Welcome 2011

Welcome to the year where for two months, one will have the opportunity to write the date as:

1/1/11 (Today of course)
1/11/11
11/1/11
11/11/11 (at 11:11 am and pm of course)

How cool is that?? And do you realize that next year is the LAST year that anyone will be able to to do something that cool?? After 12/12/12, there is no more. No 13th year. Perhaps this is why the Mayans believe the world will end ......... because we won't be able to write cool dates anymore. Yeah.

Anyhoo ..........

This is how we spent our New Year's.

Evan, is an almost New Year's baby. His birthday is the 31st which can be either good or bad, depending on what's going on. Good because he's a year now (wow, that went really fast) and bad because it's this weird holiday that make people feel the need to stay up til midnight and scream and bang pots (for good luck) and shoot off MASSIVE amounts of fireworks (my neighborhood sounded like WWII last night; thankfully my hayseed neighbors were quiet however).

So we had a combo birthday party/New Year's Party. In Evan's favor, the birthday party was WAY more fun than the New Year's Party.

From what I saw (Thomas, Ben, Greg, Kelsey and I were discussing Firm Fish), the birthday boy wasn't that interested in his giant birthday cake, much to his ever-hard working Mum's dismay. He would rather have an Oreo, thank you very much. Just like kids to burst your maternal balloon after slaving over something you know they'll love and then it's shunned. I'm speaking from experience too by the way.

Then the New Year's festivities got under way ............ with Ben, Kelsey, Bob, Kathi, Ang, Steve, Evan, & Beth all heading out the door around 9ish. That left Jen, Greg, Thomas, Felix, Robee, Owen, Ivy, and I to stare at each other for the rest of the night. Actually, Felix read, Robee and I passed out, Thomas was on the computer with Jen, Greg was trying not to fall asleep and Ivy and Owen were having their own party.

That is where I have to give Utah and their cities some credit (even if they celebrate holidays weirdly) by having First Night for New Year's. It's just so much nicer if you have something to do or go see or stand by a giant fire and drink hot chocolate or get the kids' faces painted or whatever activities they have. They had a couple around here but they can't seem to get them going or their funding was pulled.

So here are the remnants of last night:

The assorted horns, glasses, straws needed for merry making (thanks to Angie and Beth)

Silly String (thanks again Angie and Beth) shot at the pizza boxes on the floor - since it's sort of an outside thing and it was so cold last night, it probably would have frozen in the air.

Jen gave up the ghost at 11ish when Owen announced "IT'S TIME TO GO" and started packing up his stuff. Probably the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

I dragged Robee to bed - he is MUCH bigger than he used to be - and promised Felix I would come up at midnight rather than passing out again. I had to look for my phone anyway so that kept me up for a bit. I was not going to clean the kitchen until the morning but I did make it to midnight to kiss both my kids.

Happy New Year. How I wish you would come at a more manageable hour.