Event - New Years Eve Party

Well, this year will be a low-key New Year's Eve for our family. My husband went back to work in Las Vegas yesterday and cannot be back home for New Year's, so I told my 6th grade son that he could have a sleepover with his friends. Our tradition for this night is usually that I prepare a Japanese dinner for all of us and we do this TeppanYaki style where you sit on the floor and cook your own meat and vegetables in the woks on floor sized tables. It's quite fun, but a lot of work for me because I have to cut all the meat and vegetables for the event and it takes quite a while. This year because we are more low-key and because one of my New Year's resolutions is to simplify my life (a bit) I have toned down our party and this is our menu for the evening:
Edamame
Sushi
Stir-Fried Noodles with Shrimp
Sparkling Cider (for the kids)
Champagne (for MOM!!)
Pizza - for the kids who don't like sushi, which is about half

I don't really have anything special planned for dessert, just going to serve a store-bought Oreo cookie pie. The boys are going to hang out and play video games and play in our game room tonight and my daughter and I are going to hang out and watch Gone With the Wind, my New Year's tradition movie. I will try to stay up until midnight, which since school got out for winter break, we have been staying up well past midnight so I don't think it will be a problem. Today my kids and I are going to make tons of sushi for tonight's dinner. That will be our plan for tonight. One of my girlfriends and her kids may also join us tonight. Depends if she wants to drive the 20 miles to my house. I don't blame her if she doesn't want to cause who wants to be on the road on this crazy night with all the "drinking amateurs" on the road. Though I would rather be in Las Vegas with my husband and the rest of our family, that is not possible this year, so we are going to stay home and do this instead. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!

Event - Brownie Troop Christmas Swap Event

The next event that I am planning is coming up this Saturday, Dec. 6th. One of the older girl troops in our area is having their 2nd annual Christmas Swap event. Swaps are pretty cool things which I just learned about since this is my daughter's first year in Brownies. She is so excited to be making swaps and giving them away. These things are kind of like the trading pin craze of a few years ago that Disney started. Anyway, we are hosting the girls from her troop on Friday night so they can make these swaps that they will be giving away at the Christmas swap event on Saturday. So I am getting together all the supplies we need like foam, beads, marbles, shrinky dinks, flat pins, glue and the glue gun. They each need to make about 50 swaps each -- let's see how many I end up making ;)

Event - Thanksgiving leftovers

The next thing in my life that I am planning will not be a party, but what to do with my Thanksgiving leftovers. We had a Honeybaked Ham as well as a 20 pound turkey for dinner. The ham is now finally gone after we ate ham sandwiches, leftover ham and ham quiche. But I still have turkey in the frig. Well, I have decided to follow my Grandma's recipe for Chinese Jook. It is a rice soup that combines the turkey and rice and after it's cooked you add soy sauce and lettuce and it has the yummiest taste. And now that the temperatures here in Texas are in the low 30s tonight, I think that Jook will just hit the spot! I haven't made it in a few years, but looking at how much turkey we still have left I really hate to waste it, so that will be my plan for the leftover turkey.