Wine with Friends

Last night I got together with several of my favorite preschool moms for wine and conversation.  A couple of them won’t be returning to Cutie Pie’s school in the fall which makes me a little sad.  I hope that we are able to keep in touch though.  They really are a great group of ladies who helped me keep my sanity when I led the parent volunteer group.  It was a much needed night out.

I left there feeling so relaxed only to arrive home at 11 PM to my kids who were still awake.  To J’s credit he was busy cleaning up the back porch from the pool parties and setting up our old laptop for Wildman.  But still, I kind of lost my cool when I heard little kid voices at such a late hour.  I am with them all day long everyday.  I really don’t want them to be up during the night which is our only quiet time.  I just wanted to come home to J and talk or hang out.  Is that selfish?  Instead of spending time together, he could not understand why I was annoyed and we fought…

The children did go to bed as soon as I got home but it really wasn’t what I wanted to come home to.  The kids were up at normal time this morning and are tired as a result of their late night.  *sigh*

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Feast on This

I hosted a wine tasting party for some of my preschool mom friends last night.  It was a follow-up from our night out at the piano bar in February that I apparently never blogged about.  The volunteers who help out at Cutie Pie’s preschool are amazing and it is so nice to chat with them in a relaxed kid-free setting.  J took our kids over to his parents house for the night.  The weather was so lovely that I was able to open up the sliding glass doors for us to enjoy the evening poolside.  Everyone brought a bottle (or two) to share and I provided the munchies and dessert.

My friends became my guinea pigs for my first ever attempt at cake pops.  Oh, dear!  They were so yummy!

I decided to make strawberry cake pops so I baked a box strawberry cake mix in two round cake pans since my 9×13 was being used for something else.  When the cake cooled I crumbled it into a big mixing bowl.  I added about 3/4 of a can of strawberry icing and stirred it up.  When the cake and icing formed a dough-like consistency, I used a small cookie scoop to measure out enough dough to form into a ball.  I placed the balls on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and placed them in the freezer to cool for an hour.  When they were sufficiently cool, I melted a bag of pink Wilton melting chocolate in a double boiler (my version is a glass bowl on a pan of water).  I dipped a lollipop stick into the melted chocolate first then pierced a cake ball then coated the cake ball in the chocolate.  I decorated some with spring sprinkles, others I left plain.  I stuck the pops into a piece of Styrofoam to display at the party.

The cake pops were a hit!  Many moms took a couple home to share.  I’m totally making them for Wildman’s bake sale next month.

I made a bunch of chocolate-covered strawberries as well.

I tried to keep most of the appetizers pretty healthy.  There were cups of cashews and almonds, fruit skewers, pineapple salsa, crackers, several kinds of cheese, olives, marinara meatballs and edamame.  We had all sorts of different wines to sample- cabernets, merlots, a sauvignon blanc, a chianti and even champagne.  Conversation was lively and flowed easily.  It was a relaxing evening.

Just what we needed!

Cheers!

It’s 11:30-ish on a Saturday night and I figured you could use some good cheer.