O' Christmas Tree!!!!

For the first time since Mike and I were married....we actually have room for a Christmas tree. I guess we would have had room the first year, but we were packing to move to DC...so that didn't make sense. We were also traveling over Christmas, almost every year that we were in DC. So....now we are finally in a house big enough for a tree, and staying home for the holidays....so off we went to chop down our tree!

checking out the lot!

sawing....sawing...sawing....

cute cute boy

Damon LOVED helping carry the tree to the car!

let's go!

Christmas Boutique

A few months ago, my sweet friend Maren, (who I talk about ALL the time) suggested that we get a group of friends together, and have a Christmas Boutique. I had never done one before, but she has done a few....so she spread the word....and after a couple of weeks we had a group of friends who were all excited to join in.

I decided to make treats, and then got some things in New York, and from my aunt to sale.

So....I had a week full of very late nights. Which most of you know is not normal for me....and my kitchen looked like this for a few days....(pictures above and below)

I made caramel / chocolate dipped pretzels, white choc. peppermint oreos, and hot chocolate dippers (candy canes dipped in choc.)

I made tags for everything, and tried to make a cute little presentation for everything.

the girls...minus Liz who left before we took the picture...Ashley, me, Maren, Brittani, Latasha, Brittany, and Missy. What a fun day!

my stuff. :)

It was so fun! can't wait to do it next year!

Thanksgiving!

I hosted my first Thanksgiving! But....was way too nervous to cook the turkey. So our sweet friends, the Laytons, were joining us....and luckily, Maren wanted to make the turkey anyways! It all worked out! The turkey may have taken longer to cook than we planned....but WHO CARES! It was delicious, and we had a super fun night. Our sweet friend Tiffany had to work until 7 pm that night, but her husband and kids came over to join us, along with two of Mike's classmates. Jasmine and Alexis. It was fun to have Jasmine with us because this was her first time ever experiencing Thanksgiving!

Maren's hilarious thumbs down, due to her stress over the stubborn turkey. :)

the two pies in front are the pies that we made at the King Arthur Flour class....the one on the left is my lemon chess pie, and on the right is Maren's fall fruit crostata. yum yum!!!!!

King Arthur Flour!

So about a week after we moved to New Hampshire, the CEO of King Arthur Flour (big east coast company) - spoke at one of the orientation meetings at Tuck. That afternoon Mike came home and told me all about it, and said that they have baking classes at their headquarters (about 10 minutes away from our house) - he suggested I sign up for one if I want to....so I went outside, told a bunch of my neighbors...and we all signed up! (a few ended up on the wait list, so sad)....

So we signed up for the Holiday Pies class, which was the Monday before Thanksgiving....it was SO much fun!

me, with maren, liz, brittany, and emily....and I don't think Amy was there yet when we took this picture

We made a Lemon Chess Pie - yummy! and a Fall Fruit Crostata. Also, delicious. (I'll show the pictures in my Thanksgiving post. We learned about how to make the perfect crust, and all kind of other things. The instructor was such a funny little lady, and it was so fun to sit in this huge room and bake away with such good, fun friends!

Besties.....

First, a big thanks to Deborah for letting me steal this picture.

These are two of my very best friends from college.

Deborah (middle) was my roommate, and is still, and will forever be one of my closest and dearest friends. We have done road trips, cruises, Vegas trips, double dates, cry sessions, laughed so hard we cried, more road trips (like across most of the U.S.) and everything else you do with a best friend.

When I moved out Deborah moved into another apartment with Syndi (left). We all had some super fun, crazy, hysterical times back in the day, and these two friends mean so much to me. Oh the boys....oh....I laugh just thinking about those crazy dating days!

But it all worked out.....I introduced Syndi to her future husband in 2000 (I think), and a few years ago they actually moved to Virginia....about 30 minutes away from where i lived in Maryland. So over the last couple of years Syndi and I bonded about motherhood, marriage, living far from family....etc....We also have boys who are very close in age, so playdates were always a blast.

This past summer Syndi and I both happened be in Utah for the month of July, so we all met up, and laughed some more. Love Love Love you girls.