I love brunch but most restaurants only offer it on Sunday and since we don’t go out on Sundays we don’t do brunch a lot. I was excited to learn that Hall Street offers brunch on Saturday and Sunday.

We use to be frequent visitors to Hall Street but then for some reason we stopped going. One of our favorite date nights was to go to their Happy Hour where many of their dishes are half price. Now that I’ve enjoyed their brunch though, I think it may be my favorite thing to do at Hall Street.

Hall Street is conveniently located on Hall Street in Beaverton!  They serve dinner every night, lunch on weekdays and brunch on the weekend.  Happy Hour is also available every day of the week.

I love the understated elegance of Hall Street.  I would feel comfortable going there for a casual date night as well as dressing up for a special occasion

One sign of a good restaurant to me is when I have a hard time deciding what to order.  Too many things look good.

I was glad Tessa was with me so we could share!

We started out our meal with a lovely order of abel skivers with lemon curd.  The perfect way to start.

Tessa decided on the huevos rancheros which may have been the special that day since it was Cinco de Mayo.  Tessa opted for her eggs scrambled and dry and they came perfectly cooked.

I finally, after much debate, decided on the candied bacon and hazelnut waffle with maple crystals, hazelnut butter, candied bacon and Amaretto syrup.  So decadent.  Tasted more like dessert than breakfast!

Tessa also enjoyed her favorite breakfast beverage – a vanilla steamed milk.  They make a good one, there was no cheating on the syrup and it was nice and vanilla-ie!

I was very glad to renew my acquaintance with Hall Street Grill.

We’ll be back!

This post is from your homebased mom. If you are not reading it from our feed, it has been STOLEN. Please contact Leigh Anne to let us know. Enjoy the posts!

No, that is not the bride but one of our cute little party guests!

The bride is one of my daughter’s high school friends.  It seems just like yesterday she was in high school and I was teaching her in Young Women’s at church.  It probably seems like that because  it really  was – just a few years ago!

Well, every bride to be deserves a party and I was pleased to be able to  hold a party for cute Kara.

I followed some of my own party planning tips and set up my table the night before.

I also created this fun backdrop for the table.  I’ll have a tutorial next week for how we made it.  I also purchased some paper fans from Polka Dot Market for the backdrop.

I added some flowers from my garden.

And then I let food become the rest of the decoration on the table.  These little meringue cookies from Trader Joes were a pretty extra touch.

Food, flowers and a few candles make for a pretty table.

The menu consisted of an array of crostinis.  I’ll be sharing some recipes in the next week but we had a artichoke/spinach crostini with toasted almonds on top, flank steak with caramelized onions and red pepper mayo, Cambonzola cheese, roasted garlic and tomato jam and I mixed together some cream cheese and some roasted pineapple and habanero pepper sauce from Costco for another and added a piece of walnut on top.

For the sweet side we had a selection of mini bundt cakes.

I made the orange poppyseed bundt cakes I shared a few weeks ago.  My friend Meg made some chocolate bundt cakes.  I’m not sure what recipe she used but this is my favorite chocolate cake recipe and the one I would use.

And the third flavor was a White Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Cake.  So good!  That recipe is coming and I think it was my favorite of the three types we made.

I used my big chalkboard as a little decoration and just added the bride and groom’s name.

I decided our guest of honor needed a crown.  What girl doesn’t like to wear a crown?  Especially a crown as cute as this one!
I’ll share how I made the crown next week too.  I’ve got lots of fun goodies for you next week!!!

Be sure to come back next for more of the party details and recipes.

This post is from your homebased mom. If you are not reading it from our feed, it has been STOLEN. Please contact Leigh Anne to let us know. Enjoy the posts!

Today I am sharing with you some of my best tips and ideas for putting on a graduation party.

I think my best tip is to combine your party with one of your children’s good friends.  One party – two people.  Not only does it make the work load easier but it makes everyone’s party schedule easier too.  I lost count of how many graduation party invitations my daughter received last year.  Both of my girls had a party with one of their best friends and it was great.  Tessa had to make out a schedule some days to make sure she could fit all the parties in and which ones were at which time.

Because there were two different groups of people we wanted to include in our party and they were both rather large groups of people we decided to host two different parties for Tessa’s graduation.  One was a party for her high school friends, this was the joint party.  The other party we had was for family, neighbors and church friends.  It worked out great.

I love a themed party so I let Tessa and Rachel brainstorm theme ideas for their party.  With a little help from me they decided on Sail Away since they would soon be sailing away to college.  It was so much fun to plan around.

Since I have already blogged about the party I will just be linking to past posts where you can read more.

We started with the invitation and had a fun little photo shoot for the invite.

I am a big believer in invitations – the paper kind, not the email kind and not the Facebook event kind.  I think an invitation really sets the stage for a party so of course we had a cute graduation party invitation.

The next step was the decorations.  We of course went with a nautical look for our Sail Away Theme.  It was about everything red, white and blue!

Cost was kept to a minimum and things were created out of cardboard, chalkboards, shipping palettes, balloons and things I already had.  I did make a fun nautical colored pennant banner for the party.

