Happy New Year!!!

New Years Eve is here!!   With the girls still a little timid with enormous crowds, I decided late last night that I'd make our own balloon drop for noon today here at home so that the kids could have a little taste of what a real countdown feels like, as well as a new years celebration.
The set up:  I took down nearly all of Christmas yesterday, and couldn't leave the tree bare, so I covered the tree in tiny balloons, party blowers and streamers for a party effect.   Then I blew up 60 balloons and dropped them into a tablecloth and taped it to the ceiling (if you cut the tablecloth in half, and thread a ribbon through holes to tie them back together, you can just pull the string at countdown time, and the balloons fall right down!). 

 Needless to say, when the kids saw the setup in the morning, they could not WAIT until noon for the balloon drop.   We did a little baking to try to pass the time,but they were SO excited.   I set up the iPad with a countdown clock on it, so that they could watch every minute of the last hour count down.  We grabbed a few little party supplies too, so they had fun playing with those. 

 

  When we got down to the 10 second countdown, the girls ended up getting nervous in our very own home, and wouldn't stand under the balloons, so Jake got all 60 balloons all to himself for the drop.  We were lucky enough to have Tia and Hassan stop in 3 minutes to noon on their way to the city, and Nana stopped in moments before as well on her way to her haircut.  The chaos was pretty cute to see, and Jake is already saying that we have to do it again next year!! 

 

 

 

 

I've got a few more surprises up my sleeve for tonight, so we'll see how that goes too....
Later: for late night fun, I pulled out the glow sticks and noise poppers.   What better way to ring in the new year than a game of glow stick basketball in our living room?   A ton of balloons by the light of Christmas lights makes for a magical evening.  Such fun!

  I LOVVVEEEE my new camera- I can finally catch action shots like above!   wahooo!!

Another First This Week- Bowling!

After heading to a brand new park in San Mateo with all three kids first thing in the morning, we met Tia and Hassan for some bowling fun!  Addy and Colbie have never been bowling before, so it was a little overwhelming as all of the lanes were packed given the holiday.  To try to keep them behind the black line when it wasn't their turns, or even in our lane was a struggle.  All three kids are begging to go again though already, so I think Josh and I are going to give it another try very soon.  The bumpers and the metal rolling things for kids really make it possible for kids as little as A & C to do it (and there are even bowling shoes in their tiny sizes!)

 

 

Had to do pizza and Wack A Mole games for lunch afterwards!

The kids at the amazing, clean new park that no one knows about yet:

 

Jake's First Musical

For Lee Lee's birthday we gave her a day with Jake and Josh and tickets to see Elf the musical.  It was Jake's very first time sitting through a real musical, and apparently he did a great job.  Sounds like it was a great musical too.

Academy of Science

We braved the holiday crowds at the Academy of Science yesterday.   Such an amazing place!!!