Football Sundays

I was never into football as a kid. Maybe it's because we didn't have a football team in our hometown during my childhood (yes, my dad could have chosen another team to root for on Sundays, but he's STILL bitter about the whole Colts thing decades later, so that was never an option;).

Then I met my husband.

The man LOVES football. In our early dating days, he explained the game to me. And for some reason, I found myself actually interested. (The things we'll do for love, eh? ;) I learned about yards and downs and extra points and punts. I learned about fumbles and interceptions and sacks. And Sundays changed for me. Now that I knew what was happening, it was kinda fun to watch. Trust me, no one was more surprised than I was!

Shock of all shocks, we started a family fantasy football league that year (10 years ago - and it's still going strong), and I created a team! ME! The family started coming over on Sundays, sometime in the late morning to watch the 1:00 games, and would stay well into the 8:00 games.

And Football Sundays were born.

We eat. We eat. And we eat some more. We don purple and black and yell at those who don't dress accordingly. We have a few drinks. We play cornhole at halftime. We eat a little more. In between all this, we laugh A LOT. I cook my behind off, and don't end up actually watching  most of the game, but it's all good. Even though I do like watching it, I love entertaining more. It all starts on Thursday nights: I grab my favorite cookbooks, and now my laptop since Pinterest is FULL of yummy football food now, and find a handful of munchies to try...

(I'll link up some of my favorites at the end of the post)

I go shopping on Friday for all my ingredients. Come Sunday, Paul and I are on a mad dash to make the house look like we don't live in filth in about an hour, while our kiddos usually look something like this:

Coloring away. Thanks so much for the help, kids!! lol;)

I get the menu up...

...start cooking, and do anything I can ahead of time, like frying bacon, or in this case, grating cheese:) (I'm annoyingly organized when it comes to cooking - I hate feeling frazzled to do 8700 things when the guests start coming in - but I swear, it really does help keep you stress free if you have things started ahead of time).

If you knew me 15 years ago, you'd find it hilarious that I'm now getting things like football aprons and dishes like these for birthday and Christmas gifts...

But I do, and I love it!

So then the guests start arriving and head downstairs to our half Ravens territory/half kids playroom;)...

Ha! See the little Book Nook on the right there? Yeah, we could use a bigger basement on Sundays!

Kickoff begins and we start to stuff our faces...

When halftime hits, we head outside for some cornhole competition. Not to toot my own horn or anything,  but my partner and I were a force to be reckoned with. Right, Joel?!

Won 2 games, then had to head back in for the second half and more grubbin'.

the 1st Day of School Cookie in the shape of a football

Football Sundays. Who knew this girl without a football caring bone in her body would one day love and host a day all about it? I guess that old saying is true: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! ;)

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a game on tonight and I still have yet to put my Fantasy players in...better get to it! I've got Tom Brady as my QB playing against our beloved Ravens - what to do, what to do...(for the record, it still cracks me up that I say AND understand sentences like that one;)





Some of our favorite Game Day munchie recipes:
Cheesy Potato Rounds
Stuffed Crust Pizza Snacks
Pepperoni Pizza Puffs
Hot and Cheesy Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Super Nachos
Hot Reuben Dip
Meatballs
Ham and Spinach Pinwheels