Punch recipe, Hailey's birthday

I promised recipes, so here's a punch recipe that I made for my daugter's b-day.

*20 oz. frozen strawberry's in syrup, thawed

*3 cups apricot nectar (find in the juice aisle)

*3 cups cold water

*1 cup lemon juice

*6 oz. orange juice concentrate

*1 cup sugar

*1 320z. bottle of ginger ale

*Ice ring (recipe follows)

Prepare the ice ring the night before. Use a blender to puree the strawberries. In punch bowl, combine strawberries, apricot nectar, water, lemon juice, orange juice concentrate, and sugar. Stir it until the sugar's gone. Pour in the ginger ale. Do this slowly! It splashes like hell! Add the ice ring right before serving.

Ice Ring:

You can wing this pretty easily. Get out your bundt pan. (The star one makes a snowflake! Soooo cool!). I'm not going to put exact measures. How much you put in depends on the size of your bundt pan and punch bowl.

Pour in some ginger ale. Most of your mixture will be ginger ale, so fill it ALMOST to how big you want the ice ring. Add around 1/2 cup of lemon juice. Then start your garnishes. I add tons of fruit. Grapes, pineapple chunks, blueberries, strawberries, apricots, whatever. You can also add some mint leaves, but since I don't want mint leaves floating around my drink after the ring melts, I usually don't put it in.

So Hailey's party was pretty fun. I got quite a few compliments from my punch bowl. Plus I made my veggie bars, but no, no recipe will follow. Gravy meatballs, baked beans, spaghetti salad, taco salad, Italian salad, cheese/cracker/summer sausage tray, chips & dip, grandma brought a pistachio tart (sooooooooooo good!).

So my baby's 1. Bitter-sweet for me. Here are some pictures of her special day.