Cookie Party

Today I hosted my first ever cookie party!  I have been wanting to do this for a few years but have either been too busy, or just not had the right timing/groups of people to do this with.  In my family, it was a tradition to make my grandmothers sugar cookie recipe, frost them, and hand them out to family and friends.  My dad will never let me forget the year that my brother and I both reached into the oven with bare hands to pull out cookie sheets.  And it wasn't like we did it at the same time.  My brother had reached in to grab it and burned his fingers and then shortly after I managed to touch a pan that had just come out of the oven.  Those are the kinds of memories that really stick with you.  :P

For today's event I decided I wanted to recreate the basic idea of the cookie decorating that I used to do, so I made up a batch of grandma's cookies, rolled out the dough, and cut them all out.  I ended up making two batched of cookies so everyone would have the ability to take home a dozen cookies if they wanted.  We had cookies everywhere!  

Playing with the dough and adding flour to make it not super sticky so I could roll it out

Working the dough to get it all rolled out on my way to small counter.  You can see the tub of peanut butter cookies I just had baked yesterday. 

A few samples of the cookies I cut out.  The F-22s were big hits.  Of course some thought it was a two legged Christmas tree or Sponge Bob Square Pants side kick.  :)

The party was really for the ladies to get together and socialize as much as it was to frost and quality control test some cookies.  We had lots of frosting options and decorations to add on.  Our creations were definitely one of a kind.

I think everyone had a pretty good time.  I hope that this can become and annual event.  It reminded me a lot of all those holidays where my family used to do this.  I think it's a nice tradition to have and one that doesn't involve technology gadgets and hi-tech toys; well unless you count my mixer (god help me if I didn't have that!)  I did learn that I probably made too many cookies, but honestly, is this ever really a problem with you live with a cookie monster?

Company Cheer!

One of the perks of Rob's job is being invited to a real office Christmas Party.  This is the first one that either Rob or I had ever been invited to, so we were pretty excited about it.  Not knowing what to wear, we inquired about the dress code and found out people get really decked out for this event.  Nifty! 

His company threw quite the bash at the Hilton near the airport this Saturday.  The party started at 7pm with a proper cocktail hour and mingling.  I was able to meet a lot of Rob's co-workers and other people at the company.  They had nothing but nice things to say about him.  During the cocktail hour, they had a photographer taking free professional photos of everyone that came.  We didn't know they were going to do this, so I took a few minutes to grab a proper photo of us before we left the house.

 

The dinner was really delicious and was followed up with dancing and door prizes.  We didn't win anything, but it was a lot of fun to see others winning.  I guess we are going to have to buy our own TV.  Oh well.  :)