Holiday Celerbation at Work

I have been at my job for a little over a year now and I think that I am finally beginning to find my grove with the people. This year I co-lead the HR Holiday decorations. It was a lot of fun to build in some team building activities for our HR group. 

I created this holiday card that we passed out to everyone in DC - about 600 people. 

I am working on my digital designing skills - but I think the card turned out pretty good.

 One of the group activities I organized was to have the team decorate their stockings with puff paints. In theory this was a wonderful idea...until I realized that I have no talent. Well I take that back, I do have one talent. I can write nicely. But decorating and being creative is not something I have a single ounce of knowledge in. My first stocking turned out disastrous! So, after our lunch time stocking decorating group event, I went back to my office, closed the door and did another stocking. Later that day, Scott found my first stocking in the trash and so he stole my new stocking and placed my old stocking where my new stocking was....when I came back into my office I panicked because I thought I had ruined another stocking! But then I figured out what he did. So not funny. So I keep up the charade and pretended like this was my real stocking...

 All the while this was actually the stocking I would display when we decorated our main area. Still not super creative...but whatever, it is decorated.

 We had a home theme... The entry into HR.

The walls had real baby photos of us as children. It was such a highlight. I loved hearing stories about the photo. 

I also made the famous chocolate chip cookies from Karla and the lemon cookies that everyone loves.

 More baby photos along our staircase...

And not to brag, but I love my baby photo. I loved this dress that my grandma made me and I still have the dress. 

 The stockings that each individual person did and our lovely tree. 

 Along with stocking decorating, baby photo sharing we all decorated our doors - however we wanted to. 

Laura has been my main friend my entire time at work, so thankful that I had someone this last year. 

Robby jumped on poor Santa's lab...it was funny though!

 And for the main event! We had Santa, Mrs.Clause and Ollie the Reindeer! Staff could come and take photos with them and it was a great hit!

Isn't our fireplace amazing! And the stockings of the team that helped create all of this were hung by the fire. 

 The HR team.. all in their PJ's! 

 Goofy photo :)

 Us all listening to T'was a Night before Chemistry...

 Ollie the Reindeer was the best reindeer!

 My photo with Santa, Mrs. Clause and Ollie! 

 It was a wonderful holiday event!!!

Random: October/November/December

Ah the randomness of life during the busy fall.

My precious baby that is always with me. I love her to pieces! 

 

My first weekend back on the east coast and I had dinner with friends from my Pew days - Jennifer and Gina and my favorite restaurant - Chuy's! 

Then on Sunday we headed over to Nat's Stadium for the annual Crafty Bastards Fair with Martha and Melissa.

Amen!

The weekend before Thanksgiving we decorated and just love this beautiful picture I took of our living room. So magical. 

As I prepare to live on my own again - Tuf thinks I need to learn to cook - boo! With some of the Thanksgiving leftovers I made turkey pot pies in Tuf's adorable cast iron skillets.

My brother's birthday is November 27 and I found this photo to put on Facebook. To the brother I didn't want, but so thankful I got. Happy Birthday, Zach! Love you!

The second weekend of apartment hunting I found my place! So after I did all the initial paperwork we wandered the holiday market. I love the holiday market in downtown DC! 

Adorable Hay and Eli!

And now for my continuing tooth saga. On Thursday, December 7, I went to the oral surgeon to have tooth 31 (my last tooth on the bottom right) extracted and an implant put in. There was an infection under the tooth so there was no guarantee that the implant could go in, but I was praying that I could have it done all at once. I also chose not to go to sleep. So I was awake during the entire procedure. It wasn't that long of a procedure - under an hour and a half. While I couldn't feel it, I could hear the cracking of the tooth and the drilling and the pushing and the pulling and all the pressure. It was horrible - I cried several times, but it is done. Now I have to wait until all this heals so I can go to a dentist and get a crown and have a tooth again.

I had no idea that oral surgery would have so many prescriptions - from the antibiotic to the two kinds of pain pills to the antiseptic mouth wash.

Since the surgery was on Thursday morning I was able to rest and hide for four days. My dear friend Whitney sent me beautiful get well flowers.

Always a story with my mouth. 

And there is the randomness of the last few months of my life.