Halloween part-ay!

For Halloween, I decided to honor the family tradition of pumpkin soup.  I made some, invited Heidi over, and the rest of the gang invited an apartment full of friends from their freshman ward.

Margarine.  Yum.

Leeks and onions.  I paid almost $6 for the leeks.  Dang.  Luckily, I only needed one, so I have one in the freezer!

Who doesn't like this stuff??

Everything stewing together... 

After a bout with the immersion blender :)  SO delicious.

Pumpkin cream cheese swirl bread.  I would post a recipe, but it was kinda gross.  Mom, could you send me the recipe for Lori's pumpkin roll, pretty please?

Our festive Halloween spread.  We had salad (thank you, Kristin :), rolls and green beans from the Sparks girls,  and then rye bread,  pumpkin cream cheese bread, and the onion tart that I made.  The pumpkin soup and Kristin's amazing apple dumplings were over on the stove.

I would tell you everybody's names, but I don't really know most of them, and the pictures are blurry for the rest :)  However, in the last picture, the two on the right are Kristin and Heidi.  

I will post the recipes for pumpkin soup and onion tart later, but now I have to study!  Love you all!

<3

Eliza

P.S. Mom, is it, like, blasphemy for me to post the pumpkin soup recipe?  Everyone at the party loved it and wanted the recipe, so I thought it might be happy to put it here for future (present?) generations. 

Birthday parties!

I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I finally have the party post!  On my actual birthday, Heidi had a brownies and ice cream party for our basketball team.  It was great, and we had a wonderful time.  The other two parties were put on by my roommates (who are fantastic, by the way!)

On the eighth, Kristin made these cupcakes:

Remember when I posted about wanting to make these?  Well, Kristin saw that post and made them for me!  Aren't they precious?  The crown toothpicks and Disney Princess cupcake wrappers were in the package from home :)

Megan was the chief cherry-putter-onner of the operations.

Sadly, I don't have any good pictures of Stacey or Kristin at this party; however, we had a marvelous time.  

The other party was last Saturday.  There were cupcakes, balloons, games, a veggie platter, chips, party poppers, streamers, good friends from last year, and a happy birthday sign.  

The spread - is that cute or what?  Megan arranged it and put the streamers (pictured below; they're still there!) up.

Yellow cupcakes with chocolate shavings... yum.

Balloons!!

Kristin and I before the party.

They made me wear a huge birthday hat, which I would have minded more if they hadn't put on this fabulous birthday party :)

This picture of Stacey expresses perfectly how the parties made me feel.  They were awesome.

<3

Eliza