New Year's Eve Progressive Dinner

 We rang in 2011 with a fun New Year's Eve celebration - a progressive dinner!  This included four couples and 8 kids between us for a total of 16 people.

We kicked off the festivities with Appetizers at Matt & Allison's house, where I of course forgot to take any pictures whatsoever!  She made a delicious spread and I will be stealing several of her appetizer ideas!!  My favorite was the bacon-wrapped shrimp with a water chestnut in the middle, sprinkled with Old Bay.  YUMMY!  Oh, and the apple martini was nothing to shake a stick at either!

Next up was soup & salad at Jeff & Laura's place.  She made a delicious Hungarian mushroom soup and a yummy little salad.  By this time the kids hadn't eaten a thing and were in full force.  Olivia & Charlotte (C's just a month younger than Livy!) were busy playing with my purse and the other kids were busy destroying Tyler's room  playing with the train table.  By the time we left for our house the kids had "caught on" to the game and Wyatt was yelling, "Come on, everybody! Let's go to MY room!"

Everyone headed over to our house next for the main course.  I ended up making my friend Nerissa's Saffron Orzo and Shrimp dish (thanks Rissy!!) and bacon green bean bundles. Soooo good!  Have you noticed that everything is simply just better with bacon wrapped around it??  Here we are gathered around our table (above) and the kids finally ate two bites of food before distributing every toy imaginable around our house!

Last stop was Wendell & Heather's house for drinks & dessert (first picture at top).  Never mind that there had been plenty of drinking going on up to this point.... Heather brought out the big dogs!!!  Oprah's martini's and a full bar of choice!  Not to mention a dazzling array of desserts featuring Tommy's favorite, pumpkin rolls!  By this time the three babies were all asleep and the kids were camped out in their sleeping bags watching a movie.

I think it's safe to say a great time was had by all!