Happy New Year!

Normally for New Years Eve we attend family parties or just hang out at my parents house. This year we had two invitations for parties. Our hope was we could put the kids to bed at my parents and we could go play. After Erin being in the hospital I wasn' too sure if our plan was going to work. Luckily, she was discharged from the hospital and my parents agreed to have the kids sleep at their house. I felt bad bailing on my family so Matt and I could have a night out on the town. We decided to take my Mom to dinner before we left.

We went to Genghis Grill. I watched the kids while Mom and Matt made their dinner.

Miles was entertained as long as he had my bowl and the packets of sugar.

After dinner we headed back to my parents house and got the kids ready for bed.

Papa and Miles playing fetch with Taz

Once we left my parents we decided to go to Wanda's party first. We were excited to see many of our old church friends. She had yummy food and we played a really interesting game where four people leave the room and the rest of the group decides on an occupation, where you were murdered and how you were murder. The first person out of the four that left the room comes back and is told what the group has decided. When the second person comes back into the room, the first person must act out the answers without saying anything. Then the second person tries to guess what the first is telling them (but they cannot say it) and repeats it for the third person, the third person does it for the fourth and the fourth person has to verbally tell the group what the answers. I must say my favorite was the plumber and how that person describe the occupation. It was so funny.

We left Wandas to attend the McCombs party at the institute. She had some food and the wii set up for dancing. I wish I were a good dancer, but I am not and neither is Matt. We decided to just hang out and talk.

Matt found a puzzle to occupy his time.

Myself, Chanika, Amy and Amanda

Our fist New Years with just us in years!

Prepping for the count down.

We were close to downtown so after the New Years kiss we went outside to watch the fireworks. They had quite the show going.

family dinner and cookie making

My mom and I tried to set a date to bake cookies for holiday plates. It was also something that wasn't high on the priority list and the date kept moving closer to Christmas. Sunday was the last night we could do them if we were still going to do them. Dinner was to be at my moms house so I thought it would be a good idea to try to bake cookies before and during dinner. The plan was to get most the prep work done before dinner that way we could enjoy dinner and just worry about putting items into the oven. This plan was decided Saturday night and none of us wanted to go grocery shopping so we were just going to make what we had work.
I should have known that my plan never goes accordingly. The kids took a nap late which meant I couldn't go over to my moms house to start cooking. Then we were going to have my brother and sister (and their family) come to my house and start cooking. That didn't work out either. As a result, we ended up really late at my parents house. We were hoping not to do it with the kids but that wasn't going to happen either. The husbands were in charge of the kids while the wives cooked (that was the hope).
The start was pretty rough. We were missing some ingredients, needing a little more cookwear etc. Erin sent Perm to her house, Crystal made a list and ran home, and mom had to search her cupboards.

Erin "face timing" Perm (basically the two were on a phone video and Perm was able to show Erin what he was looking at and she could direct him).

Crystal making her list

Matt was exhausted and tried to take a nap while Miles was playing.

Mom looking for some ingredients.

Finally we could get started. Despite having the kids around, it was fun cooking with them. We had a lot of recipes to cook and not a lot of time to do it. On top of it all, we were running into dinner time.

The little stinker took a bite out of the butter.

My Mom had to try to cook dinner around the chaos in the kitchen.

Luckily the kids played pretty well together. Brielle was excited to have Eva around to play with.

Yet again my plan didn't go according to plan. Miles is such a Mommy's boy I had to attend to his needs and I couldn't get much accomplished.

Everyone was great and pitched in where help was needed. Despite the craziness it was such a fun night.

A quick snap of everyone busy in the kitchen.

Crystal was so good to have Brielle help her. Brielle loves to help.

I took Miles shirt off for dinner and before I knew it he became a lil gangster and he walked around like that for a little while.

I think what made the evening for me was the fact that we were all together. Doing something fun, everyone was helping out with cooking, dinner, and the kids. It was such a memorable night.

As the night grew to and end the concept of sharing and playing nice started to go out the window. Miles has a basket of bugs that he loves and isn't a fan of sharing with ANYONE. Eva likes to play with everything and it causes a few fights.

Miles loves and adores babies, especially his cousin Ayla. Whenever Ayla is around he can't get enough of her. I have to remind him the baby needs some space to breath.

Luckily Matt and I had two cars so he took the kids home and I stayed behind. I had a lot of cooking still to do. The Brian Hicks family stayed for a little longer.

At the end of the evening we were all super tired. Erin was hurting and was anxious to get her feet up, Ayla was ready to eat and we were all ready for bed.

Grandpa beat us all and snoozed off on the couch.

I on the other hand, I had one more recipe I needed to go. Standing over the stove was making me very hot and added to my fatigue.

I went home past midnight but we got all the cooking done. We still need to do the assembling of the cookie plates. Tomorrow night we are going caroling as a family and hopefully we can deliver the boxes at the same time.