Meet Brisby!

This afternoon I headed out to see the progress on Summer's new house. Look at all of that drywall!!






What was even more exciting was that I finally got to meet Summer and J's new dog, Brisby!! Look at that beautiful face.



Awwww. Love!



Summer, Brisby, and Friday.



LOOK at how good Friday is. So patiently waiting for a treat and being SO GOOD.



Brisby is pretty good at it too.



I'm happy to have finally met Brisby. She's a great addition to their family!

Deery Lou is Dead

Sad news, folks. My beloved Deery Lou glass is dead. I originally got a set of two when I visited Beth in 2003. By 2009, they had both broken. They're super hard to find, but I was lucky enough to find two new ones on eBay! That was a great day. Eventually, the apple one broke, but the rainbow one survived for almost three more years! This morning, while rushing to get ready for work, I finally broke it. I had reached into the cupboard to grab a vitamin and somehow the jar hit the glass, and BAM.





Deery Lou, you were a wonderful glass. You delivered so many refreshing beverages to my lips. I will miss you. Farewell.

Nancy's Birthday Dinner

Tonight was a SURPRISE birthday dinner for Nancy! Since December is such a busy month, the cooking club gang decided to just pick a night to go out for dinner at Zoe instead of trying to arrange a cooking night at one of our houses. Since Nancy's birthday falls shortly after Christmas when everyone is scattered around the country, we decided to surprise her by celebrating tonight!

There was wine!



And presents!



And balloons!



And friends!



And baked alaska!



YAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Deal with it, Nancy!

Tracy & Tina's Holiday Party

Tonight was the magical night known as Tracy & Tina's Holiday Party! It's one of the most festive nights of the year, and it's always a wonderful time. I made gingerbread cookies for the occasion!









Party time!



Tina made me a DELICIOUS martini, and look at how cute it was with the icy cold pink elephant!



Eventually it was time for the traditional Christmas Car Bombs. Which always means I go into boss mode. Tracy caught this picture of me being SO BOSSY, using BOTH of my hands to point and boss. Somebody has to direct people where to stand!



Randy was thinking ahead! Smart man.



It was a big group this year!!



Ready, set, go!



Cheryl was the clear winner!!! Randy was sad because he was SO CLOSE but not close enough. I stopped trying to win years ago because people like Cheryl are out of my league and I like to savor every delicious drop!



We all bowed to Cheryl. We are not worthy.



Time for some cookies! Unicorn!



Chomp!



Lori ate the LAST unicorn. So I serenaded her with the theme song to The Last Unicorn. "When the last eagle flies..."



Summer observed that if you turn the cowboy boot on its side, it becomes the United States of America! COOL!



Orange hearts! Blue moons!



Cheers!



I only brought one guitar cookie to the party, and I was hoping that Leah would choose it. She did!! Yay!



CHOMP!



The next fun activity for the evening was HATS! Somebody plopped a hat on my head, and I looked around and everyone around me had a hat on! Fun! These hats are all from Tina's Wall of Hats.



Group photos!





It was a good night for some Unicorn Pegasuses. Lori was first!



Then Carrie!



MEANWHILE, Megan tasted my sugared cranberries, and discovered that she loved them, EVEN THOUGH she thought she didn't really like cranberries. EXCITING!!! It's always exciting when someone discovers a new food that they like!! So many exciting things happening at ONCE tonight!!



Back to Unicorn Pegasuses! Sean was next.






And then Shawn!



Shawn and Sean!



The final event of the night was LIPSTICK. I was recently given an old lipstick from the 70's called "Floppy." It is SO PINK. Megan, Kelly and I put some on for fun and to look fancy.



Thanks, Tracy and Tina for another magical holiday party!

Happy First Birthday, Gus!

Today was a very special day, because Gus turned ONE YEAR OLD! Clark and Anne had a party to celebrate, and there were mustaches for all.



"I AM ONE! YEAR! OLD!"



Anne and Gus.



There was so much delicious food, including a killer taco bar.



The cake was glorious!



It turns out that frosting was dangerous, though.



Look at my mouth! It turned super blue!



Haha, whee! Blue!



HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GUS!