New Year's Eve

As a family, up to this point, we have decided to stay home together for New Year's Eve. It doesn't feel like a fun night to be out with young kids or even to leave the kids with a babysitter. So, for now, we have some fun traditions that we enjoy each year.

Let me just start by saying, Rick and I were so tired on this night. We stay up most nights until at least 11:00, but we were fading at 9:00 and wondering if we were going to make it to ring in the Mountain Time New Year.

We started the night with our Annual Dance Competition. You just wouldn't believe how much fun this is. It is fun to see the little kids get into it and the bigger kids are starting to really practice and prepare for it.

Lauren and Abby began the night with a choreographed dance to "Keep Your Head Up"

They had been practicing all week in the basement.

Don't you just love their matching outfits?

Next up, Sam, with his signature move, the splits to the song, "Fire Burning"

Break it down, Boy!

Laila danced to "Eenie Meenie"

I have no idea where her shirt is.

I guess since she is 3, this is okay.

This is how Isaiah started his song, "Rocketeer"

On a side note, when I went to pick him up from preschool yesterday, I peeked into the classroom and saw the whole class in a circle clapping with him in the middle break dancing. What the heck?

When I asked Isaiah about it, he said, "I wanted to show them my dance skills."

My song, "Price Tag". I love this pic because Sam's facial expression of disgust cracks me up. I am sure there will be many more of those over the years.

Ba Blang, Ba Blang!

Rick wasn't fully prepared this year.

After his Amazing Kite Flying routine last year, it will be hard to ever top that.

So, what did he do?

Get cute kids to join him to distract from his lack of preparation.

Cody didn't participate this year.

It makes me sad, but I get it.

Instead, he was the DJ for us getting all the music ready.

Laila won the competition and her reward was to open the game for this year: Dicecapades

This is a great game for our big kids. We just waited to play after we put Isaiah and Laila to bed.

After our competition, we had our traditional donuts and sparking juice(we were really lame about pics this year). I also printed out a sheet online that we each had filled out. We talked about it as we ate our donuts. It included things like, best memory from 2011, something new I want to learn to do in 2012, etc. It was eyeopening to hear some of their responses. Then, we let the kids watch Spy Kids 4 in the basement. At that point it was about 10:00. We watched the ball drop on TV with the East Coast and put Isaiah and Laila down for bed.

We spent the next 2 hours playing Dicecapades. We played girls against boys with each team winning once. We will have to break that tie in the near future.

We surprisingly stayed awake until midnight. The kids ran outside to watch the fireworks on Pikes Peak and then we sent everyone to bed. Goodbye, 2011.