Our New Year's Celebration

We had a really fun time celebrating New Year's.  The main event was a cousin celebration that included dinner and festive desserts, courtesy of Lindsey, fun and games and play time, and a countdown with balloon drop.  We had decorations (which my kids put up by themselves while I cooked and prepped - Cat even assembled the balloon drop) and noise makers and Mardi Gras beads and headbands and so much sparkling cider, wich Cat acting as bartender.  It was wonderful.

  

Once the cousins left, we had the kids put on pajamas in preparation for a movie before real midnight.  It's the first time we let the kids stay up to celebrate actual New Year's and they did great!  Luke was the most tired, but we managed to ring in the New Year together.  They chose to watch Disney's "Descendants" (I was hoping for "The Greatest Showman," since that movie and soundtrack played such a big part in our year in 2018 but I was outvoted).  We weren't finished with the movie when midnight came, so we paused it, watched the ball drop (2 hours later than it actually had), lit sparklers and did our "fill it up" tradition (which Ben insists is ridiculous) in the back yard, drank bubbly, took a few more pictures, then finished the movie before crawling into bed around 1:00.

Happy New Year!