When my alarm went off this morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed because I was so sleepy.  I was laying there thinking of a plan for when I did get out of bed, kind of to psych myself up for actually getting out from underneath the covers.  Listen, don’t act like you’ve never had to talk yourself into getting out from underneath a blanket and two puppies before.

So, I’m thinking about how whilst I’m blow drying my hair I’ll write a blog post, when I start wondering what I should write about.  I thought of a few ideas but all of them seemed to involve writing lots of words, something that seemed daunting about 45 minutes ago.  Actually, it seems kind of daunting right now.  I’m still sleepy.

Anyway, I’m laying there in bed half asleep trying to think of what to write that won’t involve, you know, actual typing when, suddenly, I thought “I know what I’ll do!  I’ll just sing them a song on video and be done with it.”

You’ll be happy to know that I came to my senses in the shower.

Obviously, before I write anything else, there’s something from yesterday’s post about the predicament of y’all vs. ya’ll that I need to address:

Somehow, in my hurry to finish blogging before I fell asleep at the keyboard, I neglected to mention a third category of y’all which is actually a personal favorite of mine: ALL Y’ALL.

Now, listen, I know so many of you will be tempted to begin using this term in your conversations today, so I need to be straight up with you: unless you are a darling young southern girl with blonde hair who wears pink and lime green clothes and accessories on a regular basis, you really have no business using this term.

I feel that you’ll think I’m being too harsh with you, but really, I’m only trying to help you.  Don’t you think not being able to use that term myself is difficult?  I am southern as they come, but even I am not southern enough to be awarded the responsibility of employing the use of “all y’all.”  It’s something we can strive towards but, in the meantime, just make certain you’re using the regular y’all / ya’ll in its correct format.  It’s the least we can do, y’all.

Speaking of grammatically correct words, my first day as a student in Advanced Grammar class got off to an early start yesterday when I woke up at 1:32 a.m. to find Avi standing beside my bed.

“Wanna get in bed wif you.”

I was too tired to protest, so I let her get up in bed with me and told her to lay down and go back to sleep only to have her begin attempting to convince me that it was “mworningtime, Amy Beff.”  I explained that it was still the middle of the night which, naturally, prompted her to begin crying and claim (and I quote) — “You is twying to trick me and make me take a weally long nap.”

I somehow convinced her that I was indeed not attempting to trick her into taking a nap and she eventually fell asleep, which is the state she was still in when she began kicking me in the stomach at 5 a.m.  Unfortunately I was already awake at this point because I was sick to my stomach because I’m taking a new medicine that makes me want to throw up at the mere mention of food, much less the consumption of it.

Actually, this brings me to an interesting story involving Gosling and, be honest, how many of you just sighed with relief because FINALLY, GOSLING IS MENTIONED AGAIN ON THE BLOG.  I cannot tell you how many emails I have received over the last month or so that mention something about GOSLING, WHY DO YOU NOT TALK ABOUT GOSLING ANYMORE?  I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t mentioned him in awhile until I started getting emails about it, but you will be happy to know that he’s still around and that we’re, of course, still friends except for the other night when we were almost not friends AND HERE IS THAT STORY:

So, it’s around 8 p.m. a few nights ago and I’ve just fixed dinner for myself because I’ve decided to force myself to eat whether I feel up to it or not.  Gosling calls and says he’s going to come over and, I mention that he can have some chicken nuggets when he arrives and so, naturally, he brings curry-flavored ketchup with him because, really, who doesn’t travel with curry-flavored ketchup?

Gosling proceeds to try to make me try the curry-flavored ketchup and, upon my refusal, continues some more.  I hadn’t told him that I was sick to my stomach because, apparently, this is might be a bit of a long-term effect of this medicine and I wasn’t in the mood to be whiny so I was just all “GOSLING.  NOT TRYING THE CURRY KETCHUP” over and over again.

Seeing that my refusal to try curry-flavored ketchup was sincere, Gosling decides that he’s going to feed some to Cuddles which just lit my fire and when I say that what I mean is IT LIT MY FIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE.  No one, absolutely no one, feeds human food to the puppies and especially not some strange curry-flavored ketchup.

