Dinner with Friends, and more…

Last night, Wyatt and I had the blessing of having my best friend and her fiance over for dinner. It was our first time cooking for others in our little apartment (other than breakfast or dessert of something small like that) and I admit I was a little nervous because we don’t really have an open kitchen so it’s hard to talk to people while we’re cooking. Still, it was super fun to have them over for good conversation and good food.

(Is it wrong for me to call my own food good like that? I don’t think so…)

We had burgers topped with blue cheese butter (that I made), bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes, twice baked potatoes, and baked zucchini fries. (You’ve seen several of these recipes before, so I’m not going to worry about pictures and recipes, except for this one.)

Pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting. Oh. My. Yum.

I used the last of my fresh pumpkin I roasted (read about that adventure here) instead of the canned puree that the recipe calls for. And I didn’t use toffee bits to top them, I used a little pumpkin cookie mix I had leftover from the crust of the four layer pumpkin dessert I made and some pumpkin pie spice. I also substituted the ginger and nutmeg with pumpkin pie spice.

And I admit I used canned cream cheese frosting and added, real maple syrup (more than it called for), vanilla, and a pinch of salt to make my frosting. I wanted to make the real stuff, but I already had the cream cheese frosting and I wanted to get it out of my cabinet. Don’t judge me.

Also, I used my little mini cupcake maker I got last year from Christmas.

How cute, right?

It makes the cupcakes a bit more dense, but still pretty good.

They take only a few minutes to bake, but you have to check them because they don't cook evenly.

But they are super yummy when they come out. And hot. Watch out, they’ll burn you.

Like little muffins, but cake.

And I got to use my pretty serving platter. Liz, my best friend, said they looked like something from Martha Stewart. I don’t know about that, but it made me feel good, none the less.

YUM. YUM. YUM.

Needless to say, I’ll be making these again. Maybe for my family for thanksgiving, if they’re lucky.

Oh, and in case you haven’t had enough of Halloween yet, I wanted to show you some more pictures of our Halloween parties.

Here’s my friend Liz and her fiance. At Halloween party number 1.

They’re Jack and Sally from Nightmare before Christmas.

At party number 2, Drew Woolery, our host, had a photo booth set up. So there were tons of crazy awesome pictures. Here’s some to share with you guys. (Thanks, Drew, for letting me post your photos!)

Good times with good friends.

It was a fun time.

I like the Ms. Frizzle outfit. Nice!

Perhaps a bit too much fun for the little one…

Poor thing! All those shirtless guys!

There was lots of creative costumes.

Mr. and Mrs. Pacman.

And of course, your newlyweds…

Our clue characters made another appearance.

Anyway, I have more stuff to share with you guys, so be on the lookout for more posts to come soon!

Don’t forget about the opportunity to ask us questions (Yes, US, Wyatt said he would answer questions, too!) so we can all get to know each other better!

Halloween and Other Events

This past weekend, Hubs and I went to exactly 2 birthday parties, 2 Halloween parties, 2 surprise parties, and 1 outdoor bonfire. (Granted, some of these events overlapped on these qualifications. All in all, it was 4 events in three days.)

Needless to say, we’re a bit partied out. Not that these parties weren’t a good time. We’re just ready to stay home and enjoy the inside of our apartment for a few nights. (But not too many nights because we have tickets to watch Sporting KC win a soccer game on Wednesday night.)

This weekend was busy, yes, but it was also great. For lots of reasons I’m going to share with you. (Order may or may not matter in this list.)

1. The Cardinals won the World Series. Wooooooohooooo! I am a Cards girl, despite living in Royals country now, and was super pumped to watch the games all last week and listen (because we were at the outdoor bonfire/birthday/surprise party) to the big win on Friday night.

(Sorry, Father-in-law, that you had to hear it as well, but just try to see it from my perspective. I’d be excited for you if the Royals were to ever win…unless they were beating the Cardinals, which yes, I know, has happened, but not in a LONG time, ok?)

2. We got to hang out with two groups of friends we don’t see often enough. These were for the two Halloween parties and one of the surprise parties. The other surprise party was for my family, but it also counts as a group of friends we don’t see often enough.

3. Wyatt and I have now reached the point when we have been engaged/married for a year. Yay us.

4. I spent some time in the kitchen with my mom. Cooking with her is more fun now than I ever remember it. (Although I don’t really remember us cooking a lot, so maybe that’s why.) (Mom, we should do this more often.)

5. We got to attend the 3rd birthday of my little cousin. The joy of a little kid at his birthday is so pure and unequaled. It puts life and growing older all in perspective. Plus, I got to hold a sweet baby girl. Don’t tell Wyatt, but I think my uterus might have skipped a beat or two.

6. The chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese chocolate peanut butter frosting I made went over pretty well. Yay. And they looked prettier than the last ones I made.

7. Wyatt sent me this link to a sweet video on Friday. I love “Christmas” lights.

And courtesy of Wyatt: 8. Our costumes were a success because most people knew who we were and we got lots of points for creativity and awesomeness. (Ok, I’m not sure how many awesome points we got, but it was fun!)

So, here’s a picture of us in our costumes, just to make sure you’re all still in the Halloween spirit of things.

Can you guess what we are? Wyatt's name badge would help, but I'm curious to see if you can get it.

And tonight, as we sit at home and wait for any potential trick-or-treaters (Wyatt says we won’t have any. I’m not sure, but nothing so far..) we’re enjoying our festive dinner, courtesy Papa Murphy’s.

I've always wanted to have one of these...Yum and cute.

And I had to take one more picture after Wyatt cut it because it looked evil.

See? It's an evil Jack-o-lantern pizza, now!

So here’s to a Happy Halloween, everyone! Enjoy the candy!