'twas the night before Christmas...

This year's Christmas eve party was with a group of college students that josh met through an english corner.  They were freshmen - many of them new to the "big city" - and were wide-eyed with Christmas (and foreigner) wonder!  They were so excited to spend Christmas Eve with us; it made it feel special because they also recognized that it was a special thing to spend Christmas Eve together.  

I ended up decorating the cookies for this party, because I was starting to get stingy with my Betty Crocker icing, and I used less if I did it myself.  Me, the stingy hostess..s

The girls were great and friendly...even when it meant they didn't get any of their dinner eaten because everyone was so enamored with them (maybe that's why they were so happy!)  I finally had to move them to the other room because they were a bit distracting... =)  
Later on that evening, we all read the Christmas story together...

...and after it was all said and done, we took the group picture.  I didn't include the group picture with me in it because it wasn't very good.  But I wasn't wearing the red sweater this time!  ** Also, thanks to JoshW, I realized I typed in my trivia question wrong -- it should have been what frosty's EYES were made of, but I'm not so good at catching those little details.  Way to go, josh...and hello! I haven't heard from you in ages!
The group picture started a cascade of picture-taking.  It cracks me up - "here let's take a picture in front of the christmas tree; this couch is cool, let's take a picture in front of the couch! and here, in front of the window!  And here, let's add her!  And don't forget him!"  And by the time it's over, you've taken seven million pictures.  It's hilarious!
They all ended up with several (ahem) pictures of my kiddos...
After the festivities were over and all the paper cups thrown away, we thanked the girls for being so friendly and well-behaved, and told them how much we appreciated them doing these parties with us.  We decided that, even though it was already past 10pm, we'd let them open one of their presents early (and it's REALLY early, since we open presents on new year's day).  They were totally jazzed!  


About seven or eight months ago, I found these little dress up outfits - a nurse and a beautician.  I decided that emma would get the beauty shop girl and mantha would get the nurse, even though theoretically they are sharing them both...

I'm glad I pegged emma so correctly! She was thrilled with her beauty shop outfit and her array of tools - hair dryer, curling iron, comb, mirror, nail polish, scissors, etc.  She immediately saw that everyone needed some work. Mantha was the guinea pig...
...but soon I got my "do"...
...and apparently, even daddy was in need of a haircut!
Here's mantha, finally all dressed up in her scrubs.  She had her own little set of tools - a stethescope, scissors, bandaids, a watch (for the lunch break??), shots, thermometer, etc.  
Samantha repaid her new hairdo with a shot for Emma...
Things got a little dangerous when the beautician started giving shots!
but in the end, we had two happy girls - and they slept late the next morning!