New Year's Eve 2008

We spent Wednesday evening and all day Thursday with Robert & Stephanie. Because of Robert's work schedule, he was not able to come back to Hobe to have our usual NY Eve party. So, we went out there and we had our own party. Dad was gone, Mom had to work and Steph's family couldn't participate, so we adjusted our traditional plans a bit and made it work.

Robert bought his horse the last time we were out there, but just brought it home today. She doesn't have a name yet and they are looking for suggestions. Robert likes odd names (thus, Q-tip, one of their Jack Russels and his previous horse, Blue Duck). She was quite skinny when purchased, but she has gained some weight since then.

Emma & Halie went to bed before we started any of our festivities, so I put my hat on her for a bedtime photo.

Found this at the grocery store for $1. Makes for cute photos: Baby, Me and....

Even on the Daddy!! I stuck it on his head, just being silly and then snapped a picture. He's a good sport and didn't protest. We had a lot of fun playing games and eating yummy foods. I made 7 Layer Dip w/ tortilla chips and we took the quesadilla maker so that everyone could make their own. Steph made English Muffin pizzas, home made Mozzarella Sticks and Cookie Dough Truffles. Plus, we had the dipped pretzel logs that we had made that previous trip out there. UGH! I picked and snacked my way into unbuttoning my jeans!!! The scale will not be my friend this week!!

We played Phase 10 and In a Pickle. And during the last phases of Phases 10, midnight came. So we watched the final seconds on TV, kissed, and Robert got out one of his quieter guns and had a celebratory shot!

Martin won the game and made sure he got a photo of the score sheet, although he cut off his initial at the top of the column. I added another arrow pointing to my score in hopes that I looked like the winner. But, truthfully, I was not!

Here we are just after midnight. After the midnight smoochies. :) You can see Steph's snowman decor. in the background. She had taken down all of her Christmas stuff and replaced it with winter/snowman.

I had bought New Year's stickers for Steph and I to use on our scrapbook pages for this event and they were light blue and silver. So, I wore black,as did Emma and I asked Martin to either wear black or blue. Steph wore black and Robert wore blue, although he didn't actually know we were color coordinating ( and would have worn purple or green if he did know, just to be a stinker). We stayed up till almost 1 AM and finished our game.

The next day, Steph and I spent some time playing with my Cricut Design Software and the Cricut machine. I have had the software since August and have not taken the time to learn how to use it. We figured out the basics and cut out a few things.

We all went outside after lunch and the girls went for a ride in Halie's new wagon and Halie played in the dirt! She needs a sandbox!!

Emma enjoyed her ride in the wagon. Notice the wagon has ATW -all terrain wheels- for those country rides! :) Her other grandparents got that for her for Christmas. While the girls were riding around the yard looking at the horse, baby piglets and watching Q-Tip play with his ball, Martin and I were attempting to fly that Cow kite we had got the Cantrell's.

It was a pain to get up in the air, but once it got high enough and caught good air, it looked hysterical!! The legs flapped in the wind and made it look like it was running.

Might be a kite for the beach or for a much windier day. Definitely took 2 people to get it up and stay up. We did have an almost disaster. It had been flying WAYYYY up, with a lot of extended string and all of a sudden it came down with an almost crash. Wellllllll, it came down on the other side of the fence and landed in an unused pasture. With the kite string over the top of a huge palm tree!! Thankfully the kite itself landed on the ground and Martin was able to just disconnect the kite, we rolled up the string and then we could reconnect the kite and try again.

We stayed all day and ate dinner with them, before heading home. I had taken a frozen Tater Tot Casserole with us and Steph added corn on the cob and crescent rolls and we had a tasty meal without much work.

While, this was definitely much different than our "normal" New Year's Eve parties in the past, we had a great time! Maybe someday we'll have another one of our big ones and play Battle of the Sexes again AND the girls kick the guys rears!!! Dreaming....