baby, it's cold outside

time goes by far too fast for my liking.  guess that's what happens when you get old and decrepit, huh?

this year's SFAM holiday hoorah was a double celebration - our dear friend trish, who graduated from harvard law school this year, is due to deliver her baby girl in a few weeks.  and so while polling the OG SFAMily to figure out when we could have our annual shindig, we realized that because it's so damn hard to get the group together as it is, we'd just make it a combo shower/hoorah.

of course, we checked with the guest of honor to make sure this would be okay - after all, every first-time mama deserves her moment in the sun.  but because trish is trish, she was totally cool with it and the planning began.

after scouring through party planners' blogs, lilcee came up with the perfect theme to work with for decorations - "baby, it's cold outside" incorporated lots of pink, silver, and snowflakes.  with our venue being the monkey's gorgeous home, we knew it would be easy to make it fabulous.

i picked up some mini red velvet cupcakes from my beloved dots cupcakes, and using amber's super cute pink cake stand, threw together a fun little dessert display with some cookies i'd made.

lilcee spent hours cutting and twisting pieces of tissue paper to make this awesome garland:

and we worked together to make a few small floral centerpieces for the tables.

how cute is our mini christmas tree?

although as everyone trickled in and put their white elephant gift exchange contributions next to it, it disappeared.

tater assembled these kick ass cheese trays.  so professional!

it ain't a SFAM party without a ridiculous amount of food.  of course, we managed to demolish most of it.  one of the requirements of this group is being a strong eater.  an affinity for LEFTOVERS!! is also strongly encouraged.

i love our friend farmergirl.  she just cracks me up to no end.

aside from those holiday socks, she brought her gift exchange item packaged in a cardboard box from costco covered in a plethora of paper towels.  the best part of this is that she strolled in and owned that shit.  there was no shame in her game.

and when tater took one for the team and chose it as her gift, it turned out to be quite the keeper.

other fun things that were unwrapped:  a ceramic red solo cup, a chicken cookbook-slash-50 shades of grey parody, and the second black santa to grace our gift exchange.

and stupid me - in the whirlwind of activity, eating, laughter, and more eating, i didn't even get any solo pictures of our mama-to-be.  damn.  but at least we got mr. monkey to come out and take the group picture.

it was over all too soon, and leaving a pile of leftovers and a trail of silver glitter behind us, we packed up and went our separate ways.  although we missed our friends who weren't able to attend, it was quite a successful GTG, and now we wait for mini-trish to arrive.

i can't wait to be a SFAM auntie again!