pinkies up!

for this year's troop party, we'd decided to take the girls out of our meeting space at the church and have a nice tea party at a local parlor.  going to tea always means a chance to get dressed up, and the girls always love to bust out something pretty to wear.  we'd lucked out and managed to have our reservation at a time when there were no other patrons present, which is always good when you've got an excited group of 9- and 10-year-olds together for a party.

we'd drawn names at one of our meetings in october for our annual secret santa gift exchange, and they'd been given a maximum budget of $20 (including tax).  since they'd opted for buying gifts over making them as we've done in the past, everyone had given 2-3 ideas of things they liked to make things easier for shopping.  the bean had wisely chosen to make her purchases at the school book fair earlier in the month, which made things easy for both of us plus benefited her school - total win-win.  the gifts were piled onto a nearby table while everyone sat down to enjoy some nibbles and tea.

our server had kindly placed us at our own table next to the girls so that we could have some grown-up time, and we each got to choose a flavor of tea for ourselves while the girls enjoyed fruit punch, lemonade and two flavors of tea.

our first course was this fruit cup, which i promptly slid over to the old lady to enjoy.

next came scones with devonshire cream, lemon curd and preserves.  ours were a raspberry white chocolate, while the girls got chocolate chip scones.

the girls' princess tea came with their bites served on individual plates - PB&J, ham & cheese, some other sort of sandwich that i didn't recognize, chicken nuggets and a chocolate-covered strawberry.  i heard lots of "oohs" and "aahs" from the table as they were served.

the grown-up tea sandwiches came on this little tiered serving platter.  we had almond chicken salad on croissants, some sort of pineapple cream cheese something or other and a spinach-artichoke that we all agreed was good, but a little weird.  heh.

as if we hadn't had enough sweets, the girls received funfetti cupcakes and we were given a choice between bread pudding made with scones and chocolate cake.

the gift exchange came next, which is always a good time.  everyone seemed pleased with their presents, and it was fun to watch them gush over what they'd received.

then it was time for us to present them with the pajamas we'd made, and we had them put them on underneath their skirts so we could see how they fit.

we received some nice gifts from the parents, along with cards signed by all of them.  one parent came with an entire homemade rum cake for each of us - she'd given us this cake a couple of years ago that she'd baked in loaf pans, but this year she went all out and made us each a full-sized bundt pan of it.  it is SO GOOD.  i've had to keep myself in check so i don't eat it all by myself again, like i did last time.  at least this year the hub has had a few slices of it.

on the way home we were equal parts mesmerized and scared to death when we saw this craziness in the sky above:

the picture is super blurry, and we were imagining all sorts of crazy scenarios before we finally hopped onto the internet and learned that it was a space X launch from nearby vandenburg air base.  it was super weird and we stood outside watching it for awhile before we went inside, and were so glad to find that we weren't being invaded by aliens or north korea or something.

pretty weird ending to a fun afternoon, huh?

so much prep, and then it's over

it's so hard not to give in to post-christmas letdown when you've spent the last five or six weeks immersing yourself fully into the holiday spirit.  i love all the decorations and lights and excitement and anticipation, and then you find yourself sitting back at the end of christmas day all like, that's it?  all the gifts were opened in about an hour - and that was stretching it out - and the yule log stops playing on the screen and the radio station switches back to regular music and wads of wrapping paper gets crumpled into a giant trash bag and boxes are broken down and placed in the recycle bin and the delicious dinner is in everyone's bellies and the christmas pajamas are in the hamper.  sigh.

like, i went through dozens and dozens of these:

and a few of these:

and made some of these hot cocoa cookies that i'd forgotten all about:

made the bean model these lovely chapeaus for me at party city:

 took the girl scout troop (solo!) on our annual shopping trip to buy toys for a local toy drive:

and then the next week all three of us who lead the troop celebrated at a tea parlor with them:

i did a good bit of sewing, including these fun unicorn and dragon (the bean says it looks more like a devil) pillows with a pocket in the back to hold a book, an iPad, pajamas, what have you:

my co-leader and i split gifting duties for the girls and made them pajama pants in girl scout fabric that they'll hopefully wear during our first campout...whenever that may be.

i even got to do a couple of those mermaid tail blankets that somehow kids still like:

and i busted out a pair of pants in this plaid fabric that i was hoarding.  wore them to christmas eve dinner with my folks.

we made one last trip to hallmark for our annual ornaments.

and the bean made some cookies for santa.

a couple of days before the big day, the hub carved out a nice chunk of time for me to get all the presents wrapped by scooping up the bean and taking her to a movie.  that helped immensely, and instead of being up till 2am on christmas eve, i managed to get to bed around midnight.

