Happy New Year!

I think that the hat made her feel like a super model because she came up with these poses all on her own!:)

Below: Apparently 2011 will bring the continued pursuit of the illusive great picture of my two children together!:)

Happy New Year!

I love the hope that a new year brings. Living on a college student calendar I feel the same sense of hope and new beginning with the start of each semester and with each long break. It's wonderful to be able to start fresh a few times each year!

Now don't worry- I still have plenty to share from our Christmas celebrations, but I thought for once I would actually be timely with one of my holiday posts!:)

We had a fun and pretty laid back New Years Eve yesterday. Lily and I spent the morning making these fun party hats (we made about 8 of them). Making them was actually pretty easy and fun, but I did somehow manage to burn myself twice with the hot glue gun, puncture my finger once with a tack, and even cut my hand once (this is a mystery to me since we weren't

using knives of any sort)! Thankfully Lily managed to stay injury free (I wasn't letting her anywhere near the hot glue gun)!

We made the party hats for a little New Years Eve get together we hosted at our house last night with two families that we just love! Brave and Jennifer (and their two kids) and Laura and Wade (and their two kids) joined us for a pizza dinner (it was delivery- like I said it was pretty laid back). We ate pizza, made fun kid friendly drinks (complete with cherries and cute drink umbrellas), and just hung out together and let the kids run wild. And run wild they did- with a living room full of balloons and party horns/blowers in hand they just let it all out! We all also played a board game which involved the Grinch stealing presents, singing, and lots and lots of full out laughing and screaming. Yes screaming. All it took was one child letting out a little yell, scream, or even just a laugh and all five of them would bust out in full hysterics. It was beyond comical and had most of the adults going too! I had envisioned doing a few more games, but we decided that the kids were just too wound up and that it would be best saved for another night! At around 9:00p.m. the kids started to crash big time and Lily was ASKING to go to bed. Joe and I stayed up and watched a movie, but didn't quite make it until midnight (oh well, I never make it to midnight)!

So do you have New Years resolutions? I don't know if we are much of a "resolution" family, but we do like to set goals (which are probably pretty close to the same thing). So, here are some of my New Years resolutions/goals (at least the ones I've thought of so far)...

1. Train for and compete in my first spring triathlon

2. Photograph my first wedding (and hopefully more like 3 or 4 or more)

3. Learn how to make my own yogurt and granola

4. Bake more homemade bread (I would love to do this once a week, but I make no promises)!

5. Start most of my mornings with time with God (whether that is with my kids or alone, long or short- I want to do something).

6. Do our 56 weeks of family service project (you will be hearing way more about this soon)!

I think it's going to be a good year...