Friends Thanksgiving

The Saturday before Thanksgiving was the FIFTH annual Friends Thanksgiving!  We LOVE this time with friends to eat and talk and enjoy the holidays before things get really crazy!

I love that this event is a potluck and everyone brings the most amazing food!! 

This year I only made the turkey and the drinks! Which meant tons of time to do the fun stuff- like decorate the tables!! (and worry about how to find enough tables and chairs to seat 25!)

The Dining Room

I had to add the folding table to the end of the dining room table to make it all fit.

And even though we use our nice china and crystal... I borrow from my mother-in-law and so it becomes a hodge-podge of really pretty stuff!  Love that!

I went simple with the napkins this year... I saw this in a magazine and loved it!  Just folding them into a rectangle and then cinching them with a pretty ribbon.  Maybe a thicker ribbon would have made a bigger impact, but I just used what I had in fall colors :)

Some tables had orange flowers, some had pumpkins!  Again, just a hodge podge! But it works!

The Sun Room- We used our normal round table (just added a couple of chairs) and then added this folding table as well. (Had to remove a big leather chair to make room)

I think this table was my favorite this year.  Loved the colors and the rectangle centerpiece.

This table was adorned with pretty placemats and a brass tea set.  (I need to remember to purchase a round fall colored table cloth for next year!)

In the kitchen... we took out our tall bar table to make more room.  The bar table is great for morning coffee, but not so great for serving food from.  So it went to the garage, and in came this folding table.   By this point I was out of tablecloths! SO I found a clean white sheet and added an embroidered table runner (made by my great-grandma).  The turkey and ham ended up here.

This sweet vignette sat in the kitchen all season. I really enjoyed it each morning, it's nothing special, but I liked how I (finally) put it all together on a white tray and it just tied it all together! So simple- but I just figured that trick out!

Since I did NOT have to do most of the cooking... I got to spend my time on fun things like this!  The food labels! I bought these pumpkin place card holders at Pier 1 after Thanksgiving last year (which meant huge sale!)  I cut up some yellow card stock, printed these cute Thanksgiving labels (thanks Pinterest) and hand wrote the food item. I had some leftover circles of scrapbook paper from the invitations, so I threw those on for more color.

The Drink Station- I always do this on the washer and dryer now! I love that it moves some of the serving action out of the kitchen.  I made hot apple cider (YUM!), I made some sweet tea, and I set the coffee maker to start at the beginning of dinner.  Done and done.

 My favorite chalkboard!  this greeted guests at the front door.

The Turkey!  turned out quite nice this year! I only ate a few bites because I loved all the side dishes so much!

all of the food! What a feast!

Honey baked ham and turkey! 

the BEST jalapeno creamed corn you could ask for! Great sweet potatoes!  Delicious dressing! 

Mac n cheese!  Green bean casserole! Salad! Rolls!  (are you hungry yet??)

The end of the night...  It doesn't look as messy in the picture as it did in real life.  But when I walked by I thought, "now THAT is Thanksgiving!"  Empty glasses, forks, napkins, etc all strewn about the table. love it.

This  year the party ended early.  Turns out our friends are entering into parenthood and have baby sitters at home or they were pregnant and very tired. So Ty and I were able to get the house cleaned up and get to bed at a very decent hour. 

It was a blast! I love how it has evolved over the years... we had 1 couple who came to our first feast and then missed all the middle years and returned this year.  The wife said to me, "Wow.  Last time we were here we all fit at the dining room table. Now you've added 3 more tables!! People just kept coming in!"  I love that!  Hoping for many more years of feasting to come!

Vintage Sports Baby Shower

A couple of months ago I hosted a fun vintage sports baby shower for the (coming soon) MVP Levi!!

It was super fun and I had a lot great help from friends!!

This cute display greeted guests at the door.

We had a football banner (courtesy of the dollar tree) hanging in the archway and above the windows.  (red balloons covered the tape holding the banner)

Gifts went by the mantle.

Desserts were plated as the centerpiece next to some rustic spicy orange flowers.  We had banana bread with cream cheese frosting and chocolate chip cookies (I don't think we had left overs of either!)

A name banner hung in the dining room... using the nursery colors of navy and red as the main colors.  The letters were newspaper articles (which I copied onto regular printer paper and then cut with the cricut).

The Concessions Stand!

 The dots were cut from paint chips (again the nursery colors) and then hot glued to silver ribbon.  I also included a few pieces with soccer balls, footballs, basketballs, and baseballs.  I used a shower tension rod to hang a navy blue sheet as the backdrop.  Then I taped each of the ribbons to the back of the sheet.
The concessions sign was made with cricut letters and old Christmas wrapping paper for the red stripes.  The All-Star onesie hung as well.

The FOOD!!

There was no shortage of food at this concessions stand!  We had a "pre-game" lunch of soups, salad, and sandwiches.  We used mostly white serving dishes to keep a unified look.

Fruit was served in MVP themed cupcake wrappers and topped with an "All-Star" flag.

