Dinner Plans

So, tomorrow marks the first day that I will be hosting my in-laws for dinner for Steve's birthday. Needless to say, I'm a little stressed about it! I'm frantically trying to clean up the house and figure out the menu. My initial plan was to grill some steaks, but it doesn't look like the weather is going to hold out for it. I had to come up with a back-up plan. Here's what is in store for tomorrow:

Romaine salad with sliced strawberries and poppyseed dressing
Pork Tenderloin with a peach jalepeno glaze
Mashed red potatos
Brown sugar glazed carrots

Sounds yummy, doesn't it?? Besides the salad, which is easy, I haven't made any of it before. I love cooking and am always up for trying something new. Fingers crossed that it all turns out!

Tonight we have another girls night and I am sooo looking forward to it! We've been getting into the habit of planning a night for just girls once a month. We set a theme and everyone brings a healthy dish to share. Tonight is an Italian themed dinner. This is what I am bringing: Mushroom Bruschetta. I had to sample it this afternoon...so good! Can't wait for another wonderful evening. :)

Our kids

Meet Daisy (left) and Checkers (right). Checkers is my kitty. I got him in March of '07 when he was an itty bitty little thing. He doesn't look it in this picture, but he is a big, muscular cat! Daisy is Steve's kitty. He got her in September of '08. We were worried about how well they would get along once we had moved them to the same house but, thankfully, they are little buddies! It's quite often that we see them snuggling together and giving each other lick baths. So cute. :) They are quite the pair...

Our new home

Steve and I had quite the crazy month leading up to our wedding. We were casually looking at houses, thinking about the possiblity of moving sometime in the near future. Well, the near future turned into about 2 weeks before our wedding! It was crazy to say the least. We ended up finding a beautiful home that was a foreclosure, in amazingly good condition, for a price we couldn't pass up. So, we jumped on the opportunity and here we are! This is our dream home, and we plan to be here for many years to come...like 15-20 years to come. It is definitely too big for us right now, but we plan to grow into it. ;) Here's a few snapshots of the house:

It is a 2-story house with an unfinished basement. 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath. So, plenty of room for guests! (hint, hint ;)

Probably my favorite room in the house... When we moved in, there were no appliances at all, so we had the opportunity to start from scratch. It was a lot of fun to go appliance shopping! At least I thought so. :) I've had a lot of fun cooking in here so far.

This is my study room while I am back in school and Steve's office. We ended up finding the furniture online for a steal! We spent a good 6-7 hours putting it all together but, it's all still standing, so I think we did an ok job! :)

Our formal dining room...will get good use this Thanksgiving! :)

Master bedroom...

Master bathroom...

There is more to share, but we have some painting projects (like our IU/Purdue room...) to get done before those will go up. We hope to have a get together here sometime soon once the house gets a little more put together and the summer starts to wind down a bit!