phew.  it was hectic and crazy, but i wouldn't have it any other way.

we wish you a merry christmas

hope you and yours are having the most wonderful of holidays!

crazy busy holiday fun

whew, this has been one busy week.  i suppose that's always true when it's the week before christmas, right?  maybe i'm just getting older and more crotchety, but man...i'm exhausted.  but everything has been super fun, so i'm definitely not complaining.

because our schedules have been so insane, my SFAMily never even managed to pull it together for our holiday hoorah GTG last year.  that changed this year (although we still weren't able to get everyone there, boo) with a fun sunday brunch at the raymond in south pasadena.  it was two hours of laughing and catching up and a white elephant gift exchange and food...all the best things in life.

the bean was pretty happy to take over my party favor when i met up with her and the hub at...gasp!...the mall afterwards.

i was excited to join a couple of friends at the local country club for a lovely leisurely lunch.  our kids have been at school together since the very beginning, and it was nice to spend some time together outside of our mom duties.

the bean's christmas concert with the school choir and the 4th grade band (she's learning to play the trombone) was on tuesday evening.

on wednesday i spent the morning in the bean's classroom for their christmas party.  instead of the muffins and cookies and bagels and crap that had been discussed at the beginning of the year, my co-room mom and i decided it was a better option to order some hot food from the cafeteria.  it cost a little more, but the kids really loved having pancakes and bacon and sausage together in their classroom.

we had tickets for a really fun-sounding candy-themed pop-up museum in l.a. for last night, but they had permit issues or some crap with the city and had to postpone their opening.  and so instead, she got to attend her cheer christmas party (which she had been really bummed about having to miss anyway).  they were to wear christmas pajamas to the party, but because there were none left in the stores i busted some out using some fabric from my extensive stash.

later today is our girl scout christmas party, where the girls are exchanging secret santa gifts and my co-leader and i have a fun gift to give them.  we'd bought some girl scout-themed fabric last month and decided to make them some pajama pants that they could wear to our next sleepover, so hopefully they'll be excited to receive them.

and check it out:

holy crap.  the holiday train is coming fast, and it's gonna be over before we know it.

the annual dance girls cookie party tradition continues

the annual cookie party we throw at the house with the bean's OG dance class girlfriends is a tradition we've come to adore.  only two of them are still taking dance lessons (in two different studios) and because everyone has such hectic schedules year-round, this is really the only time we get to see each other.  we'd originally settled on a date that worked for everyone, but as a couple of the girls' soccer teams advanced further and further in the ranks and went on to playoffs and finals, we had to scramble to reschedule.  and we got a christmas miracle - another day that worked for everyone to be able to come over and have our party.

i like to change things up so that the girls aren't doing the same thing year after year.  i guess it might have been more fun to actually stick to one thing that they come over to do, but maybe we can start repeating some of the past years' activities.  you know - we did gingerbread houses, gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies.  all were fun and everyone had a great time.

this year, i thought it might be fun to make a few different kinds of dough so they could make their own cookies and then take home a nice assortment of treats.  with the bean's help, we settled on thumbprint cookies with either strawberry jam or nutella to fill them with, classic snickerdoodles, and peanut butter blossoms.  i decided to prebake some cupcakes too, and filled a few piping bags with cream cheese frosting and set out a bunch of sprinkles and other decorations.

they had a great time working on shaping the cookies and rolling them in sugar and all that jazz.

and these two took on the task of unwrapping and pressing a hershey's kiss into the tops of the peanut butter blossoms as they came out of the oven.

usually the novelty of the cookies wears off relatively quickly and then the girls disappear into the bean's bedroom to play with her toys.  this year though, i noticed that their attention was held a bit longer with the different types of cookies and the cupcake decorating.  and while they did go into the bedroom for a few minutes, they came up with a new activity:  making slime in the garage.

the hub had been hanging out in there, away from the chaos and craziness, so i felt a little bad when the girls invaded his quiet space.  but as is his nature, he didn't mind a bit and got them all set up with a table to work on.

we'd also gotten the old lady to stop and do her usual photobombing of the group photo before she and her special friend disappeared for the weekend (it was his birthday, so they weren't gonna stick around for a kiddie cookie party):

i mean, look at how much everyone has changed over the years!

i'm just so happy and grateful that the girls aren't over this cookie party yet.  i know that may come in time, as they get older and have lots of other holiday activities to do, but for now i love keeping up this fun little tradition.  it helps that i adore their moms too, and while we keep up with each other on social media, this annual GTG is something i look forward to every year.