Halloween and a Surprise Party!

I love Halloween and this year was one for the record books! Weeks ago I decided what I wanted to be but wasn't sure if I'd be able to get everything together and pull it off. But I finally found the perfect outfit and with some hair and makeup help from my friend Aubrey it came together perfectly! Can you guess what I was from this photo? I was cracking myself up every time I looked in the rearview mirror!

And here we are! We dressed up as John Waters and Divine! If you aren't familiar with Divine you can read about her here. I'm a huge fan of her (and John Waters DUH) and I'm thrilled with how this costume turned out! I felt great all night! Not everyone knew who I was, but those that did seemed to love it.Everyone else probably just thought I had crazy make up.

We met up with our usual crew, Crystal, Marc, and Thomas. Crystal wore her rams horns, Marc was The Count from Sesame Street, and Thomas wore his new gorilla suit! We went out to dinner at Rose Pepper, then headed to the 5 Spot for their Monster Mash dance party!They had a photobooth of course. I hope that trend never goes away.

The 5 Spot is the most fun place to dance I've ever been! Lots of motown and novelty Halloween songs and some 90's hits thrown in for good measure. Perfect! We stayed for a few hours then dragged ourselves home. We tried to leave several times and then something would pull us back in. You can't go home when Thriller is on!

The next day has been in the works for over a month! Crystal's husband Marc wanted to throw her a huge surprise party for her 30th birthday! He and Marissa did most of the planning, and I helped as much as I could. I wanted to instagram so many things while we were getting ready but couldn't without spoiling the surprise! Here are the pumpkins Travis painted, and I made over 40 sugar skulls! It ended up being too cold to decorate them at the party, so we're going to do it next weekend. And break the pinata we forgot about during the party. Haha!

We spent all day Saturday setting up. I didn't get photos of everything but here are a few! Candy buffet! The plastic witch fingers were a hit! They are perfect when you are dancing. (Tip: if you need fun Halloween candy go to the dollar store! They have so much good stuff!)

A shrine to Crystal. We papier mache'd the skeletons you see a few months ago and Marc painted them all, including the huge Crystal one!

Eye balls! One of my favorite Halloween motifs.

Thomas came and helped a lot with set up too. He was Henry VIII. The dress up theme was dead celebrity. Ashely and Justin won the costume contest. They were dressed as Tye from Clueless and Dimebag Darrell respectively.

We had a big tent set up in the back yard complete with a dance floor! I wish I'd gotten a photo of it!

Pinata loot.

Travis dressed as Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character from Boogie Nights. An idea he come up with all on his own. Haha! The shorts weren't the greatest choice since it was freezing cold that night!

Crystal was totally surprised and it was awesome. Marc bought her a Patsy Cline style dress to put on. There was a food truck there to provide dinner (Confestador for locals! The fried avocado tacos were AMAZING) and a DJ to provide dancing music! It was FUN!

The best part was the photobooth truck Marissa found! It is called Photo Boot and was so fun! They print a copy for you in the trailer, then posted them all on facebook this afternoon. We laughed so much taking these! We had a wonderful night and it was a party we'll be talking about for a long time! Happy birthday (early) to my best friend in the world!

Pumpkin Carving Party

Our friend Ashley has us over for pumpkin carving and scary movies last night. She went all out and created themed treats! I LOVED it! We used to throw theme parties all the time! I need to get back in the habit.

Puke-a-mole. The fake worms really brought it to another level!

French bread pizza ghosts! And band-aid appetizers. Haha, so gross! So cute!

She has four cute cats! This is scout. I love grey cats so much.

Their house is so amazing! She has this big curio cabinet filled with weird stuff. I need one!

We talked and laughed for a long time then got down to business and carved our pumpkins.

Justin entertained us by playing old music videos we requested. Like Korn, and POD.

I went with an old classic.

Crystal made a perfect ghoul!

This guy looks great by my back door!

Yeah! We never ended up watching a scary movie, but it was just as fun to eat spooky treats and laugh! I can't wait for Halloween!

Host!

When Travis and I first got married we hosted tons of parties! I always went all out, usually with a dress up theme, and it was so fun! But I eventually got burned out and stopped hosting and hadn't thought about it in a while. Then I was talking to my good friend Marrion about what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said, "All I really want to do is karaoke." So I offered to host a little birthday party for her (since I have kind of an insane karaoke set up for personal use). 

After so many years over achieving in the party department I've learned some things. Like it's ok to buy a cake instead of making it from scratch. I got this vegan cake from Whole Foods with Marrion's personal catchphrase on it. It was delicious! And cute!

