St. Patrick's Day party

What with the whole me-being-eight-months-pregnant thing, we decided to keep things pretty low-key for the First Annual Barber Family St. Paddy's Day Party. Our friends said they were bringing desserts and booze so we decided to only provide "real food" instead of the excess of sweets I normally make for parties. Frank made delicious ham and cabbage, and I copped this "fruit rainbow" idea from Pinterest.

I learned how to cut a whole pineapple and cantaloupe melon for the first time, and added a vanilla yogurt "cloud" on one end and a "pot of gold" on the other. It was my masterpiece. :) I also wildly overestimated how much fruit we would need. Frank and I will be eating fruit salad and smoothies for the next week!

The real highlight was a gift from our friend John. He is a master beer brewer—like, the man teaches classes at breweries—so he and his wife Anna brought a keg of their home-brewed Irish stout and homemade Irish cream. They were a huge hit!

Giedre, Theresa and I decided we needed a picture together... which turned into an impromtu goofy photo shot.

Despite our St. Patrick's Day pride, none of us three are Irish!

I turned around to see Frank doing what he does best, deep in a discussion of Irish history. I snapped a phone photo to remember it. He was having so much fun.

This picture makes me so happy, blurry as it is. I remember how I felt when I first found out we would be moving to this little apartment. Although I tried to put a brave face on it, I was dismayed to be moving somewhere so tiny and so far away from the "cool" parts of Chicago. I derisively called the apartment "the mouse house" because it was so small. I was sure that I would never like living there, and I looked forward to finding a bigger place and moving out.

Now fast forward 10 months later. Frank and I have spent hours and hours decorating our place "just so" and customizing it to fit perfectly with our needs. We go in for ambiance in a big way and fill the place with candles and mood lighting. Our home is still tiny, but instead of being cramped like I feared, it feels like a perfectly curated little "jewel box" with everything arranged just the way we want it. Best of all, our friends come to us from all over the city, and we never need to worry about not living as close to them as we would like. I have grown to love the little "mouse house" and I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Frank and I decided that this was our best-planned party ever, small and simple as it was. We had a super easy time with clean-up and had the whole apartment ship-shape less than an hour after our last guests left. I'm so glad I married a man who loves having people over as much as I do!

And now one last thing. Frank and I found an Irish Shop down the street from our birth class, and last week he insisted we get there early so we could spend time browsing the shop before class. We found something there that we both agreed I absolutely had to have...

It says, "Pray for me... I'm married to an Irishman." Too great.