Exceedingly Mundane

Another Labor Day has come and gone, and another Labor Day party at our house is in the books! Tim and I have been having an annual Labor Day party since we first got married. We picked Labor Day because it was about the only holiday that wasn’t spoken for on either side of the family. We started having a party every year on this holiday, so we could invite our immediate family on both sides. When Tim and I first got married, our families didn’t know each other much at all, so we started this tradition to give everyone a chance to meet, and spend time together. It’s gone on through the years, as kids have grown older, others have had children, and new members of the family have been introduced.

I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the food on the grill, which I love to do! It’s always a meat fest around here, since Tim and his brothers (and the rest of us too!) LOVES them some meat! I always take a picture, so I can remember what we have from year to year 🙂 Last year, we had ribs and sausage, but this year, we had a few more little kids than normal, so we went back to hot dogs and hamburgers. We also grilled some chicken breasts and sausage, so we had four sets of meat, people! I made potato salad and my sister Gail brought her crunchy asian slaw (recipe here!). I made some dips, and we had cheese and crackers (again, no pictures!). I also made my brownies, which I love (recipe here). Just wanted to remember what we had, for future party planning 🙂 We also had our live draft for our family fantasy football league, after all of the eating was done. Tim really enjoys doing it with everyone here, but it’s hard for me to concentrate 😀 There was some Wii playing, as well as the kids playing outside in the dirt for a while. Hopefully, fun was had by all!

I did take a few photos, almost all people pictures. Click on the extended link to see a few cute ones! Hope everyone had a great Labor Day 🙂

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Our website, and therefore my blog, was down during Super Bowl weekend, but I wanted to go back and post a little about it. We had a really good time, as always, and a house full this year. All of Tim’s family and my dad came, which was great. My dad will turn 86 in April, so it’s really good that he’s still able to get out and about, and come visit us a bunch. We also had some friends and extended family here. All in all, I think we had about 20 people or so.

Tim and I went on Saturday to Sam’s Club and bought food for the party. Note to self – if you take Tim, expect to load up on meat. It was definitely a male-oriented, cholesterol laden, meat festival at our house on Sunday. 😀 We had hamburgers, hot dogs, smoked sausage, 3 flavors of wings (thanks Terry!), a sausage stuffed/bacon wrapped concoction (thanks Mark!) that I dubbed the Bacon-ator. We had Lil’ Smokies, a meat and cheese platter, a vegetable tray, several kinds of dips and chips, Chex Mix, potato salad, fruit, and a double decker cookie cake for dessert. I had three things that I had planned for later in the day (game time or half time), but everyone filled up at lunchtime on the food we had, then nibbled throughout the afternoon and early evening. So, I put those into the freezer and we’ll have to plan another party so we can eat that food up 🙂 As it is, Tim and I have been eating leftovers all week, which has been wonderful. I got out of cooking for many days! Since we purchased everything and Tim did the grilling, I was home free for this year’s party. I think that’s definitely the way to go, at least for me! Isn’t that terrible. You’d think I’d want to cook for 20 or more people, huh?! 😀

I took a few videos of the guys playing Madden 09 on the Wii, but I’m not going to post those. They’re funny though 🙂 Here’s a couple of still photos that I took. We had enough 3-D glasses for everyone, and big kids and little kids alike had a good time playing with them and waiting for the 3D commercial 🙂

Here’s the first round of meat on the grill…. 22 burgers, some of the sausage and hot dogs. Tim filled it up a second time!

Lots of Electronic toys here: Wii playing, iPod Touch, iPhones, Nintendo DS’s…

Having fun with 3D glasses:

I’ve lost count on what consecutive party this is that we’ve had. Tim and I have been married almost 13 years, so I’d say we have had a party at least 10 of those 12 years, and maybe 11 of those. We plan to have one next year. Unless the Saints go to the Super Bowl. If Tim’s beloved Saints ever make it, we have already told everyone we will not be having a party. We’ll lock every door in the house and tell people to go away, so we won’t miss a second of the game! As it is, I don’t get to watch a lot of the pregame or game (I did finally sit down and watch some of the second half this year though, it was a really good game). I didn’t get to see Faith Hill or Jennifer Hudson sing beforehand, and I missed the halftime show, which was fine because I’m not a Springsteen fan. I did watch the 3D commercial though. Gotta have your priorities straight. Anyway, we’re already missing football season around here. Training camp can’t come soon enough!