NYE 2014

Here's a rundown of how our family celebrated the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

First things first: I made a Caramel Pie that morning so that no matter how lame our night was, at least we had this. lol

 Then I wrapped the kids with some wrapping paper I no longer wanted.

Then I let them go crazy tearing it to pieces and throwing it all over the place.  We have cabin fever as well as real fever so we are getting desperate in the entertainment department.

Later we did some mostly-naked karaoke.  Levi was belting out worship songs at the top of his lungs.  This was going on while Shawn was actually at the church building singing songs with others.  It felt a little sacreligious that Levi didn't have anything but underwear on and that he was using a karaoke machine but again, cabin fever.

After Shawn got home, we broke out a brand new game called Mouse Trap.  We have never owned nor played this game.  After assembling the entire game, we read the instructions that actually said we were supposed to assemble the game as we played.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Everyone just wanted to get caught in the mouse trap.  After a parents-only huddle, we came up with new and improved directions on how to play this game and now everyone was happy and two mice got trapped and we all cheered!

Then everyone was getting antsy for some of that caramel pie.  We decided to add a little scoop of cotton candy icecream to the side.  This combo is not for the sweet tooth newbie.  It was AWESOME, but I'm guessing that 98.5% of the people reading this over the age of 18 would think this was sweet OVERLOAD.  Not me, I thought it was delicious!!!

After all that sugar, we popped some popcorn and started watching Mr. Peabody and Sherman.  I had never really heard of it before but was determined to sit through the whole thing, to spend time with my family.  (I'm not usually the best at watching "kid" movies with my kids.)  It was a GREAT movie!  It was entertaining for the parents and the kids!  

After the movie, we were moving into the 11 pm hour.  Really we hadn't made plans about whether we were going to try to stay up all the way till midnight or not.  But the clock was moving pretty fast all night long.   We headed out into the FREEZING cold to do a few sparklers and ground fireworks.  Ava would have nothing at all to do with the fireworks.  She didn't even want us to have anything to do with them, but we did them anyway and told her to go inside and wait if she couldn't handle it.

After we finished all of that, we began to drink as much sparkling apple-grape cider as our tummies could handle.  We almost made it through 2 bottles.  We did cheers to having a good year as a family in 2015.

Somehow we accidentally made it till midnight.  Well....Shawn and I did.  We put the kids in bed about 11:50 and they didn't care at all that they didn't see midnight.  We watched New York ring in the new year and then quickly passed out!  Everyone slept late this morning, which was glorious.  I think I slept the latest I've slept in YEARS...till about 8:45.  

2015 holds lots of exciting new adventures for us.  My first baby will start middle school this year.  My middle baby will begin learning multiplication....please let that go as easily as it did for Elle!  My youngest baby will start Kindergarten.  I will for the first time in 11 years, be at home alone all day.  My best friend will move (BOO!) but she will also have a baby this year (YEA!)  I really don't want to put a lot of expectations on 2015.  I usually expect too much and then get disappointed.  I simply hope that far more days are filled with joy, than sorrow.  That's about it. So happy first day of 2015.  So far, so good.  (all 15 hours of it.)