Christmas Cookie Exchange

Today at work, I participated in my first ever Christmas cookie exchange. We each made and brought in 4 dozen cookies and we shared a meal together before we split up our cookies. It was a great success! Yours truly tried her hand at Peppermint Chocolate Biscotti. Yep, that's right--I did what you are not supposed to do--I tried out a new recipe. I was rewarded for my risk taking though, as I was happy with how they turned out. Now onto the good stuff.... Here is the table as ladies were bringing their goodies in: I managed to take a picture of everyone's cookies. I'm sorry that some of them are a little blurry:( Oatmeal bars Peanut butter and chocolate chips Ginger hazelnut cremes My peppermint biscotti Gingerbread people Double chocolate cherry Pecan sandies Oatmeal sunflower Peppermint rice krispie treats Peanut butter m&m cookies 2 cookies actually: cranberry bars and chocolate toffee cookies Here's the whole lovely group that participated! After we got our cookie loot, the contest portion of the exchange took place. We had 3 judges, Brad, Blake, and Dean Bost. They had score sheets and took their jobs very seriously. And because judging should never be done in silence, we had a surprise visit from some recorder-playing members of the University community. They did a few Christmas numbers for us! Because I didn't think anyone would believe me, I was able to take a video of some of the judging process.

So, we try to have a pretty good time here...More posts this weekend because 1) Aaron is done with finals (woo!), 2) we are decorating gingerbread houses tonight with Nicole and Jeremy, 3) we are having our work Christmas party tomorrow afternoon, 4) Aaron is planning a big surprise for me on Saturday and has only told me that we need lots of sleep before we go and that we'll be outside for a lot of the day...eek, I'm SO excited and I have NO idea what he is up to!!!

Hope you are all having a GREAT week so far!
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11