Bits and Pieces: birthday!

Ok, so I know that as you get older, your birthday isn't as magical as when you were a kid. No more breakfast in bed, no more piles of presents or special cakes (I always made my mom make me an ice cream cake), no more day-off-from-school. (Just kidding, my mom didn't let us take advantage of that...she only gave us days off for important things like skiing...but then we had to do work in the summer, which i thought was totally unfair).

Anyways, this year my birthday was great! I decided to have a birthday party, even though I've never liked planning parties for myself. It just feels weird, you know? But some of my coworkers started asking me what I wanted to do, a dinner party just sounded so fun. You know how I've mentioned how awesome my coworkers are? Well, I like them so much that they were the only ones I invited to the party. What a blessing to have such awesome people that I enjoy spending time with even outside of the office! We all get along so well and always have a good time.

The week before my birthday, I found out we had thursday and friday off! How. Awesome. This was due to the office move, but I could care less about the reason :) I was thrilled, because that meant I would have all day friday to get the food ready. I also wouldn't be exhausted after working all day.

When I first started planning the party, I was going to make lasagna, bread and salad. Tasty, but easy and cheap. When I told Abby and Nora, they were like, "Joyce! You can't eat any of that! You need to make something else". Me: "It's ok guys, I'm used to not being able to eat what other people are eating! I'll just make something else for me".

They finally convinced me that I was being stupid and I needed to come up with a different menu. So, I settled on Chicken Tortilla soup, butternut squash with apples, and salad. I convinced my guests to bring something, so I had appetizers, desserts, and coffee provided (and mom, I made your cheese ball and everyone LOVED it).

The soup came out great (always good when the food doesn't taste like crap when you have guests), and the time around the table was a blast. I was about to ask if anyone minded if I prayed for the meal, when Spencer said, "should we say a prayer?". Everyone said "yes!" and we all held hands and someone said "It's just like family Christmas!" :) So cool. What followed was 2 hours of talking, laughing, swapping stories about work, laughing, eating, laughing and more talking. At one point, I grabbed my camera and passed it around the table. I made everyone take a picture, which ended up being really fun.

Here are some of my favorites...