Yup, the right guests will get your party started off with smiles….because Angry Birds = Happy kids
But first, there MUST be eating!
We started off our family New Year's Party with dinner at Outback! Hurrah!
And we discovered a child discipline technique even more potent than the Wawa card - PICKLE BREATH !! Yup, threatening 'em with having to eat a pickle to keep 'em in line at dinner worked miracles. Jar of pickles = $1.89, child behavior modification effectiveness = Pricele$$!
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... there's shopping!
Well, shopping is always party-time for me, but this time it was borne of necessity. Since we were out in DeWitt anyway eating at Outback, I just had to make my bi-monthly visit to my future house in Manlius (I drive by it several times a year, and have been doing so for 2 1/2 years - but I don't like the new circular driveway the *temporary* owners just put in!! Grrr. Now we'll have to pay to remove it when we move in.).
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| My original photo from when I first discovered my future home back in 2009 |
….and the only way to keep the kids from complaining too much about not being able to go straight home and start partying, was to stop and get them new books at Barnes and Noble, which is something we do as a family every couple of months anyway. And yes, Connor DID pick the Trigonometry book all by himself, and YES this kid knows how to do trigonometry, and YES the cashier was aghast. But, we're getting quite used to dropped open mouths and speechlessness from adults when they're dealing with Connor.
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... there's mayhem and throwing stuff around!!
Back home and let the games begin!!! ANGRY BIRDS brought to life!
Our clever catapult contraption…
And of course our pets party with us! Yours should, too!
Chili soon figured out that this was NOT a good place to sit...
Rebuilding the structures was half the fun.
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until....people get drunk and disorderly
Of course it was only a matter of time before kids began throwing their Angry Birds at each other….timeout (since I didn't have pickles at home yet)! Connor refused to look at me, and I LOVE Noah's face here.
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... there's dancing!
Everybody's doing the Locomotion…
Connor's dancing on furniture…VERY un-Connor-like!!
Ritchie moves in action for ya...
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... furniture gets destroyed!!
Yup, Connor was dancing on our coffee table and during a particularly enthusiastic move to Shout (favorite Ritchie dance song), ummmmm, well, yeah, he literally BROKE the coffee table.
Ya know, we've had parties in our house with over 60 guests (including lots of kids) and never had ANYTHING broken or even a stain on the carpet. But, as I told Connor to cheer him up, it's AWESOME that he did this because now we'll FOR SURE forever "remember that party where Connor broke the coffee table??!!? BWA HA HA!!!!"
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... there's MORE eating!
Okay, Connor was still upset over the coffee table incident and Shelby was mad that her noise-maker-horn-thing didn't work. But after recovery of those traumas, there WAS more eating!!
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... people get tipsy and goofy
Shelby, pace yourself on the apple juice!!
And for Connor to wear a hat….DEFINITELY something in the apple juice!
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... there are extreme sports being played in the house
Since the coffee table was now broken and our Angry Birds catapult therefore out of commission, we took the party downstairs.
A little basketball…
Hockey time!
Shelby wanted to be the goalie.
But, in retrospect, putting Shelby in as hockey goalie was NOT such a good idea.
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... there are death-defying stunts being performed
When hockey ended badly, we then set up our little basement trampoline in front of our ball pit and let 'em rip…
And then when I snapped this shot and saw Connor's head TWO INCHES from the ceiling beams we promptly put a stop to the death-defying, incredible stunts. Crikeys!!! Bad idea, Mommy!
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... Dick Clark says Happy New Year!
We all finally plopped in front of the TV around 11pm to start watching Ghostbusters until 11:45 when we would check in with Dick Clark. HOWEVER, does anyone remember that Ghostbusters is actually SCARY!??? I saw a 4-year old birthday party with a Ghostbusters theme on Tori and Dean, and *bing bing*, I thought Ghostbusters for New Years will be perfect!!! Well, I hadn't seen Ghostbusters since it originally came out back in…. well, YES, I am THAT old. Anyway, we got only 5 minutes into it before Noah left the room crying about it being too scary. And it was. SHEESH!
So, he and Shelby went into another room to watch the TV in there and they wanted to watch……wait for it…….Scooby Doo's Ghoul School. Uhhh, right Noah. Scooby Doo definitely some scary stuff going on, but okay, whatever.
It's Not a Proper New Year's Eve Party Until ... the kids fall asleep early and miss the actual New Year which they will be VERY crabby about the next morning
I don't think Shelby or Noah made it 5 minutes into Scooby Doo before they crashed anyway.
And Connor, Mark and I barely made it to Dick Clark's rocking New Years Eve ball drop, gave a round of weary cheers, and everyone was in bed by 12:04am.
Whew. But HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Oh, and here's a footnote - Ghostbusters evidently didn't traumatize Noah TOO much since he kept singing the Ghostbusters theme song during church the next morning. Shhhh Noah!!
And now THAT clever little segue can allow me to post these photos of Shelby's first day in Primary (in our church, Primary is for kids ages 4-12). Two for one blog entry! yeah!
And here's the whole little gang on the morning after the Big One, looking quite alert and happy after a long night of hard partying!
What? You opted to a just family New Year's Eve Party? Fun for your kids, but what about all of us party challenged people? I always smile and remember LDS Idol in your basement! What a fun mom and dad you are!
ReplyDeleteAwwwww Rachelle, we haven't had another huge NYE party since you left a huge gaping hole in our social life.
ReplyDeleteBut I think I'm about ready to try it again. Assuming there IS a December 31, 2012. This year we decided the only way we could have had MORE fun is to invite a few friends over next time. Probably not the whole entire ward again, but a few for sure!
Oh Estelle... How I would of loved spending the evening celebrating with you and your SUPER cool family! We opted for the "First Night" celebration at Onondaga Lake park. We decided to wait until 7pm to get there, but in retrospect - 5 hours is still too long time to be in and out of "heated" tents, and just waiting around for the Syracuse Orange ball drop and firework show at midnight. It was fun... but being touted as a "family friendly" event, I was a bit surprised by the band choices, one being the New Boyz and their song after song of bad rapping about intimate relationships. I told Rich that the best New Year's Party I've ever been to was the party at your house - with the perfectly executed ball drop! Perhaps we'll just crash your new year's bash in 2012!
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