Except for Gosling.  Because he has no respect for my puppy feeding rules.

This results in me getting very agitated and, though I’m not proud of what I’m about to tell you, the following did actually come out of my mouth: “If you do not stop it right now, I swear I am going to punch you in the ovaries and, if you think you don’t have ovaries, that’s just because I haven’t punched you hard enough to find them yet.”

It was, perhaps, not my finest moment but all I’m saying is that?  The next time a boy is annoying you?  You might want to consider throwing down the whole “ovary punching” thing because, if nothing else, it’ll confuse them to the point they’ll forget what they were doing to annoy you in the first place.

In somewhat related news, yesterday Gosling needed to add an elective class to his schedule for the semester so that he’d have enough hours to be full-time.  He looked through the course catalog trying to find any class that wasn’t closed yet but, much to his dismay, most classes are already filled and closed.  After hearing about his predicament, I offered a solution that he accepted if for no other reason than he had very few options left.

Take a wild guess as to who is my newest classmate in Advanced Grammar.

Confession: it’s 9:04 p.m. on a Wednesday night and, now that I have Avi in bed (tip: never give a child sugar before bedtime), I’m also already in bed, likely to fall asleep whilst typing.  I must be living in the wrong decade of my life because, hello, aren’t your twenties supposed to be when you stay up all hours of the night?  None of that for this girl; the earlier in bed the better –

because I like mornings best.

– — –

It’s a good thing that I feel that way about mornings since, tomorrow at 7:45 a.m., I will find myself in a classroom for my first day of Advanced Grammar.  If you’ll remember, I started working on another degree last semester because I receive certain educational benefits that let me take certain courses for free or at a 50% discount.  Out of the classes I needed to take for that degree, none worked with my work / Avi schedule for this semester so I was classless.

But then I decided to look and see if there might be any other classes I’d want to take just for fun that would work with my schedule since I was able to take a couple of undergrad courses for free this semester.  I realize that, to most people, that probably sounds insane.  Why, after having finished two degrees, would I want to stay in school for “fun?” People think I’m weird; I get that.

But the way I see it, I have the opportunity to — each semester! — take two free undergrad courses so why wouldn’t I use that benefit to my good, even if those classes can’t go towards a third degree?  So, I looked through the course schedule and found two classes that I thought might do me some good: Advanced Grammar and Methods of Bible Study.

Allow me to recap this entire post for you: I’m a glutton for punishment who plans to beat herself with a dictionary and concordance at 7:45 IN THE MORNING.  However, on the bright side, the next time someone asks me to explain a method of Bible study to them, I will hopefully be able to do it with correct ADVANCED grammar which, really, is a skill that will take me far in life.

– — –

I’m guessing that, when we go around the classroom giving our introductions tomorrow morning, that it might be in my best interest to not start off with “Hey, y’all!” unless I want to really impress them by saying “Hey, ya’ll!”  Please, allow me to explain:

you + all = y’all (one syllable)   |   you + all = ya’ll (two syllables)

Now, if you’re ever in a situation where you don’t know which is correct, you can ask yourself a few simple questions and instantly know which pronunciation belongs to you:

1. Do I occasionally eat chicken for dinner?

You, my friend, are a one-syllable y’all.

2. Do I raise chickens in my backyard before eating them for dinner?

Easy: you need to employ the use of the two-syllable ya’ll.

3. If you answered yes to the first question about occasionally eating chicken, you must then ask yourself this: did I purchase said chicken from a grocery store called the Piggly Wiggly?

If the answer is yes, you have been automatically moved into the two-syllable group whether you like it or not.  Everybody knows that shopping at the Piggly Wiggly necessitates a two-syllable ya’ll.

And now, let’s continue from yesterday.

