Girls' Christmas Party/Sleepover

Last night was our first annual girls' Christmas party sleepover!  It was so much fun, and I was pretty sad today to say goodbye to all of my girlfriends.  Nat and I decided to plan this little event a few months ago, and we had a lot of fun putting it together.  We decided to do a potluck, so each girl brought one or more dishes to share, and we had everything from vegan oatmeal cream pies to cucumber sandwiches, goat-cheese stuffed mushrooms to mini red velvet cupcakes. We also decided to do an ornament exchange, so each girl brought an wrapped ornament, we chose numbers, then picked a box. It was so fun to see what ornament everyone brought and received. Since we are going to do this party every year, I think it will be a fun tradition to have a little collection of ornaments as the years go by.

It was such a fun night, and it was another one of those times where I just had to pause, look around, and feel so thankful for all of this love in my life.  To have all of these girls from all of these different parts of my world in one place, all having the best time was pretty awesome. We went out downtown for awhile to look at the pretty Christmas lights and dance for a bit at some of the bars, and we ended the night in our pajamas, talking until 4am in my kitchen.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, but the friendships I have with my girls make my world go 'round and last night was so special. I already can't wait until our Christmas party next year.

Today was a great day too- we all slept in a bit, then went to lunch before the girls all left.  I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling being weirded out out about being home alone (what to do with all of that me-time?!), but then got into watching Water for Elephants and the day went by pretty quickly. Hank and Henry got home from Phoenix an hour ago, and I don't think I've ever been so excited to hear our garage door open. I missed them so much.

I'm off to bed now, but I wanted to share some photos. I was having too much fun to focus on taking many with my normal camera (next year we need a proper photobooth!), but here are a few via my iPhone and instagram that capture the weekend.