30th Birthday Brunch

When trying to decide what to do for my 30th birthday, I was drawing a complete blank but knew I wanted to do SOMETHING, and more than just go out to eat with Ben because that's a given ;) With our small house, entertaining in the winter months is really tough, especially now that everyone has kiddos who need a bit more room to roam. We have had several New Years Eve parties, I've hosted bachelorette parties and bridal showers galore, and had one notable large party - but never since the majority of my friends entered the childbearing stage of life. When thinking about this dilemma, I turned to my coworkers for advice, and Jen had the brilliant idea of utilizing the fact that we know and are friends with our immediate neighbors and using their house for childcare. Yes, you can ask people to get sitters, but I have enough friends that have no family around that I'd feel bad doing that. So - we came up with the plan to have a brunch at our house for the adults, and have the kiddos go next door to be watched by Ben's younger sisters Amanda and Laura.

Our living room/dining room and view into the kitchen on a normal day (except no high chair anymore - yes!)

On fitting a large group in a small space
Even with some hard core trimming done to it, the guest list was at a hefty 30+ adults. I had to not invite some people who I would have loved to be there, just because it would have included more than our house could reasonably handle. 30 was certainly pushing it for our 1200 square foot house anyway - especially since the actual space that people would be in is about 400 square feet (that includes our kitchen). Yikes! I remembered seeing tall pub height tables at Scottoberfest, so asked Janelle if we could borrow them. She let me know that she rented them for $9 each from a local party rental store - awesome! Ben contacted Midway Party Rental and we secured 2 tables for that morning for less than $20. This was KEY to the "success" of that large of a group in a small space - encourage people to stand and still have places for them to congregate. We took out the chairs in our living room, as well as the coffee table, and moved the dining room table against the buffet/wall. All other chairs that we own were lined up in the perimeter of the room. I wanted to move the Christmas tree to the porch, but my dad convinced me that was a bad idea so we just left it in there and it worked fine. I was actually shocked how well everyone fit - I think when all was said and done there were probably around 25 people in there at once. Only a few people couldn't come and most everyone showed up around the same time. There were usually 6 or so men huddled around the bloody mary station, and I don't think my brother-in-law Joe moved from the corner of the kitchen the whole time ;)

Annie certainly enjoyed the tall tables set up - she immediately started saying "Hide! Hide!" and brought her booster seat under the tablecloth before I tied it up.

Food/Beverages

Brunch seemed like the best thing for us to host - it's definitely the easiest for a crowd. It also seemed like the most pregnant women friendly, which is important since I and most of my female friends are currently with child. Our final menu was based on the ability to prep ahead of time since neither of us wanted to spend a ton of time the day of cooking/baking. It did take a lot for me to not make muffins/scones - just because I like homemade so much better than most I get at a bakery, but we found some that were definitely tasty and it was certainly easier. It worked out great because I didn't have to make a single thing other than cutting/skewering fruit - Ben took care of everything :) I did basically tell him which egg bakes to make, but he made all of them, so that works for me! I would love to recommend the place we got our pastries from, because they did taste great, but they were an hour late in having them ready - Ben ordered them for 9am, went at 9:30am and they needed "another half hour" (so, 10am, aka the start time of our brunch) - basically it's a good thing they are only a mile away! They WERE very good - so if you do want something really affordable and live in this area, it's a good choice, just maybe say you need them 2 hours before you really do :)

Menu

Spinach & Cheese Strata - made previously

Breakfast Casserole with bacon and veggies - made a few times now

Sausage and Cheese Egg Bake - made previously (we used the modifications we used the last time)

(Ben made all three of these the night before - baked 2 in our oven and 1 in the neighbor's oven in the morning)

Pastries purchased from St. Paul Classic Cookie - blueberry muffins, chocolate chip muffins, and cinnamon scones (cinnamon weren't on their menu but they were happy to make them for us)

Fruit skewers

Beverages

Water & Juice

Coffee - decaf and regular, with vanilla and peppermint syrup (we borrowed a 30 cup maker from my parents and a large carafe from Ben's work)

Bloody Mary Bar

(the Clamato jar is a mix that my neighbor Nate makes - not just plain Clamato)

Decor

I use this term extremely loosely. I basically didn't decorate at all other than putting up the Happy Birthday banner from Annie's birthday party (I figured - hey, it's my birthday too, and the point was to use this for FAMILY birthdays..... so might as well! :), got some flowers, and put a few in low bowls for each high top table in addition to on the food tables. That's it. Pretty sure no one noticed or cared, but I did get a few comments on the banner at least! Honestly, I think having too much in that space would have just made it kind of claustrophobic anyway. I did at least try to coordinate the tablecloths on the high tables to the banner - so A+ for effort for me!

The main event

Everything went really well! There ended up being 7 kidlets over at the neighbor's (including Annie and Mia, the neighbor herself) and 2 of them were my niece and nephew who are with Laura every day - and Annie knows Laura and Amanda too. There were a FEW tears, I heard, but overall all children were present and accounted for and unharmed after the event so I consider it a smashing success - we definitely couldn't have done this without Laura and Amanda, so HUGE thanks again go out to them for their help!

My sister stopped over there - I think these 3 were a little confused at who the strange lady taking their picture was :)

In closing, here are a few photos from the party - I only got a few but it was a pretty short event (perfect for me since I can only stand/socialize for so long right now!).

My baby sister! Weird to think that exactly a year ago that weekend, we were all busy with her wedding!

So I wasn't kidding when I said all my friends are pregnant! 8 of them at the brunch, 2 couldn't make it so it should have even been 10. I went back and counted, and there were a mere 6 NON-pregnant women there - wow!Yes, we lined up by due date :) (range is from 8 weeks to 35 weeks and 6 are pregnant with their 2nd children)

and here is the side view :)

The end of the brunch coincided with Annie's nap time - she was a bit worn down and overwhelmed after playing hard for a few hours so was cuddly and then loopy once she got home!