A party of ten surrounded the birthday girl with love, stories and food well into the night. Her brother flew in from California and a good friend from South Carolina joined us too.
Since this is a group that doesn’t have the opportunity to get together often, we thought this would be the perfect way to celebrate – where we didn’t have to talk over a crowd or be rushed out as soon as our last bite was eaten.
Rather than digging my extra leaf out of the attic and chairs from the basement storage room, we planned for the littles to eat in the kitchen.
Our first wave of truly cold weather made it the perfect evening for the first fire of the season.
These two, JuJu’s only grandchildren, donned their Beaufort Bonnet Company Baylor Bow Ties for the evening. (They will be sporting them again on Thanksgiving and then to meet Santa in a few weeks…. squeal!!!)
On the menu we had herbed focaccia from Whole Foods, salad, spaghetti with bolognese sauce, butternut squash ravioli with browned butter and pumpkin seeds, and a flourless chocolate cassis cake. Everything was just sensational.
We ended our evening with a sparkling birthday cake for one remarkable lady and the matriarch of our family.
I want to offer my sincerest THANK YOU to bestie P and blonde AW for selflessly offering their talents to JuJu’s celebration. Bestie P and I spent a lovely lunch hour doing the gorgeous flower arrangements. She has an amazing eye and I always love having her pieces in my home. I couldn’t have done this dinner without blonde AW, and her handsome other half, who made the entire menu possible. They eagerly gave up an entire night to cook their hearts out while I essentially drank copious amounts of wine and talked them to death. I can’t imagine what kind of mountains we could move if we all joined forces for something bigger :-)
With that, I want to wish JuJu the happiest of birthdays yet!! As the boys would say, eat more chicken!
xoxo
PS. Lest you think this entire thing went off easy-peasy-living-breezy, you should know that John started throwing up just after everyone arrived. He ate candy ALL.DAY.LONG. He would moan and groan “my stomach hurts” and then pop another snicker in. This commenced at 7:30AM and culminated in a night of vomiting – natural consequences at their best. We beg, plead and warned him to no avail. We talked to him about donating his candy to the troops, or leaving it out for the “switch witch”, but he shot down every idea that would put a dent in his haul. It really was hard not to feel sorry for him – he was so pathetic – but I bet he’ll do the same thing again in 365 days :-)