Happy New Year!

We decided to do a little New Year's Eve gathering with our besties.  I was blogging the night before and chanced to look at what has become my favorite blog--ourbestbites.com.  They had a post about doing a New Year Tree (by stripping off the Christmas ornaments and putting up New Year stuff.)  It was awesome!  It got the ideas flowing.  So, we did a new year tree (see behind Jen and I), we had a New Year toast with apple juice (at about 8 pm).  Instead of banging pots we popped balloons that had "lucky coins" inside to give us luck for the New Year.  And, since Reid, Gideon and Caleb gave us a helium tank for Christmas (along with some cute balloons) we filled some cheap balloons from the dollar store and let them off with our New Year Wishes.  

Of course we had the traditional fondue.  4 kids and 4 adults all dipping  was a bit insane, but it was super yummy and no one was mortally wounded with a fondue fork.

Who doesn't want to rock these glasses?

We also used our stage to do some little impromptu performances.  The "magic stage" had put some slips of paper in a bag and each person got to draw out what the stage wanted them to perform.  (Some examples, tell a joke, sing a song, do an action song, do an animal charade, etc.)  You could have anyone help you.  It was probably my favorite part of the evening to see the kids enjoying the stage.

Love this shot too.

Cheers!  Sarah had to take off her fancy dress to do fondue.

I love this shot!

I got a new remote for my camera.  If you look by Jen's side, you can see I am not very sneaky with it yet.  Also, you can see on the tree my SIMPLE New Year decor.  

Happy NEW YEAR!

Auntie Jen led the crew in a rousing rendition of YMCA.  Reid wasn't too sure about it.  This was the last chorus and we finally got him to do a Y.
For Emily--this is the top of the stage.   It is a 4 ft. by 4 ft. wooden box.  It is 10 inches deep so the Barbie house is inside the box.  We stand it up on it's edge for playing with the house.