Happy New Year!

Better late than never! I'm finally posting my New Year's Eve pictures. This year I hosted the big family New Year's Eve bash and oh what a party it was! We had 42 people crammed into our house until 1 am. Most of those people were little kids, needless to say it was a pretty busy party. I forgot to take pictures of all the fun until the night was almost over, so here is the proof that it actually happened.

Here are the leftovers of our smorgasbord. We had SO MUCH food! It cracks me up to look at this picture no because I didn't realize the severity of the situation at the time I snapped this photo. Notice the tasty cheesecake covered in caramel and chocolate that is almost gone. See the platter by that that is empty? It had 2 cheese balls and tons of crackers. Next to that on the right is a separated platter that is 1/2 empty - it was full of candy. In the front is an almost-empty punch bowl that had a delicious frozen berry drink mixed with Sprite. In the very back on the left is an open, empty box of chocolates. On the stove that you can't see is an empty pan that has the remnants of little smokies, and by that is an empty cookie sheet that was FULL of Pigs-in-a-blanket. Gone, all gone. Now look at the picture again. See that beautiful veggie tray stocked full of a variety of tasty, brightly colored VEGETABLES with a garlic humus dip? LOL! For the record, a lot of vegetables were consumed that night and Michelle (who brought the beautiful veggie tray) restocked the tray several times throughout the evening. It even ended up almost gone by the very end of the night because people came back in for last munchies and chose vegetables. However, it did make for a hilarious picture!

This is Christopher, my nephew. The way he looks in this picture is a fair representation of how all the guests looked when I was taking pictures. This was right before midnight and most of the kids were wandering around aimlessly with glazed over facial expressions.

Robert and Denise made it until midnight, too. They kept their minds sharp by figuring out the secrets of the Rubik Cube.

When midnight came we all whooped and hollered and screamed on my front porch to let all the neighbors know that it was now 2009. By 1:00am everyone had finally rolled out of my house and had a safe drive home. It was a very busy night, but I think everyone seemed to have a good time. :)

New Year's Day for us was quite typical. We didn't even get out of bed until 10:30am and even then none of us felt like moving much. Cynthia, Callie, and Hannah were staying with us, and everyone here just sat around, played some games, and gabbed for most of the day. Around mid-afternoon the kids started to get antsy so we sent them out to play in the snow. Hannah is from California and she was just itching to get out into the snow, so Cynthia and I bundled up the kids and out they went!

Athena constructed this cute little snowman and I provided the decorations for her. She got the sticks and the "hair" (pine needles) from our Christmas tree that is sitting in the back yard. All the kids were proud of the little snowman. :)

Here is a little closer look.

Of course after the snow, all the kids came in and enjoyed a cup of hot cocoa! Happy New Year!