Lemonade Over Lemons {Last Day of School Lemon Inspired Dinner}

Each year on the last day of school after our Walk of Fame we have a “special snack”. I usually theme it to something related to kicking off summer, based on a cartoon, food item or brand the boys are in to that year. I was feeling wholly uninspired for this year until I walked into Dollar Tree looking for silly string and foam board and found the cutest lemon wedge shaped plates and napkins. As soon as I laid eyes on them I knew… this year’s theme would be making lemonade out of lemons.

Since I was headed on my weekly grocery run next, I sat in my car and dreamed up a dinner and decor (using all things I had) to go with my theme. One sweet thing about all of the ways this end of school year has been different is that Honey has been home for it all! He normally isn’t here for the Walk of Fame or the snack or any of the school festivities.

Y’all see this chalkboard a lot – it usually hangs on the wall in the basement to keep scores for ping pong and pool, but I love bringing it up to write on or just use as a backdrop for special occasions and parties. I pulled out my letterboard for the message and I felt like it really brought the theme to life… Lemonade > Lemons. O’s > Q’s. Haha!

I bought a big bag of latex balloons a few weeks ago and I think they were the best money I’ve spent in months at home. I picked out five yellows and slightly inflated them for the lemon garland. I used a piece of green cardstock to free hand the leaves and tied everything to a piece of twine.

I got TONS of questions when I shared all of this on Instagram about the plates! They are melamine from Ballard Designs. Sister’s family and my parents sent me a full set of these, salad plates and the serving tray for my birthday.

I added a bag of lemons and two boxes of lemonheads to my grocery list to complete the decor. I already had the serving pieces. Honey sent me the flowers for our anniversary earlier in the week.

My lemon themed menu was simple and perfect for a spring or summer night. I served Simply Lemonade in mason jars to drink.

The main course was a spinach salad (cucumbers, tomatos and peppers) with Garlic Expressions dressing (SOOOOO good – you must try) and Ina Garten’s Lemon Chicken.

For dessert, I made Mina’s Lemonbars from the Magnolia Table cookbook. They were so easy, the crust was absolutely perfect and they were a huge hit!

Everything was light and delicious. The lemon chicken is a regular, and I will absolutely make the lemon bars time and again.

2020 has been like nothing we ever could have expected but I’ve tried to keep myself and my little family of four focused on sweet side, making lemonade out of lemons.

I hope you are having a lovely holiday weekend. We had tons of rain in the forecast that hasn’t materialized. We logged hours at the pool yesterday, the boys played more golf, and the same is on the agenda for today!


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10 thoughts on “Lemonade Over Lemons {Last Day of School Lemon Inspired Dinner}

  1. Thank you so much for your uplifting post “Lemonade Over Lemons”. You are so incredibly talented!!! Could you share if the fabric skirt around the table is a skirt you made and is the table just a long rectangular folding table? What type of fabric is it? Stay Safe and have a Blessesd Memorial Day Weekend!!

    1. Thank you so much! The skirt is just burlap. My husband made the table out of basic materials. He painted the top white and under is just rustic shelving to store things. I just stapled the skirt on.

  2. What kind of virus rules do they have at your pool? They won’t open here in VA until phase 2.

    1. They have 1/2 capacity, no guests, no chair service, and are cleaning and sanitizing every hour for all surfaces and empty tables and chairs. For the holiday weekend we had to make reservations in 2 hour time blocks. There was a 1/2 hour break between blocks for cleaning.

  3. Best theme ever! It’s a great start to summer and beautiful memories. Glad you are enjoying family time together and that your pool is open too.

  4. Love your theme and menu….perfect! BTW…I just looked up the melamine plates and Ballards is running a sale on them. I admired them so much I had to order a set.

    Sounds like your pool is being safe and taking precautions. Some of the scenes I saw on TV tonight from different beaches/lakes/pools around the country this weekend were pretty troublesome. People were literally on top of each other and I fear our numbers are going to keep rising as long as this is the norm.

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