2012

After so, so many festivities back-to-back for weeks in December, it was hard to get excited about yet another party for New Year's Eve.  So luckily we didn't have to do anything for this celebration except show-up.
We were invited by our friends to go ice skating at the Olympic Oval.  It was really fun and the kids loved it way more than we anticipated.  They keep asking when we can go ice skating again!
The best part was that they have little "walkers" for the little kids to use while they are learning how to skate.  This was a huge back pain saver!
After that we ate some serious grub at JCWs and then we were off to another party that we were invited to in Suncrest.  There was games, more eating, and "Just Dance 3" on the Wii.  It was fun for everyone to hang-out with so many friends!

Millie & friends biffed it

                                                  

                                                            Morann & Millie

Nate C. snuck up on this one

Tired Feet

 Welcome 2012!

New Years Evening

I'm still playing catch-up. I'm posting about New Year's Eve 2 weeks late. But as of yesterday, I think I'm finally getting on top of things for the 1st time in 2 months. Whew!

We returned home from the cabin, unloaded the car, changed clothes, and went straight to our friend's house to bring in 2011. The Rust family knows how to put on a great party! There was a ton of good eating and playing games. We were having so much fun and the kids played together so well that we didn't get home until 1:00 am!

Everyone played "Just Dance 2" on the Wii...even the little folks and the Mamas.


We got so caught up in all the fun that we dang near missed the ball drop. We broke out the confetti poppers, the blowers, and the horns.

Happy Twenty Eleven!

2010

HaPPY NeW YeaR!

To celebrate, we went to Fat Cats for some bowling and pizza!
We decided that's somewhere we need to go more often.
Will had the highest score of the night.

Then mom was off to work at the hospital from 7:00-1:00 am. Lots of mommies having babies either trying to avoid paying a deductible, or accomplishing having the New Year's baby.

It's worthwhile to mention that it was also a night of the very rare, "Blue Moon." Only happens once every 19 years (thus the saying, "once in a blue moon") I noticed it and how light it was when I was driving home at 2:00 in the morning. Beautiful.

Dad and the kiddos went to our friend's house where the grown-ups were sneaky and set the clock 2 hours earlier. They totally fooled the kids into thinking that it was New Years when it was only 10:00! They were banging pans and all.

Here's to a new year, and a new decade. I can only hope that it's as good as the last one! I know that's a lot to hope for.


***Wow, I think I wrote 5 posts today! I had to get us all caught up.

Bad Beginning

Now it's 2009, and it came, without us (Sam and Holly) hardly noticing. We traveled back on the 31st and left Millie, Sambo, and Wilbur with Holly's parents because we had one more surprise in store for the kids' Christmas/birthdays (Millie and Sam's this month). We tucked Quincy into bed and got to work. We put her in the basement because we anticipated much loudness with hammers, drills, etc.
Their surprise was a new bedroom (Millie), and a renovated bedroom (boys). Millie has mentioned over the past year that she is too grown up for her castle bed. The #1 item on her Santa list was a new bed. We moved her to Quincy's room, and vice versa.
We changed the boys room a little bit so they would feel included, and also because we already had a twin bed available to use, as well as another "buck" deer head from grandpa.
Anyway, we got started at about 10:00 pm and before we knew it, Holly looked at the clock downstairs and said, "Oh it's 12:48, happy new year". And Sam said, "Oh yeah, you too". And that was it. Back to business (not business time).
Holly had a horrible stomach ache and Sam was tired and grumpy. But we carried on, assembling furniture, decorating and such until 3:30 am. We awoke at 8:00, and spent most the day finishing up. To top it off Holly had major anxiety that she would get called into work because she was on-call. We knew the kids were going to be dropped off around 5:00. By 5:00 we were both so tired, grumpy, hungry (we didn't stop to eat) and probably smelly because we hadn't showered in a couple days. I think we were even wearing the same clothes since we had left Island Park! What a bad beginning of a new year.
BUT...
It was all worth it when we saw the looks on the kids faces when they discovered their new bedroom surprise! They were thrilled. Even better, they brought with them fresh strawberry cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory.
Just a sampling of their grins when they crawled into their new beds that night...