the first half of the holidays...

It is so good to be home...I can't even describe it. I am so excited my sister is home with me, especially since I didn't get to spend Thanksgiving with her. And glad she brought the gran-cat. It is kinda fun having Little Miss Lady at home -- she just makes us laugh with some of the things that she does. Of course, my mom went all out with the decorating -- a picture of the tree is above. I should have taken pictures of the rest of the house -- she did a fabulous job! Every year there is an "not mentioned" prettiest wrapping contest...these were my presents this year:

I absolutely LOVED this wrapping paper. I got it from Hobby Lobby when they put it on sale and it is so think and AWESOME. Of course, I have it in black that everyone will see on their Birthday (or whatever type of present you get from me) presents. And as soon as I got home, we threw my dad a birthday present -- I mean, we had to celebrate since he was turning 65. So Dad invited a ton of family friends over and we had a party. Here is K and I before the party.

We did a bunch of appetizers and then K did a chili bar -- she made two different types of chili (which were absolutely FABULOUS) and then we did a bunch of "toppings" for the chili - different types of cheese, fritos and tortilla chips, onions, cilantro, and who knows what else. Then we had tamales and everyone just loved it. It was such great food, lots of good cheer flowing and even more laughter.

I love all of my parents friends -- most we have known forever and they have been through this thing called "LIFE" with us. I love that...I am so blessed to have them all as part of my life.

Here are some of the ladies -- EH, SH, ES and Mom....they are just so much fun. E and E were Mom's friends from college and S used to live down the street from us when we lived on Guadalupe River Drive.

Here is LH, LL (he is my dad's cousin), the birthday boy and K.

And here is JF, K, LH and I...JF had kids that were the same age as my sister and I and we were friends at a very young age!

Here is the birthday boy and I...I think he had such a good time. We don't always get to celebrate since his birthday is so close to Christmas, and it was great to get to celebrate this year. The crew was in good form and there was lots of laughter (some of it at dirty jokes which I actually had to do "earmuffs" and just shook my head!) and lots of good stories told. I even loved all of the political discussions and hearing all they had to say -- until they would say, well, it won't affect us, but look to K and I and say "but it will screw you girls". Awesome. And because Dad was such a good boy this year, I brought home some cupcakes...

I mean, you just HAVE to have Crave Cupcakes, don't you? The start to the vacation was amazing...

The C's holiday party

Every year our friends the C's have a Christmas Party at their house, where KC prepares some fabulous food, there are lots of spirits to go around, and even more holiday cheer! We love all getting to hang out one last time before we all go home for Christmas, which we all love. It is also great because we got to spend some time with the R's who are expecting their first baby in January! Above, me and LG....its always great to get to hang out with her OUTSIDE of work too!

Here is KC and SM hanging out in the kitchen....where I usually spend most of my night!!! Of course, K had her mom's famous cheese ball and an AMAZING goat cheese tort to snack on. I'm pretty sure that goat cheese was about 90% of my dinner that night! Yes, it was worth it!

Here is me and the M sisters...I just love these girls -- they just crack me up sometimes...especially with Baby R on the way. S just bends down to talk to the baby and feel where he is and it is SO cute to see them going through this together!

And here is LG, KC and I...it was a fabulous time...thanks C's for having us over to celebrate the holidays!

Christmas Dinner with the girls....

Of course, if we were going to pick a restaurant to go to for our holiday dinner, it would be Benjy's. We love their Champange and typically have a bottle BEFORE dinner...and then of course, the food. We all love it...we have never had anything bad. So we decided to gather at our favorite place for dinner one last time before everyone left for the holidays.

Here is LM and LW...I should have posted the picture before this one where they were acting silly....and we hadn't even polished off the champange yet!

Here is JK and I...

Here are the W's...the best part was that L got to play with LM sitting next to her and T got to play with PK who was entertaining (and not sober) sitting next to him. It was the perfect solution to keep everyone happy!

Here is TH, me and LM.

Here are the K's...so stinking cute...I wish this picture showed how not sober P was...it was amusing to everyone...except maybe his wife! ha, ha!

And the sweet H's...who got a babysitter for their sweet son H so that we could all come out and play! Happy Holiday's girls (and husbands!)! It was fun to get to celebrate with you!

christmas goodies for my staff...

I do love giving presents....and I even more love baking!! Last night I made snacks to hand out to my staff with their Christmas cards. I made these great oyster crackers and puppy chow. Then I put them in the clear bags and tied on pretty Christmas bows. I LOVE how they turned out! Here are the recipes -- we used to make these oyster cracker ever Christmas and I LOVE them!

