Happy 2014!!

We rang in New Year’s in STYLE this year! The whole family, in our comfy clothes, and with truly amazing entertainment.

So basically, we weren’t invited anywhere, and I scrambled to come up with fun stuff for us to do together that wasn’t too repetitive of everything we had been doing on Christmas break already!!

Pinterest to the rescue!

I put together these “countdown” bags…one for every hour from 5 p.m. – 10:00 p.m…I couldn’t think of more ideas than that and I really didn’t feel like staying up until midnight with my children. But the bags turned out cute and the girls were excited for the incredible evening of fun I told them I had planned.

Hmmm…where did these New Year’s Eve selfies come from?? Surely this is not how they felt about my evening of good times?!?!

Each person got to open one bag, since there were six. We started with the youngest, so Elise opened 5:00. The card inside said that we would all prepare dinner together…and we had a great time making our dinner of finger foods! Pigs in a blanket, jalepeno poppers, summer sausage with crackers and cheese, and fruit and dip. Once everything was prepared, we played “charades” (there’s an app for that!) until it was time to eat. That was 6:00 – and Becca opened it. Also in the 6 o’clock hour was cleaning up and sending dad off to church. We actually opened up 7:00 (Bethany) a little early…as soon as Ed left for church, actually.

That was our “girls only” hour. We did some cleaning up, commonly known at our house as a house rescue, painted toenails, and played UNO. At 8:00 (or a little after, once Ed was home from church), Sarah opened her bag and we began our family game time…Apples to Apples, Jr, and a New Year’s Bingo I had printed off the Internet. There was even a prize for the Bingo winner! It was sidewalk chalk and the big winner was DADDY!!

Just before 9:00 I opened the next bag, where we were instructed to make Rootbeer Floats, get into our PJ’s, and watch the ball drop in New York to ring in the New Year!!

After that we watched the original cartoon of How The Grinch Stole Christmas  and Horton Hears a Who. Ed opened the 10:00 bag which said, “TIME FOR BED!!!” Woo-hoo & Happy New Year!!

On New Year’s Day we headed to Burlington and did some Christmas returns and shopping, ate lunch at Applebee’s with the remainder of last year’s Christmas gift card, and then went to spend the afternoon and evening with our friends, the Boon’s in Mount Vernon. We got to see their new house, play games, and eat pizza and lots of leftover Christmas goodies! The women dominated at Settlers and the kids played perfectly together the entire time. Doesn’t get any better than that!