Happy New Year from Pinterest

Our New Years Eve was going to be low key, we watched New Year's Eve programing and did a jigsaw puzzle.  Even so, we needed to have a few fun things so I turned to Pinterest.

2015 in pizza.  This was Dad's homemade pizza therefore it was scrumptious.

Chocolate dipped ice cream bowls.  We had never had these before and they are quite good.  Real simple to jazz them up, dip them in melted chocolate (we used almond bark) and sprinkles.

Dancer went to a party, but was home by midnight (maybe we aren't as boring as we think).  The pin showed to have balloons with time on them counting down the entire evening, but since Dancer was only here at midnight we opted to only have one.

And Nikki.  She spent the night begging for pizza and lounging on us while we watched t.v.  A dog's life is the life to have.

The start of the new year

Started off with a few traditions.  The first is watching Robin Hood.  What we use to watch a couple times a week when the kids were small has now been reduced to once a year.

Ice cream sundaes.  Reese's shell, chocolate topping and peanuts.  If you are going to eat ice cream you might as well make it good!

Nikki didn't make it to the new year.  Her big day of napping wore her out.

 Flipped back and forth between the new years ball drop and the movie Click.  Didn't want to miss any One Direction performances.

2015!!!  We can go to bed now right?  Nope, we partied on until 3:00.  Well, partied if you call watching t.v. and eating graham crackers and diet Coke a party.

Two dip recipes for new year's day snacking.

Jimmy Dean Dip

One pound of regular Jimmy Dean sausage browned.  Put in a pot and add one can Rotel and a package of cream cheese.  Heat until cream cheese is melted.

Ham Spread

Run ham through the food processor until minced, add onion and mayonaise.  Simple and also makes good sandwich spread.  Even Dancer, who doesn't eat ham, loves this.

New Year's Eve

 

Lots of food

 

Lots of games

 

Lots of friends

 

Lots of presents

A Break In Tradition

"The times they are a changin."  Yes, these lyrics by Bob Dylan could be appropriate for the world of government this morning but, when they were running through my head on an endless loop, I was thinking of my family, especially the kids.

Every New Year's Eve, since Dancer was about three, we have camped in the living room all night, watched movies after stuffing ourselves with crab legs and ooh and aahed at the ball dropping at midnight.  This year the times have changed.

It started out that we went to the store to get the crab.  The price per pound was much to rich for our blood so we offered to the kids the alternative of stopping to eat on the way home.  Dancer jumped at the chance because she isn't a fan of crab anyway.  So our big New Year's meal was Taco Johns.  It was expensive but not as expensive as the crab legs would have been. 

Dad worked this year and the kids didn't want to stay home just the three of us.  There was a party at church where they knew friends were waiting and they wanted to go.  We made a batch of Chex Mix, grabbed a bag of M&M's and were off to play games and break our tradition a little more. 

I thought we would stay until about 9:00 or so and be home in time to watch Robin Hood, a New Year's must see, and the ball drop.  Nope, we were there having a good time until after midnight.

The car thermometer on the way home read -20.  It was so cold the garage door opener refused to open the garage door - can you blame it?  Spark offered to work on it but, I said it wasn't going to get any warmer in the garage, we will just park outside.  We still needed to bring some warm water out to all the animals in the barn, -20 is too cold for them to go with out water since the chores were done about 4:00 and I was sure the buckets had frozen probably by 6:00.  We filled up the jugs, redid the rabbit bottles, each of us said what were going to do when we got out there so we wouldn't waste time discussing it in the barn and dashed out the door.  Less than five minutes later we were back in the house with frozen eye balls and minimal frost bite. 

Spark had set the DVR to record the ball dropping so we watched it an hour late and then snuggled in to watch Robin Hood.  Spark fell asleep about 10 minutes into the movie, so technically he did camp in the living room, and Dancer I made it about 45 minutes until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore and crawled off to bed. 

I have to admit I did enjoy this "new" New Year's celebration but it didn't really feel like we spent it together.  

Also hindering my not wanting our traditions to change is that I am not a fan of New Year's.  While others see it as a chance to make changes, I view it as my old year, which contained so much blood, sweat and tears, being ripped out from under me and having to start all over with one tick of the clock. 

"As the present now, will later be past." - so without further ado, let's get this new year started!!!

New Year's Eve

Our once a year crab.  Oh how I love that stuff, why does it have to be so expensive or why don't I live where it is abundant?  Dancer doesn't like it, she had one claw this year which was 100% more than she had last year.  Some day she is going to come to her senses and kick herself for skipping crab all these years.

We ate and cleaned up quick so we could be off to church.  Dancer and I ended up subbing in the nursery and Spark went to children's church so Dad sat through the sermon by himself.  He took notes and relayed the highlights to us.  In the nursery Dancer and I had glass after glass of hot chocolate served from a yellow tea pot, a pizza sandwich and a slab of pasta.  We read lots of books, sang a few songs, and kept everyone busy to keep our littlest charge from crying.  It was so fun and before we knew it the parents were at the door.  Dancer works in the nursery twice a month but I haven't done it for years. 

