New Year's Fun

We had a really great New Year's weekend!  My friend Jen and her husband Jon and I have celebrated the holiday together nearly every year since 2002 (or would that be 2003?).  The few years we've missed have been largely my fault, for such inexcusable life events as my honeymoon and having a brand-new baby.  This year Jenny, Jon, and their 2-1/2-year-old Caleb were able to stay at our home for three nights!  Unfortunately, it turned out to be three solid nights of Owen coughing himself awake every hour, but we all napped when necessary and managed to stay up late every night anyway.  Good food always helps, of course, and here's a run-down of (most of) what we ate:

Cheesy Bacon Pull-apart Biscuits  [Five stars.  But then Pillsbury refrigerated dough makes anything good.  A VERY special treat for those of us who try to avoid cans and boxes whenever possible.]
Cinnamon Griddle Cakes (without the icing) [Five stars, in my opinion.  Quite tasty.]
Pepperoni Pizza Monkey Bread

Four stars.  The bread rose more than expected, so not much pepperoni/cheese punch to each bite.  But fun and tasty -- perhaps with some extra spices thrown into the pizza dough?  (Please ignore the dirty oven mitts.)

Loaded Baked Potato Dip for waffle fries

Five stars.  YUM.  And I don't even like sour cream.

Chocolate chip cookie dough brownies

Three stars, but that was probably my own fault.  First, I halved the recipe but put it in too big of a pan, so the cookie dough didn't even cover the brownies (as you can see), let alone form a thick layer.  Second, I used sucanat in the brownies, which really overwhelmed them.  Never had that happen with sucanat before.  Dessert fail -- but nothing a scoop of ice cream on top couldn't fix.

Potato-leek soup (a recipe from my personal binder -- trying to have something healthy for lunch before consuming snacks all evening)

Chicken enchilada dip with tortilla chips (another recipe from my personal binder: I love the stuff, but no one else ever gets excited about it, and I finished the leftovers myself for lunch today)

I had no real plans for celebration with the little boys, beyond this time capsule survey (not the time capsule itself, which we didn't do, but scroll down for the colored questionnaire), but by Saturday afternoon a few ideas around the web had caught my attention and we pulled together a fun little evening!  First up: glow sticks!

Later that evening, we bathed the boys together with the lights off.  They had great fun playing with the glow sticks underwater and hanging them off the faucet, etc.  Thanks to Katey on pinterest for that idea!

I printed off some big numbers and let the boys color them [okay, the adults colored, too].  Then we hung them up and waited for the New Year (at 7pm) to tear off the final "1" and put a "2" in its place!

Notice Levi trying to color with a glow stick . . . 

After our coloring session, we gathered in the kitchen to sample some organic sparkling apple juice.  Caleb was excited: "It's popping in my mouth!"  (We thought he said, "it's a party in my mouth," which was even funnier.)  Levi took two sips, made a horrible face each time, and declined to finish his.  I hope he avoids peer pressure just as much in 16 years or so when somebody hands him a beer. ;)  

I set the microwave timer when it was thirty seconds to 7pm, we counted down, shouted "Happy New Year!", and ran to the living room to change the number on the wall.  We'd been hoping to find a video of old footage of the ball dropping, but of course all old videos show the year, and we'd talked so much about it becoming 2012 that it seemed silly to show the boys people getting excited over 2011.  They'll be old enough to stay up and watch the real thing soon enough!  All in all, a simple but fun evening for the littles.  (Owen, of course, with his 6:30pm bedtime, was already asleep during all of this.)

Then the games began (not to mention eating much of the food listed above).  This year, for perhaps the first time ever, we opted for things other than Settlers of Catan (though rest assured we did play it on Sunday night, and I would have won for the first time if I had known that the merchant earned me a point :-P).  Instead, we spent our time with Carcassonne (my birthday present to Isaac this year, and a quick favorite with all) and Ticket to Ride (borrowed from some friends from church -- my favorite!).

And we talked.  I've felt a marked absence of any real, deep, profitable discussion with good friends lately, so I played the nerd and printed out some reflections questions -- cut them (page five on the link) into squares, put them in a jar, and made everyone pull them out periodically during lulls in game-playing.  (Never mind that the link is for 2010.)  I thought the other three adults (my husband included) would balk and poke fun -- and they did, to an extent -- but everyone participated, too, and it was so nice to sit and chat with people I've known for years and years.  

A very happy weekend indeed.