hostessing.

As you might have been able to tell from this post and this post, I love having people in our home. I love to get everything cleaned up and presentable, I love to keep house so it is warm and a smellin' yummy, I love making extra special foods for visitors (thank you Mel for making this possible!), really I just love going the extra mile so when others enter our small abode they feel welcomed and loved. I've always enjoyed doing these things, but it wasn't until recently that I realized why these things are so important. What spurred this realization, you ask?? Well, I read this blog post about housekeeping and it seriously changed my perspective of keeping house by like 99%. You should read it, again and again.

Last week I got to do all of these loved-filled-keeping-house-things as I hosted the salad/appetizer portion of our Relief Society's progressive dinner. I wont lie, I went back and read that blog post again because yes, I love it so much, and because she gives some great examples of how to help others see, smell, and most importantly feel that your house is a home.

So for this progressive dinner I was put on the "italian route." Six thirty rolled around and half of the ladies came on over to our place where we had some green salad and tasty bruschetta. Yum bruschetta! I could eat it allll day! Obviously outside of the delicious food (thanks Amber!) and the awesome company (for reals, I sure lucked out with the group that I got!) I had lots of fun putting these little "center pieces" together for the table to greet the ladies as they came inside from the nasty snow-blowing-everywhere weather.

Terribly trendy? Yes, terribly. Absolutely adorable? Chyeah! And oh so easy, too! This is how easy... buy "priced to sell" flowers at Miller's for $2.99, buy a pack of paper doilies at World of Variety for $1.50 (while you're actually looking for non existent 3-D adhesive something-or-others), find 5-ish smaller random glass jars in your house (I went with two tall baby food jars, an old Cholula jar, and two different jam jars), wrap a little twine around said jars, fill them with flowers and a little water, and throw 'em on the table with some doilies! Okay don't throw them on the table... but yeah, so easy! 

Now this guy, on the other hand... 

[recipe]

...was also so easy! And mega delicious... again, thank you Mel, from the bottom of my very stuffed stomach.

a good reason to party

Everyone has their own motives for throwing a party. Some people love to prepare the food for a gathering, other's enjoy the extra reason to clean and decorate the house, many simply love to have friends and family in their home for a evening of fun. Then there are the Emily Gilmore's that more or less just want to spend money and be fancy with a side of showing off. With this particular low-key party I probably fell underneath each of the categories to some extent. I do enjoy preparing food, especially dishes'n'things that I've never made before. I always need an extra push to clean while I don't need an extra push to decorate, it's like a bonus. Of course I love being with friends and family. And yes, spending money is fun but what's more fun is figuring out how to be "fancy" while staying cheap. For this particular party I got to do a little bit of everything and it all turned out quite nicely!

The main attraction of the party was the lovely Lila and her Scentsy goodies. She brought all of the different scents as well as sample warmers, room sprays, lotions, etc. We had a great time playing games and going through all of the smells to find our favorite ones. I think my favorite is still "Coconut Lemongrass" although I discovered "Welcome Home" which was also very pleasant.

And because a party isn't a party without some sort deliciously digestible somethin'-or-other I went ahead and put together a hot cocoa bar for the guests. I found the chalkboard print here and the idea for the rest came from a baby shower that I attended a couple months ago (thanks Sarah!).

I'm especially proud of this banner that I "threw together" before the party because I kinda came up with it mostly by myself! Minimal pinterest direction! Pretty much I searched the shelves of the thrift store for either old sheet music or an old book so I could get that yellowy paper look. Unfortunately the only book that I could find with pages big enough was like three bucks! Come on thrift store, three bucks? Oh well, it was a pretty neat book all about Canada so minus the pages cut out it will be a nice addition to our bookshelf haha. So yeah what I did was I printed off the letters that I wanted (R E J O I C E) from this website onto the old yellow paper. Then cut it out, sewed the top seem onto a pair of Todd's ripped pants, closed pinned the letters to the Christmas lights, and voila! a lovely banner with a lovely message.

And because I want to document the rest of our Christmas decorations somewhere so I can remember what I did and didn't like for next year... here are a bunch of photos for your viewing pleasure...

the end.

thanks to be given.

First off-- Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! We have a lot to be thankful for this year and we were so glad to have friends and family in our home to celebrate this holiday. We were joined by Callie (Todd's sister), the Fife's + Joe, the Downs', and four elders. If you were counting... that's 14 people. And before today we hadn't exactly hosted Thanksgiving dinner before. A.k.a. there was a lot of room for messing up. Fortunately (and probably very luckily on our end), everyone brought some amazing food, Todd cooked up a superb turkey, and we feasted until we couldn't feast no mo'! 

And because I'm into the details... I also had a lot of fun decorating when I wasn't baking up a storm. (:

Believe it or not... this guy loved Thanksgiving! He ate and ate and ate! Then the pies came out and he ate some more! Hey, you don't get into the 90th percentile for weight by doing nothing!

And here's the crowd... a full house! And we loved it!

The two kiddos and the lovely Maren post-food. As always, Peter looks like a 3 year-old sitting next to the dainty Lisi.