– — –

13.  When I began grad school in 2006, I decided that, although I didn’t have enough money to suddenly buy all the Christmas decorations I might need to decorate my house, I could start finding a thing or two a year and slowly “build up.”  I didn’t mean for it to happen, but somehow each of the items ended up having very strong symbolism to whatever stage of life I was in at the particular Christmas when I purchased it.  This year’s item — a darling quilt that looks like it’s full of candy! — is no different.  I have no doubt that, every year when I pull it out for the holidays, I’ll remember watching MacKenzie and Avi pretend to “eat” candy off it.

14.  My grandmother Josie gave me a jewelry box for Christmas this year, something I would have liked at age five but love at age 25.  The reason why?  On the very top she tucked in a picture of my grandfather and herself with the words “I love you” written beside it.

15.  Speaking of Josie, she told me about an embroidered pillow she saw that said “Don’t get your tinsel in a tangle.”  Obviously, I was a wee bit too late for those wise words.

16.  When we were eating ice cream after the wedding, Aviean looked across the table at me in my bridesmaid dress and said, very quietly and very seriously, “Amy Beff, you are gorgeous.”

17.  Of course, it was only a few mornings later that she saw me walking out of the bathroom with curly hair and promptly said “Amy Beff, your hair is ugly.”  You win some, you lose some.

18.  Near the end of my break, Cara and I headed to Nashville (my second trip there in one holiday!) to meet up with a couple of friends from college, Brandy and Christan.  It’s been hard for the four of us to see each other together in awhile, what with me finishing up Starlite, Christan giving birth to her second child, Brandy returning from teaching in South Korea (where she gave birth to her second child, too!) and Cara returning from loving on babies in Ecuador.  It was time for a reunion and we did just that, staying at the Opryland Hotel where we had the time of our lives thanks to an incredible “insiders” deal that we had access to!

19.  Whilst we were at the beach, Cara and I went to Savannah for the afternoon where we saw the most darling shops (you just WAIT until I tell you about one of them!) and just had fun being ourselves.  We were both laying on benches at one point when we decided to take a picture to commemorate the fact that it was December and yet warm enough to be outside wearing sunglasses.  Check out those stunner shades I’m rocking.

20.  A big part of my break was the wedding of one of my college girls (see how this list isn’t in chronological order?).   I gave her a lingerie / bachelorette party the night before her wedding and, in preparation for it, MacKenzie and Avi went with me to the grocery store, thus fulfilling my desire to go grocery shopping with wee children.  I loved it!

The party was a blast and it’s all due to the fact that my other college girls stepped in and took over everything whilst I ran to the church for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner and then just kept on helping even after the party was over.  It couldn’t have been done without you, girls.

21.  The one gift MacKenzie wanted this year was a bottle cap necklace with either her school initials or her own initials painted onto it (this is a very popular type of necklace that you can find at different kiosks in the mall or at specialty stores).  I looked for the necklaces in her colors for a very, very long time and finally came to the conclusion that, if wee MacKenzie was going to have them for Christmas, I would need to make them myself.

And so, I did.

When I finished them I was so afraid that she wouldn’t like them that I almost didn’t give them to her.  You cannot imagine how relieved I was when she opened the package on Christmas and began jumping up and down with excitement.  It was, by far, the best gift I gave this Christmas.

22.  Trey came home with me for Christmas Eve and Day this year because, due to his work schedule, he couldn’t go home to see his own family.  Having him with me for that adventure was… well, a first.  I tried to prepare him on the drive up, but he kept telling me he was sure it wouldn’t be as wild as I had described.  Three hours later, my 22 year old brother was chasing me down the driveway whilst wearing a ski mask and carrying an axe simply because he loves to make me scream like a little girl (it worked) whilst Trey just watched with his jaw dropped open.  Gee, Trey, want to come home for Easter, too?

23. The best moment of Christmas, maybe just maybe, was the night I surprised the girls by telling them we were going to sleep underneath the Christmas tree (don’t worry, I unplugged it as soon as they were asleep).  I made a little spot for myself between them and we counted every lollipop, cupcake and candy cane that we could find from our spot beneath the tree.

It was, by all accounts, a very Merry Christmas.

