Bella Notte

One of my girlfriends passed along a silly website all about "how to date your husband". At first I thought was pretty cheesy, and she and I giggled about how much more you can do in your relationship before the babies come...but then the more I thought about it, the more I wanted a date night!!

SO, last night, baby-bound Talin and I invited a few of our fancy-free friends to join us for a "Bella Notte" themed adventure. =)

We started off with appetizers and drinks...we listened to our favorite crooners (Dean, Frank...you know...the Italian guys) and then made dinner together.
(I have to apologize for the harshness of the flash in these pictures! Until I can afford a camera that takes decent pictures in lamp light...this is the best I can do. SIGH) Everyone tossed their pizza dough and covered it with their favorite toppings.
Seth and Kyle REALLY got into the tossing thing (and their dough only ended up on the floor twice! HA!)

After everyone was content with their creations, into the oven they went.

While we ate..and talked...and ate some more. We ended up with EIGHT pizzas! Ha! I guess I got a little over-excited while I was mixing up the dough. After dinner we tried our hand at playing an Italian card game, Briscola. It seriously took me three days to figure out how to play this game, but of course Talin, Seth and Kyle picked it right up. For whatever reason, we thought it would be fun to play boys v. girls........
it was pretty ridiculous to say the least! The boys won BOTH rounds...and when I say won...I mean the girls had like 18 points and the guys had 150!!! What the what??? I'm still not sure how they pulled that off twice!
The boys celebrated with a round of spumoni and the girls graciously accepted our defeat by forgetting all about our epic loss with a bowl of chocolate/cherry/pistachio goodness....mmmmmm...spumoni...
As it started to get late, we decided to end things with a little "renaissance culture". Each couple created a sculpture to represent their partner. I got a llama and Talin got a cat holding a coke can and art pencil (I KNOW it looks like a brush!)

Thrudy got a crown (ohhhhhhh! Did I mention these two are newlyweds!) and Kyle got a guitar.

Heidi got a heart (she actually got A LOT of things because Seth kept mashing up the playdough and making new creations). As for her sculpture...
it's his back? WHAT? Yeah, that's right...it represents his strong back which he uses every day to support their family!! OHHHHHHHHH!!!! Ok, at first we all laughed, but this was seriously sweet!

We're silly, we're cheesy, we're lame...say what you will...I haven't laughed this hard in ages! I laughed and talked so much I lost my voice!!!!
The best part of the whole night? Ezra didn't wake up once to our rowdiness. He did one better and slept in late this morning. Isn't he sweet? Thanks for a wonderful night friends. We're so glad you came!