Our inaugural Saturday Night Spaghetti!

Some background…

I love having friends over for dinner. I like making new friends. So when I read this article last year—
Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life With Pasta (if you have the time to read it, please do!)—it hit a nerve and I immediately knew it was something I wanted to attempt. I promised myself that I would schedule something after the holiday season had settled down. Well, then life happens, and I didn’t actually get to schedule it until the end of January, with the dinner to be mid-February.

I posted the following invitation on Facebook and hoped for some responses:

[Photograph: Carina Romano]

Imagine my surprise when the RSVP slots were filled in less than 24 hours!! And lots more people LOVED the idea and promised future participation! 🙂

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t play nice and we had to postpone a week, but the original attendees were all still able to come! And everything went awesome! Six guests (plus kids) was just right. (This house is big, but for a dinner party, six guests is about the limit of dining space. I wish we had more room, or even a good place for another table!) Everyone got along and had a good time talking, the kids were all awesome (Owen had a new Lego buddy and Katie had a friend), and everyone stayed much later than I anticipated (they all left about 9:30). One couple said it was a great idea and they are thinking about starting something similar! Yay! During the event, I even stopped Tom and told him that I was very happy. He agreed it was a good night. 🙂 We both can’t wait to do it again!

Even though it wasn’t BUSY or lots of work, we were both kept busy visiting and prepping and whatnot, so I didn’t take pictures! The only one I took was of the kids’ table:

And this one was snapped by a guest (everyone liked the aquarium but the girls loved it!):

I hope all future dinners go as smoothly as this one did! 🙂

And then, even though it was WAY past the kids’ bedtimes, we let them stay up to watch one TV show to let them calm down. And this happened: