The Dinner Party

Oh my gosh, guys.

I have been SO freaking busy these past two weeks!  So if you haven't liked me on Facebook (which you should really go do, by the way), then you haven't heard from me in a while. If you've missed out, let me bring you up to date.

You missed Convos With My 2 Year Old, an adorable Canadian dad who re-enacts hilarious conversations with his tiny human on film.  Only he makes them more hilarious because he replaces his daughter with a full-grown man.  I spent two solid hours of my life watching their videos the other day.  No regrets--it was time well spent.  You need to go watch The Cookie (my personal favorite), and then like them on Facebook, too.

You missed the preschool ice cream frozen yogurt social, and Gavin's weird apple-kiwi-strawberry-gummy-worm concoction:

 

You also missed my awesome friend Megan's burlap wreath!  She made one after I posted the tutorial, and I actually like hers more than I like mine!

   

Jessica finished hers as well.  She actually finished hers the day of my original blog post, but it was a wedding present for someone else, so we had to keep it a secret!

Also, Gavin had his school pictures taken.  He modeled for Jessica the morning of and looked super suave and adorable:

And of course, DH (darling husband, for those of you not up on the cool, hip lingo), had his 23rd birthday:

 

Also, one last thing.  My blog exceeded 10,000 page views this week.  Please recall that on September 22nd, I was excited about 3,500 page views.  Yes.  That was seven short days ago.  I believe the exact number when I started this post was somewhere around 11,400.  So thanks.  You guys are all amazing for reading my stuff, and putting up with my occasional lapses in posting.  I love you.  Yes, even the one weird person who reads me in Australia.  Actually, especially you, because I bet you have a great accent.

Anyways.  There.  Now you're up to speed, and you can stop being confused about why this post is called The Dinner Party.

So I had a rather rough week this week.  (More info on that to come at a later date.)  When I'm in a bad mood, I cook like a person possessed.  Some people clean, some people drink, some people eat lots of chocolate and watch trashy TV... I cook.  Then I have all this food lying around and Jimmy and I get fat.  On top of this, friendboss Courtney and roommate Jessica just completed a giant, scary school project this week, which of course seemed like the perfect excuse to drink.  Thus, the game/drinking/dinner night was born.

Somehow, in my cooking fervor, the night evolved into a Pinterest-inspired appetizer dinner kind of thing.  On the menu were crockpot meatballs, ranch crackers, caprese pops, rosemary olive oil bread, onion dip with chips and crackers, mozzarella sticks, cookies and cream cake (leftover from Jimmy's birthday), cookies, a delish hot ham and cheese pinwheel that Courtney made, and two big, glorious pitchers of sangria.

Don't you worry.  Recipes will be provided in a post soon to follow.  I put my productive panties on and put together the recipe post already.  It can be found here.

The sangria.

THE bread.  I love this bread.  If I didn't already have Jimmy, I would marry this bread.  I could probably live off this bread and the sangria and nothing else for the rest of my life and be happy.  (Of course I'd die a lot sooner due to diabetes and a shot liver, but I'd die happy, so whatev.)

There's a lot going on in this photo.  The main focus is the platter of caprese pops.  But you can also clearly see an empty wine glass (probably the only time THAT happened the whole evening), a platter of wonderfully spicy habañero cheese that Courtney brought, the ranch crackers that disappeared before I could take a picture of them, and in the top right corner, the white wine sangria.  Does anyone else want to eat their screen?

My breakfast this morning.  Some leftover bread with olive oil dipping sauce, and the last surviving caprese pops. 

Also, I feel like I need to showcase our decorations.  Jessica came over early to help me set up, and we got my entryway all glammed up for fall.  I'll post about this too, don't worry!

The full effect.

The mice and pumpkins on the stairs (except two are missing, because the dogs think the tiny pumpkins are there for their entertainment purposes, and also that they taste good).

And the only time I'm cool with spiderwebs inside my house.

Jimmy and I have spent the day recovering in our PJ's.  The house needs cleaning up (again), and there are dishes to do, and dinner to be made.  But for now we're just calling it the evidence of a good evening, and snuggling the pups on the couch.

Coming up this week, I get to make paper-mache pumpkins with four-year-olds, gear up for some FRG projects that we're pretty excited about, and I have some cool things to tell you about on Totally Obsessed Tuesday.  Don't miss a thing and go give us a like on Facebook (and then hit the share button!)

That's all for now.  Mischief managed.