New Year's Eve

We are a boring old married couple with 3 young kids, and the Officer often has to work New Year's Eve, so we don't usually have exciting NYE plans.  This year though, we had exciting plans. My dear friend and college roomie, Lauren and her husband had a big group of our college friends (10 adults and 7 kids under the age of 4) over for NYE. They made us a delicious dinner, complete with all kinds of options for lots of different food allergies.... these friends are so kind. The kids all played and laughed, and then they toasted a New Year of their short lives with sparkling cider.

We put all the kiddos to bed with minimal (or frequent) crying, waking up babies, and trips to the potty, but eventually they were all asleep for a few hours at a time.  Then the men smoked cigars in the freezing cold and the women stayed warm inside talking and drinking. We told stories, remembered college, anticipated unborn babies, told really good Catholic jokes (some were missing the punch lines) laughed, and laughed. At 11:58 we decided we should watch the ball drop, so we turned on the tv just in time to miss the ball drop, but we toasted, hugged, and kissed. Then we talked some more, played 7 Wonders, laughed some more, and eventually at some late hour that I usually reserve for late-night feedings, we all reluctantly wandered to bed, only to be woken up 4 hours later by energetic toddlers. It was a night I want to remember. Thank you Lauren for hosting such a fun night- I vote that we make this an annual tradition!