Welcome 2012

We love bringing in the new year. The kids look forward to NYE with such anticipation. Normally I set all he clocks ahead an hour sometime during the day so we can ring in the new year with East coast and still get the kids in bed by 11:15. But since NYE was on a Saturday this year and we attend church on Sat. nights it just wasn't going to work. So - all the way till midnight we celebrated together.

Bucking tradition again - instead of doing bags with treats/ gifts we moved everything to the chalk board. It still worked just as well and helped to save money.

We got home from church and ate pizza and got into pj's.

8:00 brought us a puzzle competition...

...followed by cup stacking contests. We have never done the cup stacking thing (I know - aren't homeschoolers supposed to be all about that?!). The kids LOVED stacking the cups and especially loved learning how to take them down quickly. We did ours in minute to win it style.

While waiting for the 9:00 hour Jason decided to see how high he could  stack a single tower.

You would have thought he was a superhero. The following pics are actually (NOT POSED) pics of my kids faces as they watched daddy's tower get higher and higher...

9:00 brought Wii and air hockey tournaments and our precious friends, the McLaurins...

10:00 movie...

 11:00 - gather round for ice cream sundaes...

And then we prayed the new year in together. Jason talked to the kids all that happened this past year that we had not planned on  - his new company, Colby's cancer, my back issues and tied them all in to God's sovereignty and care. He then asked us to think about what the Lord might have for us this year. Who knows what adventures He might take us on. How will we look next year at this time. We certainly have our own ideas but long to be ready to embrace the ways our heavenly Father desires to sanctify us. Soli Deo Gloria! Happy 2012!