Happy To You!

Our New Years was pretty fun this year.  It was just us with the kids, but now that the kids are a little older, it's more fun to make it a bigger deal because they can all get into it. 

First we spent some time making fancy New Years hats.  The older kids picked curling ribbon and put them through the top of a party hat and we curled the ribbon to make it look fancy.  They just went around the house with their hats and noisemakers. 

Evie had so much fun with it all...following everyone around blowing on the noisemaker and screaming, "Happy to you!!"

After dinner, we played a few board games.  First we played Yahtzee Jr. since that's an easy one for Evie to get in on.  She was very into shaking the dice in the cup.  Then we played Headbanz.  Lots of fun!

Then we had our New Years chocolate fondue.  The kids loved dipping marshmallows, raspberries, strawberries, and pound cake into the chocolate.  Yum!

After that, we let the kids watch the countdown and fireworks for Sydney, Australia.  We weren't going to let them stay up until midnight our time, so we let them watch the other side of the world.  They thought it was so cool!  

Then we went outside to do our own fireworks.  The day before we went to a fireworks stand to pick up some sparklers and little fireworks.  I don't know why, but our kids are just afraid of big, loud fireworks.  The nice ones are really wasted on them.  They don't even enjoy the fireworks at Disney World!  They think it's just too loud and scary.  So we thought sparklers would be good.  Before we bought them, Elina reminded us, "No loud fireworks, ok?"  While B and I were looking at the fireworks, I thought it'd be cool to get a few extra things.  First we got a volcano cone that just shoots out sparks.  Then I saw these cute ladybugs and figured they would be harmless.  Boy, was I wrong!  Here is what the ladybugs were REALLY like--

I had to stop filming because both Evie and Eli were screaming and crying.  (Honestly, I wish I had filmed for just 3 seconds longer so you could've witnessed the aftermath of the ladybugs.)  B picked up Evie and I ran to Eli.  Then I saw that even Elina had tears in her eyes!  It was terrible!  After that Eli said, "No more ladybugs, Mommy."  Wow.  I was so sorry!  Actually, they were PRETTY loud.  Oops.  The set came with 3 ladybugs, so we watched the other 2 ladybugs from inside the house while B lit them.  How sad.

The kids liked the sparklers and the volcano made a little bit of noise, but they said it was ok.  Geez!  What a tough crowd!

We wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!  As Evie would say, "Happy to you!"