Oyster Crackers

2 (12 oz) pkgs of oyster crackers

1/2 cup oil

2 1/2 tsp dill weed

1 1/2 tsp lemon pepper

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 package hidden valley ranch dressing (dry mix)

Mix together all ingredients besides oyster crackers. Drizzle over crackers (or Karen's way of put in tupperware, pour over, close the lid and shake till coated!). Put on large cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for 30 minutes, turning at 15 minutes. Store in airtight container.

And then my ultimate favorite...we call it puppy chow - no idea why, but when I make it, I want to eat all of it. Go figure.

Puppy Chow

9 cups of Crispix cereal (can use Chex Mix)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (may need more!)

In 1 quart microwaveable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on high 1 minute, stir. Microwave another 30 secons longer or until mixture turns smooth when stirred. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. (or once again, the Karen method of putting in big tupperware container and shaking until coated!)  Pour into 2 gallon bag and add powdered sugar. Shake until well coated. Store in airtight container.

The JL Holiday Party

On Saturday night we planned a "the girls from segment 1 and 2 who slave away in the kitchen together" holiday gathering. We met up at our sweet head active's house LH and had some food and spirits and got to catch up. What was so fun is that we have almost never seen each other outside of our Saturday morning duty, which we show up with our jeans, rarely showered, with hats on....so it was fun to see everyone outside in normal clothes!  Above, MM, me and VW.

We all have so much fun in the kitchen together....I am so blessed to be surround by so many "real" girls who just like to work hard, laugh and have fun. We all want to get in and get out, and have a fun time doing it.

Above, K, J and M.....I was sad somehow I didn't get LH in a picture! I just can't believe it....so unlike me! Ironically, J above is really good friends with my friend SJ from KPMG. It is such a small world.

And this is LH's cute dog...this was her "jail". when she was in this chair, she couldn't get down. It was so cute...she got to play with us but couldn't run around everywhere!

And these babies are the creations that K made for us. Can you believe it?!? she used fondant to create the best rice krispies EVER. I took lots of pictures of these and will probably copy them some day!!!

LM's Ornament Exchange

Every year LM has an ornament exchange party and sadly the past few years I haven't been able to go! But this year, I was there....and loved getting to hang out with a bunch of sweet girls. Most of these girls are KPMG'ers from past and present and some I haven't seen in a while and it was so good to get to catch up. Above, me and LM.

Here is LL (who I was at 90% of my parties from the weekend! loved getting to see her so much), LB and LH. LB is the cute wife of one of the managers I worked for for a really long time at KPMG and she has the CUTEST kiddos.

Here is SJ, me and CT. We had baked and iced a ton of cookies the day before and it was so fun to get to hang out with them again. CT was part of my scheming to get the ornament I wanted...it was a frog with a prince crown on it...ironically, we had the BEST plan to get both the ornament she wanted and the one I wanted and then JA got it before me. It was so sad...but them JA was so fabulous and GAVE me the ornament. I was SO EXCITED. I'll have to post a picture later!

Here is TH and her sweet son H. It was so fun to be able to catch up with her and get to hang out with H a bit!

Here is me and CC. I just love this sweet girl...she makes me smile every time I get to see her!

And here is the whole group (minus me - I was trying to take the picture because we couldn't get everyone in a picture with the timer on!) It was so fun to get to hang out with everyone and celebrate the holidays! Thanks LM for having us all over!

Saturday night....

On Saturday night I had another Christmas Party (actually, 2, but I didn't make it to one....so sad). We went to our friend KW's house and got to hang out with some old KPMG'ers and got to meet KW's cute daughter Zoe. It was so great to see their house and get to catch up with these girls....of course, there were boys there too but we let them do their thing so we could gossip the entire time! Above, KW (who is preggo with their 2nd child -- another little girl!), LL, me and BE.

Here is BE, LG and KH. I wish I would have taken a picture of KW's cute cupcakes -- she made them to look like they were ornament balls -- and had reeses on top as the place where the hook goes in and then a pretzel for a hook. They were so stinking cute!!!

After we were done, I went to meet up with some work friends and we saw Josh Abbott -- one of my favorite new singer / songwriters at the firehouse. He is AWESOME....my friend KV introduced me to him and I absolutely love everything he sings. I have all of his CD's and I like about 90% of the songs which is totally rare for me! We were at the firehouse and we had a great time just hanging out and laughing at some of the people there....like the girl who was celebrating her 21st birthday and she was so drunk and dancing in the middle of the dancefloor by herself and then literally passed out on her friend....and then they had to wheel her out on her friends wheel chair. ha. amazing. Below is CK, his sweet wife LK and their friends.

