New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve this year, we decided to have a fun feast/games night with the kids, which we've done before, but this year we wanted it to be special since this may well be Shae's last night spending New Year's Eve at home since she'll be 14 next year and will probably want to go to the youth dance.

So, we went and bought all kinds of fun treats and hor d'oeuvres, even escargot (which I was sure Connor would love but he was way too grossed out to try it).

We started off with a rousing game of "Match the coloured circles on the dinosaurs" which Hudson was a pro at...

Connor and Shae challenged each other to a game of computerized Battleship, while enjoying the delicious treats.

Later we played family Cranium which had us doing all kinds of silly things.

I realized that my younger kids have never had a float before so here is Hudson tasting his first orange pop float:

Hudson went to bed around 10 but we let the others stay up until midnight and after our countdown, with kisses and hugs, toasts (non-alcoholic drinks of course) and a half hearted attempt at Auld Lang Syne, we opened crackers and then sent the younger ones to bed.

Then, Jess, Shae and I got down the very serious business of finishing our game of Settlers of Catan. The game went forever and we didn't get to bed until 2:30 am (and just so you know, I won).

Bring on 2012!