new year

Happy New Years!  I know you're all jealous of my green cardstock party "badge" Nicholas made.  Our celebration began with making badges for everyone at the party to wear.  They were a big hit. (The others were wearing badges when we started, I promise.)

Because Ellie was sick, we stayed at my parents' house longer than we'd expected and were there for New Years.  I'm so glad! Ellie was better and we had a fun extra couple of days with them.

Kent had to come back to work for a couple of days (no more unlimited paid time off....I'm not super excited about that part of his recent job switch...) so he drove up after work on New Year's Eve to celebrate with us.

As soon as he arrived, it was time for fireworks!

I honestly thought it was going to go better this time. Nicholas was hesitantly excited about them. He wanted to watch, as long as he could watch from inside with Grandma.  

And I think it would have gone well 

if it weren't for the little mishap we had with the very first firework.

Three of the six cannons fired correctly, shooting up in the sky and exploding, like they're supposed to.

Cannon number four exploded a hole in the side of the box, and shot straight towards the house, and exploded in spectacular green sparks, 

right next to the window Nicholas was watching from.

He spent the rest of the show in the basement, in our bed, huddled under the covers with his ears plugged.

Ellie, however, loved the fireworks. We bundled her up and took her outside, she ooh-ed and ahh-ed and told us how pretty they were.

After the fireworks we played a few minute-to-win it games.
The move-the-cookie-from-your-forehead-to-your-mouth-game:

 My son may have used his fingers to assist.

We played a game where you race a bouncy ball across the floor by fanning it with a book.  
And a game where you take a paper lunch sack and try to pick it up off the floor with your mouth--not letting your knees or hands touch the floor.  As the game continues, you cut inches off of the sack little by little and try again, to see who can pick up the bag when it is the shortest.
Jonah dominated.  He can literally pick up a flat piece of paper (the very bottom of the lunch sack) off the floor with his tongue.  

Then Nicholas invented a few games for us.  
We ran around the rug in circles while he watched.  I won.
Then we stood in a circle and he judged which of us could puff up our cheeks with air the best.  Grandpa won. 

We played apples to apples, scribblish, and ate a smorgasbord of appetizers, including these tropical and heavenly lime-coconut white chip cookies:

photo from ourbestbites.com

We did our countdown real-time with New York.  The kids went to bed at 10.
My parents and siblings went down to watch a movie, and Kent and I cuddled on the couch while he watched Walking Dead on his laptop (I will never watch that show--I can't even handle Jurassic Park), and I read Divergent.
At midnight, we kissed and went to bed.

Happy New Year, everyone!