Happy New Year!

We continued our holiday par-tay from Christmas all the way to New Year's...

The boys "helping" Nathalie make chocolate cupcakes for New Year's Eve!

STRAP THAT BABY ON...! The only way a busy mom of three tiny tikes can get things done!

And she also puts Daddy to work...!

Nathalie's fabulous homemade from SCRATCH apple pie!

***In spite of the fact that our VAN BROKE DOWN and we had to replace the transmission and were van-less for days (and penniless now for days to come), we just partied on like it was New Year's or something...***

Sam got some GIANT Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from Santa...and enjoyed every bite! (He shared...)
Grayson also got a GIANT Snickers Bar...hmmmm, don't recall the "sharing" part on that one.

We enjoyed winding down several nights by watching old episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond," one of my favorite series EVER (I own all 9 seasons on DVD)! I'd much rather watch them one right after another than anything on TV today...

Nathalie and I snuck out one afternoon with little Addie and did some shopping & had lunch at:

YUMMMMMM!!!

Is this not the CUTEST little pink Tennessee Nebraskan you've EVER seen...?!

Grammy with Tennessee Addie & Colton

We found some fun things for the boys (big AND little). A friend told us about S*P*L*A*T*B*A*C*K! It's these little things that look like eggs, strawberries, fruits, a DEAD RAT, etc. and you slam them into the floor and they SPLAT all over, then they gather themselves BACK up to be whole again, and you can do it over and over and over. We got an EGG, STRAWBERRY and RAT, and the boys had a great time with them!

WATCH THIS "SPLAT" VIDEO:

Playing games...hangin' out!

SILLINESS!

For our "New Year's Eve" dinner, we did Chris' famous "GUAC the DOG" (guacamole and lots of yummy stuff on hot dogs) with salad and all the trimmings. We had the missionaries over again, and played the "Finish the Story -- Drawing Pictures -- Guessing Topics" Game. (Not sure what it's called in real life.)

After the mishies left, we popped Mike's "special" popcorn (seasoned with sea salt, pepper & olive oil), ate peanut M&Ms and every other kind of chocolate we could find, and watched movies until the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day...

Two movies COMPLETELY different from each other, but both good! Plug your ears for one scene in Larry Crowne.
(I won't be watching 17 Miracles again, too many tears!)

Then those of us who were still awake toasted the new year, and I went in and worked on the computer, and they guys watched the movie, "Super 8."

We all got to bed about 2:30 - 3:00am. YAWN! Have I mentioned that I really L-O-V-E Vacation?! (the old saying "early to bed, early to rise..." yeah, yeah, yeah - whatever!)