only a little behind: New Year's Eve

I'm a sucker for a big party, so it's no wonder that I love New Year's Eve. It's the perfect excuse to stay up late being chatty and snacky. It ranks very highly among my favorite holidays.

This New Year's Eve worked out a little differently than I originally planned, but I've been working on flexibility and just rolling with it, so...

After some scheduling conflicts, we decided it would be easier for us and the kids to stay in on NYE and have an extended Family Fun Night. I wondered how it would go...I mean, the part about the kiddos staying up very, very late.

And since I know you're all on the edge of your seats wondering how we spent NYE, I'll just fill you in.

We started out by including Abby in her first family game, a little kid game about Colors. She did a good job - learning to take turns can be hard on anyone! - but there are no pictures, due to the fact that helping Abby learn to take turns doesn't leave many hands for other things.

Then - because as we all know, I love to eat - we made some Puppy Chow. Let's all have a moment of silence for Puppy Chow.

{moment of silence}

{still continuing moment of silence. (whispering): Dear Alex, if you and Emma are still going to get married, I hope you can get over your peanut allergy. The girl loves her some Puppy Chow.}

{End moment of silence}

Ok, call us geeky or whatever, but the next activity was finding all the States Quarters. After discovering that Mr. Eggroll was a childhood numismatist, we decided to throw this activity in our new party. I bought a Quarter book at Hobby Lobby and Josh picked up several rolls of quarters from the bank.

[No, I'm not that smart. Yes, I had to Google it.]

Once we took a break from scarfing down the puppy chow, we all started searching through the quarters. We were officially in "NO HANDS IN THE PUPPY CHOW" phase.

Uh.....well, at least MOST of us were.
I love these girls!
It was actually a really fun activity - first searching the quarters, then matching it to it's own slot. Occasionally we'd find duplicates, so they girls would have to compare the quarters to find the one in the best condition.
I thought we did pretty well! We're keeping our book and will try to finish it while we're here in America.
Once all the rolls of quarters had been looked through, we played "I Spy". One person would find a detail on a quarter, and the others would have to find it and shout out which state it was from.
Next up was Monopoly, Jr. We hadn't played this since before we left China, so it felt like a new game to the girls.

I love the little cars.
Samantha's reading skills and Emma's improving math skills made this game much easier for both of them than when we played it the last time. This particular version was made in the UK so it has some funny names for things - "Candy Floss" for cotton candy, "Dodge-Ems" for Bumper Cars.

Brits.
Emma easily won the game.

I'm not sure what was going on in this picture, but I always love seeing moments when daddies and daughters are lovin' on each other.

After Monopoly, the girls begged us for a game of Go Fish. Then we popped some popcorn and snuggled in under a big quilt to watch the new Disney Oceans movie from redbox. Love you, redbox.

It was a fascinating and awe-inspiring movie, as all those movies that show God's brilliant creativity usually are. I'd highly recommend it, with the disclaimer that they'll bug you about saving the earth at the end. [I'm not against saving the earth! I just get irritated when Hollywood starts telling me to do it.]

Samantha fell asleep at the end of the movie, which was actually pretty impressive - 11:20.

Josh, Emma, and I spent the last half-hour reflecting month-by-month on all the ways God has provided, protected, led, grown, and revealed Himself to us.

It was a very sweet time of remembering. Emma remembered some things we didn't; we remembered some things she didn't. We thanked God for an incredible 2010 and praised Him for His goodness - still unseen and unknown - to come in 2011.

Thanks babe, for your long arms. We all made it to midnight!
And I really believe it - that even though the details of 2011 are unknown to all of us, the broad brush strokes have already been painted in: God's goodness to us, His kindness in revealing and drawing us to Christ, His sovereignty over all things.

Happy 2011 to all!