The Beginning of 2026

Happy New Year!

I was so tired by the time I finished my blog post yesterday but it was only half an hour until midnight so I stayed up long enough to toast the new year with the family with sparkling cider then the kids stayed up soooo late and Jeremy and I went to bed.

About 5 o'clock in the morning, Jet finally went to bed (unless he fell asleep in the living room earlier. I don't know. I slept with instructions for the older kids to watch after him. So I guess he finally went to his bed at 5 o'clock in the morning). 

 

I heard this from him, "Mom, go back to sleep."

He said it several times. 

My reaction? "What? Go back to sleep? Oh, thank you for waking me up in order to tell me to go back to sleep."

Oh, I love my kids so much. 

Saying Hello to 2024 on 1/1/24

So this date is not as exciting as yesterday's date and that's okay.

Everyone stayed up til midnight so we could toast the New Year with sparkling cider. Jet had apple juice which probably still had enough sugar in it because afterwards he ran around yelling, "Happy New Year! Happy New Year!"

We finally got him settled enough to get to sleep.

 

I've mentioned before that I don't really do New Year's resolutions but I do want to be healthier so I did get up this morning to go for a walk.

We had more nachos. Tradition!

Hello, 2024.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

Toasting the new year with sparkling cider and "starting the year off on the right foot." 

They woke me up for this. Then we all went to bed.

 

That's a fake unhappy look from Lucky. Pretty good, though.

Hello, 2022

I can't believe everyone was still awake at midnight, and I mean everyone.

Here's Jet helping Nichole brush her teeth at 11:48pm.

Then he was running around like crazy going between rooms and family members. I looked at my clock at 12:01am and said Happy New Year while Jr. Jr. and Lucky watched a movie in our room. They started another movie after I fell asleep on my bed but didn't finish it because Lucky fell asleep and slept the rest of the night/morning across the foot of our bed. When Jr. Jr. noticed Lucky was asleep, he turned the movie off and went to bed in his own bed. Nichole and Jr. watched a movie in the living room then Nichole went to bed in her own room and Jr. fell asleep on the couch. Jeremy fell asleep in our bed. 

I woke up in the morning when Jeremy did (to get ready to go birding with Nichole and a friend) and asked, "Where's Jet?" "Right next to you," Jeremy told me. At some point Jet ended up asleep in our bed.

As Nichole was getting ready to go, she placed things on Jr. since she would have put them on the couch anyway. "He doesn't care," she said. "He hasn't made any objections."

It was very cold but they enjoyed seeing the birds.

We toasted the New Year with sparkling cider and Jet got such a kick out of everyone clinking cups together, he got a hold of a cup and kept hitting others' cups with it himself. He also screamed, "Happy New Year!" a few times after hearing us say it. It was a cute scream.

And nobody was too cranky when they got up. Yay!

Happy New Year and Hello to 2022. 

Hey, today is 1.1.2.2. 1-1-22. Fun, isn't it?

Happy Noon Year

New Years Eve has passed. The year 2021 has begun. We celebrated last night with sandwiches, movies, and sleep. I mentioned how we missed our toast of sparkling cider and our all day nacho binge. Luckily we often find time to celebrate, even if it is a day late or even the next year (or in this case both).

So we, as Jr. so aptly put it, toasted the noon year. At 12pm on January first we toasted 2021.

We made our nachos and snacked all day.

I toasted 2021 a little extra, just to make sure it would be a good year.

You're welcome.

The New Year

Before the new year we finally made it to the Christmas Village with the family.  I had gone earlier in the month with friends, but wanted the rest of my family to see it.  We finally did and it was fun.

And look, we finally got an outside night shot.

We started our New Testament scripture study on December 31 with Family Home Midday.  Later while Jeremy was at work, I gave the kids 15 minutes quiet time so they could do some personal scripture study.  I intended to read from the illustrated New Testament Stories book to Lucky but when I came into the living room I saw someone had already beaten me to it.  YES!  That's what I like to see in my home.

