party all the time

we have had quite a fun few weeks. 

on wednesday night i met up with the ladies for dinner at panera to celebrate carolee and amanda's birthdays. it's always nice to chat up the la-dies. :)

thursday night was the rs Christmas party. we called it the gifts of Christmas and asked everyone to reflect on Christ's supreme gift to us and what we could give to Him this year. tracie and i met one day to talk about which way we wanted to take the party. we'd had a good committee meeting with lots of ideas, but needed to narrow down and decide on a theme and flesh things out. i was looking on my phone and had just clicked on a video called silent Christmas when tracie said, "have you seen this thing on pinterest called silent Christmas?" we both knew, before we'd even watched it that that was what we were doing. it's pretty cool when the spirit works like that. we served appetizers and then a hot chocolate bar at the end. while the ladies watched the silent Christmas movie we bustled around putting boxes and papers at each seat and set up the hot chocolate bar. it was a busy and good night. :)

(lana, i stole some pictures from you:)

friday night was matt's work party. it's been a fun event to go to and visit with tara, who i only see at christmas every year. it was at the hollywood firehouse again, for the third year in a row i think? matt volunteered to play a game called "is taylor swift older or younger?" friday was t swifts birthday, so the mc would name an event (oj simpson trial for example) and asked "is taylor swift older or younger?" each competitor had to come up with an animal sound to buzz in with, matt's was a limer, (or some other random animal that starts with L... i can't remember) i was so proud. and then he won! even more proud. he won a $30 itunes gift card, pretty sweet. and the picture, he had to hold his hand up to keep score. :)

every year they serve the same food. this years version of flower salad my favorite part of dinner. :)

me and my date. :)

we left right after dinner because we had another party to go to! the darrows annual christmas party is always so fun, so we rushed over to that. we got there in time to play christmas carol charades. the losing team has to sing a song of the winning teams choosing. we chose i saw mommy kissing santa claus. probably the funniest part of the night was when i was acting out go tell it on the mountain and i actually did go tell it on the mountain. at least i mouthed it. and then i realized that i was totally cheating and tried to correct myself, but dave had already deciphered my telling it on the mountain and then we all had a good laugh. i am soooo smart sometimes. ;)

the white elephant is always so fun! matt brought home a snowball maker/thrower thing and i brought home what i took, a rudolph nose and antlers for the jolly green. is it lame to bring home the gift you brought? yes. but i have wanted one since alecia unceremoniously stole it away from me at last years party, so i really just had to. ;)

our next party was lana's ugly sweater party on saturday night. this was the perfect ending to an unusually rough day on the home front. it is such a blessing to have good friends to uplift you. even if it's just with ugly sweaters and throwing hershey kisses at our husbands. matt wore chris' bill cosby sweater from our ugly sweater party last year and i wore my spiffy lighthouse sweater tom/bon got me this summer.

they had a get to know you m & m game that was enlightening and then a couples minute to win it. the rays most definitely did not win it, but we had a good time, so that's all that matters. sort of. ;)

ugly sweaters in the house!

 bishop martines won the male ugly sweater and laura won for female. laura had a whole ugly ensemble going on, so she deserved it. i thought my lighthouse sweater was pretty good, but there was some stiff competition, so i guess we're all ugly winners.

today was matt's work party for kids. i came late (another party!) but he sent me this cute pic of the girls patiently waiting for their turn with santa. they each got a barbie playset and delaney got a cute circus train. santa brought cookies and juice and it was really cute.

i've said it before and i'll say it again, it is such a blessing to have such good friends. especially living so far from our families, we rely on our friends for so much. 

we are so blessed.