Hi everyone! My party was a lot of fun yesterday and the decorations turned out awesome. Of course, I have A LOT of pictures for you 
I made sure to dress myself with a Moroccan-ish outfit. I found the gold chain in my closet and made it into a belt and then my Mom bought me gold earrings and a gold bracelet to pull it all together. I just realized the only full length shot of me was taken after the decorations were taken down but this is me, my nana & pop, and my mom.
Before the guests came we set up all the tables, centerpieces, decorations, drinks, and appetizers. Each table had a candle centerpiece, premium m&m’s, dark chocolate kisses for favors, and pita chips with hummus.
The drink of the day for me was the sangria. My aunt made it with red wine, club soda, and nectarines I believe. I probably had about 3 glasses. We also had white and red wines, lots of beer, sodas, iced green tea, and good old water.
The appetizers went out for when the guests arrived at 2. We had a tomato and mozzarella platter (can anyone remember the name of this dish? I can’t and it’s driving me crazy!), chicken sausage with spinach and cheese on a toothpick with a cherry tomato, a vegetable platter, my coconut shrimp (it all went) with mango salsa, and a foccacia bread sandwich with mozzarella and roasted red peppers.
At about 3 we put out the main course. This included penne with vegetables, olive oil, and shrimp, lasagna, my couscous, my mom’s chicken francese (which I heard was a big success – go mom! cooking isn’t usually her forte), Italian potato salad, Moroccan rubbed pork, sausage and peppers, and eggplant rollatini.
So most of the food ended up being Italian – I guess you can’t get away from your heritage when asking people to make dishes for the party! Everything was delicious though and we had quite a bit of food left over.
Dessert was a carrot cake from Costco with an apricot mousse filling. It was good but WAY too much sweet icing! That didn’t stop me from having like the largest piece ever though I loooove carrot cake.
There was also confetti cupcakes (best cake mix ever), mini cheesecake bites and blueberry lemon coffee cake.
Instead of booking a DJ we hooked up my Dad’s speaker system and used our ipods on shuffle. It worked great and saved us a ton of money.
The party seemed to fly by. I spent most of the time on my feet going from table to table to make sure I talked to everyone. It was so nice getting to see everyone who I haven’t seen in a while but frustrating because of course everyone asked me what I’m doing now. I graduated college and am still working retail. I hate this economy!
I just ate what I wanted at the party. I figured one day isn’t gunna kill me! I didn’t photograph my plate but I had some couscous, some pasta with shrimp, and a piece of the roasted red pepper and mozzarella sandwich. Thinking about it now, that’s a lot of carbs! For dessert, I tried a little of everything, which is the best way to go
Today I’m just relaxing. I did 45 minutes on the stationary bike this morning and plan on eating leftovers for the rest of the day. Hope you all had a great weekend!