Then to start the new year off right, Nichole and I went out on January 1 on a birding fieldtrip.  It was sooooooo cold (single digit temperatures) but it was sooooooo worth it.  We went to several different spots.  I finally got to see that Anna's hummingbird in the Winter in Utah.

It's always fun being out with other birders and of course we saw a lot of birds for the first time this year.

 
When we got home we needed to thaw so we put on a movie, Nichole used her rice warmer and I soaked my feet, and we enjoyed some hot chocolate (thanks, Jr., for making hot chocolate for me) to warm us up.

Then I took a nap and couldn't believe how easy it was to fall asleep again that night.

We also finally toasted the new year with sparkling cider. Lucky did NOT like the taste of it.  He apparently tasted it before the rest of us clinked our paper cups together so he didn't bother with that part.  He also didn't like the taste of the Apple Shasta.  Oh well.

Today it was Jr. and Daddy's turn to go out birding.  They also got an early start in the cold and got to see a bunch of new birds for the year.  They went to some of the same places we went and saw some of the same birds but saw some different as well.  They did have some good bonding time just like Nichole and I did.

This is what I found while Jeremy and Jr. were out.  Yay again!

Now we're doing this.  Fun while cleaning up the Christmas tree.

And since January 2 is Science Fiction Day, we'll probably watch a science fiction movie or two.

Way to End the Year

The end of 2017.
Yesterday the kids helped dismantle our Christmas tree. 

We visited friends.

And today, New Year's Eve- we went to church, said goodbye to our Primary class, played video games at home, ate New Year's nachos, and toasted the new year with sparkling cider and Apple Shasta.

 "Making guacamol-e!  Making guacamol-e!"

 Happy New Year!

2016 Goes Out With a Bang

2016 goes out with a bang... literally.  Last night while we were making pizza, our oven and stove stopped working.  It kept tripping the circuit.  Finally, it stopped working all together.  Every time I switched the circuit in the circuit box it would trip it.  So we got creative and finished making our pizza in quarters in the toaster oven.  It worked.  We also discussed how we would adjust our traditional New Year's Eve nachos without the use of the stove.
Earlier today I thought I'd try to turn the circuit on again... just in case.  When I flipped the switch, all the power in our apartment went out.  Bang.  Well, it was more a pop, but you get the idea.  Whoops.  So much for being able to heat anything up for nachos with no crockpot, no microwave, still no stove and oven, and we wouldn't want to open the fridge anyway because that was also not on.  It also meant no heater, etc. etc. etc.
So Jeremy called our rental people about this emergency and someone came pretty quickly, fixed things, including finding out what was wrong and tripping the stove/oven.  So guess what.  New Year's Eve nachos including being able to use the stove to heat the nacho cheese and make refried beans.  I was also able to use the oven for making Chex Mix.  Hooray, but sorry to the maintenance guy who had to come fix things on New Year's Eve.  At least it didn't take him too long.
Well, this is a way to finish off 2016.  We got our nachos. 

We got to toast the end of this year and the beginning of next year with sparkling cider from the fridge. 

The kids got to stay up late watching movies (even though I was hoping they'd just fall asleep with their sleeping bags on the living room floor) and we have 9 o'clock church tomorrow morning.  We even made some celebratory pizza before working on nachos since the oven is working again.

Happy 2016.

Last Minute Celebrating

Boy, it has been a busy day today.  2015 is the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music and I've been wanting to celebrate that for most of the year.  We finally got to it today, the last day of the year.  The February 2015 FamilyFun Magazine had ideas of how to celebrate the 50th anniversary.  We sort of made the food it suggested- crisp apple strudel and schnitzel with noodles.  Yumm.  And we watched the movie.

Besides celebrating The Sound of Music, we also celebrated New Year's Eve.  We had our traditional New Year's nachos, and toasted the New Year with sparkling cider and apple Shasta and apple juice.

Lucky spent some time sleeping and some time making noise.

Now we're staying up watching movies or falling asleep out in the living room.

See you next year.