A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes: Little J's Homecoming Celebration

I could not be more proud of Reilly Johannsen and all she had accomplished over the last 4 years. When they called her name the new Miss Texas Outstanding Teen it went back and forth between bawling and hyperventilating! It is a moment I will always hold dear, watching her achieve a dream she has worked so hard and long for!

Needless to say when it was time to start planning her homecoming/MAOT send off celebration, I was more than willing to do whatever was needed to help make that day extra special for her!  The whole experience of a homecoming had got to be one of the most stressful things on a local organization, especially the smaller ones! You have limited dates you can hold the event, and the organization foots the entire bill!! So basically you have just spent a week and a small fortune at Miss Texas, your girl wins and now you have to throw together a party for 100-150 people in a few weeks! And of course you want to give your girl the most amazing celebration ever....yep..stressful!

After talking with her current director, Ed, and of course her amazing sissy, Jordan, we came up with some ideas of things that Reilly wanted, that we could do etc.One of the things Reilly said she would like was a candy table like several former Teen Texas' had at their homecoming celebrations. After talking to the Irving Board and our current titleholders, we decided we would offer to do this for her as our gift.

Since Reilly is a lover of all things Cinderella it was decided to theme the event "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" and the color scheme would be lavender (the color of Rei's evening gown) and a light turquoise blue to pull in Cinderella. With this decided it was time to start brainstorming for my inspiration! :)

One of the projects I did was a shabby chic platter to use as table decoration and the for Reilly to have as a  memento of her special day. Here are some photos of the progress of the project:

 I really wanted to do was to make sure there were some personalized touches that could be used as a memento if wanted. So I incorporated Reilly's Teen Texas crown shot into water bottle labels and little stickers for the mini cotton candy bags.

Since one of Reilly's favorite cookies is chocolate chip and homemade woopie pie's are huge right now - I decided to take a spin on that and do mini chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. I was overjoyed that they were such a hit and they ran out very quickly!!

You have no idea how happy I was that the cookie sandwiches were a hit, because the first of my "homemade" projects didn't go so well.

I kept seeing these adorable marshmallow pops all over the internet and people talking about how easy they are to make. So I found a recipe and decided to do a try a trial run a few days before hand. I think the pictures speak for themselves - They what should have been and the result. Needless to say they didn't make an appearance at the actual event! :)

After a few weeks of preparation and planning here are some shots of the final product!

Reilly loved it and the guests enjoyed it, so my mission was accomplished! The best part of the day was seeing the room packed full of people who were there to support Reilly!

I said it in my speech and I will say it again: Reilly Johannsen is everything the Miss America's Outstanding Teen program is about. She can stand up and talk to groups from little kids up to adult about her platform, turn around and bring people to tears with the beauty and grace of her dancing, yet through it all she is ALWAYS Reilly. She is a real teenager, who enjoys normal teenage things, yet she is so much more than a normal teenager.

I love you Little J more than you will ever know! You had a dream and no matter what road blocks got in your way, you kept on working towards that dream. Next week is a new chapter in that dream and I can't wait to see what God has in store for you!   Now go to Orlando and show the rest of the country what Texas already knows! :)