Happy New Year!

Our New Year's Eve was spent at Kurt, Tina and Taylor's house.... we had tried to get the kids to take a late nap in preparation of the big night... but Zachary waking up 45 minutes into the nap wasn't part of the plan. I think the couple weeks of 'off schedule' really had him riled up! SO, momma had to nap with him! I think the late naps really helped though, as in the past, we've only made it to 9:30 at our New Year's Eve parties. This year, the kids did just great, and had a blast playing... which made it so much more fun for the parents!!

Here, from left, Adam and Brett (both will be 6 in January), Emily and Zachary...and here, Emily, Brett, Adam and Taylor, (whose house we were at)...
After we tore up the house upstairs, we moved to the playroom in the basement where the adults had their fill of pool, air hockey and ping pong... and the kids had fun playing in the kitchen, beauty salon and gymnastics hall... what cool toys they had!

Here, Zachary sat patiently while Emily styled his hair... as any good younger brother would do....Zachary did have few moments through the night when he'd come over to either Momma or Daddy for a little cuddle; he'd put his head down, and we'd think "this is it", but then he'd be off again. Daddy and Momma kept looking at each other wondering when the kids would hit the wall... but there was none of that... and no meltdowns either! At 10:50, we figured we could almost make it to midnight, but felt we were on borrowed time. So, we made it home by 11:30... and quite amazingly stayed awake and talked the whole way home! The whole thing was really quite unbelievable for a family normally in bed by 6:30pm, 7:30pm, 9pm and 10pm from youngest to oldest.

January 1 brought Emily singing me "Happy Birthday" as soon as she woke up. It was wonderful. She knew the whole day before that the next day was momma's birthday, but I still didn't expect her to remember first thing the next day... I don't know why. Silly momma I guess.

Busia had made momma's favorite birthday cheesecake, so Daddy and Emily made momma's next favorite...boxed yellow cake w/ chocolate frosting from a can... except I asked for cupcakes this year....We watched a bit of the Rose parade, sang the fight song along w/ the band, and Zachary said his first "Go Blue" (which was really "go boo"), and had his fist up in the air....

Then we were off to another wonderful birthday dinner and not so wonderful football game at Busia's and Dziadzia's. Oh well. The dessert was spectacular... as you can see....
Another year over, another year older, another bowl game lost... and my memories will be of Emily singing Happy Birthday to me first thing in the morning, and Zachary's first "Go Boo".