Hot Ham and Cheese sandwiches!  The food labels were made with more paint chips cut into circles and then written on with silver sharpie.

 mini cornbread muffins to go with the taco soup and Vermont Cheddar Soup

 Chicken salad sandwiches

YUMMY Italian Antipasto Squares. I've been craving these ever since!

 The onesie mantle... Some of the guests brought a onesie that represented themselves and the mommy-to-be had to guess who brought each one.  When she was wrong, she had to add a piece of bubble gum to her mouth.  She had a LOT of gum! this game is tough!

 I've always wanted to host a girly lunch and my dream finally came true!! Of course we did have a sports theme going... so next time I'll have to host a baby shower for a girl and use all pinks!!

The Rest of the Christmas Decorations

Two Posts in a row!  And I'm going to attempt to "schedule" this one to post on Friday December 9th, we'll see how that goes :)

I realize I definitely need a real camera... and I need to take my pictures during the day for better lighting. But I'm taking baby steps as I get back into this!

After our big addition last summer, I realized I have more room to decorate for Christmas. This is great because now I can actually use ALL of our decorations!!  But, it also means adjusting the old stuff and coming up with new ways and places to display things. So I'm not sold on everything I attempted this year... but I do like some of it.

My Christmas tree collection is displayed on the "library" bookshelves this year.  This I like! Last year I used it all as a centerpiece which was cute too.  But I love seeing them all spread out on this book case.

The nativity collection still lines the windows in the sun room.  This works for now.  Not my favorite.  But I think the real issue is I don't actually love all of the nativities. 

 I just bought this cute glitter nativity for $2.50 in the Target dollar bins. LOVE it!!  It may be a table centerpiece next year!!

The Mantle

This has been a real headache this year. I have redone it, twice.  Still not loving it, but refusing to do it a 4th time.   Part of my dislike is the unrelated painting hanging there.  Have not discussed with hubby the option of moving it... may happen in the future.

What I like... I do love the 3 red stars on stands and I love the red glittery leaves on the ends.  I also love our stockings.

 I think I still like these reindeer.  Not sure.  Apparently I'm really drawn to the REDS this year.

 I added these random gold angels.  I think they are pretty.  They seem to belong on a mantle.  But I have stars, reindeer, and angels on the mantle. How in the world does that all fit together?  And how do you feel about that "JOY" candle? I like the stars on it, but does it look random and cheap?  Oh man... am I over thinking this?

 Moving away from the mantle!!

On top of the book case we have the colorful ornaments in vases and a santa hat covering a vase. I bought those ornaments about 10 years ago from Target. I LOVE them and wish I had LOTS more!!  I'm always on the look out!  I bought that cute chalkboard earlier this year and have been using it for each holiday. LOVE it up on the bookcase!

 On top of the other bookcase I have my JOY letters.  I needed to elevate them in order to see the entire letter, so I stacked some boxes and books and covered them in burlap as a base.  Another use of burlap... oh the possibilities are endless!

 This is the little table when you walk into our home.  My husband's grandma painted the poinsettias, love it!!  And I love having some garland and beads on the table too!

 This sled is new this year!  I received it as a teacher Christmas gift last year full of Ghirardelli chocolate.  This year it hold all of our Christmas cards!

 The bookcases in the new hallway... let me say- these bookcases are more of a headache than the mantle!  Styling bookcases is HARD! and I feel like mine always look chaotic and messy!!  I have some ideas about how to fix it (baskets on the bottom shelf, a more precise color palette), but I will get to that later.  What i DO like is the fun boxes on the top!  I love my random collection of Christmas boxes and now they are on display!

All that's missing is our tree! I think that's on the schedule for this weekend!

Christmas Tables

It's been many months... but I'm back.  I purchased a new laptop on Cyber Monday and got to pick it up yesterday at Best Buy- that was inspiration number 1 to start blogging again!! 

Inspiration number 2... my favorite home decorating blog (the Lettered Cottage) hosted a Christmas Tablescape Link Party the other day.  So I'm posting my tables... a few days late, but better late than never. Right?

So... on to the tables!

In the dining room...

I went with a red tablecloth and burlap running across the table... giving it a bit of a rustic feel and also indulging my new love for burlap (Thanks to pinterest).

I bought the live evergreen wreath as part of a fundraiser at my new school.  Didn't want to waste the live wreath on the front door...I want to SMELL it!  So it's on the dining room mirror and it smells awesome!!

The chargers are silver from Michael's, white dishes from Marshall's, glass dessert dish on top (no clue where it's from), and a fun plaid napkin (from my mom :)

Last year I used a nativity for the centerpiece and I loved it!  What a way to keep the REASON for the season front and center!!  This nativity is my favorite because it has a Bible verse on each figure. super cute!!  I made it more of a centerpiece by putting it all on a big white serving dish and then layering it with some doilies (for added texture.)

In the sun room...

 This is the FUN table!!  The placemats have gifts on them! I have gift shaped plates on top of plain white plates. (placemats and gift plates were from my mom, plain white plates from World Market)

For the centerpiece... a fun floral arrangment surrounded by gold and red ornaments and red beads, all nestled on top of a brass serving tray.

Thanks for stopping by!!  So happy to be back blogging!!