Around the dining room table...

One of our goals for this year is to have more people around our dinner table. 

Our formal (not formal to us) living room is currently under construction.We are adding  wainscoting and molding. We have a half painted piano and no light fixtures. We thought we would wait until it was all finished, but we decided that could be months from now.

We also realized that we don't have a non- Christmas time table cloth and we don't have more than 6 matching place mats. I couldn't find our old cloth napkins and napkin rings, and almost none of dinner glasses match...unless you count the mason jars. 

And lets just say, most of the meals I cook are kid friendly, not fancy enough for a dinner party. Spaghetti, Chicken casserole, Tacos, you know?

We knew it would not be Pinterest worthy, but lets face it... That is probably the reason we've not had many people around our dinner table before. And enough is enough. If it is going to have to be perfect, it will never happen around here.  Therefore, we decided to push all the wood piles to the center of the living room, use mismatched place mats and silverware wrapped in paper towels, and serve drinks in mason jars...and just go for it!

On Friday night we invited 2 couples to join us for dinner and games.  At the last minute, one of them had to cancel, but we had a wonderful time sharing a meal and some good conversation with our friends, Wayne and Trina. 

We served grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans and salad. They brought some steamed shrimp and cocktail sauce. It was fabulous. Of course, we had lots of leftovers so we ate grilled chicken salads all weekend.

Before they arrived, my boys asked if they had to sit at the table even after they had finished eating to talk. We tried to convince them that they might enjoy a good conversation if they gave it a chance. It turns out that Zac left the table pretty soon after he finished, but Jonathan and Emily remained seated and contributed to the fun and entertaining conversations....and seemed to enjoy it too.

After dinner, we had coffee and warm chocolate chip cookies. We moved into the family room for more stories and some games. We played one of our favorites, Pit. It involves trading commodities, shouting, reaching, grabbing and more shouting until someone has a full set of matching commodities and rings the bell for the win. We also played Spoons. Cards passed quickly around the table until someone has 4 of the same, they sneak the first spoon....then it gets crazy, reaching, grabbing, and wrestling until everyone has a spoon except one. Good times. 

By then it was late and our guests had to leave. We cleaned the kitchen while we talked about how much fun we had and who we wanted to invite next. 

We are so glad we didn't wait. They had complimented our cozy house, said nothing of the paper dinner napkins, and genuinely thanked us for a great evening. We were blessed by them being here. Pinterest has got nothing on any of that.

Of course, we say it all the time about all kinds of different things, "Why did we wait so long?" 
We already have another dinner party planned for the 28th of February, but we'd like to squeeze one more in before then.

Happy Monday!
There is talk of some snow here in the wee hours...we are praying with expectation!