No party would be complete without food. To keep costs down a bit we did not serve a full meal but no one went hungry.  We had a mixture of sweet and savory with a fun selection of cupcakes and then several different appetizers.  Go here for the complete menu for our graduation party.

The biggest hit of the evening was the Italian Soda Bar.

We also had a s’more bar which was fun too.

The kids had a fun time just visiting, playing badminton, roasting marshmallows, making Italian sodas and taking photos at the photo booth.

For our second party, the one for church friends, family and neighbors we went with a Smart Cookie theme.  I had seen the idea of a milk & cookie party on a blog and thought it would be a fun idea for a graduation party as well as fairly inexpensive.  Since I was doing two parties I really tried to keep the costs down.

Of course there had to be another cute invitation.

We did this party on a Sunday evening and kept the menu simple – cookies and milk!  With the help of a few friends we made over 400 cookies and had 100 guests.  I think I had ten cookies left at the end of the evening.  The favorite cookie of the evening was the Compost Cookie.

Chocolate milk was definitely the biggest hit. I set up a fun cookie bar in the kitchen and people loved it.  Fortunately the weather was good and people had fun milling around in the garden visiting.

People loved drinking out of the little milk bottles with a straw!
I used the Starbucks Frappuccino bottles!  They are perfect.

I used some of my vintage suitcases and other pieces for decoration so set up was easy.  I found some fun graduation quotes to put on my chalkboards.

Both parties were so much fun and I had a blast planning them.  I’m kind of sad there won’t be any more high school graduation parties at my house.

But I’ve got two more college graduations to go and a law school graduation!  Oh and then there is that wedding we are having this summer….

Are you planning a graduation party this year?

This post is from your homebased mom. If you are not reading it from our feed, it has been STOLEN. Please contact Leigh Anne to let us know. Enjoy the posts!

Who doesn’t love a loaf of fresh baked bread!?  Today’s recipe is an easy way to add a fresh baked loaf to your meal anytime you get a craving for it.  After you make it those cravings may become more frequent!
Come check out the recipe over at 30 Handmade Days!

This post is from your homebased mom. If you are not reading it from our feed, it has been STOLEN. Please contact Leigh Anne to let us know. Enjoy the posts!

One of my favorite gifts to give a girl graduate is a personalized piece of jewelry that has a special meaning or symbolism.

When Cali graduated from high school, I gave her and her best friend Hannah necklaces.  I purchased them online through Charming Gifts.They each got an initial charm and their birthstone charm.   I then selected a charm that had a particular message that I thought applied to each of the girls individually.  Cali got a butterfly which symbolized a new beginning; “If there was no change, there would be no butterflies.”

For Tessa’s graduation I purchased a necklace from White Lillie Designs a wonderful etsy shop that has lots of beautiful jewelry that is perfect for the graduate.

White Lillie has offered a special discount coupon for readers of my blog.  If it 15% off the entire site, with coupon code Homebased15.  She has so many beautiful things so be sure and head over and do a little shopping for yourself or for a graduate you may know.  I love the piece she has with the Dr. Seuss quote on it!

To go along with the necklace I also created a poster with lots of motivational “key” quotes.

You can download a copy of the poster by going here.

I love motivational art/posters.  It is a perfect thing for them to decorate their dorm room with.  A piece I gave to Cali is this fun piece from Brian Andreas at Storypeople.  They also have a version for a son as well as lots of other great motivational pieces.

Etsy is a great source for lots of fun motivational art.  I purchased this print for Tessa before she left for college and framed it for her to hang in her dorm room.  Didn’t want her to forget her family!  Purchased from this etsy shop.

Another favorite gift, especially for boys since they don’t like the jewelry thing too much is a good motivational book. One of my very favorites to give and a book I recommended before is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.  Every graduate should read this book – everyone should read this book.

Another favorite book to give to graduates is Just Who Will You Be by Maria Shriver.

Another gift I have given my children, one that takes a little more work and planning is a Graduation Quilt.  When my girls graduated from high school our church held a Senior Quilt Night.  The mother’s of the graduating senior girls put a quilt top together for their daughter and then all the women of our congregation gathered together and they help quilt it.

I love the tradition and it is a wonderful way to wrap the girls in love as they head off to college.

Cali’s quilt

Tessa’s Quilt

I have also started the tradition  of making my children a quilt when they graduate from college.  Each of the boys have received their quilts and I have another year to get Cali’s done!

Logan’s College Quilt Clark’s college quilt

 I have also created a special memory book for each of my girls (got the idea too late to do it for my boys.)  I used the poem  “Did I Tell You?” by Elizabeth Knapp and found pictures to go along with the words to the poem.  It’s a tear jerker!  I created it in a digital book and then had it printed.  If you’d like to see Tessa’s complete book you can go here to view it.  You will need to create a log in to view it.

And of course, like I mentioned yesterday, cash is always a great gift for the graduate.  I don’t know a graduate who wouldn’t love it but sometimes I enjoy giving a little more personalized gift.  Hope you enjoyed some of today’s suggestions.  Do you have a favorite graduation gift to give?

This post is from your homebased mom. If you are not reading it from our feed, it has been STOLEN. Please contact Leigh Anne to let us know. Enjoy the posts!