Haaaaaappy New Year!

It appears that I'm randomly throwing posts out there, which I am.  There was just so much happening over the Christmas break!  New Years Eve, I set the table for a fancy dinner.  It's fun having seven kids because there's an instant party whenever you want one.  Admittedly, we don't sit down to dinner all together, like, EVER.  When we do, it seems like an occasion.

Tolly and Tizzy got an early start on New Years craziness.  This was by 4 pm, when New Years was happening in Europe.

Actually, the wild makeovers happened while some of us were visiting Nana.

My theme for the new year is "Take the Time."  Time for people I love, time to do things right and time to appreciate the incredible world around me.  I love January for its simplicity, represented in my mind by white and gold. 

I mentioned New Years in Europe.  Ruby celebrated Spanish New Years with her 12 grapes and the Altieris on Whatsapp, at 4 pm Mountain Standard Time.  We tried, but we can't party like the Spaniards.  They had dinner at midnight and went out on the town at 1 am.  We're so weak. :)

What we did do was have a bunch of cousins over.  Ruby had a read-a-thon for her Swaziland project, and Nikki and Jennie signed their kids up for it.  Jenny and Jeremy's kids were here from Arizona, so we had to get our cousin time in.  All the kids brought books and donated money to the cause.  It's been pretty exciting, this book project.  Scott took Golda to Star Wars and the rest of us did our best to ring in the new year.  I meant to put the kids to bed at 10, but they were doing stuff, and we forgot to ring in the East Coast new year.  Oops.  We did it at 11 and I though the kids would be sleepy after that, but when we older people celebrated at midnight, the real midnight, we heard squeals of glee all over the house.  All the groups of kids were still wide awake!  They were just all so easy all evening, I didn't even intervene.  I'm sure - sortof sure - that they all went to sleep eventually.

Neeley and Araceli

I love this picture!  It's my lock screen on my phone, and it makes me happy every time I look at it.

Kate, Araceli, Izzy, Kayla, Neeley, Lilah and Xanthe

Collin and Freestone

Araceli made pancakes for the gang the next morning

And then it was over, and the new year stretched its wings.