Halloween Hosting Tips

We hosted Kevin's coworkers for a fun Halloween get together this weekend.  I found the cutest Halloween paper goods and our menu was yummy!  We had an African themed menu to help celebrate one of his faculty members + some of my favorite fall foods to fix.

The plates were all from Walmart!  I grabbed the square napkins from Walmart, too and the shaped napkins came from HomeGoods.  I love anything black cat after adding Mr. Mittens to the family.  A bonus of doing paper plates is that clean up is so easy at the end of the night.

We served a cheeseboard and veggies for appetizers.  I ran out of time and had to throw these together so fast after everyone arrived.  I hate that because it's my favorite thing to put together.  No one complained or even noticed.  They were thrilled with the bite sized snacks while we mingled.

Kevin found recipes for an Afrian stew and an okra stew.  He ran them by his coworker and made a game plan for an Afrian themed menu.  Both had very original spices and ingredients that he gathered at the international food store.  It was a tiny bit stressful making two main dishes for a dinner party that neither of us were familiar with, but it worked out great.  Everyone enjoyed both.

I wasn't sure if everyone would love the new recipes so I make a staple homemade chicken noodle soup and homemade bread.  Everyone got a mix of all the foods.  Then I served cookies for dessert.

We had some fun drinks and this moscato was a big hit.  I confessed that I buy moscato or sauv blancs based on pretty labels and pretty bottles not any wine expertise.  They agreed that a pretty bottle was important.  This one wa really yummy!

My dad watched the kids for us and we had time to dust the light fixtures before the party.  Win-win.  Yay for a successful hosting event.

We idd a quick meet and greet with Mr. Mittens and then he got locked up for the party.  He's still working on having good table manners.  He prefers to be the center of attention and be in the middle of everything (just like this post after everyone was long gone).  Silly cat.

I hope you have a sweet Halloween week.  We're hoping for great weather and fun trick-or-treating times with the kids.  They're hoping for CANDY!