New Year's

New Years was a three day affair.  It was fun to see cousins, celebrate Mariah's new engagement, play games, eat food, watch movies, and just plain chat.  New Years Eve was us, Jer's parents and Marg's family.  The next day was all of us plus the Hansens.  The day after that we were able to see James Morisse too.  That was fun to see what a sweet and well spoken guy he's turning into.

The Shinkansen

We got to meet Aubrey's baby too.  She's so sweet!  

Sam and Eli had a lot to say.  They paced for hours, even out in the rain.  I'm glad that they can talk to each other and I'm hoping that they can help each other towards Christ.

 

New Years Eve 2024

 

We had only planned on having our immediate family for New Year's... It grew to Ada's friends, Beth and her kids, and us.

Emma, Ada, Elise, Alexx

christmas and new years 2023

 

Since I haven't blogged in almost 6 weeks, I have lots of pictures to post.  Here were our family Christmas party pictures and our personal New Years.

Rae, Vivien, Grandpa, Seth, Grandma, Evelyn, Lance and Thea

Sharon and Grandma did a cookie decorating activity.  The kids had a blast.

Evelyn went with her friend Maylee to the children's museum.  These two girls are so cute together.

These were "tough" laser fighters.

New Year's this year was 123123.  It's a fun number and Seth decorated a sign for us to put up.  He decorated it with a bunch of A frame cabins and told me that it was Bear Lake.

We played lots of games for New Years.  The kids didn't want to play Marrying Mr Darcy until we showed them that we had the zombie expansion.  Then they were all in.

I sat this one out.  Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

Seth's chip was almost the same size as his head.  He was pretty pleased.

Jer and I just before midnight.

Seth said he's the mad hatter, so he had to wear his hat upside down.

Merry Christmas!

Ada made me and Jer little dinosaurs.... then little bitty ones for her and her siblings.  It was so cute.

Ada also made us Christmas lunch.  Yummy salmon sadwiches.

Sam and Maisy pulled out their flutes.  It was beautiful and I could have listened for another couple of songs.  

Ada and I during sing along.

Robertson sing along. It was us, the Tarkington's, the Hansen's and Grandma and Grandpa.  Then everyone got sick at their house the next day, but we were glad to have seen them for the day.

Christmas jammies this year and the kids mostly love them.  I think they're too warm, but I have camping in my head when I think of Christmas jammies.  The cats really like when Sam wears it and holds them on his lap.

One of my daycare babies right now.  He wants to be held all the time.  Cutie pie, I'm glad that I always have a helper.

Multi-stake New Year's Eve dance

Ada has enjoyed the multi stake dances this year.  It was my turn to chaperone, so I went and hung out. These teenagers have an infectious energy.  They are fun to watch interact and dance and play.  Ada looked beautiful.  Usually I don't like black dresses, (on Ada they look nice, but they make her paler than she usually looks) but the theme was the black and gold ball.  Kooper and Xeno caught a ride with us. 

There were some very weird things that I never saw at stake dances growing up.  About half of the kids actually dressed for a ball.  About a fourth of them wore sweatshirts and jeans.... and the last fourth wore weird things.  I saw a guy with a beard in a dress, nylons and high heels (even my daughter and I hate nylons!), I saw some cosplayers (one was a John Lennon look alike), I saw some guys in very tight pants and corsets, and I saw lots of very revealing dresses.... low backs and spaghetti straps or very short like cheerleader skirts. I don't know what dress standards a Multi-stake dance is supposed to have since this is my first one since I was a youth, but it was crazy. 

I got to shoot confetti above the teens at 11:00.

The balloon drop didn't work, so they lowered the balloons and everyone popped them and pulled them out of the bag.

Then we came to the Robertson's for the end of the night.

 

New Year's Eve 2022/2023

Luckily no one was sick this year.... just me with my post-op recovery. That means that we got to get together with both the Tarkington and Hansen cousins. Evelyn was very excited to show her new game.... they played it forever.

Jer got to show the Reckoner game to Joseph... He's been saying that he'd love it for a couple of years now and they finally got to do it.  Then we moved on to fun card games and boggle to finish the night. The Hansen's had a long drive in a snowstorm, so we did our scumps song at 10:30 instead of midnight.

Sam was so sweet with Hal.  Every time Hal was trying to get his point across Sam would pause, listen and help.

Reckoners is a fun game.  I enjoy it.

Teenagers one and all.

Trying out Jer's new Pickleball net.... We got it primarily to play indoors at the church.  It fits pretty well on Grandma and Grandpa's driveway.