It's been a while...

I'd like to begin by apologizing to all my fans for the long, very long, absence from posting. There was some noise over on Facebook regarding my lack of posts, and a threat to change the name of the blog to "lewisgirl"... as well as some instruction from Carrie that "two 1 line posts about Dora the Explorer do NOT count." 

I'm sorry! What can I say? Life has been crazy. We closed on our house about 3 weeks ago, and the next two weeks I supervised the floor guys and 2 painting crews, running back and forth from Palmers' house all day long. We moved in on 10.16, and then I had about a week to throw together the ward Chili-Cookie Cook Off, all while trying to find our toothbrushes and coats in a mess of boxes.

Thankfully, Saturday came and went and the party was a success (translation: no one died, there was enough food, and I didn't have a nervous breakdown). None of it would have been possible if not for Nana, who came into town 3 days early to watch Oz while I ran around town doing errands. Nana, once again you saved the day!

Here are some photos from the party... with amusing commentary for your reading enjoyment.

This is the world famous Gabby Blair, AKA Design Mom. She was my partner in crime for the big event... and without her, it wouldn't have looked as cool or been as fun. She has the best calming influence as well... every time I started to stress, she would talk me off the ledge I was standing on.

This is a shot of the party. I wish I had one of the room before the peeps arrived... we had black table cloths with candy and spiders in the middle... it looked pretty good, and was a whole lot simpler than the centerpieces of orange jello with spiders floating in it I had originally cooked up. (Thank you, LeeAnne, for not letting me go through with that!!)

Our illustrious panel of judges. They didn't wear the hats nearly as long as I wanted them to. But really, who can blame them?

Food shot. We ran out of black table cloths and had to have two orange ones. Let me tell you, you should NEVER go to Party City on the Saturday before Halloween in New York. It was a nightmare and a half.

The aprons the winners got, all tied up with black and orange bows. 

The condiments for the chili that I nearly forgot. We were halfway to the church and had to turn back for the cheese and sour cream.

The cookie table. It was Gabby's idea to put all the food out on strips of orange paper... it looked amazing.

Poor Nana had to miss the whole event. I realized the last person who could be at the party was Oz, who would be pulling things off the tables, running around like crazy, and causing mayhem... so Nana had to stay home with him. She had already picked out her outfit (something involving a sheepskin vest?) and was quite disappointed. She's only mentioned it every three seconds ever since.

I'm happy to report though that I brought her back some chili, as well as made sure she had a fridge stocked with goodies before we left. I can learn from my sister's mistakes! No Nana abuse here.