December 2014?!

I am SOOOOOO far behind on my blogs! There have been so many entries that I have started but never finished. By now, I feel like so much time has passed and I question whether or not it is even worth trying to catch up with it! A large part of me does want to  try to capture what we've been doing over the past few months so later on, I can look back on the memories! It is so dang hard to keep up though! Seriously - what happened to the days where I'd update my little corner of the internet a few times a week?! Now, I am lucky if it is a few times a year! Honestly, I really want to try and put forth a bigger effort to keep up with the things going on in our lives. I mainly do it for my kids, so we have a scrap book of sorts to look back but I also feel it gives me a little bit of 'me' time to sit, relax and get my thoughts out. 2015 and will be my year to get back on the wagon!

But first.....let me try catching up with some of our holiday fun in December!

At the beginning of the month, we signed up to do Christmas Mini's (a mini photoshoot) with Jennifer Marie. We've used her several times and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get my Christmas Card picture(s). Boy.....was I wrong! Leah did a great job and I was so proud of her. She cooperated, smiled when told and was a great listener. Mason....on the other hand wanted NOTHING to do with pictures. He clung to me for dear life the entire time. It stressed me out! Every time I placed him next to Leah, he threw a fit and cried. There was ONE picture that she quickly snapped where Mason sat still for 5 seconds. Shortly thereafter, he jumped and he was done! I was so disappointed. I joked that Leah was going to be the only one on our Christmas Card!Here are a few pictures from our shoot.

This is the ONLY picture Mason was in.....

After our pictures, we decided to head to the mall to see Santa. Luckily, Mason was a bit more cooperative with Santa than he was for Jennifer. He also let me take a few pictures on my own. I ended using these for our Christmas card!

 Later that same day, we had a party where we got to meet our friends new baby! They had a face painter!

In mid-December, Leah had a little holiday program at her preschool. They sang a few songs. It was cute!

 Leah and her sweet friend Laney

 Ready to take the stage!

Also in December, we had our annual girl's holiday dinner too! This year we went to Catch 35 in downtown Naperville. It was d-lish and so fun to catch up with the girls - there were 12 of us!

Me and my BFF - Katy!

My sweet grab bag gift! These frames have displays for every holiday! Such a cute idea! Love it!

During the rest of the month, we did enjoy other holiday fun too! We went and looked at Christmas lights, baked Christmas cookies, celebrated December birthdays, went to Winter Wonderfest at Navy Pier and spent the holidays with family!

Navy Pier Fun!

Christmas Cookies!

Bowling!

Well I think that sums up most of December! I'll (try) do a second post on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

HAVI 40th Anniversary Celebration

For months, my team and I have been planning the HAVI 40th Anniversary party at work. We started the planning process back in January (for our October event). We were responsible for the entire event - from picking the venue, to selecting all of the food, choosing a band, keeping on budget, to all of the little details in between.  It was like planning a wedding for 800 people! Luckily we had a fantastic event planner to help us along the way. It was definitely a labor of love! Everything come together so nicely and we were so pleased with the end result.

Initially, we visited several different options for the venue, but ended up selecting the Field Museum in the city! Not only was it large enough space, but our employees would also have access to the exhibits inside. It was definitely a cool place to have our event. We started with a cocktail hour upstairs on the balcony with passed hor dourves. Then around 8:00 we brought the party down to the main level of the museum. For the event, we opted not to have a seated formal dinner (as we have had at past events) and went with food stations instead. We are a global company, so we thought it would be fun to have themed international cuisine from around the world. We ended up with 4 different food stations representing Asia, Spain, Italy and the US. Oh my god - the food was amazing!! Top notch. Just as an example, at the Asia station, we had chef's hand-rolling sushi rolls and have an array of other types of Asian food -pot stickers, steam buns and so much more. It was super cool. The other stations were just as good! Then around 9:30 the band really got going (they were playing the entire event, just at a slower pace). Within a short time, the entire dance floor was packed. I may be biased since I planned the event, but I thought it was such a great evening. I have to thank my team - Paula and Allyson for putting in so much hard work to pull everything together! We also had photographers there, but here are a few pics I snapped myself.