So thankful for this goofball... he brings joy into all of my days. Must get it from his daddy. (: 

I hope your Thanksgiving has been lovely and full of things that you are grateful for. Like friends, family, and pie.

Beautiful Nauvoo

Our temple trip was extra special last month. We got to meet up with part of Todd's family in Nauvoo and attend the temple while we were there! I had been looking forward to this temple trip for a good decade. As an early teenager my family made the trip out to Nauvoo and my brother and I got to do baptisms for the dead while my parents did a session. Where Marysa and Emily were? I have no idea. I'm sure they just hung out in the hotel room... they weren't that young. I don't remember a ton from the experience that Brennan and I had other than the weather was crazy hot and humid, we had to walk back to the hotel afterwards, there was a cool narrow spiral staircase, and of course... that everything was beautiful. I was reminded again of this temple's beauty a few weeks ago as Todd, my in-laws, and I got to do a session together. Inside and out, this temple is one of the prettiest ones that I've ever seen... probably tied with the Sacramento Temple for prettiest. Now if we're trying to pick out the coolest temple... Nauvoo wins, hands down. Just the fact that they rebuilt the temple after it was burned down in 1848 makes it extra cool and definitely extra special. I also highly associate President Gordon B. Hinckley with the rebuilding of the Nauvoo temple... and I love President Hinckley. He is near and dear to my heart as he was the prophet during most of my childhood and vulnerable teenage years. Anyway...

After enjoying a lovely session we were also blessed with lovely weather to enjoy the temple grounds.

The detailing on the outside of the temple also contributes to it's neato-ness.

The sun stones topped each of the pillar looking things on the outside... I looked up what they mean but no one can seem to agree haha sooo interpret how you will.

The stained glass star windows or the "inverted stars" are a neat Nauvoo-specific feature. I wonder if they debated between calling it the "inverted star" or the "rotated 45 degree star." Hmmm. Either way, I can actually tell you about this one. (: The meaning behind these stars date back to the early Christian church. This star is also known as the "morning star" as found in Revelations 22:16 and it symbolizes Jesus Christ. The reason for the up-side-down-ness is because when the actual morning star (Venus) orbits it makes a perfect inverted five-point star. Pretty neat yea?? I thought so. And just so you know... none of the missionaries that we asked knew this information haha. They told us to go to the gift shop and buy something with the star on it and the cashier would tell us. Huh?? So that's what we did! We got a little ornament for our Christmas tree and sure enough the cashier gave us a little handout explaining the meaning behind the star! Thanks man! (:

And  we can't forget the sweet moon faces on the bottom of the pillars, also a fun detail.

But the coolest part of the temple isn't it's colorful windows, surrounding landscape, or even it's history. The coolest and most wonderful part of this temple as well as all of the temples on this earth are the things that take place inside of them. In the temple, the Logan Utah temple in our case, we were sealed together. Because of our temple marriage Todd and I have the opportunity to be with each other, our children, and our Heavenly Father for eternity. That means forever, not even death can separate us. Isn't that so incredible? I think so. I can't even begin to describe how amazing of a blessing it is... to be with the ones that I love forever. Now that's cool.

Spring Break with the Barfuss'

A couple of weeks ago the lovely village of Mount Horeb was graced by the presence of the Barfuss clan. My baby sister, Emily, had spring break so my mom convinced every single member of my family to get work/school off so we could have one last Midwest reunion before my other sister, Marysa, leaves for her mission to San Diego in a couple weeks. I don't think my whole family has been together on a "vacation" for quite a while... even this time didn't quite count since Todd had to work all week. I guess we did get a vacation from bathing Peter, changing Peter's diapers, or really needing to give him any attention at all.  Not that we don't enjoy time with our son... we just literally never got a turn with him unless he was grumpy. Oh well, we made up for it after they left... it took Peter a couple days to realize that the seven adults that were playing with him before was now down to one. One lonely momma that only had so much attention to offer. Sorry bud, I'm tryin'.

My family got to stay Friday-Wednesday so we packed in as much fun/relaxation as we reasonably could. Once they arrived and got settled in we spent most of our time hanging out, watching March Madness, touring State Street/the capitol, and checking out the shops in Mount Horeb. Nothing too crazy... but just enough action to keep 'em coming back. (:

Here is a smattering of photos from their visit... 

Hanging out after buying a ton of groceries... feeding 7 big kid tummies takes a lot more work and mula than feeding 1 big kid tummy and a baby.

Meanwhile the men played video games, watched basketball, and ate good food.

On Monday we toured around State Street and the Capitol... it's pretty cool, I don't know why I waited so long to visit.

The popcorn man was nice. (:

This is not the popcorn man.

Potbellies. Oh it was tasty.

Tuesday at the Chocolate House in Mount Horeb. 

Saying our goodbyes for a couple years... after I chopped my hair. 10 inches, yikes.

All in all we loved having my family in town. Our family get togethers (is that a word??) just aren't going to be the same until Marysa gets back from her mission, we are really going to miss her while she's away. Go get 'em Marsha! You take the party to CA and we'll keep it hoppin' in WI, ID, and UT. (: