Happy New Years Eve!

Happy New Year's Eve! The kids were excited to celebrate the new year!

We're having a special meal for dinner, which calls for a special dessert. The kids like to help whenever we make things, so Alli is dipping some strawberries. 

And Ian is helping too. 

Most are plain chocolate, though we did dump sprinkles on a few. 

Those ones look especially delicious. 

Dinner tonight is one of those things that we have on special occasions. Cheese fondue! Fresh bread, rotisserie chicken, carrots, and celery. We've got it down pretty good now. There's a pre-packaged cheese fondue that we all love, which just needs to be heated up. 

I cut the loaves of bread into discs and then quarter them. 

It's a favorite of everyone!

The kids love it! 

I can dip a whole chicken thigh into the cheese, right Alli? 

And this is a party! After dinner we started digging into the strawberries and getting out all the celebration decorations!

And the glow party was so much fun on Halloween, that we bought a whole bunch more to celebrate over the Winter Break. 

And Theresa found some LED punch balloons that the kids love. 

They cracked them all and then took them to the trampoline, spelling out our names. 

And then we continued the glow party inside with some punchballs. We played a version of volleyball with them, bouncing them around the living room. 

Ten bucks worth of glow sticks from the Dollar Tree sure does go a long way!

Outside in the driveway, the kids had fun throwing the glow sticks up in the air, pretending they were fireworks. 

They'd collect all the glow sticks, one of them would stand still, and then the other would throw the glow sticks towards (at) them. 

Ian and Alli came up with a game of their own, like we do for Christmas, where they gave away money based on which color token you find under a cup.

I was having a hard time thinking of any New Years movies or shows. There's a bunch of Charlie Brown holiday shows, so I was happy to find Happy New Years, Charlie Brown. 

Chi and Richard joined us all the way until 30 minutes after New Years in Michigan, so 9:30pm. 

We all took a picture together and then told them goodnight. The kids both want to stay up for the ball drop. 

We picked a movie (Croods 2) to help keep us entertained while we waited for midnight to arrive. 

For a movie snack we're having corn. Theresa and Alli are having baby corn, while Ian and I are having popcorn. 

Alli's eyes were getting tired, but she was able to tough it out.

 Ian was wide awake and could have kept going even longer.

One of the things we were watching on the TV was the New Year's Celebrations around the world. I had the kids grab their smart globe and as the places popped up, we found them on the globe. It will measure distance too, so we were able to see how far away places are from California. It even plays the National Anthem of the country if you want too!

At Midnight, everyone clinked their glasses of sparkling cider together and we listened to the fireworks being set off throughout Los Angeles. 

We heard fireworks outside so we ran out to the driveway to see if we could see anything. No luck there. 

Back upstairs from their room, we were able to see a couple from their bedroom window. It seemed more subdued tonight though compared to normal years. 

2020 sure was something. I'm sure 2021 is going to be full of new adventures! Happy New Year!

For our meal the next day, some delicious fall-off-the-bone ribs sounds delicious. 

We'll have black-eyed peas to go with that to bring good fortune. And Korean pancakes just because they're delicious. 

When Ian heard you'd earn a dollar for every pea you ate, he was interested. The boy is interested in money. Can't wait to take him to a US Treasury Mint one of these days. 

My plate. So delicious!