Ringing in the New Year

This year for New Year's Chad and I did the traditional early dinner with our friends at PF Changs (we have some old friends who can't stay up late! Or they have kids who think they need to be out and about later.). As usual, we ate way too much of the lettuce wraps and main courses, and then we tried to eat a whole piece of the Great Wall of Chocolate. (Ok, I tried to eat the whole piece before anyone else got a bite!)
When we got home from dinner, Chad's cousin and his family came to spend the night with us. I don't think we have ever really had someone over on New Year's Eve, and since our kids play so well together and love being together, we had a lot of fun.
Being the nice parents that we are, we told the kids they could stay up and watch the ball drop. Of course, they didn't know it dropped at 10 o'clock on TV instead of midnight! (There are some benefits to living in the Mountain time zone!)
When the ball dropped, they had a great time blowing their noisemakers,
Shooting off poppers,
and drinking sparkling cider (which the kids called wine). Then, since they had "rung in the New Year", we sent them down to watch a movie and wind down while we played a little Guitar Hero (ok, a lot of Guitar Hero!) Apparently I was too involved in playing Guitar Hero to take pictures. (I also could have skipped the pictures because I didn't want a record of me losing, a bunch! I am definitely no one's guitar hero!)
When I finally conceded that I was never going to win, at least before the sun came up, we all headed off to get a quick night's sleep.
The next morning we got up and gathered our warmest clothes. Chad's extended family decided to revive an old tradition of sledding on New Year's day. After listening to Chad and his cousin talk about how much fun the sledding was and how long the hill was, I was a little skeptical to see what we were really getting ourselves into, but in the end, their memories were pretty accurate (although it's not quite a mile long) and we had a great time!
It was a little bit cold out there, so we had to bundle the kids up pretty good.
We bought some new sleds and tubes especially for this event.
Cole was about the only one who didn't mind going down on the tube.
Everyone else thought it was too hard to control, but if Cole hit the edge, he just hopped up, ran back to the middle, and started again.
Emily didn't seem to care what she was on. She was having fun no matter what!
Chad preferred going down headfirst on the runner sleds. He is now in the market for some, if anyone knows where to get some that don't cost an arm and a leg feel free to let him know!
Skeleton anyone?
Who is that old man?!?!
In the end, I think the kids decided their favorite way to go down was riding on someone's back.
Cole loved riding with Chad's cousin Kevin. (I think Cole loved that Kevin didn't slow down just because Cole was riding with him. My sometimes wimpy child apparently has a need for speed!)
Even Addy went down the big hill ...
once. Then, she decided it was much more fun to play in the snow and hang out with Grandma!
My kids are already asking when we can go sledding again. Hopefully the tradition can continue with enough snow on the next New Year's Day.