We decided that we could just not get our act together in December to have a party for the folks that work with Chris.  There was just too much we had to do and we were going to be gone too much to make it work so we opted for the post Christmas celebration.  Last weekend we held a Think Spring party and had a blast!  Of course I found all kinds of great things that I wanted to cook and prepare and as I rattled off the list to Chris he just looked at me incredulously and said “That is way too much!”.  So I skinnied it down a bit and reduced the number of appetizers and goodies by half and still had a lot of food!!!

I put my lovely Cricut to use (made invitations, too!)  and made some spring things for the tables and bought a huge butterfly for the front door!!!

It was great fun to decorate–a trip (or two or three) to Hobby Lobby and I found some cute flower candles in spring colors and some butterflies to hang from the dining room light and we were good to go.   Nothing major or overly done but just a touch of spring in the middle of a cold, snowy night.

Then it was off to shop for the food……even though I always seem to have a full pantry there is always something else that I needed after I collected my recipes!!!  HyVee here I come!!!

The food preparation began, the cats were stowed in the bedroom and the guests started to come!  We had a great night and definitely will be having some more gatherings!!!   We are blessed with friends and great coworkers and it was a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy snowy day!!!

And then there was the food!!!  I didn’t have time before the guests starting to arrive to get a picture of everything on the table and these show only some of the food but at least I got a picture of some of it!!!

I also tried a couple of new recipes—I posted the recipes under the Recipe Page on the left side of my blog if you are interested!  Yummy and easy!!!

Sesame Chicken Dip

Honey Apple Brie Bites