Game Night! Introducing my world famous guacamole and Hal's not so world famous love of setting up electronics! (Sponsored & Sweepstakes)

My family game night is sponsored by Wii U. How U will play next! Click here for a chance to win a Wii U™ Deluxe Set and $5,000 to take your family on vacation!

Our little game party is scheduled for this weekend and, thus far, including us, we have fifteen humans coming to our house. Which means, beyond loading up with party favors from the 99 cent store, I need to figure out a menu. Which is problematic because I don't like cooking. Actually, that isn't true. Pre-kids, I cooked amazing dinners every night but these days, with the six of us eating in shifts of two (Eventually we WILL do family dinners. But right now it's completely impossible) cooking actual entrees for groups that exceed two people aren't exactly my specialty.

Salads, on the other hand, are. Because that is what I make for Hal and me every night at 9pm when all four kids are down and we finally sit down to eat.

Glamourous? Yes, actually. Because a salad means "we did it, high five!" And doing it (high five) is the glamourousestest.

Also my salads are really quite delicious. Stay away from my toast because it's burnt but my greens are SOLID.

Here are some of my concotions originales:

Quinoa "Informal Gathering" Salad

blueberry/goat cheese/pine nut situation 

(on a bed of red mizuna, my favorite green that isn't even green. It isn't red either. It's purple. Such a complex food.)

Quineuvos Rancheros

This one (above) isn't actually a salad but it is my favorite meal that I invented and kind of my culinary claim to fame. So I'm including it here even though it's a weird thing to serve at a party. 

Moving on... 

Frozen pizzas from Trader Joes are also my best friend. Whenever we have friends stay later and the time for cooking is zero, I bust out a bunch of cheese pizzas and decorate them with whatever topping options exist in the fridge. 

Arugula and baby tomatoes.

Pineapple. 

Mushrooms and truffle oil.

Goat Cheese, spinach and canned artichoke hearts.

The list is endless.

I call this. "Pizza of the Day" because every day there are new weird things in the fridge that are delicious on pizza.

SO. I will be serving fresh "pizzas of the day" (including gluten-free pizzas, which they also sell at Trader Joes) with toppings for everyone to decorate their own piece...s.

But of course, there's also snacks. No party is complete without snacks and I always make my world famous guacamole because it's delicious and everyone always goes nuts for it and here's the recipe:

***

Bec's World House Famous Holy Guacomole 

Avocados (a bunch, probably)

Your Favorite Salsa (two containers or three containers or four containers.)

Utensil of your choice. 

1. Empty avocados into a bowl.

2. Pour salsa in the bowl.

3. Mash and stir the end. 

(My mom says this is the worst photo of guacamole she's ever seen and that nobody will want to eat guacamole that looks like that. My response. OH YES THEY WILL, MOM! This Saturday? EVERYONE will EAT my guacamole. They will eat my guacamole and they will like it because it's delicious. IT IS DELICIOUS!)

"But why is it that color?"

"What do you mean? I filtered it in a vintage way to make it look sophisticated."

"It's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life."

"Even with the avocado seed?"

"It looks like it's gone bad."

"Why are you saying these things to me out loud?"

"I don't think you should post that on your blog, Bec."

Oh you don't, do you?

(Feel free to pin that bad boy along with anything else game-night-ish and enter to win a WiiU deluxe set and 5k toward a family vacation. BAM. (For sweepstakes deets go here.) 

Hal set up our system over the weekend. Or, at least, he attempted to set up our system over the weekend. It wasn't really until last night that he was able to get that party REALLY started because Revi is queen of powering down EVERYTHING. The kids were watching a movie Friday night and Revi scurried up to the DVD player and pressed power at least sixteen times because SHE CAN'T HELP HERSELF. 

And then everyone's all, "REV-IIIIIII" and she giggles with this huge smirky face. 

Anyway. 

Hal had several "REVI-IIIII!!!!!!!jlkajfkla" moments while trying to set the WiiU up except he actually tries to REASON with her. Watching a grown man try to reason with a fourteen month old baby is hilarious. Hal has been trying to reason with Bo and Revi since they were born which is just the most annoying thing to me ever. BECAUSE THEY'RE BABIES, HAL. 

But Hal's like, "Revi, please. Please, Revi. Revi? I'm trying to do something here. REVI. I'M TRYING TO DO SOMETHING HERE REVI. Seriously? Why do you make everything so difficult for me? Revi, this isn't right. Please stop doing this and go play somewhere else that isn't here. Revi. Revi? Revi. REVI. I give up."

The above passage was EXACTLY what Hal said to Revi while setting up the WiiU. And then she unplugged it (of course) while he was trying to do the initial set-up and Hal's like, "I give up. This is probably ruined now and broken. Revi broke the machine. I can't believe this..." and then he stormed out of the room and a few hours later, when the babies were asleep was like, "in case it's NOT ruined I'm going to try to set it up again." 

And I was like, "cool, man."

And he did. And it was fine. (Of course it was.)

And then Hal played a bunch of games while I took photos of him playing a bunch of games and then we moved the machine to a location where babies couldn't get to it and everyone lived happily ever after the end/to be continued. 

GGC