I think this is the first year not all of us were here. Jon & Beth were out with their friends, Melanie was with her hubby, Ben's in Oregon. We had Shawn, Steven, Emily and down.
I was trying to come up with something for the kids to do to keep them occupied for the whole evening waiting for the big moment to bang on the pots and pans. I decided to make some play dough and let them go at it. (I used to let the kids play with playdough all the time in our other house because we had linoleum where the table was. No big deal. Just let it dry and sweep it up. In this house, my table is on carpet. It always get mushed into the carpet and I just didn't want to deal with it.We played with it, just not that often.) I don't know why I didn't care about it yesterday, but I really didn't. 
So we pulled out all the playdough toys and had a blast for over 3 hours!! They would have kept right on going but they chose to do play dough before the candy houses. That was the only reason they stopped, 
had they done the candy houses first, I'm sure they would have been playing play dough through midnight!!
had they done the candy houses first, I'm sure they would have been playing play dough through midnight!!
So we played, took pictures, played and took more pictures. We had to take pictures of their creations, so they felt better about destroying them to make more. Besides we didn't want the play dough to dry out so after a little bit we had to mush them and knead the dough to keep it soft. They had so much fun!! (And the mess in the carpet isn't so bad!!!)
Finally, we talked them into putting it away, only to get out all the candy and mess that goes with that! We just had to do our traditional Candy houses!! I don't even know exactly how many years we've been doing it... Maybe 18 years or so!! I guess it just doesn't get old!
Every year I buy way too much junk for this event. Was this year any different?? No, but I did wait to buy it til after Christmas and got a lot of it at 75% off!!
We were finally done and mostly cleaned up by 10pm. What's left?? Some played on the Wii and some of us watched a movie. We put in Matilda. We hadn't seen it yet. The mean old principal actually terrified Tiff and Nat! They were in my lap during the last bit!
At about quarter to 12, we started getting our shoes and coats and pots and pans ready! By midnight, Tiff still didn't have her shoes on, so she stayed at the door.
My poor neighbors had to endure all the banging and clanging and yelling of my little ones marching up and down the driveway, yelling Happy New Year! I think we were the only ones on our block, although, there were some fireworks!
Poor Nattie was so excited to go out, but as soon as all the noise started, she screamed and came back in the house, yelling and crying at us that she didn't want to do it!!! She didn't stop crying until I had her in her jammies and in bed and her and Tiff practically asleep! She was so tired, she just couldn't handle it anymore!! I finished cleaning up the candy house mess and went to bed. The rest of the kids went downstairs with Dad and they played more wii until Dad called it quits and they all went to bed.
Little Nattie Bug slept until 11 o'clock this morning!!! I don't know how we are going to get into the school schedule by monday!! We're going to need a vacation from Christmas Break!!!
Even though, we really missed GG and her family!! It was definately a fun way to welcome the New Year!
Hope you all Have a Happy, Safe & Prosperous New Year!
Make Your Dreams Come True!
We love you!
