we always start off with a bang

i loved hearing this essay about staying in (skip forward to 9:12) on New Year's Eve. It resonated with our own traditions we've adopted since having kids. Not that we were huge partiers to begin with, but things definitely change when the children outnumber you in the house. 

Since Lucy got old enough to understand what New Year's is, and also hear from her friends how they "stay up late", we've added a few more traditions. We do let them stay up late on New Year's Eve, all the way until 9 o'clock. Crazy! They took a bath, put on clean pj's and we lit off sparklers in the yard.

 Once the kids are all on bed I put out our usual spread, Martinelli's sparkling cider (ty's a lush), cheeseball and crackers, chocolates gifted to us at Christmas, chocolate cream pie, smoked sausages, veggies and dip. Shrimp was out of the budget this year, you know, fiscal cliff and all. Then Ty and I get in our pj's eat to our hearts desire (and drink!) and watch a Back to the Future marathon. We beat our record and finished all the way to the end of II! We've never made it that far before. Then we go to sleep, cuz the kids get up early and are so excited to do this:

 Crack the gingerbread houses! Phoebe was a little too handy with that hammer, it was scary.

 Then we headed out to Magnasite, and played outside all day long. just like in 2012 with our annual field trip. we hiked, ate, and shot lots of guns. i laugh when i think of where i imagined i would be at this age when i was young, but mostly because i'm perfectly happy shooting guns with my inlaws and eating soggy sandwiches under the winter desert sun.

 i shot ty's gun and couldn't tell if i was hitting a single thing, i'll just pretend i hit everything instead.

 Everyone got baths last night, and of course the tub was full of sand.

 without even realizing it, i signed my name as "MOM". apparently i've lost my identity over the years.

 when we came home we found our chrismtas butterflies had hatched! so fun.

 aunt sarah came to say goodbye, and phoebe gave her a good, "bye bye aunt sadah!"

we've been so busy, i haven't even thought about resolutions yet. but i'm proud to say i accomplished some of mine from last year.