New Year's Party

We haven't had any parties, besides kid parties of course, since we moved into our house, so we decided to throw a New Year's Eve party this year. We invited 7 families and about 5 were able to come. We had the Amadors, the Spears, the Bells, the Dingers, the Petersens, and Brock and Annie came for a little bit (poor Chanell has strep throat so she couldn't come :( ). It was also Paige's birthday so we got her a cake and sang Happy Birthday, we love Costco cake! Anyway, everyone brought a dish so we had a smorgasboard of yummy food to eat from all night. The kids either played upstairs out of sight or watched movies. A few of the kids were able to fall asleep here so that their parents could stay, others needed to go home to their beds. The Bells and the Spears stuck it out and we had a mad game of Settlers of Cataan going at midnight. We stopped, toasted the New Year with sparkling apple cider, and then continued our never ending game of Settlers until Mark finally beat us at 1:00 am. We had a great time, and really got to know each other better as the night got later, and the silly, tired personalities came out. We learned that Ryan can't play charades, that Angela's really competitive, that the Bells dog howls when they aren't around (thanks to the baby monitor!), and that Dave actually does talk you just have to listen carefully! Thanks everyone for coming over and making our New Year's so fun! Here's a slideshow of the event. I hardly took any pictures because we were having so much fun and I barely got any of the kids. They were there, even though we locked them upstairs!! :)