Une Petite Célébration

Three dear friends came over the other day for lunch, and I decided to turn it into a miniature Valentine's Day party. It was so much fun to plan and prepare for. Here are some ideas to pass on for your own Valentine party!





A simple coffee table centerpiece with roses, a circle of decorative paper, doilies, and pink candles in glass votives.






I used the same decorative paper that I put in the centerpiece to cut out little hearts and make tea bag tags.







One of my tea cups with the heart-shaped tea bag.




Pretty table!





I had a lot of fun with my new heart shaped cookie cutters! This is bruschetta. I combined two recipes, one from a cookbook and this one. The cookbook recipe called for a slice of mozzarella to be put on top of the tomato mixture and then to put more tomatoes on top. It was really good! (The smaller hearts have mozzarella on them)




Et la piece de resistance...jam-filled cookies from marthastewart.com!

Since it was a luncheon, I served light foods like a tossed green salad, a fruit salad with this yummy fruit dip, bruschetta, and jam-filled cookies. If I were making a Valentine dinner, I would add this delicious chicken parmesan recipe too. I've made it twice now, and I love it!

Decorating for Thanksgiving!

I blogged about Thanksgiving on our other blog, but here is where I get to share all of my fun in preparing for it!

This was the table I set out for desserts. I filled our hurricane candles with cinnamon potpourri and set them on top. Here are my two apple pies...

I found some miniature fall leaf cookie cutters and had a lot of fun adding leaf motifs to my pies.



Our pretty table! (Not exactly the 14 serving pieces Martha Stewart suggested, but I decided to blend proper with practical)



I had a lot of fun creating the centerpiece. Actually, it was a true team effort! Jesse carved out the pumpkin for me, and I arranged the flowers.

It's so much fun to prepare for holidays!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Jesse and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year. We decided even before we were married that we didn't want our first holiday as a married couple to be split between one side of the family or the other, and we are so excited to be having it at our house!
I've been looking over recipes and decorating ideas for the last few weeks. It's so much fun to plan something like this. We're expecting 15 people (Jesse's mom, the Mueller clan, both sets of my grandparents, and Jesse's godparents), so a lot of planning is needed! To accommodate everyone, we are having to borrow an extra table, a few chairs, and even a platter for the turkey! Ok, so some of that isn't "accommodating"...it's improvising :)
Jesse and I picked up our turkey today, along with everything I'll need to make fruit pies, casseroles, and even apple cider. Everyone is so excited to help out with food--which is a blessing, because with my tiny little oven, it would take forever to cook it all!
I'm going to iron the tablecloth and napkins tonight and get the table ready. The next two days are going to be way too busy to leave everything til last minute. Anyway, I was just perusing Martha Stewart's website for ideas, and found her "Setting the Table 101" video. I'd love to be as prim and proper as can be, but I have to admit, I laughed when I watched it. Did you know that to properly set a formal dinner table, each guest should have:

a charger plate
a dinner plate
a soup plate
a bread plate
3 forks
2 knives
a soup spoon
a dessert fork and knife
a red wine glass
a white wine glass
a water glass

Wow! Pardon me, but if you multiply those 14 items by the 15 guests I'm serving, I would have 210 pieces to wash--by hand!

Yes, Thursday certainly would be a good day to have a dishwasher...

But who can blame this stinkin' adorable house for having been built before dishwashers were even imagined? I don't mind. I'm just so excited to have everyone here! Gramma and Papa have only been here once before, and Ami and Papa never have. I'm so excited for them to see our home. It certainly has transformed over the last few months.

Thanksgiving is going to be wonderful!