New Years 2012

It seems for the past few New Years we've not done too much.  It's a hard holiday to celebrate with young kids.  But one of my favorite blogs mentioned an idea that seemed very doable and fun for the kids (as an aside, this is also the post where I realized my favorite foodie blogger, Sara, is a sister of one of Sam's roomies from college, Nate. Small world.)  So I went and got supplies to dec out our Christmas tree as a New Years tree.  Unfortunately, not having a decent party store in the area, my new years supplies where not as cool as Sara's, but the kids seemed to love it just the same.

Some friends in the ward also coordinated a night out at a local Chinese restaurant.  There were almost 40 of us there, and the food and company was amazing.  Huge portions.  We now know a good Chinese spot to pick up take out from.

Harrison started writing a post about New Years, and this is what he typed all by himself: "To celebrate the New Year Mom put balloons with prizes on the Christmas tree that we popped. We LOVED the "warm fuzzies", money, "magic pebbles", and the jokes.  One joke was: Q: what do you feed a duck? A: a box of "quackers"! Get it? Quack-ers! On the tree there were other prizes like glow sticks and necklaces. We watched the ball drop at 9:00 our time. No one got to see the fireworks at midnight, if there were any because we were all asleep. I woke up at 1:07, crying because I didn't see the fireworks. "

Action shot of Harrison popping a balloon.

Noah with his stash.

During church on Sunday, I saw Harrison sketching out plans for setting his alarm clock for midnight next year. I had no idea he really wanted to stay up, as he didn't put any fuss up about going to bed at 9. So it was quite a surprise when his sobs woke us up at 1 AM.I tried to explain to him that I didn't even stay up, and he finally agreed to calm down and go back to sleep.  I think this has definitely been one of the most memorable New Years for our family.  We will look forward too a new tradition of having new years decorations on the tree every New Years eve.