Welcome 2009!

Boy, it's taken me forever to get these photos uploaded & posted! Either I fell asleep at the computer, the Internet server was down or I was just plain too tired or too busy. Yikes!

We had a fun New Year's celebration. As has been our tradition for the past several years we had a home celebration. We love this and it works very well for us especially since we still have little ones. Plus as you probably guessed by now we much prefer the relaxing, family fun verses crowds & big time events. Anywhoo, we had another little buffet. The rule is the kids can pretty much eat as much as they want, when they want. We don't have a meal but rather graze through the evening. We also bring out the board games, card games & puzzles. Sometimes we watch a movie too. This year we had a new game to play thanks to the fabulous sales. It was a classic charades but made for kids. It was a big hit! Even Bugs loved acting out the words with help from Daddy.

Our Feast

Shrimp, celery, carrots, 2 different cheeses, crackers, quesidillas (homemade!), kielbasa, mozzarella puffs, chips, BBQ wings, & something else I can't remember. Oh, and Hawaiian Punch, Root Beer, Cran-Raspberry Juice & water to drink.

GAMES!


Charades begin!

A dog chasing her tail. =)

Acting out a game of checkers.

Daddy helps Bugsy.

Karate!

Driving?

Sweet Pea's team watches her closely.

How do I do that?

The star!

Of course he had to take time to shake his groove thing. Lol!

Having fun!

Daddy was a ham!

Boo did very well once she warmed up.

Love it!

Next was a board game. Daddy played with the youngest 3 while S.P. & I played a round of Battleship.

Then Boo & Elvis moved onto Candy Land.

Daddy & Bugs played their own version of Chinese Checkers.

Daddy & Sweet Pea started to play Jenga but then Bugs wanted to play. His version is to knock all the blocks down to win. LOL!

Boo wanted to play Battleship with Mommy so we jumped in.

A family favorite........TWISTER!

Me & my boy.

Mommy sat out this year & just took pictures. And of course LAUGHED & LAUGHED!

Starting to get twisted.

Tied in knots.

We were going to watch a movie but determined it was too late in the evening. Everyone was wearing down. I remembered that we had received our CBD order in the mail earlier that day & thought this might be the perfect time to open it up. The kids heartily agreed.

I had ordered their special books late this year but it worked out really well after all. Now we had something special to open up on New Year's! I had also ordered a couple of family devotionals and some fun extras that were on clearance.

For Family Reading Time

Elvis had mentioned a time or two that he would like to see this movie. When I saw the book the movie was based on for under $5 on the CBD website I thought it would be a fantastic family keepsake for our home library. It is a hardback copy too! P.S. So far we are loving it!

Elvis' "special book" for his collection.

Sweet Pea's special book turned out to be backordered. It is a devotional just for her. It arrived the following week. Yay! She was happy with her new atlas for school & CD. The CD was a splurge at 49 cents. *wink*

Boo Bear's devotional DID arrive and she also received a CD. She listened to hers for a week straight!

Bugs was really into his new book. It is filled with all kinds of trucks, cars, trains, planes, etc!

This ended up being a really nice way to wind down the evening.

Cudding with Sassy.

Daddy read us all a few chapters from our new book "Despereaux" & a family devotional.

We decided to call it an early night and celebrated the New Year back in Eastern Time (Massachusettes time) instead of Tennessee time. We found a channel broadcasting the ball dropping in Times Square. Here are Dave & 3 of the 4 welcoming in the New Year.

Dancing to the music on t.v. as 2009 begins!

After that it was bedtime for all. Welcome 2009!