A Post About Cookies

This blogpost is all about cookies.

On Friday, I hosted my 4th annual Holiday Cookie Swap Party. I hosted my first Cookie Swap in Boston with some of my girlfriends there, and it was so much fun that I've continued it every year since. The idea is this- you bake one kind of cookie. Invite your family and friends to make one type of cookie and bring it to your house. Everyone swaps cookies and then gets to go home with a variety of cookies after only having to make one! Whoever came up with this idea is genius.

Of course, you also have to test all of the cookies during the party and then vote on them too. Or is that just us?

This year we made everyone go around and say which cookie they brought and what it was. People got really into it this year as far as trying new and more difficult recipes. Some turned out really well, and some... not so much. Whether their cookie turned out great or not so great, everyone seemed very stressed by the whole process this year. I have a feeling people may not be as adventurous next year.

Baby Henry got to join us at the party even though he didn't get to try any of the cookies. :( Maybe next year, Henry!

And while we're on the subject, can we talk about how freakin' cute Henry is ALL THE TIME?!?!

After we ate entirely too many cookies, it was time to vote. This year we voted on Best Looking cookie, Best Tasting cookie, and a booby prize for "Aw, at least you tried. Maybe baking isn't your thing."

Of course there were prizes.

And the winners were.... Jennifer for best tasting- SHE MADE HER OWN CARAMEL. WHAT?- Anna for Best Looking -she made the polar bear cookies - and Laura for "aw at least you tried" because her cookies somehow became one giant cookie that was kinda collapsed in the middle and may or may not have fallen apart if taken out of the pan. It's ok. She owned it.

We had such a good time, and even though I was awake with a stomachache most of the night from too many sweets and felt like I had a hangover the next day, it was totally worth it. I can't wait to do it again next year!

(The group minus one- Pat had left already when someone said "hey we should take a group picture!" If I knew how to photoshop I would put her in but just imagine her standing to my right.)

Party Animals

While we were home for the holidays, we partied quite a bit! 

Hagan Family Christmas Party
My extended family has decided that Christmas is not enough of a theme for our annual Saturday before Christmas party together. So a few years ago they started adding a theme on top of Christmas. So far we've had Mexican Christmas, Chinese Christmas, and this year, Cowboy/Country Christmas. We all dress the part, bring food and games/things to do that relate to the theme. My sisters and I use the party as an excuse to wear appropriately themed mustaches. Three years of themed parties, three sets of mustaches.

We made sure Lucy was dressed in the theme too, even though she wasn't invited to the party.

Fake guns on the table, gentlemen.

We ate chili and other country food, took pictures of ourselves looking like tough cowboys, did a "piece of junk" gift exchange where everyone brought a piece of junk from home and traded it in a game of "Dirty Santa," (we each donated the $10 we usually spend on gifts for this exchange to Kosair instead), and played games, including the "make reindeer antlers out of panty hose and balloons" team game, which our team came in last but was decided had the best antlers. Well, we decided we had the best antlers. I don't know about everyone else.

We added an extra balloon after the fact to make them actually stand up instead of laying straight across like a giant caterpillar....

I love my crazy family! We can't wait to find out what the theme is for next year.

Christmas Eve Eve
Every year since my senior year of high school, I get together with my girlfriends Emily and Elizabeth on December 23 for what we've dubbed our Christmas Eve Eve celebration.  We eat a lot of food, decorate Christmas cookies, and exchange gifts. It's always a good time and fun to spend a few hours feeling like we're still kids. :)

Tacky Christmas Sweater Party
Our friends Justin and Jenny have started a tradition of hosting a Tacky Sweater party right before Christmas. The party is always full of people who now live out of town but come home for the holidays to see their families. It's so much fun to see our old friends who we haven't seen all year and catch up with them, play games, and this year, sing karaoke. Oh man did we sing some karaoke. Elizabeth and I gave an emotional, heart-wrenching performance of Wrecking Ball. It changed people's lives. Or maybe made them all hate us. We aren't sure. But it was pretty memorable to say the least.

Wine and Cheese Pajama Christmas Party
Our Gamenight friends decided this year to have the Christmas Party separate from the New Year's party since we were doing the Murder Mystery thing for New Year's this year. Since the two parties were only 2 days apart, we thought we should do something different and classy, hence the wine and cheese. Then someone suggested a pajama party, so then it turned into a Wine and Cheese pajama party. (Our friends are ridiculous, as you may remember from previous stories about them.) We ate a lot, drank some wine, and exchanged gifts "Secret Santa" style.

Chuckie and Shane both came in superhero onesies. Unplanned. Perfect.

Obviously Grayson participated in the pajama theme because he's a dedicated Gamenight member.

New Year's Murder Mystery Party
I just decided this party will get it's very own post. There are just way too many pictures and things to tell about. Here's one picture to hold you over. Stay tuned.

UofL Sports Day
This year, the UK vs UofL basketball game fell on the same day as the UofL football bowl game. So obviously this deserved a party. With my parents, sisters and Chuckie's dad, we headed down the street to our friends Andy and Clay's house (who were out of town, btw, and were ok with us going over there anyway!) and watched both games on their gigantic projector screen.  Oh and of course there was a lot of gameday food. Did you have any doubt?

We lost the basketball game to UK (womp womp) but won our bowl game against Miami. So it was a good day overall. 

And that concludes the recap of parties! Murder Mystery New Year's Eve post coming soon.