Christmas cookies at CT's

About 5 years ago, I invited my staff over to my house to decorate Christmas cookies since we used to always do it as kids and I absolutely loved it. So I had my engagement team over and their kiddos and we started decorating cookies. Around 3 years ago, we moved it to CT's house so we would have more space and have been doing it there every year. We cook lunch, invite a bunch of girls from work, and all have a fabulous time together. Above, me and CT with our aprons before the real decorating began!

Here is SJ and one of my favorite partners, NB. Suzanne is one of our veterans and she usually loves to help me "mass produce" at the end of the party as we always have extra cookies we need to decorate.

Here is LL -- she was SO excited about her cookie that she made and made me take a picture of it. She is  so stinking cute!

Here is me and WHH....we tried to so hard to get him to smile and he was just not having it! But he was so cute...he loved running around and playing with all the girls...and stealing a cookie off of the table and gnawing on it! He especially loved Miss LM as she flipped him upside down and blew kisses on his stomach...see below!

And here are a bunch of the cookies that we make. We always decorate so many and then no one wants to eat them or take them home (go figure). So we got an idea this last year from LH that we should take them to a firehouse for the firefighters. So, we do just that! And hopefully they love them as much as we love to make them!

After we finished with cookies RH and I went to Sound of Music. It was SO GREAT. We sat there....sang along at times and enjoyed it so much. We loved it even more that right before it started, we noticed that the secret service was there....and then in walked in George and Barbara Bush.

Everyone was going crazy...I'm pretty sure that they got at least 3 standing ovations just for coming! It was so AWESOME!!!  It was such a fabulous time!

Tacky Sweater Party at KF's

This last weekend was the weekend of parties....it was a LOT of fun to get to catch up with so many people. It all started Friday night at KF's house -- she had a tacky sweater party. I had first heard of this when some of my KPMG friends from Denver showed me their invites a couple of years ago and I had never heard of the concept before....and now it seems as if these parties had popped up everyone.  Everyone went out and got a tacky sweater (most of them womens.....especially hilarious since the guys were wearing them too!). Above, the bible study girls -- me, KF, LM and CC.

Here is some of the crew...you can't totally see it here, but N in the middle is wearing footed PJ's. It was hilarious. Then he stole the sweater off of one of the other guys and was wearing that too. It was so freaking funny.

Here is MP, L, and KF...in their really hot sweaters!

And we decided we needed one group picture with "Santa"....so a drunk N was our "fake santa". It was so funny - we were all cracking up.

Here is me and CC -- just to think a few years back he was my staff on my engagement for 3 years....I taught him all of his bad habits :) It was so great to get to see him since I don't get to see him very often. And ironically, he and LM were wearing the same shirt! It was pretty funny....especially since they work together now and then they were dressed alike!

And KF turned her downstairs half bath into a "photo booth" -- and so we all packed in at various times for party picts. It was a fun night and it was great to catch up with everyone!!!

this week...

this week has just been crazy...some of it was self imposed, some of it totally out of my control. First, I have totally over obligated myself this week, not only with work but with my personal life. Surprise, Surprise.

This week I had a two day meeting with my staff -- they were all flying in so we could plan for year end and just work through things....and I got a call that some couldn't get out due to weather and so we had to scurry around and move the meeting to next week. Good in that it moved a little stress to next week, bad because I just wanted to get it over with!!! With all the training going on for our system conversion, and all of the "year end" issues coming to a head, man, we are just busy and running around with our heads cut off. Its good because its definitely not boring, just hard to plan with all the "it has to be done right now" requests coming our way! But at least the meeting got pushed - I was seriously trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the week with everything going on and not having my evenings to get things done...because this meeting was going to be long and we were doing HH one night too! WHEW. that makes it a lot easier on me!

This weekend I have 6 holiday parties and RH and I are going to see the Sound of Music. I have no idea why there are so many this weekend, but there are. And since we all know I have a HORRIBLE time saying no, well, I am going to try to make most all of them. At least they are all spread out -- one on Friday, 3 on Saturday (with the Sound of Music in the middle) and then 2 on Sunday. I wish I could take off work on Monday to recover!!! It will be fun, though, as there are so many different groups represented through these gatherings and I am SO excited to see everyone and share a little holiday cheer! (My cheer will be laughter and smile -- theirs will for sure be alcohol!) I just need a driver to get me from place to place and keep me on-time!! ha!

