Weekend: Chick-fil-A Christmas Party Mayhem

      Do you guys like the Mayhem commercials?  They are some of our favorites.  I felt like Mayhem came this weekend in the form of Christmas parties.  Here are the highlights, mostly in pictures.
      Here are the Spenst family photo booth sessions - apparently Bella likes to look to the side and Lily does whatever she feels like doing when we take pictures.




      On Friday night, we hosted our operator party for Central Arkansas CFA peeps.  It was a jolly good time.  There was lots of food and a really funny gift exchange.  Here is Tim opening bread up from Dale.  Later, we discovered that $2 bills and other random treats were between the slices.  Other highlight gifts included the Big Mac from last year (not kidding) and a picture of Papa Bear Alan, also from last year.



Here is Lily, taking on a Petit Four.  I must say, the girls get MVP status for their behavior at both parties.  They were delightful.



And, here's Bella with Papa Bear Alan.

Let's just say, these gloves were the gift of the night.



Here is a slide-show of the Christmas Photo Booth from Friday night.  I am planning to email out these pictures to you guys - promise!



On Sunday, we had our all-team Christmas party, which was so much fun.  We had the cow out to make sure people knew which house was ours.  Also, it really trips out our neighbors.

Our amazing team provided most of the food for the party, and I must say, it is fantastic to have real-deal Mexican food show up at your house in bulk.  Everyone loved it!



The girls loved being loved on by everyone.




And doing a bilingual gift exchange in our living room is always a highlight.





Ms. Frances drew names for the awesome door prizes.



You should come work for us.  That's all I'm saying.  It was a great time, and I am so thankful for the people that God brings to work for us.  They are a special group.  Here's the photo booth slideshow from our team party.



There was a lot of clean-up, but it is worth it to be able to have such joyous events.  So, we felt like this, when it was over -



But, it was fun.  Also, who has a beard that's long and white?  Lily has a beard that's long and white!

Unexpected Candlelit Dinner

      This weekend has held many things.  So many parties and people.  So much fun.  But in the midst of it, we had an unexpected experience.  On Saturday evening, our power flickered a couple of times and then went out, right as I was pouring a pancake onto the griddle for Christmasy Breakfast for Dinner.  Since John had just finished the rough draft of our new advent wreath, we decided to light it up and have dinner by candlelight and Mag-lite.




We were so thankful that it was the one day this weekend that didn't contain a party, especially when it was out for almost an hour.  (We still don't know why.  Our whole street was out.)





It was fun.  It was simple.  Afterwards, we loaded up the girls in PJ's and went and looked at Christmas lights.  (For the record, our street has some of the best lights.)  We loved hearing Lily say, "Oh, look, guys.  There is more Christmas over there."  The power came back on right as we were leaving the house, so we were able to open the garage door.
      It was a sweet blessing of a quiet evening in the midst of the party mayhem.  Thanks, Lord.  We are loving celebrating Jesus's birthday all month.

Ten Observations from This Week and a Bonus Jolly

      This week has been a little bit on the crazy side for me.  This weekend we are hosting two different CFA parties - one last night and one tomorrow afternoon.  I feel so fortunate to have the space, time and energy to do this, but it does take a lot of those things.  The last two days, especially, I have been running around like a crazy person.  The party last night turned out great - I will post about it later.  Here are the things that I observed/learned in the midst of the craziness in my house this week.

1)  When preparing a Christmas Photo Booth, DO NOT try to iron the plastic sign.  It will melt instantly, and you will think you ruined your iron.  I am not sure how I didn't spot this outcome.



The iron turned out fine after a little elbow grease and a Clorox wipe.

2) When your credit card number is hijacked and used on the East Coast, and your husband asks you if you have been shopping at Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales, you can be thankful for several things.  One of them is that our credit card has great fraud detection, because they called and alerted us that day and removed the charges.  Another thing to be grateful for is that Arkansas is not far down the list of states to scroll through when having to change your credit card number on all of the things that are set up on auto-draft.

3)  Don't finish decorating your basement when you have two parties that weekend.  I shouldn't even have to say this, because most people are not foolish enough to do this.  I am, because I knew we would be using our basement for our Sunday party and I pretty much had the stuff that needed to go places, but I have spent a lot of time this week finishing our playroom.  Fortunately, I do love how it is turning out and do plan to share pictures next week.

4)  Disciplining my child is a giant time-sucker, but it is my job.  And, in fact, it is one of my main priorities in life.  But that doesn't mean that when this sweet girl wants to have another hour long battle over something, anything, and everything, that I am not thinking, "I don't have time for this right now."  But I do.  Because that is what I am doing, and I know we are loving her well by teaching her the right way to act.



5)  I bother to check the mail in December.  Most of the year, I do not walk out to our mailbox.  John usually gets it on his way in from work.  But, in December, I am overcome with anticipation of delightful Christmas cards, and I find myself awaiting the arrival of our mailman and wondering what joyous holiday greetings we will get that day.  Oh, I do love seeing the faces of friends and family arrayed on our coat closet door where I immediately tape them up.  ♥

6)  My laundry room smelled like chocolate.  In preparation for the parties, the laundry room was a staging ground, and we had a lot of the desserty stuff in there.  And it smelled like chocolate every time I walked into it.  Also, I love miniature Mr. Goodyears and pick them out of the mix regularly.



7)  Thinking "I never bother to clean that" is sort of the whole point of having someone else clean your house.  I had our house cleaned this week in preparation for the party madness, which I don't normally do, but it is really great knowing that everything is actually clean.  Like the tops of my ceiling fans and all kinds of other things that it never occurs to me to clean.

8)  Being able to put watermelon on your fork and wave it around really is that entertaining/exciting.  While out to dinner, Bella had the greatest time doing just that.  Having children really does help you see the little things in life all over again.  She is so fun.



9)  It really is true when people say, "There is no such thing as bad weather.  There are only poorly dressed people."  At least, I can say that is mostly true.  I am training for a half marathon (I should write another post all about that sometime), and I needed to get out a do a longer run this cold morning.  I asked John what I should wear.  He let me borrow some of his gear, and this is what I looked like as I headed out to the river.

I am actually still wearing that, because I haven't showered yet.  Gross, I know, but it is a pretty comfy little get-up, ugly though it may be.

10)  With all of the prep work, this week has felt really busy.  It made me crave down time to really rejoice in what this season means.  Lily and I have talked a lot this week about how we are celebrating Jesus's Birthday all month, and I am looking forward to slowing down a little to really soak that in.

Bonus:  Here are some of the test pictures we took while getting the photo booth set up.  It was pretty late on Thursday night.  Oh, how they make me laugh.





So that's a little Christmas jolly for ya.  ♥ from us.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

      So, I know some blogs that do a "Wordless Wednesday," and I thought it might be fun to just post a picture, but the reality is, I apparently like to hear the sound of my own voice (or read the thoughts of my mind as it may be) too much.  I like to add words.  This picture is from this morning.  It was a perfect, beautiful snowy morning.  Snow covering everything, except the roads.  Delightful.  The girls went to Mother's Day Out as usual, no employees were calling to see if our store was closed and I ran the errands I needed to run this morning.  All with snow glistening off of every tree branch, until it melted away by noon.  Perfect.



I thanked God for the reminder that he is making things new always.  Everything looked so different this morning, and it was nice to get that change in perspective.  Thank you, Lord, for the beauty of snow and the even greater beauty of the truth that you redeem all things and make beautiful things out of dust.