Valentine's Party

Erika invited us for dinner Saturday night for dinner and company. She was making Smitten Kitchen's (Or as her husband, Dave, calls her, "That Lady") Spaghetti and Meatballs. Erika said "Before you say yes to coming, I just want to warn you that there will be 10 kids here Saturday night." Ahhh what a romantic Valentine's evening. It wasn't bad though...We barely even saw the kids since they ate on the front porch and played in the back room. And our friends all have good kids.

Let me just say that I hate meatballs with a serious passion!! I have never liked them. I love spaghetti though and just thought that I would eat the spaghetti and bypass the meatballs. But I am game to try anything so I put one meatballs on my spaghetti. Wow...those were awesome and I went back to get more. SO GOOD! What else did we have? Heather made an awesome salad and Lucy brought the garlic bread and Kristy and Elizabeth helped to make the chocolate mousse for dessert. I brought the chocolate covered strawberries. No...they weren't homemade...I bought them at the grocery store and ...NO...they weren't good. I could have definately made them better than they did so thanks goodness the girls made chocolate mousse. Here are a few pics from the event.

Brian and Kristy feeding Finley.

The chocolate covered strawberries (that weren't good but looked good).

Some of the spread.

The boys playing Wii and swords and guns...and I think that one kids is trying to play Wii with a bow and arrow??? I am so glad I am having a girl. I think the girls were sharing an ipod and singing in their room.

Erika, posing with her table decorations after the meal was finally finished and dessert had been served.

Since I forgot to get a before picture of the chocolate mousse before I ate mine, I am giving you an after picture. And yes...in case you were wondering...it was good!
Matt and Natalia stuck platic hearts all over their faces but Matt was the only one who wasn't too shy for the camera.

Friday Night Social

On the second friday night of each month, our Sunday School class has a social and the nursery at church will keep the kids for a few hours. It's great!! Otherwise, it's hard to hang out with anyone in our class since everyone has to find a babysitter. So tonight, me and E are hosting, for the second year in a row, the first social of the year in our home, the soup/chili game night social.

Since I accidentally locked the housekeeper out of my house this week (Opps!) and she won't be back until next week, that left me to clean house. E has been working hard on the laundry room and I really didn't want to break his focus since he was working so diligently. So every night, I have done a little bit to get ready to have people come over. Let's add to this by saying that today is my 12th day of work in a row due to a conference we hosted at our campus last weekend. Sigh! I am ready for the weekend!! I am too pregnant for this these days!

So when I volunteered to host (I know...that was stupid), I immediately started looking for something quick and easy to make. My mind went directly to Creamy Chicken and Corn Soup. I love this soup and since I already had shredded cooked chicken in the freezer, it just made sense. Yes, it's a rehash but sometimes you need to be reminded of the quick and easy meals that are great for cold nights. The only thing I change in the recipe is the use of chicken instead of turkey and I add a drained can of corn to the soup. The end and it takes like 20 minutes! Completely worth it! Go try it this weekend. I hear it's going to be a cold one!

Thanksgiving Social

This weekend was our annual Thanksgiving social which includes a meal, dessert, wonderful fellowship and of course, what would a Thanksgiving social be without a game of Thanksgiving themed pictionary. Very strange the games these people play but I am always up for a good time. Here are a few pictures from the event...sorry, there were so many.

I thought I would start off with this picture and the story that goes with it. I went home early from work on Friday to get the food cooked that I was supposed to bring. I made a sweet potato souflee' and 2 casserole dishes of apple dumplings (E's favorite). With an hour left before the party started and all three dishes needing to be cooked for about an hour, I opted to cook the souflee' and the biggest dish of apple dumplings. I figured that I would bring the extra dish of apple dumplings to the party and see if there was room in the oven to cook them during dinner. Once we got there, there wasn't room in the oven so I resigned to the fact that one large dish would have to suffice. I was eating dinner inside when Elizabeth came and whispered in my ear:

Elizabeth: Are those dumplings cooked all of the way?
Me: Yeah, why?
Elizabeth: Well, everyone on the porch is eating them and they don't taste like the last ones you made.

I looked into the kitchen and saw the dish they had been eating from was the dish of raw apple dumplings. But that's not the funny part. The funny part was that they were eating them and going back for seconds and ended up eating almost the WHOLE DISH of the RAW dumplings. I look on the porch where half of our group was eating and Renee' (who is also pregnant and due 3 weeks before me) is just sawing through the raw apples with her plastic knife. Here's what was left in the raw dish. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Seriously, they were going back for seconds on the raw dumplings!!!

