Happy New Year!

Just like every year, our tradition for new Year's Eve is to set up the kids' tents in the basement, have a movie marathon and an appetizer buffet. They look forward to it all year. We allow them to stay up til midnight if they can and then we go outside and light fireworks.

Manuel decided that Cambrey needed her own tent this year and he went and bought her a princes tent from Target. She was so excited that she took the box with her everywhere and slept with it, the few days prior to New Year's Eve. Manuel was excited all week just for the food. We make different appetizers every year but he can't live without his little smokies, so I had to go back to the store when he realized I didn't buy any this year.

We whipped up all this food in just an hour - including the homemade rolls (Manuel's doing). The first movie we watched was Diary of a Whimpy Kid. I'm a sucker for that movie because it reminds me so much of my childhood. I was the girl version of the boy in the movie. Sad, I know. Also, it makes the kids laugh really hard. After the movie we played game after game after game. Manuel put on his traditional short film that made the kids laugh. It's a tradition in Germany for people to watch this short comedy on New Year's Eve and it's in English. Here's the link if you want to watch it just skip to 2:26 minutes in to get to the English. 

After that we held out until midnight at which point we went out and lit the neighborhood on fire. Our quiet, dark, street turned into a blaze of lights and sounds thanks to us. The girls were terrified of the sparklers as usual but Cambrey decided to be brave on the very last sparkler.

After that the kids went to bed in their tents and have been sleeping in their tents ever since. We have yet to take them down. We were prompt to take down all of our Christmas decorations on New Years Day. As empty as it made the house seem, it was good to have a clean house again.

Happy New Year to you and your family!

DAILY QUESTION: Did you make any resolutions? For some reason - I didn't. At least nothing new.

Manuel made these German rolls in an hour Smoked oysters

artichokes with horseradish sauce and bacon lime chips and salsa Spinach dip and fondu with my homemade cheese sauce

Watching Diary of a Whimpy Kid

Everything is blurry except for Manuel

Could I fit anymore food on there?

Playing games

Gabe wanted to play Risk but cried when he lost

She loves to photo bomb

Not sure what this is about

Playing Jenga

Getting snacks from the store

Ready to go outside and celebrate!

Can you tell it's midnight?