Ringing in 2012

This story starts at the beginning of 2011. On New Years Eve I got this bright idea that I wanted to throw the kids a big New Years Eve party and make it a yearly family tradition. I was so excited about my idea! I even found some great New Years Eve party supplies on clearance at our local Party City. I packed them away and waited to use them for an entire year.

Finally, a whole year later it was finally time to throw our New Years Party. The kids are still pretty young, so really only Nathan understand what we were celebrating, but it was still a fun night. I got all the decorations out and made a great little table display with matching and themed items that included plates, napkins, champagne glasses, hats and noise makers. We had tons of appetizers for dinner. The kids really enjoyed the mini-corndogs, potato skins, fried mozzarella sticks, wings and fried green beans. They drank apple juice out of their special party glasses.

We also decided to start a new tradition as a family: a time capsule. I bought a simple clear jar from Target that we plan to fill throughout the year with lots of little trinkets and photos that will remind us of 2012. We started the jar by putting in some confetti from our New Years Eve party.

While we waited for midnight we let the kids get their sleeping bags out and watch a Harry Potter movie in the basement. When the movie was over we switched to a Three Stooges marathon. Nathan and Tate, having never seen the Three Stooges, thought the show was hilarious! It was great listening to them laugh hysterically together at such simple little gags. The twins made it to 10:30, but were just too exhausted to stay up any longer. Tate passed out on the couch at 11:30. When the ball in New York City's Times Square finally dropped, it was just Nathan, TJ and I welcoming in 2012.

2011 was a hard year for me. I struggled a lot with a lot of things, but I'm hopeful that 2012 will bring great things! I know it will bring three very special birthdays. I can't believe my babies will be 7, 4 and 3 this year!! Time is just flying past me!

Our family on New Years Day 2012.

Hiatus

I apologize for the hiatus from the blog. The holidays were just exhausting for me and we've had a lot going on that I haven't really had the energy to talk about. I've also been stuck in my own head a lot more lately. I'm working on making some personal changes for 2012 and writing a post about what's been going on, what I've been struggling with and the steps I'm taking to make 2012 a great year!

I'm hoping to get back into the blog with the New Year and really start to write more regular posts. I will probably be doing a lot more "Flashbacks" becauase I have a lot of events that I want to record for our family history. I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, a Happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!