New Year's Eve

One year, I made fondue for New Year's Eve, and the kids decided it should be a tradition. Hallelujah! I love traditions, especially ones that are endorsed by my family, they're so much easier to establish and maintain...

This year, we invited Marc's parents and Michelle's family to join us.

Eva was ready to party from the moment she woke up and whispered that she wanted some sort of fancy breakfast (I came up short, not having planned any kind of breakfast).

She carefully put together her fanciest party outfit and wore it all day long.

Mom, the bracelets could not be more of a hit!

Eva helped me to make homemade marshmallows (a first) and two kinds of bread. I'm not a huge marshmallow fan, but I thought these were good. My mom would looooove them.

a picture from one of my new cookbooks (oops, forgot to take a picture of the finished product!)

We played Uno and Jill's Skip-Bo game with Eva. Then I had to make the chocolate fondue, and she was upset because she wanted to play more games. Grandma and Grandpa played Yahtzee and Bananagrams with her and Marc joined her for a rousing game of Memory.

Grandpa working on his latest project and indulging Eva by wearing one of the party crowns she made.

my dessert plate

After dessert, Eva went to bed and we played a new game that Michelle gave to Bob & Mim: You've Been Sentenced. It was really fun and kept us laughing for two hours.

I will say that the later it got, the more our sentence-forming abilities seemed to suffer!

Just before midnight, we turned on the tv to watch the ball drop in all its pre-recorded splendor and toasted the new year with sparkling cider. Even when you're having fun, New Year's Eve is just always anti-climactic. But that didn't stop Lucas from making all kinds of "I haven't done that since last year" jokes.

After midnight, Michelle and Bob left for home, Mim and Bob slept in our very deluxe guest room downstairs (not!), and Nicole and Kristen set up an air bed in the family room. Eva and Jack were especially delighted to have a sleepover. (In fact, Eva lobbied pretty hard to get someone to sleep on the trundle bed in her room, but to no avail.)

Before everyone departed this morning, Max treated us to a mini-concert (part of the Bach Cello Suites). I always enjoy listening to him play.

The rest of the day has been yet another laze-about day -- doing a little bit of clean-up, a little bit of prep for my new Primary class, loading photos on the computer, and working on Lucas's getting ready for school homework...