Ringing in 2013

I forgot how much I loved getting ready for New Years.  I think I was pretty much done with all things Christmas and by Sunday the 30th I was disassembling the tree and packing up the decorations.  I was nice to move on to the next celebration. 

We actually started our celebrations in the early afternoon at the Muttart. They had a family fun masquerade ball, crafts, musical entertainment, balloon artist,face painting, pinatas etc. It wasn't too busy so the kids got their faces painted.

Evan's was the spray painted tattoo version.  That's the way to go.  Much faster. 

 There was pinata with candy and my kids got tons. They did two or three pinatas so they would come out and say where in the world it was close to midnight, we would count down and then start swinging at the pinata. 

 

 

Here is Evan's chunk of the pinata; it also served as our candy holder.

 

Here are our masks that we made for the theme of the day.  This is inside the show pyramid with all the poinsettias and nutcrackers/christmas theme. 

Last year we whimped out and didn't stay up to ring in the new year....the only brave soul was Megan and she didn't quite make it.  I felt bad about that and decided to do things right this year.  So after some research on Pinterest I found a few good ideas that I used to help keep the night going and fresh.  First off I decided to try my hand at making our own New Years Crackers.  So I scoured around to get some trinkets together and googled how to do it.  I'll be tweeking a few things for next year, but I really like the homemade version since you can customize it. 

 Here is what I put inside.  A homemade crown, noise maker, balloon, sucker, confetti paper, rubber worm, a joke and a fortune.  All of that got wrapped up in leftover christmas wrapping paper, with curling ribbon and I did buy the tab that you pull and it makes to popping sound (michaels).

Then we had our traditional fondue dinner.  It was really good this year; we did a cheese one with all the things to dip and then some. 

 

After clean up and starting at 7:00pm we started with our festivities.  I bought a 100 piece puzzle that was suppose to be on going throughout the night.  But everyone was working on it so it only lasted about 30 minutes. 

 

 

 

 Here is all the bags lined up waiting to be opened.  The activity and a small prize inside each bag. 

We had an All About Me questionnaire that they filled in, played games, dance party, movie and some Wii time.  They got some treats to eat and some small pokemon figures to play with.  It was fun to be together.  The final  bag held our glow necklaces and sparklers along with some hats.  Aaron didn't quite make it he lasted until 10pm.  No better way to ring in the new year than with those you love. 

PS Promptly after the celebration was finished we all went to bed.  Early the next morning Spencer and I got bundled up and went on our own resolution run.