Party time

Me and my girl, all dressed and ready to greet our guests!

Daddy's girl!

The Christmas cookies that I made...I was very proud of them! They are all gone now, so I guess people liked them.

We had our annual holiday gathering last night. Parties are always a good source of motivation for us to get our place in really good order. We spent a lot of time in the weeks leading up to the party making sure that things around the house got done. Everything ended up looking really nice I think -- I just hope that no one looked inside our closets!

The party got started at 5pm so that people with kids could bring them along. It was so fun to see all the little ones running around exploring! At one point I felt like there were children just oozing out of every corner of our house. It was really cute. Lucy has so many nice little friends, including tons of really cute boyfriends :)

We thought we had plenty of food and drinks, but people really brought their appetites with them and we ended up running out by 8:00 or so. Jeff actually had to run out and get more cheese and wine! I take it as a sign that people had a really nice time, but I feel badly that we didn't have enough. Next year I will buy twice as much! We just feel so lucky to know such nice people, many of whom are fellow new parents that I have met over the past year and half since I got pregnant/had Lucy.

We asked guests to bring a toy for Toys for Tots rather than the obligatory bottle of wine. I am amazed at peoples' generosity -- I literally have 5 bags full of toys to drop off. I would love to spread the word about this idea because I think that lots of toys could be collected at holiday parties. And I think people really had fun picking toys out!

I feel like we have already had so much Christmas already, and it's not even mid-December yet. I certainly am taking full advantage of the holiday season this year. I knew that holidays with a child would be fun, but I had no idea they would be this much fun! I really want Lucy to enjoy Christmas every year and to look forward to it the way I always did (thanks, Mom and Dad!)...I think I'm off to a good start...