A Family Fiesta

Every year I host a family fiesta. And every year (except last) I have put on quite the show…

Since I’ve made it an annual tradition to gather up all of the members of my hubby’s immediate family, I’ve always had some fun with it. And why not?! There are tons of kids, it’s always during the summer so it’s nice to play outside together and it’s a great excuse to eat a ton of good food.

This year I worked with my friends over at Party City to put on one heck of a Fiesta using bright summer colors and a menu that was made with fresh ingredients from my local farm stands and butcher.

We have cousins who travel in from Charlotte to spend this weekend with us every year and we always take a ton of pictures. So I thought it would a great idea to bring in Raquel to help us out and take some family shots so we could all enjoy ourselves but ensure we captured the incredible memories. As always…her work shines here and made for some beautiful new pics for us all to display.

I was also pretty lucky for the second year in a row my adorable Aunt Marissa was able to join us for this fun filled weekend.

Auntie Mariss is not a normal person. She is a saint who was born to take care of people of all ages. She has so much patience and spends endless hours crafting with kids and for us here at LMP…check out what she did with red rock candymaking hanging chili peppers to represent the flavor of Mexico and set the tone for our fiesta.

To decorate we hung a Chili Pepper Piñata which looked awesome on our deck…

I filled the piñata with bouncy multi sports balls and some packages of organic fruit snacks from Annies. Because what fun would a piñata be if there was no candy that spilled out??

For lunch I set up a taco bar. I turned Mexican Sombreros upside down to look like bowls and filled with taco shells. Alongside I served jalapeño, garlic & lime grilled skirt steak, cumin grilled chicken, homemade guacamole, corn salad, pico de gallo and tons of chips + salsa.

For the bar I set up one table as a Margarita station…where our guests could fill margarita glasses with everything needed for an ice cold cocktail…

And at another table I set a bar full of personalized water bottles with labels that Ali designed off of a party we found on Pinterest which came out vintage looking and so cute! As well as Limeade served in between small green pails of ice to make this mocktail extra refreshing…

And I couldn’t resist these mustache straws which made for some great pics!

My favorite display at the Fiesta bar were these Mexican Cokes dressed up with these darling little Serape bottle cozies…how fab are these?!

For my flower arrangements…I used a ton of color. It’s a Fiesta so I went big with orange, yellow, red, green and blue. I used empty and recycled tomato cans as vases with these gorgeous flowers from my local farm stand in East Quogue…

I styled a colorful dessert table with pops of white and gold in my cake stands.

I filled clear glass dishes from Ikea with yellow gum balls from the candy buffet section on the Party City site (that I’m totally obsessed with!!) and topped with green succulents that I got from my friends over at G.Page in the NYC flower market.
As for the desserts that I served…we picked up fresh pies from Briermere Farms – a blueberry cream (our absolute favorite – which was gone within minutes) and a (still warm when it got home) strawberry rhubarb pie. We also made up mini ice box cakes by stacking layers of homemade whipped cream with chocolate wafers and topped with a raspberry. Holy YUM!

Of course we love personalization here at LMP so for fruit cups I used blue plastic tumblers and Ali designed Ole stickers to go on each. We stuck a bamboo fork in every cup and boom you’re ready to eat!

Last but not least…I never send the kids off without a little favor…and for a fiesta I only thought it was most fitting to give out maracas! I put them in small green pails that the kids could use at the beach or in the bath and added a bottle of bubbles which they sell in bulk at Party City here.

What a fun summer it was…and this was a great way to end it! As we held this family fiesta close to the last weekend in August it was a perfect summer day and fabulous way to spend time with our family. To many years ahead…and many more fun parties to share I say OLE!

Other items used in the shots above from Party City include:
Assorted paper lanterns in a Fiesta color palette which we hung above the taco bar.
A children’s Mexican Poncho as a table runner to serve the food on.
A Mexican Serape as a table runner for our dessert table.
A Del Sol Cut Banner  which hung above our bar.
And to see all of the goodies that they have at Party City for a Fiesta you can simply click here.