I could write for weeks about everything I did over Christmas break seeing as I had over half of the month off from work (unbelievable, I know!), but it might be a bit awkward if we’re still discussing ornaments and gingerbread cookies on Valentine’s Day, no?

And so, today and tomorrow… the places and faces of my holiday at age 25.

– — –

1. Not only did I dress Avi in footie pajamas throughout the break, but I also made sure Snuggles y Cuddles wore their pajamas, too.  Everyone needs to wear their winter warmies, after all!

2. I put up my Christmas tree.  Last Christmas was so difficult in so many ways that I never even attempted to put my tree up; I just didn’t feel much like celebrating.  But this year?  This year it was up with plenty of cupcake ornaments sprinkled all over it, a sign of a lighter heart.

3.  Two nights before Christmas, one side of my family got together at a restaurant to celebrate Christmas.  My favorite memory from that night?  Getting to sit across the table from my grandmother, BJ, with Avi in my lap.  We were the perfect triangle: grandmother, oldest granddaughter and first great-grandchild.

4. I planned a surprise trip to Nashville for MacKenzie and Avi and, at the last minute, the newlyweds as well as Avi’s dad were able to go with us.  We went to Opry Mill’s mall, ate lunch with sharks, rode a boat through the Opryland Hotel and saw a matinee performance from the Rockettes.

5.  I got to give and receive Christmas gifts!  Isn’t this package adorable?  You wouldn’t believe everything Cara gave me for Christmas, but a darling apron so I can pretend that I know how to cook is at the top of the list!

6. I drove to Katie’s house in GA and spent the night with her whilst her husband was out of town on business.  We window-shopped all over ATL, met some rappers at The Cheesecake Factory and laughed at ourselves until we were crying.  The best part though?  We made a late-night run to the grocery store for chocolate chip cookie dough before taking over the master bedroom to watch movies, ridiculous television shows and talk until we fell asleep mid-sentence.

7. I went to see my favorite set of triplets, also known as K., P. and R.!  When I was a few miles away, their mom sent this picture to my cell phone with the caption “Waiting for Amy Beff to arrive.”  I nearly cried.  I love every moment I get to spend with the Scott family, but especially with mom J.

8. This year, instead of just hanging one stocking for myself, I had reason for three stockings to hang from my mantle.  Getting to have both my girls at Christmastime?  Priceless.

9.  I took the girls to see Christmas lights all over town.  I’m an all white lights kind of girl but, trust me, my girls sure aren’t.  The more colorful the lights, the louder the shrieks from the backseat.  And I decided that maybe the colorful lights aren’t so ugly after all.

10. I went to the beach with Cara, my confidant in the truest sense of the word: this girl knows more of me than anyone on the planet.  We spent our entire four days together talking about everything and anything in our lives… as well as possibly flirting with some firemen.  But I’ll let her tell you that story sometime.

11. While we were at the beach, I took some paper, a pen and a piece of cardboard to balance it on down to the water and just wrote. For a girl of 25, I’ve seen quite a list of amazing things in the world but I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as the beach in the winter.

12.  One night whilst I was in Knoxville, I stopped in at a very large salon (think 60+ stylists working at any given time) that I used to work for in my late high school / early college years so I could get my hair cut.  I still keep in touch with a lot of the staff from there and this was their first time meeting Avi.  Before I could even make it to the shampoo bowl, Avi had been whisked out of my arms and had an entire entourage of hair stylists wanting to play with her hair.  She was safely deposited back into my arms right around the time my own cut was finished, every hair on her head fixed “like a princess, Amy Beff” with the stylists begging me to bring her back the next time I come in town.  Isn’t that darling?

Tomorrow?  An arcade in Nashville, a bench in Savannah and a peek underneath my Christmas tree!

Oh my.  My, my, my.

What was supposed to be a simple hosting company transfer for my blog turned into a big problem when the blog “crashed” during the hosting transfer.  I’ve spent several hours on the phone with three different hosting companies over the last four days (not to mention the 30+ emails sent back and forth) to do what it took to get the blog back up and running.

It was not a pleasant experience.

