It has been awhile.

It has been about a week since I last made a post but that's b/c so much has been going on in my life-yay for excitement! Actually, it can get to be tiring sometimes but I'm glad for each and every experience. Some hi-lites:

*Work Christmas Party*

Including the Dr. and his wife, there are 5 of us total so our "party" was held at Firebirds. I love Firebirds! I had the Sesame Encrusted Salmon with ginger mustard aioli, Parmesan mashed potatoes, and fried spinach. It was really a great meal accompanied with a few glasses of my favorite wine, Pinot Grigio, it was perfect! The special gift at the end was presented this way: We were given a small gift bag. First, instructed to open the gold box. In the box was an American Express gift card with which we were told we could use the $$ to spend on whatever we wanted, whenever. Then we were instructed to open the brown box. In that box was a gift card to the mall (the restaurant is adjacent to the mall). We were told that we HAD to spend that amount on us AND we had to do it in the next hour, meeting back to share our purchases! It was such a great gesture b/c you know darn well I probably wouldn't have used any of the $$ on myself. While it was very hard to be inspired to purchase clothing with my (2) size 2 co-workers, I was finally able to make a purchase. It was a very great night, I had a wonderful time.

*Making cookies*

One of my best friends and I, and all the kiddos got together Saturday morning to make Christmas cookies. I had already made 2 batches of sugar cookies, some chocolate chip cookies, batch of chex mix and some brownies before they got there! We had a great time making cookies although somehow the kids ended up playing more than helping us. But it was fun nonetheless. I wish we would have had even more time to do more decorating. She ended up leaving rather quickly, so fast that we both totally forgot to package her cookies to take home so I had all of them here that evening! I dropped them off to her the next day as I couldn't be trusted with that many cookies in my house and I was sure they were going crazy knowing they had made all those cookies only to leave them! I hope to continue the cookie making Christmas tradition and will plan it a little better next time.

*Victor and Sharon's party*

That evening we attended a party at our friend's home in Stanly (over an hour away). We had to make a pit-stop at Old Navy on the way there to get my husband a new pair of dark jeans as he has ruined his (suprise, suprise) painting the day before...don't get me started on that! So, I ran in and got them as I am the faster shopper and Alexis was asleep. Then I got to drive while he hurridly changed in the back-thank God we have very dark tinted windows and a lot of room in the back! The party was super nice and they are great people. The only problem was that Alexis was the only young child and the house was definitely not Alexis-proof. Couple that with the fact that Sharon showed Alexis the puppy in the basement and that was the only place she wanted to be, and you have a situation where it was very hard for both of us to socialize well! We took turns tending to Alexis and held up about 4 hours! Everyone enjoyed her but man it can tire you out quickly. Next time, we'll take an evening for ourselves we decided.