Getting Excited For Halloween: dinner parties and pumpkin carving

Entertaining has to be one of my favorite things ( I probably got that from my mother, who happens to be the queen of entertaining) ... and I have to admit that one of the things I was most excited about in getting our very own apartment, was to have people over!

Last night we had our new favorite couple from our ward over for dinner:

A little about Carly and Ryan: 

They met last fall and got married just after us in August. She's from Boston (yes, we were instant best friends) and he's from Cananda. They're both at BYU and will be done with school in two years as well. Other reasons I fell in love with Carly: She loves rock climbing, blogging, dancing, thai food, and the east coast. Win. 

You can check out their newlywed blog here

Back to our evening:

Ben and I had just an hour and a half after class to whip up something delicious. Given the time frame I stuck with a classic favorite (my go to meal) which is a penne rosa:

whole wheat penne

garlic tomato sauce

heavy cream 

= rich creamy pink sauce...yum!

I also found these olive garden breadsticks off of pinterest that I was dying to try so we made those too.

Ben did the pork chops and we added "Out of this World Brownies" for dessert served under mint chocolate chip ice cream. 

I'm terrible at actually putting recipes up - I'll get on that, promise :) 

Half the fun of having people over for dinner though is decorating. We got to use our cute and festive pumpkin place mats along with our black and white dishes (halloween themed table? yes please). Also, if you've read any of this blog you know I have an obsession with thin stemmed glasses so of course those were on the table as well. 

After dinner we carved pumpkins and got to know each other a little better...I think they turned out great! Don't you just love the ears Carly and Ryan put on theirs?

Are you doing anything fun for halloween?