After you have children one would think the New Year Celebration would become a bit more tame, if not extinct! However, I find myself staying up a whole lot later, laughing a whole lot harder, and appreciating the meaning of celebrating a new year as a family a whole lot more!
To start our night off right we made every kind of h'orderves we could ever crave. We whipped up bagel dip, little smokies, relish tray's (i.e. we even had the baby corn), cheese and crackers, chips and salsa, Oreo balls, cookies, and SPARKLING CIDER!!! The kids went NUTS for the sparkling cider! They felt very special since they even got to sip it out of special glasses!
We had the TV on to one of the local stations broadcasting all the events going on in Time Square when Halle noticed all of the people had on 2011 hats, headbands, and glasses. She felt it was very important for us to participate in this tradition. I thought to myself how are we gonna pull this off...when out of the blue Halle brings me a piece of paper and asks me to draw 2011 on it so she can cut it out and tape it to her headband! What a creative little stinker! I of course, hand that task over to my hubby since I lack in the drawing department...however, I excel in the decorating department! Halle, Averie, and myself made bright and colorful headbands for the entire crew. After we distributed the headbands to everyone I noticed Jaxon thought his was edible and Matt thought his looked better on his chair! But all the girls rocked theirs for most of the night!
Next we had our dance party...if you know us hardly a day goes by without a dance party! So as you know we would not miss adding this to our to do list on our last night in 2010! After the dance party little man tuckered out and went down for the night. I thought the girls would be following shortly there after so I tried to find family friendly performances for the girls to watch to calm down. One came up real quick...Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair"! I had heard all the debate about this little diddy but I had never actually seen or heard it before. I figured it couldn't be all that bad since she was, after all, Will Smith's little one! As the performance started I became very engrossed and a little dumbfounded at the concept of the song! As I snapped out of it I find both of the girls in the same trance I had been. Now, I am not sure how I feel about this little number but it did accomplish the family friendly performance I was looking for so I am happy!
After the performance I initiate the hair pulling/teething clinching task of getting the girls to complete the bedtime routine (i.e. brush teeth/hair, potty). I knew it was going to be a battle from the word go...Halle immediately attempted to bribe me with all sorts of wonderful, well behaved antics she would use over the next few days (i.e. I will clean the whole house, change all of Jax diapers, take care of Chole...) and while I am listening to her I notice Averie grab her cup and jabber something in my direction as well. I fixate on Halle at this point simply because if she does it her little shadow will follow along right in step. As I am arguing with Halle I notice Averie is starting to yell as well. However, it is not being directed at anyone! Halle and I stop to look at her and I start to regret the sparkling cider! Then I realize her cup is turned upside down and she is dancing around, while yelling into her cup, with her eyes closed! I quickly start to decipher..."I whip my hair, I whip my hair" and realize she is imitating the performance we just watched! I inform Halle what she is doing and after hysterical laughter from the both of us we start yelling for Matt to come out and look at her.
The yelling snaps Averie out of her trance and I am sad since Matt misses it and most of these hilarious times are rarely ever repeated! With little hope, I ask her to sing the song for her dad one more time. To my suprise and without one ounce of hesitation she busts out with the hardcore rap version of the song! We again start to laugh but Matt has no idea what she is performing. After we inform him of the song I run to get the camera hoping to catch a quick snap of the performance. By the time I get back she is already done! I think there will be no chance of getting her to perform for a third time but I take my chances! And what do you know, she blew the statistics right out of the water! You will all get to enjoy a wonderful performance via video below!
After we all calmed down, we got our teeth brushed and our bedtime story read! We all said a little prayer for the new year, a thank you for the past year, and had one last little giggle together in 2010! We hope all of you had a wonderful end to 2010 and we wish you the best in 2011!
Last week you saw us enjoying 70 degree weather and climbing trees! This week you find us with 6-8 inches of snow! Since this area is not equip to handle snow storms (i.e. road management) we have witnessed a town of 200,000 + get shut down in a matter of hours. School has been called off since Tuesday. I have not worked since Wednesday. We have had to drip our faucets since Tuesday in fear of frozen pipes since they do not insulate them as well. We have experienced rolling blackouts (i.e. longest we were without power...45 minutes) in single digit weather. Last but not least the grocery stores ran out of milk and who knows what else! Matt was lucky enough to get the last four 1/2 gallon whole milks last night in a brave drive to the store! I don't question his driving skills...I do however, highly questioning the skills of the locals! 