Christmas 2013

Christmas this year was as busy as ever. We had a lot of places to be, a lot of gifts to give, and a lot of food to eat. Just as Christmas should be.

Christmas Eve morning we spent baking and wrapping presents. Nothing like waiting 'til the last minute, right? That afternoon, we drove out to my Grandma's house to spend time with her and exchange gifts. That night we attended 3, yes 3, church services. Catholic Church with Chuckie's sister and her family, Presbyterian Church with my family, and Disciples of Christ Church with a mixture of both our families. And we had a quick dinner at O'Charley's somewhere in between all the church. Yes I know 3 services at 3 different churches is a bit much, but Christmas is about Jesus and family, so what better way to spend Christmas Eve than at church with family?

Dad, conducting the handbell choir at Springdale.

 

Christmas morning we woke up at my parent's house, had coffee and opened presents, and then cooked brunch.

All of us went in together on cooking classes for my parents, and also this amazing Breaking Bad themed cutting board featuring Heisenberg and the words "Let's Cook." Probably our best gift ever.

 Sami as a present.

Chuckie cookin' up some sausage.

The Grandmas- having Bourbon Balls before brunch.  Because they're awesome like that.

 Soon after brunch we headed off to our next stop, Shannon and Miguel's.

Christmas presents and wrapping paper everywhere: the sign of a great Christmas.

Someone got a makeup kit from Santa and decided to test it out on Amelia!

Audrey loved her little Beanie Boo from Grammy. 

This face... So proud of the ornament she made at school and gave to Shannon. :)

 A little blurry but still cute.

Brother and sister realizing they are both kinda blind in just their left eyes.

After we ate dinner, we headed over to Chuckie's dad's house where a few of Chuckie's aunts, uncles and cousins were hanging out. We ate a little and played Scattergories. Then after everyone left, we sat in the living room and just chatted until almost midnight. It was a fun night. I forgot to take any pictures because I was trying so hard to win at Scattergories. :( I guess there's always next year!

Home

The holidays came and went, our trip to Louisville flew by, and now we're back in Boston, for what I will sadly refer to as "The Beginning of the End." It's hard to believe (I know I always say that, but it is) that we are ONE school semester away from the end of the LGO program. 5 months. Less than half a year. WHAT?! Excuse me while I shed a few tears.

Ok I'm back.

Anyway, as I told about in my New Year's post, 2014 is going to be an exciting, busy, and crazy year once again. It is definitely going to give 2012 a run for it's money, in terms of busy-ness, change, moving, traveling, and just plain old fun.  But before we get into all that, I will catch you up on our time in Louisville.

This year we were fortunate again to spend 2 full weeks at home for the holidays. Chuck flew in a few days before me, and once I got in town we were going non-stop, just like we always do.

I won't bore you with a play-by-play of our every day in the 'Ville. Instead I've made a nice list of some things we got to enjoy while home.

- Parties. I think all the parties deserve their own post because there were just so many of them and so many pictures.... We attended an ABUNDANCE of parties. My Hagan Family Christmas, a Tacky Christmas Sweater party with friends, Christmas Eve Eve with my girlfriends, Gamenight Friends Wine, Cheese and Pajama Christmas Party, Gamenight Friends New Year's party, UofL/UK basketball & UofL football bowl game watch party... We partied our booties off.

- Games. We played a lot of games with a lot of different groups of people while home. Scattergories, Pandemic, Cards Against Humanity, Charades, Card Tricks, What's Yours Like?, LRC, Lego Creationary.... Some were played more than once and with several different groups of people. We love us some games.

A group of friends and family playing a game at my parents' house one night:

 One morning, Liz and Shane invited us over to play Pandemic, our new favorite game, and they cooked breakfast for us. We have good friends.

- FOOD. We ate. A lot. Like everyone else does around the holidays, we gorged ourselves on appetizers at parties, cookies and chocolate, eating out at least twice a day.... It was intense. But so good because who doesn't love good food ALL THE TIME?

-Little Friends. We hung out with a lot of little friends while home. Obviously we spent a lot of time with 3 of our nieces who live in Louisville. We even babysat them one night which was a lot of fun and also a little crazy- but everyone ate dinner, went to sleep before their parents came home, no one got injured, and only one thing got broken. Not half bad! We also saw our mini gamenight friends Grayson and Brendan, my friend Shannon's 6 month old Jayson, my cousin's daughter Addison, and our friend's hilarious kids Trace and Cary.

Chuckie and Grayson

Me and Jayson

 Proof that we fed the girls while we babysat and proof that Sloane is a gangsta:

We taught them how to play "Sardines" while we babysat. You know, the game that's basically hide and seek except when you find the person you hide with them until everyone is hiding except one person? They got the idea.... kinda...

 Chuckie and Amelia watching the older two sing karaoke on their new karaoke machine:

- Apartment shopping. Now that we know we are moving back to Louisville for sure, we decided we better look for a place to live. We won't be back to Louisville again until we move back for good (we may be back once or twice in May but just for 2-3 days to go to graduations and a wedding, so I'm not counting those) so we had to go to some places while we could to see them in person. It was really exciting to go shopping because apartments are WAY cheaper in Louisville than in Boston and Seattle and also because Chuck and I have never had our own place in Louisville before! So even though we're going home, it will feel totally different having our own place there for the first time!

So those are some of the highlights of the trip. In between all those things there were chill time with family, shopping, the movie theater, and more eating. I swear we ate more than we did anything else.

The sunset on January 1, 2014. A beautiful start to the New Year!