Train Your Dragon! I personally was voting for How to Train Your Dragon for Animated Feature Film, but I knew Toy Story 3 would win. I also loved Tangled so I was voting for that one to win Original Music, but it didn’t. 🙁 (of course it was Toy Story 3 too!) Don’t get me wrong- we all love Toy Story 3- but I think some of it’s winning is also because of the great trilogy of movies- they are all very well done!! Each one being better than the last.
Here are some random shots throughout the night. And it was so funny because another one of the families that came somehow did not make it in any of my pictures! I couldn’t believe it!!
I had to get a shot me somewhere in there!! Here’s my & my oldest son!
We had a blast! It was just such a wonderful relaxing evening to hang out with friends and have a good time. Towards the end the kids were getting a little bored (and wound up from the candy!!) so I ended up running around with them a bit. It was great- we had friends over who had never met each other, and they had the fabulous opportunity of making new friends. The kids had fun, the adults had fun- everyone loved all of the food (in fact we even sent some of it home with the guests!!).
One of our friends who plays in a band even brought his guitar over for some “after the show” entertainment!
Disclosure: I was compensated by Collective Bias for this post. All opinions are 100% mine.
The Oscar goes to YOU, Awesome job!!!! Looks like fun for everyone – love how you included the kids in your party!
OMgoodness what a great party!!! You win all the way around!
All my favorite goodies….can I come next year??
That sounds like a blast! What a great hostess you are, it looks like a very fun party. 🙂
Fun! Looks like you served all kinds of yummy food. The pop up bowls are pure genius. So much easier to use.
Looks like you had a great party, I like the pop up bowl idea x
Oh that looks SO FUN!! What a great party!
The after party sounds like it was a great hit!
i love the pop up bowls. those were defiantly a hit!
YOu did a amazing job!!!! Everything looks great and better yet it looks like a great time! Awesome!
What a fun party!
AWESOME POST!!! I wish I could have been to your party! Looks like a blast – AND YUMMY TOO!
The party looked like so much fun! Now I want to try the popcorn.
Wow, it all looks great. Looks like you all had a fun time. I think I might get some popcorn right now. Yummy! Thanks for sharing.