New Years Eve

Last year we had our first family New Years Eve party and it's one of my favorite memories from that year. So we had to have one again this year!

First we made some Pizza. (This is the yummiest whole wheat pizza crust.)

My girls are the best little pizza makers. They pretty much do the whole thing on their own. So I said, "You guys are the best pizza makers around." Aubrey responded, "Mom I don't think that's really true. I think some older kids are probably better pizza makers than us." Funny kid!

We ate our pizza while watching "Rudolph's Shiny New Year"

Then we played lots of games.

First we played a new game the Tanner's gave us called, "Story Cubes." It was so cute. There are several different ways to play. First we started with each of us rolling one dice. The dice have a different picture on each side. The first person started the story and had to include the item pictured on their die in the story then we moved to the next person who had to continue the story and add in the thing on their die and then continued around the table. It was really cute how well the girls picked up on it and they were very creative in their story telling.

 

After a couple times playing that way the girls wanted a chance to tell a whole story on their own. Aubrey took several dice to tell her stories. I couldn't believe how creatively she weaved in all of the pictures on her dice into her story. We got a video of one of them below. Her dice were a lamb, key, eye, house & cane.

Brooke's stories were also very cute. She only did one die, but was able to add the pictured item into her story. We took a video of Brooke but she kept looking down and away and you can't really hear what she's saying.

Then we played "Zingo". Also a gift from the Tanner's. It's similar to Bingo. You have a Bingo type board and a contraption that shoots out 2 pictures from the boards. If you have one of the pictures you have to call out the name before the other's call it out. Then you put it on your board. It's a really fun game for little ones.

Then we played our Fishing Game. The girls just love this game.

This is Aubrey's face after she won the first game!

She proceeded to win the next game as well. During the third game she was winning again and I saw her start putting back some of her fish. When I questioned her about it she said, "I don't want to win every time." Then I watched her closely monitor how many fish Brooke had to make sure her little sister won the game. She's such a little sweet heart!

Next it was Cootie time!

Aubrey blowing her dice for luck!

Aubrey wanted pictures with our finished Cooties.

This picture cracks me up because it's soooooo Brookie. I'm pretty sure she is hiding her face because Daddy wants to take a picture of her. She can be such a little uncooperative stinker sometimes!

All of us with our fabulous Cooties.

Our nephew Mark who is on a mission in Nebraska sent us all Nebraska hats for Christmas. We had to take a picture for him.

 Then back to more games. Aubrey's new Elefun game she got from Santa. Butterflies shoot out of the elephants trunk and you try and catch them with the nets.

We also played Dora I Spy which is a super fun matching game as well.

 Then we went outside to do some poppers and sparklers.

Aubrey loves the throwing ball poppers.

Brooke had fun stomping on them to make them pop.

Yay sparklers!

I had to include this video because it is so typical of our life. Our girls are so fiercely independent that we can not help them with anything or we have a war on our hands. Brooke was not happy about Daddy helping her with the popper. (She was pretty mild this time - usually she has a fit if we help her with anything.)

 Aubrey had made up a game that she wanted us to do last. She had books wrapped in blankets that we had to find and then we sang Christmas songs after we found the books. One of the songs we sang was "Up on the Housetop". Brooke got so excited she was doing a little jig the whole time we sang. It was so cute!

Aubrey also "wrote a scripture" for us to read after the game. She will tell us something she has learned from the scriptures and asks us to write it down. Then she wants us to read it that night during scripture study. This is the scripture she "wrote" that night.

Then we counted down and watched the ball drop on New York time while shaking shakers! Fun stuff. Then it was off to bed for my sleepy heads. What a fun New Years party we had!