Santa Baby

Last night's Elf Party was fabulous! I totally wish I had taken a picture of my costume, but I'm sure they'll surface from other peoples' cameras soon enough, so I'll post one when I can. In the meantime, just imagine me dressed in red velvet santa-suit style pajama pants and a green shirt, with an elf hat that has ears sewed onto them. What I DO have to share today is some of the pictures I took last night. There aren't as many as I had planned to take, since I was busy schmoozing and belting out BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE with my friends.

I think for sure one of the biggest highlights was the cake that Luke brought:

Also, the fact that he was daring enough to put some syrup on his spaghetti:

H. Stubbs won the child's costume contest as Frosty The Snowwoman:

Her little sister, E. Stubbs was DEFINITELY a favorite as well! She was the ghost of Christmas past.

What's even better is that when I got home, I had some treasures waiting for me in the mailbox!

I recently ordered some personal stationary from my favorite Etsy shop: PLAIN JANE'S CARDS. Jane makes such beautiful cards using great fabric patterns. She had posted some updated patterns lately and I found one that was just too "me" to pass up! So I ordered some and then had her personalize them for me so that I could use them as stationary to send notes to friends! Here they are, personalized with my nickname, AMO!

I just adore them! They're perfect for me!

I also got this super creative Christmas card from my mentor & friend, Brian Brooks and his beautiful wife, Hannah:

One of the fun things about it is the silhouette on the back to represent their dog Louie. So so sweet!

All in all, yesterday was pretty amazing! And if you don't believe me, just watch this quick clip of Corbett as Rudolph The Red-Nosed Lounge Singer!

I Can't Stop Partying

Welcome to Christmas Party Update Central

I still have one more party before I head home for the holidays, but I figured I'd go ahead and do a weekend party recap!

On Friday, we had the Westside Leadership Party and I got to create a new Christmas game for everyone to play! I think it went very well—getting people to do creative silly stuff is so much fun to watch (and participate in)!  The game involved the following supplies:

A roll of toilet paper
5 Red Vines
6 toothpicks
10 marshmallows
3 pieces of gum
5 paper clips
3 rubber bands
and 3 pieces of string/raffia

As part of the game, each group (4 people) had to pick out a hat the name of one Christmas Carol. They then had to use the supplies to create a visual representation of that Christmas Carol. I had little H.Stubs judge to decide which one was the most creative. And the winner was:

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER!

There is nothing quite so quality as seeing Evan dressed up as Rudolph, complete with red vines shoved up his nose!

Then on Saturday, I went to Heather J's Birthday / White Elephant Gift Exchange Party and it was jam-packed with good times! I got to hang out with friends, talk about New York, make awkward poses while hanging from the pull-up bar in their house, and of course I got some rad gifts! I got chocolates and biscotti—not bad for a White Elephant Gift Exchange! I must admit, though, the real fun times happened when this little guy made his appearance:

That's right, a bonafide fiber-optic peacock!

And then this afternoon, I joined up with some friends for a Gingerbread House Party! A few years back, I got to make a gingerbread house with my friends Cory and Chase and we decided to make a gingerbread crack house. I don't even remember why, but it was hilarious!  Here's a pic of us back then trying to make our crack house:

I had so much fun making that one back then that I decided to relive the fun by making another gingerbread crack house at the party! Here's what I started out with:

And here's how it actually turned out . . . after a long fight against frosting and graham crackers. It is quite literally a cracked house ;)

You see, it's perfect! The front looks just like any normal house on the block, and the real business goes on inside and in the back. Kelsey said, in reference to my creation, "It's like a mullet. Business in the front, party in the back!" The top of the house is covered with weed growing on the top and the inside contains "the lab." The back of the house even comes complete with an escape ladder to use when the cops come by to bust the joint!

Here are the other (read: more serious) gingerbread houses that were made by the others:

Erica's Lighthouse

 Josh's Tugboat

 Kelsey's Gingerbread House

Brian's Gingerbread House

Tomorrow night I have an Elf Party to go to and I'm so excited! Elf is one of the best Christmas movies ever and spending the evening quoting it and eating all of the 4 main elf foods is gonna be rad!

And as promised, I wanted to show you the fun postcard I designed for my community group! I truly love how fun these people are and I'm thankful that they went along with the zany idea to take pictures with the snowflake glasses on!

(click to enlarge)

Warm Winter

All the holiday parties are in full effect!!

I had my office Holiday Party on Wednesday. I had my Westside Community Group Christmas Party last night. I have a Westside Leadership Christmas Party tonight. I have Heather J.'s Birthday Party (complete with White Elephant Gift Exchange) on Saturday night. And then I have another Gingerbread House Party going on Sunday afternoon. Monday night I have an Elf Party to go to and I'm reserving Tuesday and Wednesday night to get last minute Seattle gifts for the fam and to pack for my trip home on Thursday morning!

If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I like to party! I don't mean I like to party in the sense that I like getting trashed and doing ridiculous things that I won't remember the next morning. I mean I like to create memories of quality fun times that I, or anyone else in attendance for that matter, can't help but remember it the next morning.

When I was in High School, I took Tech Theater for a year. After doing Theater the previous year, I decided that I wanted to be a part of actual design work as opposed to just getting out on stage and reciting lines. I was more intrigued by the technical aspects: the writing, the sets, and the costumes. I had such a wonderful experience working as the assistant to the Costume Director and spent most of my free time raiding the prop and costume closet, playing dress up! I can see how it's all carried over into my personal life a lot.  I think what makes holiday season parties better is that there are so many of them that you can dress up for each of them with a new level of fun. For instance, here's what I wore to my office Holiday Party:

My co-worker A— kept bowing down and 

hailing me as the "Snowflake Queen." 

It was so funny! 

I got two extra special holiday treats last night at our Community Group Christmas Party: I got an Old Navy gift card from the Irwins (holla what!) and our hostess, KL, made Lil' Smokies just for meeeeeeee!!!! Can I just take a moment to TRY to explain to you how magical Lil' Smokies are? Every great party I ever attended back home served Lil' Smokies as an hors d'oeuvre and they are just SO amazing. KL and I had talked about it a while back and she said, "I'm going to make some for our Christmas party just for you!" It was like Santa had just given me that pony I'd always wanted. Who knew that something so small smothered in barbecue sauce could hold the key to magical hopes and wonders of taste? Well, pretty much anyone who's ever served them knows. ;)

But as an aside, my outfit for that party was this:

When I got to KL's house, I was greeted by these sweet luminaries and lots of hugs from friends in my CG:

We had so much fun hanging out, eating great food, sharing fun memories, and doing our White Elephant Gift Exchange. What's even better is that I got everyone in my Community Group to let me take a picture of them in the snowflake glasses! I'm working to create a postcard & photo collage for each of our CG members and hopefully I'll be able to share it with you guys as well!