We got home and made popcorn with M&M's, chips and dip.  All things that we almost never have so they were huge treats.   The kids made beds in the living room and we hunkered down the begin the movie marathon. The movies that made it on the docket were Robin Hood (this one is must see on New Year's Eve),  Stars Wars The Padawan Menace, Fieval Goes West, and Little Mermaid.  Spark made it until the beginning of Little Mermaid and he was out on the living room floor.  I made it about half way through Little Mermaid and Dancer and Dad stayed up till the end.

We watched the ball drop twice, once at 11:00 and then again at midnight our time.  Somehow watching when we know it is a rerun isn't quite the same so that is why we watch it twice.  It was a great night. 

The kids didn't realize that they both put on the same shirt until late in the afternoon when we were in town running errands.  Dad and I didn't notice either, the colors are very different on each, but I told them if we didn't notice no one else probably did either. 

New Year's Celebrations

Every New Year's Eve we have crab legs and frozen corn.  I don't know why the frozen corn except we did it once and now we just pull it out every year.  This year, since Dad had to work, we had them for lunch.  Oh, they are so good I wish we could afford them more than once a year.

When we were at the store picking up the crab legs I told the kids to pick out what snacks they wanted and ice cream and Reese's shell made it into the cart.  It is cool how the topping freezes solid and you can pick it up.  We also had chips, crackers, puffcorn and dip. 

We watched four movies.  Started out with Sword and the Stone and Little Mermaid, both of which we hadn't watched for a few years.  I kept looking over and expecting Dancer to be about eight years old when Little Mermaid was on.  It was a joy to watch it again.  We also got Despicable Me, bought by Spark with his Christmas money, in before midnight.  That is one funny movie.  I was surprised, I thought it looked kinda lame from the commercials. 

At midnight we took a break and watched the count down with Dick Clark.  Not the most flattering picture of Dick Clark.

We celebrated with some bubbly, Ginger Ale that is.  I love Ginger Ale, we should buy it more often.

The last movie was Hercules that end about 2:30 in the morning.  Spark didn't make it that long.  As is our tradition, he made a little camp in the living room and fell asleep.  Here are the kids on New Year's Eve I think when they must have been three and six years old.  When Spark was little, every time we were going to take his picture he would stick his tongue out like that.  We would have to take a couple to get him to keep it in. 

Today, New Year's Day, Dad slept, Spark and I played some Wii, did chores and listened to music.  Dancer, not feeling well, sat with a bucket most of the day.  She didn't need to use it thankfully and tonight she is feeling better.  Spark wanted spaghetti hotdish for supper so we made that and had it in the crock pot ready for supper when Dad got up for work.  No big excitement here. 

It 's her birthday, but he's excited

Dancer's birthday is on Thursday, she will be 13 this year. Spark is just besides himself with excitement that his sister is going to be a teenager and he will be the only child in the house. He told me that you are a child until you are 13 and then you are a young lady or young gentleman until you turn 18 and then you are a young adult. He has this age thing all figured out. I told him thank you for filling me in since I didn't know there were such stringent rules about age. He puffed up a bit and gave a look that said "stick with me and I will teach you all kinds of stuff."

He has busied himself all day with decorating and birthday plans. He has been cutting, coloring and pasting. He is making a birthday cake here to hang on the wall.

He has been hanging banners and shiny papers up. This the banner from his fifth birthday when he had a bug theme. We haven't done theme birthday for a few years, I don't know why we got out of that habit.

He spent the better part of the afternoon making this Happy Birthday circle to go around her cake. He dug out a roll of yellow crepe paper from somewhere in the basement and he his wracking his brain on what he can do with it. I think he is so sweet to want to make the day special and exciting for her. If he stays so sweet he will have one lucky wife.

The New Year Eve Bash

Crab legs are the traditional meal we have on New Year's Eve on the years that Dad doesn't work and this year was no different. Except for Dancer, who decided this year out of the blue that she doesn't like crab. Whatever. She had leftover chicken and mashed potatoes.

Then we move on to the movie watching. First up was The Princess and Goblins. We had not watched that one for years and it brought back sweet memories of when Dancer was little and watched it so many time we could all recite it.

Movie watching was paused to watch the ball drop. Since we are in the central time zone we can watch it at 11:00 and again at 12:00.

Dad popped the cork on some bubbly apple and cherry cider

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I missed the initial gush of cider.

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but Spark took care of the over flow. We found out that none of us are really fans of carbonated juice. I think I will try and make jello or something out of it.

Next movie, The Master of Disguise. That movie has so many good lines in it. By then, I was done for and went to bed, but the rest of them stayed up until 4:00 a.m. watching Hercules.