Weekend Report

Wait, it's Monday?

This weekend - our "Christmas" weekend before we leave for Mexico, was pretty close to perfect.

On Friday night, I hosted an ornament/cookie exchange with the girls. Because I'm sticking to my no-carb rules, the girls were subjected to it as well.

I had lots of meats & cheeses, sweet & sour mini meatballs, deviled eggs, and carrots and hummus. 

Plus, there were tons of sweet treats to snack on - my contribution being the chocolate covered strawberries and champagne jello that I forgot to serve!

And - I didn't touch ONE cookie.

 

Of course, the bottles were flowing so everyone had a really great time and we all got to go home with a sparkly new ornament.

 

Parties like this make me so grateful for all these friends I've made in California. It's been about 9 months since I moved out here and I feel like I have a family, a support network, and a lot of people I could call to bail me out of jail.

Saturday morning Joel and I woke up and acted as if it was December 25th. We had been excited for the day the entire week, so we tried to make it last as best we could.  

 

The day started with champagne, coffee, and some more carb-free goodness. Every Christmas together, our gifts become more fun - and this year especially since we had Roscoe. We each got him a surprise gift and let each other open it. He was so excited to play with the wrapping paper and test out his new toys that it made us even more excited too.

We stuffed stockings this year, and had big presents for each other too. It was fun to open lots of presents even though we weren't with our parents.

He gets me

And, we had to have an ornament to recognize (and always remember) our first Christmas in California. 

 

Saturday night I had fun taking my time to get ready, dancing to Christmas music, and just enjoying being in the spirit.

  

 We drove around Beverly Hills to take in the lights of Rodeo and then had dinner at Son of a Gun - a seafood resaturant that's been on our "list" for a while.

 

And on Sunday, read, and relaxed, and hung around in sweats the entire day.

I do want to note that this happy weekend was obviously soured by the absolute horrific tragedy in Newtown. My heart is so heavy with grief for that entire community and I just cannot imagine what those people must be feeling right now as they start their Monday morning without their baby, or neighbor, or sister.

These are all of our children.

And as President Obama said at their memorial yesterday, "We can do better than this".