Warming the House

Two weekends ago, Mike, Dylan and I hosted a housewarming party. Our house (as advertised by the sellers) has an ideal party layout so it was necessary to test that out. With the holiday season quickly approaching, we knew we wanted to fit it in before that madness. However, I think we were a bit naive in our time line. Throwing a party only 5 weeks after moving in definitely caused us a bit of stress. Having said that, I'm also partially glad we gave ourselves this time line to motivate us to get some projects done. Holidays followed by baby birth will definitely hold off most other projects for some time.

What did we do to prepare the house for the party? Well, I'm glad you asked. The answer is, a lot! In addition to the obvious unpacking boxes and trying to get things organized, we did lots of furniture shopping which led to lots of furniture buying, got several small things in the house repaired, got a wonderful glass enclosure for our master bedroom shower, and had several rooms painted. Getting the rooms painted was the toughest part because a lot of decisions had to be made (read: purchased) before then - namely rugs, duvet covers, lamps, etc.

While I was at work, Mike coordinated most of all the workers that came in and out of the house and also ran tons and tons of errands. Weeknights were primarily spent with unloading boxes and weekends saw a lot of shopping. We worked very hard to try and get all of our ducks in a row and it, quite honestly, tired me out a lot. I took the day off before the party off to try and get all the last minute things together, including getting pictures hung on our newly painted walls, and the morning of the party was spent frantically cleaning and getting food purchased and in the house. By the time the party started, I was already pretty tired and my feet were aching!

In all of the madness, we were not prepared by the time our first guests arrived. Luckily, some of the first to arrive were family and they were happy to help us get food and drinks laid out for all to enjoy. I was very grateful for the help! Because as guests arrived, so did the requests for tours so I was called away from the kitchen very often.

At the end of the day, we had a good crowd come by. Our attendance list totaled about 40 people, 11 of which were children. Writing 11 children certainly doesn't seem like a lot but it sure felt like a ton of kids that day! Maybe because most of those were under 3 years old. It's definitely more kids in my house than have ever been in my house at one time. It's a good thing the weather was nice because they were able to enjoy our swing set as well as the playroom.

I really didn't see Mike much during the party time and rarely saw Dylan. However, every time I did see Dylan, he was asking for another cookie....from anyone nearby that would listen. And darn all of my guests, they seemed to all give him one. He was a bona fide cookie monster that day! With all the guest recounts later in the evening plus the couple I gave him, that child had at least a dozen cookies I could account for that day....meaning he may have had closer to 2 dozen. Geez! And, due to too much sugar, we had a repeat of Halloween night when he was up in the middle of the night again.

A good 5 hours after the festivities began, we said goodbye to the last of our guests. It's always an amazing experience to have so many people in your lives gathered at the same time. We had a really great time and were bowled over by all the support of family and friends that day. Mike and I had a fun time hosting and Dylan had a blast with all the kids around. After such a long day (and let's face it, long 5 weeks of preparation), I was ridiculously tired. So tired in fact, that it took me and my feet a full 3 days to really feel recovered. I guess this pregnancy thing is slowing me down even more than I realized.

Having been so busy entertaining that day, the camera sat untouched on the table except for the following 2 pictures I had taken during the party.

Mason, Me and Hayden (My Friend Jenn's Twins)

And going back to Mom.

I'm so glad we had the party and am also glad it's behind us. We still have more projects to work on before the baby comes, and more immediately before we host Thanksgiving next week, but with the house looking mostly put together, our pace has slowed a bit....thank goodness! As I'm officially well into the third trimester, my pace is slowing a lot so my expectations of myself and what I want to get done are quickly becoming a lot more abbreviated lists.