Outside dinner- Birthday Party

Jade, my party planning daughter, came up with a really fun idea. She got 6 couples together and made a dinner group. It is run kind of like bunko. Two times a year you host a dinner party at your house. You bring the hostess $20.00 to help out with the food and decorations. Instead of going out to dinner you get to know these other couples, be in their home and get to go to a party a month. Sounds like a great thing for these newlyweds to do. My two daughters are in the same dinner group. Jade put it together and she was the first one to start. She went all out of course with decorations, yummy homemade food, favors and games.
The next night it was my 14 year olds birthday so Jade decided she could duplicate the party she did with her friends the night before. It was quite a treat for all of us to go in her backyard where her husband had made a table for 12 out of plywood. It was covered with a beautiful tablecloth and fancy china. She put on a 4 course meal.

Spinach, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, feta cheese, pears and homemade poppyseed dressing. So good!

Butternut Squash soup that we all love. The recipe is a few posts back. She also had good bread with homemade herbed butter in the left corner.

Lemon herbed chicken, sweet potato casserole (recipe from Thanksgiving post), scalloped potatoes, and mashed potatoes. Our family loves potatoes.

Texas Sheet cake by request from the birthday girl.

Jade is a dish collector. She has several sets of china, fancy dishes and antiques. She bought herself these 12 days of Christmas dessert dishes a month ago.

I thought this idea was pure genius. They put revolving heaters under the table. We wore jackets to dinner and we stayed toasty warm.
Here is what else I wanted to pass along. This originated from my famous quilter sister Amy. She does back to back Christmas parties. She makes double the food, decorates once, and the house is basically cleaned from the night before party. She will do one friend party, a neighbor party or church party. It is a really brilliant idea.
Just like Jade's party, it was a lot of work for her friend party and just a little more work for us to come over and be treated like royalty. Thanks Jade!!! We would love this to become a family tradition:)

Paying attention to our Strengths

Sorry I haven't been posting very faithfully. I have lots of things in the pipelines but no time to put them all together (picture, correct English etc.) I have been so giddy about my retreat that it is all I can think about and spend time doing.

Here is one of the assignments I am having the ladies do before they arrive. I posted it last April. Here is the link if you haven't done it yet.

http://mytimetoblossom.blogspot.com/2008/04/www.html

This is one thing I got from taking the test. My #1 strength is creativity, ingenuity and originality. I use ingenuity constantly. I am always looking for the fastest and best way to do things. It has always been kind of a game for me to see if I can improve how things are done. I really never knew that I was unique in this area. After it was brought to my attention, I realize that this is a gift of mine.
What is funny is that this strength of mine is also one of the things that drives my husband crazy about me. When he is doing a project and I walk in I instantly see a better way. He says that he doesn't care and doesn't always want to hear that he is doing it "wrong" or not efficiently.
I think the main point of taking a test like this is for personal awareness. See what your strengths are and how you use them. Maybe you use yours too much like in my case with my husband and can tone it down a little.
You may want to look at the last one on the list, which is an area you can improve.

When you know yourself better, you can choose the best ways to use your strengths.