The worst part was that I had no way of explaining what had happened to you!  I started getting emails the first day it happened from people seeing a “forbidden” message thinking I had blocked their IP address from seeing the blog.  Then there were those people who thought I had just decided to quit blogging altogether and wrote to ask why I had quit.

(For the record, if I ever do quit, I certainly won’t do it without telling you first.)

(Also, I can’t imagine that I’d quit blogging before I got married because, the way I see it, if you have to read through the angst of the single years, you at least deserve to get to see me get married.)

(Which, as we all suspect, probably won’t happen for another 37 years.)

(In other words, LOTS OF BLOGGING TO COME.)

Now, with all of that out of the way, let’s discuss something extremely important: puppies!

The day I took MacKenzie and Avi to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate MacKenzie’s last day of fall semester, we happened to notice a new store that had just opened that sold puppies.  Like, a store full of puppies.   In cribs.  A STORE FULL OF PUPPIES IN CRIBS, OH MY WORD CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE THE HAPPINESS I FELT IN MY HEART?

That’s right: a room full of puppies in cribs and get this: you could pet them!  And play with them!  AND HOLD THEM FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANTED!!!  But not that I was excited or anything.

The store is very kid-friendly so they encourage the parents to get the puppies out of the cribs before letting kids play with them but, once they’re out of the cribs, you can play with them all you want!

They have all different types of puppies in the cribs and, if you think you would not be emotionally gutted by a store selling puppies from cribs, well, just try staring at this for more than five seconds.

What’s that?  You’re still not convinced that you’d trip over your own feet as you tried to buy each and every puppy in that room?  Well then, it’s time to pull out my secret weapon: PUPPIES SLEEPING ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.

Don’t feel too bad; resistance was futile.  You never really stood a chance.

The girls seemed to pick up on the fact that I was a wee bit obsessed with the puppies and decided that it was their obligation — nay, duty — to convince me to purchase a puppy so that we could have triplets!  Triplet puppies, Amy Beff!  ONE FOR EACH OF US!

Tempting as it was, I somehow felt that Snuggles y Cuddles would not take very highly to a new sibling.  And yet, the girls?  Oh, they pulled out every trick in the book.

I was holding strong, y’all.  Oh, I was not swayed by their pleas, not moved by their begging.

And then I saw this.

How we managed leaving that store without a new puppy in each of our arms, I will never know.

And now, back to Christmas.

MacKenzie’s class had a party scheduled for the last day of school and invited parents to come and help out.  MacKenzie’s dad had to work that morning, so Avi and I volunteered to come because who doesn’t like a second grade Christmas party?

Okay, I didn’t just volunteer.  I begged.  I can’t help it; I love that MacKenzie something fierce.

Avi and I got to the school right as the party was beginning and what a party it was!  We played bean bag toss, decorated cupcakes and even played Bingo using M&M’s which kept mysteriously disappearing into Avi’s mouth.

Eventually I had to cut Avi’s M&M supply off which didn’t settle well with the little princess.  She said she just wanted to “hide” in the corner but, listen, we all know the truth: baby girl was scouting out M&M’s from across the room.

Each parent brought something for the party so, whilst emailing with MacKenzie’s teacher before the party, I asked if I might go ahead and sign up for the treat bags because, hello, I was born on aisle nine of Hobby Lobby already wanting to create treat bags.  Before they could cut my umbilical cord, I was headed towards the spools of ribbon and it has only gotten worse during the past 25 years.

I found these darling penguin boxes and instantly knew that I had a winner on my hands.  Granted, it took driving to two different towns to actually find enough of the boxes but, listen, sometimes you just have to fight for what is right.  And red and black penguin boxes for the class party?  IT WAS RIGHT.

Right about now I’m wishing I hadn’t edited these photos to look all colorless because, really, what was I thinking?  I could just go back and use the originals but that would mean searching through my photo files and I just bring myself to dive into that abyss this early in the morning.

Let’s talk about these treat boxes, shall we?

I knew the kidlets were going to get plenty of candy from the party, so I decided to go with a “toy” theme instead.  Here we have some Play Dough and a couple of Christmas erasers.

