Ugly Sweater Party

I'm nearly at my 90 days at my job! I can't believe it's gone by so fast and I've had such a pleasant experience. I've gotten compliments from many people about how well I've been doing and how much they enjoy having me be part of the crew and it's very humbling and eye opening to how demeaning my previous job was. I'm grateful Heavenly Father blessed our family so much by giving me this opportunity. They're very fun too. Like this past Monday they had a tree decorating ceremony in both of our lobbies. The H.R. folks made us cookies and brought in cider and hot chocolate and we were able to help decorate the tree, everyone who participated thought it was so much fun, I guess it was the first year they had done it. And another first for them is that they're having an Ugly Sweater Party for the Holiday/Christmas party this year. It should be fun, especially since I ordered this beauty for a mere 10$:


Yeah, that's right it's an ugly sweater shirt! I'm pretty excited because unlike the usual sweater you can wear this the rest of the year around the house. And maybe even to the grocery store if I'm brave enough.... And I have a green non-ugly sweater that I'll wear underneath to make it look even more Christmasy!
So this wednesday I have a RS Christmas party, last night we had Dj's work party, 12/16 is my work party (during work hours, I get paid to eat food I didn't buy and celebrate Christmas, sweetest deal ever!), and that night is the ward Christmas party. Lots o' celebrating! I'm trying to stay busy and not think about the 5 days I'll be without my best friend, I cried about it for the first time last night so I know it'll be hard for me. And Dj said that his family will probably hate him by the end of those 5 days because he'll be mopey all week. (I'm secretly happy about that. I kind of want them to know how miserable being away from each other makes us and they will never ask for us to do that again.) I don't think they realize how much of a sacrifice this is for me. I feel selfish thinking about it that way but I know that I'm pretty justified in my way of thinking.
Last thing I'm excited that I wanted to share is that we're making the gifts that we're giving to his family. Since there will be 9 of them we thought it would more cost effective to do the same homemade gift for everyone. So in the end we'll probably spend about 40-50 on all of them instead of 100. Not great but fun. And I'm pretty sure none of my in-laws know that I have this blog so I'm not too worried about them stumbling upon it and 'spoiling' their gifts (not that it matters, we're not even wrapping them, they'll know as soon as we take them out of the trunk.). We're making chocolate chip oatmeal mixes, you know the ones they layer in those big mason jars and all you have to do is add the wet stuff and bake them? I tried out the recipe on Saturday and they were pretty amazing! We're also making some truffles, a traditional one from Brazil that's all chocolate, and then some peanut butter and raspberry ones. I'm hoping they turn out, they should be fun! Can't wait to make them next week! And I can't wait to put our Christmas tree up tonight, I'll have to take a picture of it even though it'll probably look the same as last year....