New Year's Eve

One of Mike's Christmas traditions growing up was having pancake breakfast on Christmas morning. This year the date of the tradition was pushed back a week to New Year's Eve when Dan was in town from Tennessee and Leslie was back from Texas and when more people could attend.

It was also Eric's 1st Birthday. I reminded Mike to take pictures late and didn't get any of the yummy food we ate. Grandpa and Grandma were cooking up a storm. Pancakes, waffles, eggs, and sausage. Lots of yummy syrups and berries and whip cream to go on top. I'm not sure my kids will accept maple syrup anymore they are going to want to have the Strawberry Quick! I'll admit it was pretty tasty!

 Here's the Birthday Boy!

 One tired Chef taking a rest after breakfast

 Two more tired chef's

 Lexi playing with Tangled's Castle

And one of Bill, Dan and Mike

Can you guess which two are twins?

Mike is 13 months younger than his twin brothers. He was a "surprise." Julie said he thought he was the same age as they were and I'm sure with an older brother just two years older there was lots of trouble growing up!

We missed having Sean and Linzy with us. Happy New Year in Maryland to you!

After breakfast, Dan treated us to the movie "We bought a zoo." I was a little worried because it wasn't a cartoon but heard that it had great reviews and was for all ages. The movie kept the kids attention, made us all jump out of our seats a couple times and made you laugh and cry (ok probably just me and my hormones these days:). Only complaint was that the language wasn't needed for a family movie.

After the movie, we all headed our different ways. We stopped at Cabellas on the way home. We haven't been there for years. No pictures but a good time.

We headed home for a quiet New Year's Eve night. We weren't sure with the flu if we'd be able to celebrate with others so we just made an evening of it with our fam. We ate steak, baked potatoes, salad green beans and rolls. We filled the champagne glasses with sparkling cider and cheered and toasted the night. The kids loved it and kept wanting to do more cheers.
About 10, I was done. Mike found a clip of the ball falling on youtube (didn't matter it was from 2011 did it). Maddy asked if she could stay awake in her room to watch fireworks. Our neighbor across the street spent $500 on N.Y.E. fireworks. I figured I might as well stay up til he was done or I'd be up anyway.

Mike and I plugged away on our 2nd puzzle of the season. Puzzles have always been a fun tradition for both of us. Although I should put a disclaimer out, I'm really good at starting puzzles, Mike is really good at finishing them.

And that ladies and gentlemen is 2011! Happy 2012.