9th Annual Pumpkin Dinner Party

This has become one of my favorite fall traditions. I love thinking of new ways to decorate with pumpkins and thinking of new recipes to try that have pumpkin in them AND of course I love keeping my tradition of eating soup out of pumpkin bowls. I also love that this is the 3rd year that I have taken the pumpkin dinner outside. Adds to the ambiance and just lets me embrace the autumn season that much more.

This year Rachel wanted in on the dinner party... well, the dinner ended up just being the two of us. I don't have too many friends these days. ha ha. Having Rachel involved in these dinner parties makes them magazine worthy. Please note that this was also put together last minute. Amazing what she and I can through together quickly. We make a great team.

This year we went up Hobble Creek canyon and just drove until we found a nice little spot that we liked. I think we found a great spot.

Middle Eastern Dinner Party

While Deb and I were in the Middle East, we fell in love with the food. We took a hummus making class and tried all the recommended food. We were in love. While at the market we both bought teas and spices to take home and decided that we were both going to put on Middle Eastern dinner parties with our friends and try cooking this yummy food ourselves.


Took about 4 months, but we both finally did it. Deb did hers first and sent me a picture of the food she made. Seeing the picture of her yummy food got my motivated to put on my dinner party as well. So I sent a message out to my crew (which I see less and less of now... pretty much just when I throw my dinner parties). I had done Christmas Dinner parties and my summer dinner parties and my fall pumpkin dinner parties. I have even done a few tea parties. This was the first middle eastern one and I was excited for the challenge.

Like Deb, I decided to keep to the Middle Eastern Staples... although I went a lot more all out than Deb did. Doesn't her looks pretty though? That girl knows how to take pictures of food. I haven't mastered that art yet.

I decided to make the same thing Deb did (homemade hummus, falafel's, cucumber and tomato salad and pita's) although I bought my pita's but I did put out that same green spice for the pitas like she did above. That stuff is tasty. I decided to also make chicken shawarma which turned out awesome and I brewed up some of the tea that I brought back. For desert, yogurt with halva on top (I LOVE halva)

And of course I can't put on a dinner party without also creating the ambiance. So we sat in my basement on the floor around the table and ate with our hands. I hung one of the tapestries I bought in Israel that I love and hung some lights and lit some candles. Used one of my scarves I got from there as the table cloth. And Stacey always provides the music and found a Middle Eastern playlist to listen to while we ate. It was pretty awesome actually. And speaking of Stacey, he knows me well and knows that I always bite off more than I can chew and knows I always run late with everything I end up making... so he came an hour early to help me cook and set up. He's a gem. Plus it is more fun to cook with someone else and have some help than to do it all yourself.

All in all I loved the way it all turned out and the food was.... FANTASTIC. I will be making it all again and I guess that means I should post the recipes as well. I actually used the same humus recipe that I posted on my blog years ago. Love that humus. I will post the chicken shawarma and falafel's recipes later. Oh.. and my crew told me this was my yummiest of all of my dinner parties so far. So I think that means it was a success. I have already suggested to my family that we should do it for Sunday dinner one week. P.S. I sent a picture of my spread to Deb. She loved it. I also sent a picture to Eli and he was very impressed... so if an Israeli is impressed, I did ok for myself.

Jess & Kristy's 40th Surprise Birthday Party

Yesterday, Kristy and Jess turned 40. It's not the most exciting age to turn and they planned on ignoring the birthday, but the family had other plans. Lori and Jamie starting talking and thought that 40 was not a birthday that should be ignored and that we should do a surprise birthday party for them. I was of course all in. What a great idea!

The idea was thrown out to the group in the summer and that is when the planning started. However it really came together just a couple weeks before the party. And the entire thing was almost ruined when we found out that Jess had drill that day (this last Saturday) so we had to let him in on some of the surprise so that he could get home. It all worked out in the end though... thankfully.

Friday night Jamie and Lori were both in town and had been working on the party all day. I had to work (and work has been stressful) so I didn't help as much as I would have liked to, but I helped as much as I could. Friday night I was at my parents house helping blow up balloons... I saw "the plan" on the chalk board and got a picture of Billy going over the plan with my dad. I thought it was great.

My idea and big contribution to the party was the black & white photo's that I put on the wall in the shape of 40. There ended up being a lot of extra pictures, so we put them around the birthday sign that Jamie made and on the table.

My parents rented "The party bus" and Lori and Billy decorated the inside and out.. I brought my lights to put up inside the van which was fun. We didn't ride too many places, but it made it fun to all be together in a party van.

They started their surprise with a scavenger hunt that everyone worked on together and we had Reanne and Sierra take them on... so they didn't know we were involved. That is something Reanne and Sierra would do, so Kristy thought it was just them being cute... until one of their clue's lead them to birthday shirts that Jamie made for them. They put them on and then their next clue was to look for the party bus that we were all in. When they found us we all came out of the van and surprised them and said happy birthday. Get in the van!

