saturday night = dinner party

this weekend has been a weekend of parties - there were dinner parties, birthday parties and craft parties.

on saturday night we had a dinner party at out little beach shack with a few of our friends. we even opened up the china cabinet and broke out the fancy dinnerware. this dinner set was once my mothers. she and my dad received it as a wedding present. and all the pieces are still together and in perfect condition which is miraculous because when i was younger i used to drop and break everything but this dinner set managed to survive my younger years and now hopefully it will survive my older years.

this was the first time that we hosted a fancy dinner party at our house since we arrived home from our overseas holiday. when it came to setting the table i didnt have anything in the house to use as a center piece. when we left to go overseas i had a major clean out and got rid of all my candels and flowers so the center of the table looked rather bare.

i love the blog a beach cottage and sarah the blogs creator has a real flare for decorating tables. here are just a few of my favorites...

image source

image source

she has inspired me to start collecting things to create beautiful table settings like these. to see more of her lovely table creations check our her blog page here.

honey and lemon chicken was on the menu with salad and roasted potatos. my wonderful husband cooked all afternoon and the house smelled divine and it tasted amazing. my husband is a wonderful cook he just doesn't do it all that often. i think we may have to change that especially now that i am going to be working more.

we dined, drank (lemon lime and bitters were our poison!), talked and played games late into the evening. it was wonderful and i made a note to myself at the end of the evening to do this more often.