Of course, I also had to throw in some card games as well.  Who doesn’t like Old Maid?

Actually, I’ll tell you doesn’t like Old Maid: girls in their twenties who fear they might end up as old maids playing a game of Old Maid in their nursing home, that’s who.  But I know no such girls that would fit that description.  Absolutely no girls at all.

Now, this was the crowning glory of the treat boxes: mini art sets!  Each of the kidlets either got a mini crayon set or a mini paint set.  Are these not darling? I got them at a fun store in Chattanooga one afternoon when I was on the hunt for penguin treat boxes.

After I filled each box, I fastened the tops, pulled up the little handles (!) and attached a gift tag that I made using plain white gift tags, glitter stickers and ribbon.  In other words, I was up very, very late the night before the class party.

After the party ended, I told the girls that we were going to go celebrate MacKenzie’s first semester of second grade by going to lunch at a surprise place I knew they would love.  You should have heard the shrieking from the backseat when I pulled into none other than Chuck E. Cheese.

After some pizza, we headed out to spend our tokens on various games and rides such as a roller coaster “experience” that left me feeling queasy just from watching.

As our token supply began to get low, I steered the girls towards a certain area of the room because is there any other game more worth your final tokens than Skee Ball?  Listen, I played Skee Ball at Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid and, if that doesn’t prove that our Skee Ball has stood the test of time, I don’t know what does.

Avi had never played Skee Ball before and was highly disappointed that, no matter how hard she rolled, she couldn’t seem to score any points.  And so, the minute I turned my back to look at something, she took off.

Before you begin judging me for taking the following picture, I would like to clarify that my camera was already in my hand and, as you can see, MacKenzie obviously had the situation under complete control as Avi began running across the lanes to escape being caught.

Before long, I had her back safely in my arms where she belonged.  MacKenzie, seeing the crazed look on Avi’s face, said “Let me take a picture of you before she runs away again.”  As you can see, she was just a wild woman waiting to be turned loose again so she could scamper up the Skee Ball lane and drop her ball into the 50,000 point hole.

And yes, she ended up getting more tickets than MacKenzie or I combined.

1. I just had to look up whether it should be “laying” or “lying” in bed.  The verdict is mixed, but more websites said “lying” than “laying” so it’s settled.  Except for the fact that it isn’t.  And now I’m going to be laying (lying?) in bed trying to fall asleep tonight wondering which is the correct term.

2. Out of all of the blog posts I write, 97% of them don’t have titles until I finish writing them.  This one was in the 3% of posts that had a title before they were even written.

3. I wore the most darling pair of shoes to work today!  They were little high heels with a ruffle on the top and I think that anyone — anyone — who saw them would have said “Why, those look like shoes that must have come from France!”  They really came from Target but that little pair of high heels is tricky, tricky, tricky.

4. I love anything to do with France or Italy, but especially France as of late.  I don’t speak French, but I’ve picked up a few phrases here and there that I can only use in writing because have you ever heard a girl with a country accent try to speak French before?  Il ne semble pas bon, mes amours!

5. I went on a date the other night (words you may have never read on this blog before) with a guy who speaks fluent French.  Also: I feel the need to clarify that this was a real date, as in he-brought-me-flowers-when-he-picked-me-up type of date.  When he got up to go to the bathroom at the restaurant, two waitresses came up to me and told me that they liked how I had my hair fixed.  My theory?  They could see how nervous I was and took pity on me.  I need to go back to that restaurant, find those two waitresses and thank them profusely.

6. Speaking of all things European, this morning I woke up to an email from a 16 year old blog reader named London.  Why has it never occurred to me before that I could name one of my children “London?”  Other current favorite names for children that I may or may never have: Ella, Ava, Grace, Elle, Isabella, Penelope and Genevieve.  Obviously, if I were to have all boys, we’re going to have a little problem on our hands.

7. Avi was taking a nap at my house the other day when I suddenly started missing her so badly that I wanted to wake her up from her nap. You’ll be happy to know that common sense took over; if I’ve learned one thing in the past, it’s that you never wake a sleeping child.  However, when she did wake up, I literally jumped from the couch and sprinted towards my bedroom because I was so happy she was awake.

