Christmas Party

As if the month of December wasn't going to be crazy enough, I decided that we would host a Christmas party, naturally. We had a great time though, so it was worth it.

I really didn't need the excuse of a Christmas party to drench our house in Christmas decor, but I used the excuse any way. It is so tricky when you move and have to figure out what to do with all the decorations you bought for your previous house. Oh, the never-ending saga of a housewife. And of course, as I was taking all of said decorations down, I swore I would never, ever, ever, EVER put it all up again..... Until next year any way ;)

Caroline's stocking was added to our mantel this year. Jack and Fred almost got the boot from the family mantel, but I found some new stocking holders.

I repurposed our old stocking holders on top of the bar, so all is well. I actually like them better up there than as stocking holders.

My OSU tree, complete with Pistol Pete on top. One of the items I "picked up" in my mom's Christmas shed.

Our tree

Steven's Crazy Cajun tree. This tree basically embodies all that is Steven: hunting, fishing, crawfish, Mardi Gras, flying, UL, and of course the Saints. I was just excited to finally find a use for all of Steven's Mardi Gras beads that have threatened to take over my house. (And I realize that most of you are wondering if I am absolutely mad for having more than one tree with a 9 month old on the loose, and the answer is yes, yes I am completely and totally crazy. But most of you already knew that.)

Who has about 50 plastic crawfish sitting in their storage shed??? This girl. And they finally have a use.

I will totally admit, I really didn't sleep much the week of our Christmas party. I have this problem where one simple little idea overflows into about 10,000 complicated ideas. So, instead of just putting a few snacks and drinks together the day of the party, I spent the entire week preparing as many things as possible before hand. I will say that having Caroline has made me a much better planner/do ahead of time/multi-tasker. Steven and I love to entertain, and with a baby, it isn't as easy to just through things together the day of. We have both pretty much perfected doing things ahead of time so that we make sure everything is good to go when people arrive.

Here are some pics from the party:

This was the candy/dessert bar. I had cupcakes, cookies, fudge, toffee, caramel popcorn, oreo balls, nilla wafer balls, and chocolate covered pretzels. Annnnddddd no one really ate any of it. There were a total of 2 cupcakes consumed that night and one of them was eaten by yours truly.

The cupcakes were my absolute favorite thing.

I found the idea for the reindeer cupcakes on Pinterest and just kinda tweeked it.

The snowflakes were by far my favorite though. I don't know how I came up with the crazy idea, but it just popped into my head one day. I just piped royal icing in the shape of snowflakes on wax paper, let them dry, and gently (emphasis on the gently part) pulled the wax paper off. I sprinkled some edible glitter on the frosting, stuck the snowflake in, and voila!

And another snowflake.... Did I mention I was proud of myself for these????

No party is complete without the beverages

Family pic! (And I love how it took my sweater 2.5 seconds to give me back the muffin top it took 2.5 months to sweat off)

Addie and Caroline-best buds! We had quite a time getting them both to look at the camera, and this was about the best we got.

A little better....

Our friends Brian and Rebecca are currently at Altus AFB for a short time. Brian was in Steven's squadron in Charleston. They became some of our closest friends there, and then they moved :( They spent the last few years in California and are on their way to McGuire AFB in New Jersey. Brian is doing a couple months training at Altus to get requalified in the C-17 before they head up to NJ. Altus is only about a 90 mile drive, so we were WAY excited that they could make it for our party! They just welcomed their little boy Corbett this past August, so it was the first time we got to meet him, and they got to meet Caroline.

However, we had to keep the girls from mauling poor Corbett. I guess they are just forward women ;)

Caroline decided she would win Corbett's heart by giving him a foot massage

Not long after everyone arrived, I got busy trying to put Caroline to bed and didn't really get any pics of the actual party/people. But, I managed to snap a few just to prove that people actually showed up.

Steven's Ragin Cajuns were playing in the sumthin sumthin bowl that night, so the boys all congregated around the TV. It was the Cajuns first bowl invitation in like 41 years or something, so Steve was just a little excited. He was even more excited when his Cajuns won at the very last second.
(P.S. Doesn't Steven look manly sitting in my chair???? Maybe I could get him a matching one to replace his hideous big blue monster???)

And the girls caught up on our chit chat ;)
(Val, Rebecca, and Marianne)

Kingston slept like a champ for a good while, but he did eventually wake up so Katie had to retreat to the office.

We had a great evening with great friends. It was nice to see everybody one more time before we all went our separate ways for Christmas.