Happy New Year to All!

I know, I know - it's been a full week since my last post. Heck, it's been a full week since I've visited anyones bloggy land. But I'm back with plenty to share and will be playing catchup with all of my friends over the next 24 hours. 'Cause I've missed you all!

Monday was the last full day we had with our houseguests, and my friend and I spent it out and about together without the men folk. We had a glorious time by ourselves, and were repeatedly amused by the fact that she kept tripping the store alarms every time we walked in a store. And while we thought it was hilarious, the security guards - not so much. We never did figure out why it was happening, but it provided us with comic relief. Monday evening we finally broke out the camera for a group shot, because even though we've been good friends with them for over 6 years, we have about 5 pix of them (and visa versa). I know, hard to believe that someone who has so many shots of her hubby blocking his face from the camera could have so few shots of good friends who are willing subjects!

We've never been big New Years Eve people, and have routinely turned down party invitations. I know - what a couple of old married people! Instead, this year we hosted a New Years day brunch with our friends that we were supposed to be having over for Christmas Eve dinner (but had to postpone due to all the snow).

It was actually more of a Christmas/New Years combo celebration, since none of us had seen each other in a few weeks. One of the things we did was a "white elephant" gift exchange (basically, you exchange something worthless that you already own). Can you guess where our stock of giveaway gifts came from? Yep - my mother!

These glasses were Cody's "stocking stuffers" from my mother this year. They came complete (probably from a thrift store) with a thick layer of dust and cracked lenses. We just had to get a shot of ourselves in them before wrapping them back up to give away.

Here's part of the spread: scrambled eggs, bacon, turkey bacon (for Cody, who can't have pork), fried potatoes, pancakes, fruit salad, and several salsas and relishes.

Over here we have apple crisp, zucchini bread, gingerbread and poppy seed muffins.

After stuffing our faces with way too much food, we moved on to the white elephant gifts.

Lindsey drew first and was rewarded with an antler candle holder. Lucky girl.

Next came James, who picked the only really girly thing in the mix: the Troll doll earrings (courtesy of my mother ;) He promptly hooked them onto his suspenders and wore them the rest of the night.

Jana got a set of old bins, also courtesy of my mother ;)

Kala received a lighthouse night-light, which didn't seem too bad, until she was informed that it was battery operated and it would suck the battery dry within 2 hours. So if you need to get up at night to pee, you'd better do it within 2 hours of going to bed.

Cody and Mike with their bunny themed gifts. Can you believe these were contributed by two different families? Mikes already making plans for a bunny cake to bring to Easter dinner...

Here are the boys wearing Jarren's new gift ;)

We actually exchanged "real" gifts, too, but I didn't get a single shot of those.

Oh, and how on earth do I explain this next little beauty?!? Here's a little back story: Jana has a little bit of everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING. I've seen her basement - I'm not exaggerating. Well, one of the things she has a seemingly unending abundance of are little plastic reindeer. At the Christmas craft party of 2007, one of the crafts used them - but not nearly enough. And these things multiply like bunnies. In fact, hubby cleaned out behind our washing machine a couple of months back and you know what he found? One of these little plastic reindeer. These things have become a running joke for us, and Kala and I were totally prepared to find a box full of these things as a white elephant gift. But we didn't...

Instead, after all of the gifts were open, Jana pulled a large box from behind her chair. I slowly lifted a tissue wrapped item from its box, undid the tissue and found this:

Yep, it's a cone covered in little plastic reindeer and spray painted gold. How festive *snort* Mike and I are already planning ways to decorate it for other holidays. It is *so* going to be making appearances at our gatherings ALL. YEAR. LONG. ;)

As our day wore down (well after dinner time) we posed for a group shot. We couldn't quite hold it together long enough for this shot but I included it because - Look! - Sasquatch is not only smiling, he's actually laughing!

Here we're all finally holding it all together.




I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous new year!