Happy New Year!

With my sister being in town and all, we thought it would be fun to spend New Year's at my parent's house.  We joined up with everybody in the early evening and started the night off with fondue.  Then it was time for the kids to decorate gingerbread cookies.

Each of them grabbed a packet of frosting and went to town!

 They all took it quite seriously.

This one was the most serious of all.  She had some decorating to do!

We played some games, ate some food and then my younger brother pulled out Rock Band.  It was all uphill (or maybe downhill) from there.

Mr. Blue took the lead and sang away with the guys while the girls tried to play Bananagrams.  (That is a difficult task while listening to Mr. Blue "sing" his lungs out!)

 The little boys wanted in on the action and joined the band.  With some help from Aunt M, they actually did pretty well.

Mr. Blue and Mr. Orange are showing off their Billy Idol faces.

 Don't we look like a cheesy Christmas GAP ad in our matching Christmas jammies?

 I seem to be the only one "rocking" out at this point.

 I harnessed my inner Blondie for this song.  Unfortunately I ran out of breath about 1/4 of the way into the song.  I did pull through and rocked it.  Next time, I'll be Gwen.  I'm a better Gwen for sure.

 Um, not a lot to say about this picture other than, YIKES!  There is a lot going on here!

 I mean, really, Mom and Dad, isn't it time for bed yet????

Both kids made it to midnight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Because it was so late we all decided to spend the night.  In the extra room it was wall-to-wall mattresses.  I think there were 4 queen air beds and one small tent for the boys.  Mr. Blue and I had to share a bed with Miss Pink.  That's tricky.  She's a wiggler!  The kids went to bed shortly after midnight. Mr. Blue was right behind them.  I stayed up WAY PAST MY BEDTIME playing Dominoes.  I don't know what it is about that game, but we love it.  It's so addicting.  It's a bad thing to start at 1 in the morning.

I slept in until 9:30 on Saturday only to find out that pretty much everybody else had been up since 8.  Oops!  Grandpa made his special pancakes for the kids.  He makes shaped pancakes by request.  Anything you like, he'll make it.  A favorite is the Utah "U".  The adults ate red soup.  It's a family thing.  Some of my cousins will know what I am talking about.  The in-laws aren't quite sure about it.

 After breakfast Grandma entertained the kids by making cookies with them.  I think one of the grandkids said, "Grandma? Can we make cookies?"  That was enough for her and she gathered them all up in the kitchen for some cookie time.

We finally dragged ourselves home after dinner.  On the way home Mr. Orange got it into his head that we were going to take down the Christmas decorations as soon as we got home.  I was less than thrilled about this idea.  I wanted to get the kids in bed and go to bed myself, knowing that Sunday meant a new church schedule and 9:00 church.  It was too early (5:15) when we got home to put them to bed so I dragged the boxes upstairs and we started taking things down.  The kids were great helpers and we had everything put away in an hour and a half.  Record time for us.

I am sooooo very excited to say goodbye to 2010 and am soooo looking forward to 2011.