 We had a cookout in the backyard. So trays are very important. 

 Helpers.

I also used to buy matching utensils and napkins and things for each party. So this time I just got mismatched stuff out of my stash! I forgot I had this cute rainbow utensil holder!

Travis prepping the corn. He smothered it in Earth Balance, cilantro and a 10 spice blend I made. Then he baked it in the oven. It was amazing!!

 Look at this cute bottle opener!

Travis and I have talked about buying on of those little portable fire pit things, but when we needed something quick Travis looked on Pinterest and saw this idea. It's just a galvanized bucket on some bricks! I was skeptical but it totally worked! That's the birthday girl in the polka dot dress.

Somehow I never got a big group pic, there were about 14 people there! Which is a lot in my teeny tiny house. This is making me want to use that fire pit again!

 Party puppies under our picnic table.

We ended the night with an epic karaoke session. I got two Queen karaoke cds and they have taken things to a higher level! I'm so glad we had this little shindig, it's making me want to plan something else soon! Maybe that Nashville blogger meet up I've been talking about hosting for over a year!

Weezer Weekend: I love a good theme!

My favorite band of all time, Weezer, was here in Nashville this past weekend for a two night gig at the Ryman. I've been looking forward to it for months! You can read a little bit about my love of the band here. They have been my biggest obsession ever and I have the blog name (and big dorky tattoo) to prove it! I'm gong to have to split the experience into two posts because it was the best weekend I've had in a long time! I'll be back soon to tell you about MEETING RIVERS CUOMO only my biggest nerd love. I still kind of can't believe it happened.

A bunch of friends were going, and we love a theme, so we had a little Pr(w)eezer party before the Saturday night show. Here is what we had:  

 Kimmie provided the "Somebody's Heine is crowding my icebox....pie"

 Our host Nettie made these perfect, delicious, Islands in the Sun. It is butternut squash soup with a gnocchi island, broccoli trees, quinoa beach, and a little umbrella. I'm still not over how cute it is!

 Kimmie's other half Jamie proved the El Scorcho spicy snack mix. 

 I made Pink Triangle cookies, which didn't turn out quite how I wanted, but you get the idea. 

 And Ryan brought "I'm a pig, I'm a dog, so scuse me if I drool" dogs! It was kind of a weird mix, but it was delicious and fun! I wish we had gotten a group photo before we headed out.

I wore this button that I made back in high school. See the nice packing tape job? I'm pretty sure I added the text in Microsoft paint. I wasn't sure I would wear it, because it's pretty lame, but a positive instagram response encouraged me.

 I stole this collage from Ryan, here we all are moments before the show started! There I am, looking towards the heavens!

 There really aren't any bad seats at the Ryman. We got the cheapest ones (since we were going both nights) and still had a great view. The shows were part of their "memories" thing where they play through their classic albums, plus a greatest hits set. I think I was one of the few people there who cared about them after Pinkerton came out so I was thrilled to hear the other songs!

The highlight was probably when they did an acoustic version of Suzanne. The Ryman is known for its acoustics (it was the home of the Grand Ole Opry for a long time) and the song sounded amazing. Here is a little video of it from youtube. I wish I had been so close!

After the greatest hits set they had a little slide show and the played the Blue Album all the way through. I cried a few times during the show, mostly from being overwhelmed with happiness. Karl posted this photo on the official site and I love it! We were in the balcony, a little to the left.

The second night saw our numbers a little diminished, and we moved the party to my house. I went simple and just had pork and beans with candy, cuz you know, the song "I eat my candy with the pork and beans." Backdrop provided by the stunning painting I made of Rivers in high school ( I told you I was obsessed!)

Such a delicious combo! We also had salt and vinegar kettle chips, just because.

The pugs love it when people come over because they get even MORE attention. Little Phyllis is pretty hard to resist.

Our seats for night two were a little more to the side, but I loved it because we could see Rivers' kids dancing around backstage!

See that? That is his little toddler son, running around pretending to shred on a ukelele. It was killing me! Rivers' 7 year old daughter Mia came out and played keys for a song both nights. How cool is that?

This time after the little intermission/slide show they came out and played Pinkerton all the way through. That album is critical to me being who I am today. It felt a little like a religious experience being there. I'm not even kidding.  It's just so GOOD, and sincere, and weird and meant to much to me at  a hard time in my life. I cried again, this time during the beginning of Across the Sea, and at the end during Butterfly (OF COURSE).

So it was a perfect weekend. I'm so happy they brought the memories tour here and I was in a position to be able to go both nights and scream along with so many other happy people. My voice was hoarse on Monday. But it was worth it!