New Year's 2015

For the first time in the history of "us"- we spend New Years with just our family.

It was definitely a little more quiet and low-key than usual, but we had fun.

We spent the day and into the night building out a timeline of our lives, as individuals, then as a family after we got married and our timelines because the same line :)

It was really cool to see a visual representation of how we got to... here!

Then to pass the time until the late hours came we watched some movies of our family from over the last several years.

...

As for the kids, we fully intended to do their celebration on EST, expecting they would melt down if they stayed up any later... but time flies when you are having fun! Before we knew it, it was 5 to midnight, so we gathered to watch the ball drop and celebrate the new year!

We did some party poppers and noise makers, and the kids got glow sticks.

But the real thrill of New Years has been and always will be the pinata!

I may have had to run out and get one on New Year's Eve, so we ended up with this little present pinata, but it was just the right size for our two kiddos!

They really went to town on it, and when it wouldn't crack, they went for weapons!

(You may notice in the video that while they were gone I took a crack at it and smashed it open... oops!.. so we patched it back up for them to hack at!)

After they gathered up their loot we sat our sleepy kiddos down and asked them a few questions.

Worst prediciton was from Hannah (also included in the video)

Jeremy: "You have 7 cousins right now, how many do you think you will have at the end of this year?"
Nathan: "I dunno."
Jeremy: "Guess"
Nathan: "1,000!"
...hmmmm...

Hannah: "I dunno."

Jeremy: "Take a guess."

Hannah: "5"

Ummmmm.... ?????

That's enough predictions for tonight! Happy New Year, and good night!

Here is a compilation of some of our New Year's footage (FYI, this makes the end of the "lost footage travesty... I have all my new years movies!!!!)

Enjoy!

The next several days were amazingly snowy! The stairs on our back porch even got lost in the 8+ inches we had dumped on us!

What better to do in the cold and snow than bake!?

Hannah and I made a giant sugar cookie on my new pizza stone, and it worked out beautifully :)

What a yummy treat to share!

It has been great to reflect on our past, plan for our future and revel in our present over the Christmas and New Year's season. I hope 2015 finds all of you happy and well, and that the Lord's blessing continue to flow throughout the coming year - as they most certainly have in the past.

~Feeling grateful and joyful as we continue through the seasons of life.~