Hosting the Super Bowl

Pioneer Woman Restaurant Salsa

This is my favorite go to salsa recipe. I have been making it for years and it is always a hit!

Ham and Cheese Sliders

I have also been making these for years and never have leftovers. They go fast and they are SO good!

Hot Chili Cheese Dip

This one just feels like football. I use the chili WITHOUT the beans.

This is quite literally the only photo my husband and I took all night.

(I am terrible at documenting my life — which feels wildly ironic for someone who keeps a blog. Ha.)

We invited some new friends over along with a few old ones. I’ve written before about hosting and the quiet bravery it takes to open your home to people you don’t know very well. I still believe it’s one of the best ways to truly get to know someone.

When we moved to South Carolina, we only knew one family. Just one. Slowly, though, we’ve been building friendships here — and it always seems to start the same way: by being brave enough to invite people in.

Even when things aren’t perfect.

Our home isn’t fully decorated yet. With five kids, life is regularly chaotic. There are always shoes by the door and something slightly undone somewhere. But I’ve learned to invite people in anyway, trusting the Lord to fill in whatever feels unfinished.

This year’s mix was a fun one. A family from New Jersey that we actually met here in South Carolina — and somehow discovered that my husband and the wife graduated high school together. Such a small-world story. We invited my daughter’s boyfriend’s parents, too, along with friends we’ve known forever.

I’ll be honest — I always feel a tiny bit anxious when different circles mix. When people don’t know each other yet, you wonder how it will go. But one thing I’ve come to love about South Carolina is how down-to-earth and kind people are. Somehow, it always works. Conversations flow. Laughter fills the room. By the end of the night, everyone feels just a little more connected.

And as I stood in the kitchen at one point — refilling a tray, listening to the hum of conversation in the next room — I had one of those quiet realizations.

This is how community is built.

Not through perfection.
Not through polished homes.
But through open doors.

There’s something sacred about setting the table and trusting God to do what only He can do — weave strangers into friends, overlap stories, soften edges, create belonging where there wasn’t any before.

We didn’t move here knowing how it would all unfold. We just kept saying yes. Yes to invitations. Yes to hosting. Yes to awkward first conversations.

And slowly, the Lord has been building something beautiful.

Sometimes faith looks less like a miracle and more like a Superbowl party :)