And a Happy New Year

Our New Years Eve was spent at my parents house with most the family. Sarah, Johnny and Max had left earlier during the day to fly back to Utah, so they didn't get to party with us. But the rest of us were together. 

We started off our new years at 5:00 pm. We had a bag to open each hour until our "Midnight" at 8:00 pm.  

Tanner helped out by opening the first bag. It said  " Eat a delicious KFC dinner". So we did. We all scarfed down dinner, even the kids like KFC.

After dinner, the kids each got to dig into a cupcake. These were a big hit. 

Then Clark opened our 6:00 pm bag. It said "Make party hats" And although Clark wasn't all about making hats, my kids made hats and totally rocked them. 

Here we all our in our festive New years hats. Don't be jealous!

Nanny and Papa also got hats. 

Bailey really loved her hat!

Then Bailey opened our 7:00 pm bag. Inside the bag were a set of "finger lights" for each of the kids. 

So we turned off the lights and turned on some music. The kids turned their finger lights on and danced. It was pretty cute. 

Then Tanner did the honors and opened our last bag. 

Inside were poppers and music horns. 

We watched the ball drop and the kids each did a popper

My kids loved the horns. 

Love the facial expressions as the pull the string for the poppers. 

We eventually had to take away the horns because they made Clark and Danny cry, but they were fun while they lasted. 

Then the kids came into the kitchen and we had a "balloon drop" to ring in the new year.
This was a huge hit. We had about 30 balloons and it was so fun to see their faces as the balloons fell all around them. 

Then we poured ourselves some sparking cider and cheered to the new year. 

My kids were kind of cider drunks. They loved the stuff. 

The kids were in bed by 8:20 pm and then the adults stayed up to ring in the New Year at midnight. 

We watched movies, played games and chatted. It was great. 

The next day we were heading home, but before we went, we decided to go see "Frozen" with Nanny and Papa. It was so cute. The kids loved it. 

Anyways, we had a great vacation and we are now home from Mtn. Home. We had a fantastic visit, but it feels so wonderful to be home in our own beds and have a routine back. 

Some of our resolutions for our family include: 

1. Quarterly temple trips

2. More patience with each other

Then one of my goals is to be more relaxed. I have a tendency to control every aspect of  life- for my entire family. So I'm going to chill out. I'm going to be more laid back and patient. 

Also I'm going to try and take less pictures- well honestly I'm going to take more candid pictures and less of the pictures where my kids have to look at the camera and smile. They really hate having to pause and smile and I don't want them to hate me...so there you have it. Pretty simple but I know it's going to be a challenge for me. Wish me luck!

Happy New Year everyone. I have a feeling 2014 has some big changes in store for us, but we are excited to see what life brings!