#3: Three Holiday Parties in Four Days

So this was the last party of last week, the one we held at our new house. However, it is our FIRST house party at the new house. Special thanks to my mom and my friend M for helping us de-clutter, sweep, and scrub scrub scrub! You should have seen the place BEFORE all the work they did. Here I am looking like I am hard at work! Not really. These photos are deceiving. I was having a ton of fun, perhaps a little discombobulated by the number of people at the house (9 adults, and 10 kids running around so it felt like the adults were outnumbered TWICE OVER!), but for the most part everyone else was pitching in and I was just trying to make sure that folks knew where the utensils, dishes, and bowls were.

The menu for the night was homemade individual pizzas and yummy cake to belatedly celebrate our friend E's late-November birthday. M made her dangerously-addicting chocolate cake, A.K.A. crack cake, and I made a yellow rum cake using the recipe that E's mom gave me. We only ended up cutting the chocolate cake, but I sent E home with at least half of the rum cake which was actually delicious, if I do say so myself (what can I say, it was a good recipe!). For the pizza, M and I made the ridiculously-easy-to-make pizza dough two days ahead, using almost a full 10-pound bag of flour. (Yikes! It turned out that we only needed half that much for all 19 people, especially considering the salad and dessert and the fact that excited little kids are usually too busy to sit and eat much.) M was the one who turned the dough into flat pizza rounds during the party. After cooking a few simple cheese pizzas for the kids, it was the adults' turn. I believe mine was the last pizza to be made as I was too nervous to be really hungry, but wow it was yummy! Sun-dried tomatoes, green bell peppers, olives, artichoke hearts, onion, and both pepperoni and Canadian bacon...mmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! The only downside was the fact that my oven was not really up to the task of cooking more than one pizza at a time. We were cooking the pizza in batches of two each time, and one would turn out kind of burned on top while the other would be slightly underdone if it wasn't left in the oven longer. Sadly, my oven is old (vintage but not in a good way!). Maybe in a few years we'll be able to save up to replace it.

ON ME: Dress: Peppermint via Modcloth (I bought this when it went on sale a few weeks ago) | Cardi: Banana Republic (from years ago) | Tights: unknown | Slippers: Acorn "Tex Moc Black Bear" via Amazon

Anyway, everyone seemed to have a great time, including my guy behind the camera. :-) And I really enjoyed seeing all the ladies' outfits (of course)! Both E and M looked really great in their Christmas-y colors. I especially loved M's super fun and creative outfit, her usual M.O.: cozy bolero, heart tights, soft red bootie slippers with dangling yarn balls, and even candy-striped apron!

Top and jeans: GAP | Cashmere cardi: via Amazon | Thigh-high socks: Sockdreams | Booties (not pictured): Blowfish "Hichi" via Amazon

Here are some bonus photos of another party we went to two weekends ago. (Yes, we are party animals over here, haha.) It was for the kids at the company my husband works for. One of the employees volunteers every year to dress up as Santa! Above is what I wore, and below is my son's Santa photo. I love his green pants, which were bought at a consignment store, and his soft red sweater with elbow patches (GAP Kids sure are stylin'), a gift from his maternal grandmother.

Finally, below are a couple of photos of the hilarious way my son started on the decorations when we got the tree a couple of Sundays ago, the day after the kids' company holiday party. He simply couldn't wait! And of course he decided to keep his decorating at eye-level or below. HAHAHAHA!

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season so far! Stay warm and stay safe!

xo, Gladys