We were taking them to several places. They were each supposed to be a surprise, but Reanne ruined the first one. Ha ha... As she got out of the car said, "Have fun at Get Out Games" ha ha... oh well. So, first stop was Get out Games. Kristy had been before, but had been wanting to go again with adults. Jess had never been before. Heck, I hadn't been yet. So that was a fun way to start. We were put in the Egyptian room and we made it out before the hour was up. We had 2 minutes left to be exact, but I don't think we would have finished if we didn't have a lot of help from staff at the end. I don't know if anyone could honestly. It was fun though!

Next we were off to Jess and Kristy's favorite restaurant, the Bombay house! I love it too. Great Indian food. Chad and Clara joined in on this one. So it was nice to have the entire family together... even just for an hour.

Then it was off to FastKart Speedway to race each other in Speed Go Karts. None of us had done this before, so it was new for all of us... which was fun. We sadly were not all on the same track... but we all had a great time racing.

Then it was back to my parents house for the party with the kids. While we were gone, the kids had made themselves and all of us birthday party hats. We had a Photo Booth that I set up with props. We had cake that Jamie and Lori made in the shape of 40. A lemon one for Kristy and chocolate one for Jess. Jamie also made the cutest birthday card that we all signed. At the end they opened the 40 little gifts that we all pitched in to get them.

Pretty much an epic birthday party. We all get to enjoy it with the birthday couple. So fun that Jamie and Lori and families made it extra special by putting it on and coming into town to celebrate. The entire family isn't together very often, so it is extra special when we are. I love my family. They are the best. Super creative and thoughtful and fun. So glad we could all make Jess and Kristy's birthday extra special, because they sure deserve it. Love them and everyone in the family! What a special day.

Pumpkin Dinner Party - Take 8

Can you believe I have been doing pumpkin dinner parties for 8 years now? I guess I like my traditions. Last year was the first year I didn't do the dinner at my house. Well, this year I decided it would be even BETTER if we did it in the mountains. I know... ambitious. Over the weekend I searched for a spot that I liked and hoped that come Thursday evening... nobody would be using it. Which I lucked out and nobody was.

I brought everything up the canyon in my car and my friends helped me set the table and put up the lights. It was so great. Lindsay was nice enough to bring firewood and start a little fire next to the table... to give it a nice fall, cozy feel. It was perfect. I loved my table set up this year. The best out of all the years so far. I feel like every year I top the previous year, but I don't know how I will top this year. I even made everyone leaf name tags. ha ha.

After dinner we hung out by the fire for a bit and chatted and burned our pumpkin bowls.

The entire thing just made me so happy and my friends love it so much too which makes me even more happy and we love getting together and don't do it enough... so it is a fun excuse to get us all together. Love my crew and my traditions that I have started. LOVE!

Love You Like Plaid

I had a list of things that I wanted to do this fall. I of course wanted to do my annual pumpkin dinner party, but then I also thought it would be fun to do a fall picnic with some of my girlfriends too. Well, I took the idea to my friend Alexi and of course not only was she in, but she took it above and beyond to create something out of a magazine like our tea party back in April.

Lexi and I had gotten together to discuss how we wanted the party. We were on the same page for 95% of it and started a shared board on Pinterest. We knew we wanted it to be outside and we wanted Plaid to be the theme. Then Lexi came up with "Love you Like Plaid" and sent out the cutest invites with a cute poem inviting everyone to the party and asked everyone to wear the plaid. I just loved every minute of it.

We thought it would be super cute for each girl to get a basket. I put together the baskets, bought the baskets and plaid blankets and they also included apples, a rootbeer, a little sign that said "Oh Darling, let's be adventurers" and a little fall arrangement from the florist. SO cute.

Speaking of the florist, like our last party, this was a collaboration of talent. Lexi and I were the event planners. Lexi was again the graphic designer, the Florist was Over the Top Floral.

Cupcakes were done by Amy, same girl who did the Naked cake at the tea party. We also had a popcorn bar which was so fun. We each got two bags to fill with popcorn and then got to make our own popcorn flavors and then had a competition to see who made the best flavor. Top 2 got prizes.

And our photographer was Kayla Brooke Photography. She was awesome. On top of all of that, all the girls that came pitched in by helping set up, clean up and bring extra stuff. Although it did rain on us a bit, the party was a total success. Such a cute and original party. Made a couple of new friends as well. I hope that Lexi wan't to keep planning these types of parties with me, because they are such a blast and I always make new friends. I don't have a lot of girl friends that are into these types of parties, so I'm always happy to make new friends that are into these things. So fun.