Dinner Party

Chris's Step mom and half siblings on his dad's side were in town from Houston last week to go to Lake Powell with the Doxey family and were going to be up near us for a couple of days so we were planning on having them over for dinner last night. Here are my thoughts and feelings about hosting my first dinner party!!

So I will start with Sunday night when we found out that Chris's family were coming on Tuesday. My first feelings were of panic as I looked around our house that was torn apart because the dog is at a "wild and crazy" stage and is also teething and is chewing EVERYTHING and making a mess, and then I looked at the kitchen where it was a complete disaster because Chris and I (mostly Chris) are putting in a tile back splash. I immediately stopped working on a little project I was doing for my niece's 1 year birthday party and went into crazy cleaning mode! I cleaned a little Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday afternoon. When I was done I thought to myself.. other than feeling happy that I have a nice clean house, why did I put so much stress on having a clean house? What really would happen if they came over and I DIDN'T polish the sinks and get the stove sparkling? Will they really be upset that the back door has dog tongue prints on it?

During all of this Chris and I were making all the plans and we realized that there would be a total of 7 people at dinner (Chris, his Step mom, half sister, half brother, Grandma and Grandpa Doxey, and me). We looked at our table and realized that we would have to bring in an extra chair and then the thought struck me! Chris and I wouldn't have enough plates or cups! So chris went to the store and got plastic cups and plates. Once the dinner got started we BARELY had enough silverware but for dessert we ended up have to use plastic spoons (luckily I happened to have them in the pantry!)

So then came the meal. I got really REALLY lucky on this. Monday night Chris went to his mom's house to pick up his grill and brought it home and he made pork chops for dinner. Chris's step mom brought a salad and Grandma Doxey brought a side and I told Chris I would make a side. Once Tuesday came and I had finally finished scrubbing the wood floors and realized I REALLY needed to take a shower I realized I didn't have time to make a side. Once I got out of the shower, I only had a few minutes until everyone was supposed to be at our house. So off to the store I went to get a fruit salad from the deli. I got home put it in a nice bowl (so it looked homemade) and throw the evidence away.

All in all, this experience made me really understand the stress and work that goes in to dinner parties that people invite me to! (it also made me really wish I would have spent the extra money on more dishes that I thought "we would never use")