Me,  My Family

Mom’s Nite Out

A few weeks’ ago, I signed up with HouseParty.com to host a party promoting the new TNT drama, HawthoRNe with Jada Pinkett Smith. I was supposed to invite a few friends over to watch a preview of the series pilot and just have some fun. HouseParty provides some little gifts for guests (in this case, cute little first aid kits). The parties were supposed to take place the weekend of June 5th.

Our HawthoRNe Napkins and Coasters
Our HawthoRNe Napkins and Coasters

Now, June is a crazy-busy time around here. Many of my friends are teachers, so they’re all wrapping up their school years. We’ve got a bunch of birthdays (including our lovely LadyBug), anniversaries and so on. Since it’s hard to find the time to just relax at this time of year, I decided that I wanted to do something  a little more special for my friends and family. These women are fantastic. Most of them are in social service fields… nurses, teachers, social workers, etc. They’re moms. They spend a lot of their time and energy taking care of other people.

I was able to find some very generous sponsors to help create fun swag bags for the ladies in attendance. Before I tell you just how much fun we had, I want to give a heart-felt thank you to:

We started the night with a demo of my new EA Sports Active on the Wii. My cousin kindly did a short workout with a variety of sports activities and some strength activities as well. Everyone was impressed and they were excited to know that they had a chance to win one at the end of the evening. While my cousin got a workout, the rest of us chowed down on chocolate fondue, cupcakes and some little appetizers, all courtesy of Stop & Shop.

Even Divas Enjoy EA Sports Active
Even Divas Enjoy EA Sports Active

After that, we settled in to watch HawthoRNe. After almost an hour of tears, suspense and even some laughter, we all agreed that it’s a pretty good show. I’m looking forward to having some quality TV to watch over the summer! HouseParty had provided some quizzes, so we scored our results and shared our feedback on the TV show.

Then it was time for the goodie bags and giveaways! The Sports Active was in demand, but other guests were also excited to win Stop & Shop gift cards and an animal print for a child’s room. No one left the party empty-handed. Pogo.com supplied each guest with a swanky sling backpack, video game, card game, notebook/pen set and Club Pogo gift codes. We had shopping bags and more gift cards from Stop & Shop. The Children’s Museum of NH provided passes for each guest, and Karen from Story Time Felts sent us each a cute fairy-tale mask.

Enjoying the Swag!
Enjoying the Swag!

The evening ended with silliness as guests donned their felt masks and we broke out the Carnival Games disc for the Wii.

Despite my two kids’ refusal to sleep (thank goodness for Big Guy’s constant vigilance with that), we all had a lot of fun. It was nice to get together without kids and just be able to laugh and talk with one another. I’m hoping to make this an annual event to pamper the lovely ladies in my life.

I Always Buy Too Much Food!
I Always Buy Too Much Food!
Goodie Bags from Pogo.com & Stop & Shop
Goodie Bags from Pogo.com & Stop & Shop

2 Comments

  • Angie

    I was one of the lucky ladies to be invited. Thank you so much. I had a great fun time.
    The food was delicious and the preview of Hawthorne great. It definitely a “watch it” for me.
    And, of course, the goodies were great!
    Thanks again for a wonderful evening.

  • Tre ~

    hi hi more than mommy. OH MY ARE YOU!!! Look at that party….so much fun and yum and warmth of friendship..what a way to really hug those that mean so much to you. I used to teah middle school and i GET that even coordinating for adults is a lot of prep time 🙂
    grateful you posted your question re: registrar’s on twitter. I would be happy to offer more about what I learned and ended up doing if you wanna chat further..I’m at tre@thoughtbythought.net.
    Essentially I have found that what matters most to me is do i feel comfy w/ the decision. I had my own reasons for opting to get out of godaddy and thought i would blog with squarespace platform..they recommended enom/nettica. When I decided on selfhostedwordpress, i checked a few blogs i already read on wordpress and learned of some more registrar/hosting options. most those folks were with biggie hosts like bluehost or the like. i wanted small, personable, available. acorn is woman owned and green powered and i liked that…so i kept my registration with enom and just had them point it to acorn. hope that makes sense. there’s a ton of biggie vocab you learn in this process you don’t need to be intimidated by. a lot of tech support is just that: helpful. others talk down. if they talked down or were rude, im out.

    have a great summer and i’ll be sure to stop back by again 🙂