Operation Housewarming: Success!

The housewarming party was a complete and total success! We had such a wonderful time and I'm sitting here trying not to fall asleep because we were rippin and runnin the whole weekend!

My mother arrived Thursday night - I haven't seen my mom in a while and it was so good to just soak her up. I just love my little mommy! She's my world and I didn't want to be more than a foot away from her the whole time. I took Friday off of work so we could shop for the party and shop we did! We laid waste to The Dollar Store and Costco! It was so much fun! I wanted it to be a nice party and resemble a backyard barbeque as little as possible. So we loaded up on glasses from the dollar store, silver serving platters, and pretty napkins which really made it swanky.

My mom said it looked like a rich person's house! We got a ton of food from Costco as well as some fresh flowers - no party is complete without fresh flowers. It really made the tables and they looked sooo pretty!

We picked up several vases from The Salvation Army and got filler rocks from Wal-Mart to complete them and it was wonderful. We also got some guest napkins from the Crate and Barrel outlet which was an ingenious idea from my mommy. You don't want to wipe your hands on a damp towel that a kabillion people have used, so we got some of these awesome napkins for a couple of bucks!

We had kebabs, dips and crackers, white and red sangria, margaritas and blueberry vodka with pink lemonade. By the end of the night, all the white sangria and the vodka was gone! When we were making it earlier in the day, my mom had to test it out to make sure it was good. The funny thing is, my mom NEVER drinks and gets tipsy off one glass of wine. Needless to say, she was lots of fun at the party! She was a total hit with everyone - they all kept coming up and telling me how much they loved my mom. I was such the proud daughter!

We got tons of wonderful gifts, namely lots o wine! We were very grateful and it was so much fun to fill up our previously empty wine rack. I'm serious y'all, all this wine was gifted to us! Can you believe it? One of my favorite gifts was from our friend Andi. We have lots of pictures of us kissing and one night we went out for Andi's birthday and she took yet another liplock picture of us. She had it framed and gave it to us at the party. The frame was gorgeous! One of Drew's work friends gave us the most beautiful flower arrangement ever and the day after the party we did some rearranging of the flowers so we could accomodate this fantastic creation of floral awesomeness.
However, my best gift came in the form of my best friend in the entire universe. She lives in Kansas City and I was really bummed that she wouldn't be able to make it. Saturday morning, her giftcard to us arrived in the mail and I smiled sadly, wishing that she could be there. But I knew that I was going to KC in October for my bridal shower and they would be coming November for the wedding so I didn't want to pout too much. I had gotten out of the shower and I was doing my hair when Drew poked his head in the bathroom to tell me to throw something on and come outside. I told him, 'Baby, I love you so much, you're the light of my life, my soul would be empty without you, now go away can't you see I'm busy!' He shrugged his shoulders and opened the door and IN WALKED KATHLEEN!

I screamed bloody murder - it was like seeing a ghost! I was all crying and hugging her and saying 'oh my god, I can't believe you're here' over and over again, all while trying to keep my towel on! She is my best friend but I thought it best that I not be naked while jumping around and hugging her. My mom was in the shower when she heard me screaming and thought something terrible had happened and was thisclose to running out of the shower naked and dripping wet! Poor mommy. Having Kathleen there was the icing on the cake - it truly was a perfect evening.
I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because I was constantly on the move, greeting people as they arrived, hugging them as they left. And I also didn't get shots of the backyard. Drew got some great tiki torches to keep the bugs away and they really made the backyard look so festive.

There was food on every flat surface and I loved having real glasses for everyone. Everyone mingled and we had great music courtesy of the John Mayer station on Pandora. No one got silly, nothing got broken and there was only one small stain on the wall afterwards - at least that I've found. Kesha and Kathleen were absolute angels and helped to clean up everything. I didn't even have to go from room to room the next morning getting everything cleaned up. That's the worst part of a party - finding random messes the next day. But we had none of that! It was a complete success and I think we'll be able to handle 55 people at the house for the wedding.

Sunday we went to the farmer's market and that was so much fun too! I took tons of awesome pictures as I had never been - that'll be part two of this story because this post is scary long as it is! Stay tuned y'all!