Good food!!!

Dave and Russell carving the turkey and the ham.

Erika decorated the porch SO BEAUTIFULLY!! I am super jealous of her front porch.

Everyone finally digging in to the food.

Everyone eating on the front porch.

The infamous game of pictionary...I started us out by drawing "giblet gravy." Just a small note, pictionary between the men and women gets VERY competitive as you will see in the next few pictures.

Dave looking up "turkey wattle" on his iphone to make sure he is submitting the right word. Lucky me, I picked that one.

Lindy was upset that he had picked Sam's entry "Uncle Benny's Hangover."
Erika relaxing on the front porch after cleaning house and cooking all day.
Me, Kristy and Matt focused intently on the board.
With all of the pregnant women in our class, let me rephrase that...With half of the women in our class being pregnant, this drawing in particular got us all a little scared before she drew the eyes. I was seriously starting to reconsider everything post childbirth.

But once she drew the eyes, we all immediately knew what she was drawing...Russell's snake vest.
And Matt couldn't resist...he had to try on the snake vest and bust a move!!

Already Thinking Obituaries

So when I die, I haven't decided if want someone to write something like this about me. My friend Elizabeth's husband, Matt, just made a site for himself. On his new site, he described himself in these words:

"While in high school, Matthew dabbled in croquet, the banjo, welding, tap dancing, and raising show hogs. "

Luke's Birthday Party

Well, in all of the insanity that occurred last week, I had almost forgot about ourlittle friend Luke's birthday party. His mom, Erika, sent me an invitation and I quickly read it and thought it was a Star Wars party. I was ...kinda off. Turns out it was a Wall-E party.

But before I knew it was a Wall-E party, I had already bought a Star Wars gift. I actually got a little excited about buying a Star Wars gift to be honest. I am a big Star Wars fan. I guess I can thank my dad for turning all three of us girls into Star Wars fans/geeks but it all worked out. I married a Star Wars fan/geek so I guess the good Lord had a plan after all!

I found this Star Trooper Spud at Target his weekend and knew Luke (3) would have to have it! It was just too cute! (And just in case you are wondering, my kids will be subjected to all 6 six movies in their lifetime...however, I will not make them sit through the animated movie "Clone Wars" like E made me do while we were out of town for the hurricane evacuation...LAME!!!)

My Flair

Some friends of mine have sent me some "Pieces of Flair" on Facebook. (reference to the movie "Office Space") I know that alot of you don't do facebook and I actually barely do Facebook but these buttons were so cute I had to share them with you all.

TV Trey's

There's a guy in our church named Trey. He loves to cook and does an amazing job at it. Well, once a month Trey and his wife, Joy, hold a dinner for 12 in their home with gourmet food that it served to us and we all just sit back and relax and eat!! All of the money goes to a charity of our combined choice that is decided before we start inviting people.

Well, we were invited to join the group last weekend. We had a great time and the food was AMAZING!! And since we had several people in our Sunday School class that are involved in a program called Celebrate Recovery which helps people with Life Controlling issues, we decided that CR would benefit from dinner that night. Here's Matt before dinner, super excited about that shrimp stuffed fillet!!

What we ate:

Escargo stuffed Portobello Mushroom Cap

Garlic and Shallot Vinegarette Salad with Cranberry Pecan Chutney and Almond Crusted Brie

Rock Shrimp Stuffed Filet with White Truffle Potatoes

White Chocolate Key Lime Cheesecake topped with Blueberry Compote

This is the White Chocolate Key Lime Pie. I kept meaning to take pictures of everything but once everything was put in front of me, all planning went out the window and I could think about was FOOD!!! Yeah, it was AWESOME!!!

More Prizes in the Mail!!

To start this story, I guess I will have to go back over a year ago to explain the reason for the gift I got in the mail yesterday.

When I used to work in Key West, many pilots and controllers used to come by everyday. Many of them would come by several times a year and so you got to know alot of people. One week, we were doing night flights and we had 2 or three controllers in the building to help out with the operation. One of those was my friend John. You may remember his new wife, Andrea, from Military Monday a few weeks back.

