Birthday fun

Wow, what a weekend! After all the activity, I feel like I could happily hibernate for the rest of the winter (and with all the food I ate I think it would actually be possible)! Friday night was my company Xmas party. It was a smaller group this year because a couple of people already had plans for the evening. My absent coworkers were missed, but it was easier to talk to everyone at dinner! My boss and his wife put on a wonderful dinner, as usual. We has yummy appetizers, and a dinner of pork loin with a pomegranate rub, string beans, salad, rice and the best desert ever. At my first Xmas party with this company, Nancy made the most delicious desert-- Godiva raspberry white chocolate ice cream in chocolate cups drizzled with Chambord and topped with fresh raspberries! I ate 4 servings. Seriously. So every year since then, we have the same thing :D We all had such a fun time chatting, eating and drinking wine, I didn't get home until around midnight!

Saturday morning I woke up and right away started to get the house ready for the birthday/holiday party. I moved one of the couches into another room, set up the tables, decorated them, and started preparing some of the food that I could do ahead of time. I popped Tex and Rex into the oven around 12:30 and then made the brushetta and stuffed shells that I was cooking later. Funny thing about the tables... I had borrowed two card tables from my mom, and then rented a 6 foot long table from the party store in WC. I figured that would make a nice square table for us to eat at. Problem... all the table were different heights. Solution... books :D I raided my bookshelves for a bunch of books (thank god I read a lot) and then spent at least a half hour figuring out which books to use under each table to make them all the same height. It worked out and during dinner no one knocked the tables off their book perches :D

Between 4 and 5, Claudia, Rocky and Lindsay showed up to help me with the final touches--putting out the wine/glasses, making the hot cider, putting out the last few decorations and making the salad. At 5:00 I got dressed in my party clothes and was ready for everyone to start showing up! The party was a blast! We went through most all the wine I had (at least 9 bottles... eeek!) and of course had too much food, but I think everyone enjoyed it! For desert we had this amazing cupcake cake that my roomy Christina had gotten. She knows how much I love cupcakes! THANK YOU!! And THANK YOU Claudia for everything you did... the cooking, cleaning, and general helping out :D

Because I had done a lot of cleaning up Saturday night, I thankfully didn't have too much to do Sunday morning. I just had to take down the tables, do a little vacuuming and put away some dishes. :D The left the rest of my day free to do some Christmas shopping. The combination of the crowds, no parking, a lot of walking, and two late nights made for one tired girl. Once I got home I plopped on the couch for the rest of the night, watched some TV and did all my Christmas cards!