8. Avi’s full name is “Aviean” which means, of course, “bird.”  I call her Avi on the blog because it’s easy to write but, in real life, I always call her Aviean.  Of course, I also call her the following in real life as well: ducky, lovey and darling.

9. I received a Wii for Christmas which has led to Gosling calling me on two separate occasions to inform me that, upon his return to our small town, he will be winning every Wii game we play.  Poor Gosling, such a misled young man.

10.  My hair is almost the longest it’s ever been — it easily touches my shoulders now.  I’m going to grow it out a bit longer, I think, simply because I’ve never had long hair.  Can you still use pink rollers on long hair?  Must research.

11. Are you calling this year “twenty ten” or “two thousand ten” because I?  I am undecided.  I’m leaning towards “twenty ten” but I may just go wild and refer to it as “the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten” just to have a different option than the current choices.

12. Today there were snow flurries outside my window and it’s supposed to snow again later this week!  Please remember: you are never too old to make snow angels in your front lawn.  Simply sweep your arms and legs all around and voila!  You’ve just created a snow angel for all the world to enjoy.

13. Goodnight, you little icicles.

Well, hello there.

I didn’t mean to take so much time off from blogging during the holidays but it somehow just happened.  The holidays were an interesting time for me and, a lot of times when I’m experiencing new or maybe difficult things, I’m better off just writing in my diary instead of my blog.  I did have full intentions of putting together a little “round-up of ’09″ post but the blog wasn’t exactly cooperating and, after trying to force it to give me all the links I wanted, I gave up on it.

But the holidays are behind us now and, since I didn’t feel like writing during them, maybe I can catch you up a bit this week.  The way I see it, if my Christmas tree is still up on January 4, then why shouldn’t I still be writing about Christmas on my blog?  And so, let’s hit the highlights!

Right before my college girls left to go home for their Christmas breaks, we had one final “Life Group” at my house for the semester (if you’re new to my blog, I have a group of college girls that I “mentor”).  The girls were on the brink of finals so, with that in mind, I decided to throw them a Christmas party!  I fixed lasagna, garlic bread and, for dessert, created a wee little table full of sugar for them!

Shall we take a closer look, my darlings?

On the left side of the table I had placed their silverware; red utensils wrapped in white napkins with red and white ribbon to match the theme of the table.  With that said, let me take a moment to bid a fond farewell to the four boys who read this blog who just totally zoned out about the time I began describing the color of the napkins.

Above the napkins are frosted glass ornaments that I made for the girls; each ornament had their initial on it and was tied with coordinating ribbon.  It’s hard to tell in this picture, but both of these things are sitting in a really cute wooden sleigh.

To make the dessert table more fun, I mixed things up a bit by having part of the desserts be items that they should eat while they were at my house, such as dark and white chocolate pretzels served in cute cupcake holders…

… as well as some dessert items to take home with them!  I created a “take-away” section using glass vases filled with various holiday-themed candies and gave the girls bags to fill up with candy that they could enjoy whilst they studied for their exams.

One of the things that I was most excited about was creating little “hot chocolate” take-home packets for them until I came up with an even more appropriate idea: take-home coffee packets for those late study nights!

To make these bags, I filled funnel-shaped cellophane bags with instant coffee and then added creamer cups to serve as “marshmallows” before tying it with red and white ribbon.  If you wanted to make this with hot chocolate, you could easily substitute the coffee for hot chocolate mix and real marshmallows for the creamer packets!

As an extra little surprise, I fixed a couple of “take-away” meals for each girl that she could reheat in her dorm or apartment microwave.  It wasn’t much but, when it comes to final exam week, everyone knows that a couple of pre-prepared meals is any college students’ dream come true.

So, there you have it: my holiday with my college girls!  We had a fantastic time together and, in case you’re wondering, I only have one week left until they’re back in town for a new semester.  Which is, you know, a week too long in my opinion.