John visited twice while I worked down there. He worked over at the Top Gun school in NV. We had a great time together since we have similiar personalities and since we were all trapped in the building all night long waiting for the rain to let up so the operation could fly, we all just had to make the best of it. John called back in April of last year and said "Dude, I completely forgot to get a shirt from Sloppy Joes before I left town and I really wanted one. Will you go and get me one and send it to me? I will send you a shirt from Top Gun!"

So me...being the nice girl that I am...and because I really wanted a Top Gun shirt...went downtown to buy him a shirt and sent it to him promptly. Well...it's been over a year and John has yet to make good on his promise. I harrass him about it every chance I get. But low and behold...what showed up on my door step yesterday?? 2 Top gun shirts...one for me and one for E, and he said he tried to get one for sweet pea too but they didn't have any that small. Thanks John, and Andrea (because I am sure that she did all of the leg work)!! E was pumped about his new shirt and I really like mine! I think I was more surprised than anything that he actually sent them after a year.

E's Shirt

My Shirt

Maggie...looking at me while I photograph the shirts

Thanks you guys and I hope you have lots of fun in Japan next week. Good luck in everything and stay in touch!!

The Night of Many Surprises

I have two friends from my old days when I worked across campus. We were all working under the same regime and we were all miserable beyond words. Well, we have all since moved on to greener pastures but still hang out and have lunch together 3-4 times a week. There's actually alot more of us but only 3 of us eat lunch together. Andrea (Andrea Unplugged)and Taylor are my lunch bunch. They have been dating for 4 and a half years. Well, Taylor set up an elaborate night for Andrea and a few of her friends. There was a fancy dinner and wine tasting at the top of the library here on campus and all of the walls are windows look out onto the city from the top floor. It's really beautiful up there. But at the end of the night, they raffle off bottles of wine. The contest was "a little" rigged for one of the bottles. They bought a special bottle of sparkling wine for Taylor and tied Andrea's engagement ring to the bow on the bottle. So when he won, he untied the bow and announced to the whole room how much he loved her and then asked her to marry him. It was so great! She didn't have a clue. We had all been planning this for weeks. Here are al few pics from the other night:

This is Andrea and Taylor.

Me and Andrea realized that we have been good friends for over a year and have no pictures to prove it...until now!

Cherrye from My Bella Vita was in town from Italy for a visit by chance when the whole thing went down. She actually won one of the raffle prizes.

Here is Taylor popping the big question.

Since I am not drinking these days, I didn't want to be rude, so I let them fill may glasses with all the different wines they were trying. At the end of the night I couldn't move because I had 10 full glasses of wine in front of me. They came around with 2 extra glasses after this picture was taken. But the ice water was good, as was the dark chocolate on the table and the spinach dip at the food bar.

Friday Night Social

Sorry I have been MIA for the past few days. Lots of stuff happening at home and at work.

Friday night was our Sunday School Social/Surprise Baby Shower for Kristi. We all went over to Brian and Kristi's house and Brian grilled some of the strangest food I have ever seen. His wife Kristi is about 4 weeks away from giving birth to their first child, a girl. Here's a few pics to give you an idea of everything that happened.

Brian made grilled Zummo sausages which is evidently a local grown treat! We have had these sausages twice now. Once at a Halloween party where we got food poisoning afterwards and then again on Friday night. I still don't think I like them but at least I didn't get food poisoning this time. And wrapped in flour tortillas?? That was a new one for me.

These were jalopeno peppers that had been halved and gutted, spread with cheese and topped with bacon. Brian threw them on the grill and these were actually really good. I was surprised.

I was in charge of dessert and made Smores cupcakes. They were really good and the recipe made alot but was alot of work and I still felt like I had eaten better cupcakes before. But they were good and very interesting. I got the recipe from This Little Piggy...

I had to show you my present that I took because I LOVE this wrapping paper!!

Matt posed with the cat. I can't remember the cats name but E called her Jinxy cat (from the movie "Meet the Parents")

Matt got a new game. Well, not really...his favorite game is Phase 10 (or as we affectionately call it "The card game that NEVER ENDS!!!"). So he bought a "new" game...Phase 10 dice!!

Some Baby Shower decorations...

The cat was so funny!! It actually played fetch like a dog. Isn't that funny!! Here she is completely focused on watching that paper ball.

Here she is after Lucy threw the ball and she is bringing it back to her to throw again!!

Here is Kristi opening up presents.