Parties, parties, parties!!!

Hosting is like one of my favorite things to do. Especially in my own place. I LOVE the home Brent and I have set up for ourselves in busy (sometimes scary) downtown Sherman Oaks. It's truly a haven for us, and we love to make our guests feel as though our home is a haven for them too. I can't even count the number of times we've had family or friends over for lunch or dinner this year, and it would probably take both hands to count the number of parties we've hosted as well. Hosting, making guests feel loved and comfortable, cooking, preparing pretty settings, it's just totally my thing.

So far I've come closer to mastering the art of hosting one or two guests at a time than hosting an entire party. As soon as a group of people tromps into my home, I feel as though I'm running around crazy for the entirety of the gathering getting food ready, getting people what they need, answering guests' questions, etc etc. And the beautiful, serene, calm and quiet home and setting I've spent an entire day preparing for the party becomes cluttered, crazy and messy at the snap of a finger, and it remains so until the last person has left.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE having you guys over, for whatever. Random family gatherings, showers, birthday parties, Talent Show, love it love it love it! I'm simply rambling on about the fact that I wanna improve in the way of hosting larger groups of people.

When I was about 15, I think, a nice woman from my church hired me and another friend of mine to come stay in her kitchen during a party she was hosting. When we arrived at her home about an hour before the party, she gave us a run down on how the party was going to progress, what food she was going to serve when, how to wash certain dishes, where to put dishes when they were washed (making sure to keep dishes that were going to be used again during the gathering easily accessible). For the COMPLETE duration of her party, my friend and I were working furiously in the kitchen, serving up hot plates of food, cleaning dishes, etc. The host herself would glide into the kitchen with a dish to be washed or a little reminder to give one of us, and every time she entered, her demeanor spoke of how calm, cool and collected she was, and how much she was thoroughly involved with her guests and enjoying herself.

The first time I ever threw a party where food was served, I wished I could have afforded to pay some girls to be my kitchen helpers the entire time (and notice I specify girls, not kids, because, let's face it, a boy who does a thorough job with dishes is a rare gift of God...though I know many boys who do sincerely try...to no avail). When a host doesn't have kitchen helpers, she doesn't get to enjoy the party like she ought. Either the host herself is in the kitchen the entire time (rather than enjoying her guests) or her guests feel compelled to serve the host by being in the kitchen, and that makes a host feel torn (though grateful).

I threw two dinner parties over the holidays, and for both I made SURE that all of the food was prepared and all of the cooking dishes were cleaned and put away before the party started. So helpful. Why didn't I think of that before? The first was Heather's baby shower where I simply served a lot of little appetizers, very easy to prepare ahead of time and set out on a table for guests to come grab. The second party was the Annual Talent Show where I served enchiladas, cooked and assembled two days before the party, and put in the oven 45 minutes before it started. This way the party begins with a spotless kitchen and ends with a not-as-horribly-messy-as-you-would-think kitchen. Love the new method. Though I still fall in the trap of being busy for the entire party and not being able to sit and enjoy it. MUST figure out how to stay out of that one!

Enough about those boring kitchen logistics! I wanna talk creativity and cuteness now! Here are some fun pictures sampling a few of the parties I've done this year.

This was the table display for the Tylers' first party of the year, the Marriage Celebration. We hosted it on our one month wedding anniversary (or near it anyways, because of scheduling conflicts). We invited my two older siblings and their spouses.

We ate yummy snacks, played a game, made toasts to marriage, ate the top of our wedding cake and drank martinellis out of our wedding crystal champagne glasses. Looking back, it was so totally the CHEESIEST party of the year, but my supportive husband and sweet siblings bore with me. :)

This was a fun one. Masha's bridal shower. My mother-in-law let me borrow almost everything she owned but her kitchen sink in order to let me transform my home into a cutesy teahouse. It was BEAUTIFUL.

At one of my wedding showers, the hostesses had printed out pictures of Brent and me and had put them in really sweet little homemade frames, and gave them to me after the shower to take help me decorate my newlywed apartment. I appreciated it so much that I wanted to carry on the tradition with Masha's shower. When she saw the picture of Ben and her hanging on the wall in the entryway, she was just giddy. Even more so when I told her it was hers to keep.

The bride's table.

The other table.

An artsy-fartsy shot taken by my husband. (WHERE did the term "artsy-fartsy" originate? It's a horrible term.)

So I made these too-cute-for-words cookies with the help and wisdom of my mother-in-law, who is talented in everything involving a sweet tooth and artistic food. We used a fabulous sugar-cookie recipe that I'm sold on for the rest of my life, and for the smooth hard frosting, it's Royal Icing, with food coloring. When I thought up the idea for the shapes of these cookies, I was SURE I had come up with a novel idea that was going to allow me to open up a shop, get really popular and making mega dollars. But then I googled them. And found that I was definitely NOT the first with the idea.

Another picture with a homemade frame. I scattered the table holding the cookies and this picture display with bite size snickers, because Masha's favorite candy bar is snickers, and we have kind of a running joke about them. Also, if you're ever at a loss as to how to make a setting beautiful, flowers and a candle is a sure fire way to do the trick. Works like a charm.

I did a REALLY simple meal for the shower because it started only an hour after church and I wanted something that would be a snap of the finger to throw together before guests arrived. Tri-tip salad (with strawberries, raspberry vinaigrette, pecans and feta cheese...DELISH, even if they're unusual flavors to put together), and par-baked ciabatta bread from Trader Joes. Simple but wonderful.

And we had apple pie for dessert.

For Heather's baby shower, the theme was chicks, so Rita and I again made cookies, this time pastel yellow, pink and green chicks. Super cute.

My talented mother-in-law made an adorable baby shower cake. Heather can't eat wheat-gluten, and there were two other guests at that particular shower who couldn't eat wheat either, so Rita made the top layer gluten-free.

We decorated onesies and burp cloths at the shower in lieu of playing games.

All the guests stepped up to the creative plate and supplied Baby Girl #2 with precious things!

We had plenty of iron-ons, stencils and paints. Who knows what they would have turned out looking like if we had only had paints.

The hostess (aka, me). In the kitchen, surprise surprise.

The guest of honor. Doesn't she make a sassy pregnant lady?

Aw. Sissers.

Can't wait for the next party. It'll be a Valentine's Day one, complete with Monopoly, spaghetti and meatballs, and haikus.