It's a new year!!! 2014 is really upon us! Good bye to the past year and hello to the next! That's exciting!
New Years Eve was spent here at home with some friends! We were very last minute at planning the party but sometimes those are the funnest! Matt & Lena and John & Ruth came over. Mike fried us some Bang Bang Shrimp and Pickles. I added to the menu some sandwiches with different toppings. I got my inspiring idea from The Pioneer Woman Cooks Blog. :) Ruth made brownies and brought ice cream. Lena brought other flavors of pickles! Everything was quick and fairly easy and yummy!
We sat down to eat and the kids popped in a fun movie from Red Box. "Planes". We got all into the movie and watched it with the children. Then we moved upstairs to play some games of six handed
Rook. It was guys vs. girls and even though us ladies tried ... the men beat us. Mike stuck to his usual bid of 265 most times.
At 11:45 PM, we got the news turned on and Matthew was being our timer boy. He kept yelling upstairs ... 7 more minutes. 6 more minutes. He was starting to panic and wanted us to come down so we don't miss the ball drop. We stopped our game and quickly went downstairs to count the new year in! I don't think Matthew remembers watching the ball drop in NY because he was all into it. :) We all loudly did the count down and then us couples kissed in the new year. Matthew grossed out when the news was showing all the couples kissing too. :) We went back to our game and finally at 1:45 we quite. Too tired ......
It was 2 AM before getting to bed. We did get to sleep in the next morning, so that was a blessing!!! The house was silent till 9:45 AM! We cleaned up the house and ate a late breakfast. Mike went for a run and helped with some house work.
At 3:00, we were getting ready to host again. I put some canned turkey in a pan, topped it with fresh sauerkraut and a little brown sugar. Baked it at 350 for 1 1/2 hours. I whipped some mashed potatoes together and put some deer sausage in the oven too. Add some fresh veggies and dip and we had a good "New Years Day Meal". Ben's boys and our kids have been begging to get together before Christmas vacation is over, so we invited them over. We ate. Watched some American History a bit and then Matt's came too. We played some hot games of Dice. Because our children had school today, the night didn't get late. We cleaned up the house again ... washed more dishes ... blew out the candles ... and put the kids to bed. Both Hadassah and Matthew were all bummed to know that today they had to go back to school. I'm not sure why because normally they do like school. I guess they had a really fun vacation and just hated to see it come to an end. We were all in bed. Hadassah was looking at a book in her bed. Matthew was making shadow shapes with his hands while laying in his bed. Ashlyn feel right to sleep because a long day without a nap is a lot for a little toddler. Soon Matthew comes into our room and asks if we are doing something tomorrow night? Even though he would have like to hear me say "yes", I think getting back into our regular routine and not being so busy will be a good thing! :)
Waking the kids up this morning for school went well. They seemed to fine with having school again. I hope they have a fun day getting back into their lessons. Ashlyn and I will be having a day of cleaning and enjoying the day at home. Mike was very excited about starting work in a new year!!!
God has been so good to us this past year and we all are excited about 2014! Cheers!!!
PS ... Bring on the snow fore cast!!! Winter is so much more fun with snow!!!
