Happy New Year!

How was your New Years Eve? I'm sure some of you were out there tearing it up at midnight! Not me. I hate to say we were lame. Let's just say our NYE celebration was family friendly.

This is really a single person's holiday. Once you have kids, NYE is just never the same. For one thing, it's almost impossible to find a sitter. And if you do, it will cost you a fortune. And it's never as much fun to get drunk because you know that at 7:00 am the next morning, you will have a little face breathing on you saying, "Mama, wake up, I'm hungry. Make me some cereal.".

Just not the same as when you were 20 and single and woke up the next morning with your head pounding wondering where in the world your clothes where and wincing remembering the body shots you did on the bar the night before. Yeah, those were the days....

We had dinner with our friends, Nathan and Angie and their kids. Grilled some steaks. Loaded up some baked potatoes. Dessert was brownie bites with whipped cream. As you can see, the whipped cream was a big hit with the kids. I brought the kind you shoot out of a can and we had great fun shooting it into their mouths and making mustaches out of it.

After dinner the kids went upstairs to play Madden 09 on X Box and we played a new game Venus gave me called Blokus. Which is great fun - I highly recommend it. At midnight, we all shouted Happy New Year and went home and crashed. A fun - yet relaxed - way to ring in a new year.

My sister, who has older kids (Jr. High and High School) had a party at her house. Hired a DJ, had karaoke, dancing, the whole nine yards. She reports her party was a blast except she spent a lot of time trying to chase the teenagers out of the bar...

My sister (Jennie) with my nephew (Hunter/12) and niece (Brooke/15). I love Hunter's hat. Very 1985.

Karaoke Queen's. "Summer lovin', had me a blast. Summer lovin', happened so fast..."

Whatever your celebration was, I hope it was a good one! Happy New Year!