And I have to report that I am so excited that I got to see one of my favorite people this week....BC. He is back from Bali, where he is a missionary, and we got to have dinner and catch up. I just adore his sweet spirit and have a great time with him. I was just as excited to get to hang out with his sweet girlfriend who I knew when I was at A&M and to get to catch up with her too. We took a picture so when I get it,  I will add it. I just loved getting to see the pictures from Bali, and to see the boys and girls who live in the homes that they work with -- these kids are JUST PRECIOUS. I really want him to pack one in his suitcase and bring him back to me when he comes back. SO CUTE.

The only other thing going on of interest are fun times RH and I have been having at the gym this week.I swear, it has been painful for some reason.....I think it is that neither of us is sleeping well and therefore we are exhausted when we haul our butts to the gym. But at least we have been entertained this week by this guy who works out there. He is probably in his late 60's - early 70's and he is just comical. He uses the machines for whatever purpose he wants - and 99% of the time, it was not the original purpose of the machine. Today, my favorite was that he was using the "hamstring / quad machine" where you are sitting with your feet extended and you have to push the weight down and back under you. This guy was sitting on the piece where you push with your legs and RIDING it up and down. No, I am not kidding. Not one bit.

Yesterday, this guy was using the lat pull down machine, where you sit down and put your knees under the bar so that when you pull the weight down with your arms, it holds your legs down if you are doing a high weight. He decides NOT to put his legs under it, but on TOP of it. then when he pulled the weight down, he was literally laying down. and then it would jerk him back up.

and don't even get me started about him trying to do fan kicks in the middle of the gym. RH almost fell off her machine she was doing she was laughing so hard. She couldn't even look at me and keep a straight face. and in turn, I can't quit laughing. I guess I am kinda mad that the trainers don't say something or stop him from using the machines incorrectly. I swear, half of the time they are watching him do it and laughing too!

Oh, well.We'll see what we get tomorrow. I am sure it will be just as good as the past few days! I can't wait for next week so I can post some great holiday party picts! Hope everyone is having a great week, enjoying the fabulously cold weather, and getting into the holiday spirit!

oh, the work christmas party...

I'll admit....the only Christmas Parties I have ever known are the great ones from KPMG....the open bar, the amazing bands, always at some awesome venue like River Oaks Country Club or at the museum....and EVERYONE went....and we always had a wonderful time.

So when I got a note saying "two free drink tickets" at a local hotel...I was a bit skeptical. And then when everyone thats been around for a while said they didn't want to go -- I thought, great, what am I getting myself into! Some of my staff were going and really wanted me to go with, so I dug out my dresses and went with all of them. And it was MUCH better than I expected. And thank goodness I was not drinking or else it would have been a VERY expensive night!!! Above is SS and I by the Christmas tree....none of us opted for the "Prom Pictures" they were taking. No kidding. They were even posing people just like prom. Ha!

We all met up and had a drink, then we had dinner.....well, let me re-phrase that -- they all had dinner, I just hung out....Above is me, BP and SS again. They both work in the financial reporting group and are just so much fun. I wish you could see BP's tie...it totally said Merry Christmas all over it. So festive!

Here are the A's....funny, she was an intern with me at KPMG and I remember her saying she was getting married...but I had no idea who the guy was. Then I came to work here and he started talking about his wife....and I finally put two and two together! What a small world!

And then after dinner, the dancing started....you should know that anytime the DJ brings props, well it is going to be a riot. We started digging through the prop basket and look what I found:

Here is CK - he was one of my staff at KPMG that has also migrated to Oxy.....the only rule was if I took a picture of him and posted it anywhere, it had to be followed with a picture of me....so here goes...of course, I was laughing so hard, looking around hoping my bosses boss had already left!

Then the DJ said that YMCA was coming up...and started handing out hats...of course, the first one I pointed too and said they really need a hat was our boy BB...I totally want to blow up this picture and put it outside his door...classic.

And then we realized that they had indian headresses too....so we decided that IA needed it too...

And of course, if I made them wear it, I had to wear something too -- so I got off the hook easy and was gifted a green feather boa. I got some other great "action" shots of everyone on the dancefloor doing YMCA. It was so freaking funny.

And after that, there was lots of other dancing, including a conga line (no, I am not kidding. Not one bit!) and then some latin dancing. The funny thing was, when LK went and requested Baby Got Back, the dancefloor literally cleared. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!?!? I mean, you know I didn't leave the dancefloor. I did crack up when SS said, K, turn your back this way so our bosses can't see you shake it. so funny!

Then more props came out....

Here are the K's -- first there were glasses, then there were hats...so freaking funny. All in all it was such a fun night and I have lots of video to prove it!! ha!  I have already told everyone that next year, they will be coming with...it was just too much fun to pass up!!!