Welcome 2013!

The recap of the holidays continues...

There's a big family-friendly event in our city every New Year's Eve. We tried to take the kids a few years ago but it was WAY too busy for our little ones. We took one look at the crowd and left.

This year we were excited (and thankful) that the sponsor of the event is a supporter of Elliott's school and opened the doors of the event early for their employees and the families at our school. There were a few hundred people there early but the arena is so huge it hardly seemed like anyone!

The kids had a blast playing on every inflatable. Every.single.one. They also had a bunch of carnival games set up and the kids won lots of prizes! Their prize of choice was pencils and they came home with dozens!

Isa wore the new 'princess' skirt I made her last week (more details to come on that soon). She looked adorable all 'purple-y' climbing up the inflatables!

Snow White was a huge hit!

The superheroes were too...although at first Elliott refused to get his picture taken with the 'spider girl.'

 All that jumping and fun tired the kids out!

Back at home we had our own New Year's Eve party (around 6 o'clock). My parents celebrated with us and we had a whole meal made of appetizers, and sparkling cider in 'fancy' glasses. I had gotten some noisemakers, crowns, and snappers too. We did a countdown and the kids even gave each other kisses!

On New Year's Day we had a leisurely time watching the Rose Parade and getting some use out of the girls' stocking stuffers. Hello Kitty press on nails. :) They are about as impractical as could be for an active 3 and 4 year old...but surprisingly Isa kept hers on most of the day.

Grandpa thought they were beautiful!

My genius-in-the-kitchen husband (remember the grated butter?) made a unique and tasty breakfast for the whole family. My brother had given us a cake pop maker for Christmas. We used it for cake pops and they turned out great. Michael decided to also try putting pancake mix directly into the cake pop machine and out came little balls of deliciousness!

He dipped the pancake pops in melted butter and then rolled them in a mixture of powdered sugar and cinnamon. To top it off he drizzled them with syrup and we added some yummy fresh fruit...MMMMM! (He also made eggs and sausage...it was impressive!)

What a great start to a brand new year! Here's to a fantastic 2013!