For a few years, I didn't know what to do with kids on New Year's Eve. You can't go to a New Year's party, because when they are little they still can't stay up until mid-night. So over the years I have come up with kid friendly ways to ring in the New Year!
In the last 3 years or so we join Brazil in welcoming the year at 8:00 central time. We find a count down clock like at www.timeanddate.com and have it up during our party. The kids love it because they still get to stay up a little late.
This year I taped the numbers 2012 on our fireplace. Behind the second 2 was a 3 for later that night.
Our first activity every year is to hide a dollar outside. The next morning we go outside and find our dollar and bring it inside. This is a tradition passed down from my mom's side of the family. It symbolizes the year bringing with it wealth.
Next we eat a fun, party food type dinner. This year we had chicken wings, fried green beans, fried zucchini and cheese and sausages. After dinner we had a Minute-To-Win-It competition. It was boys versus girls and SO MUCH FUN!
Game 1 was Defying Gravity. It was Mommy versus Daddy trying to keep 3 balloons in the air at one time. Whoever had all three in the air the longest won (because neither of us could make it up to a minute!). Daddy won by a millisecond!
Game 2 was Stack Attack. This was Gabe versus Selah. They had to build a pyramid out of 18 cups and then stack them back into one stack.
Selah was slow and steady:
Gabe was quick, but kept knocking his over:
In the end Selah won!
Our next game was Movin' on Up. Each team had a stack of 17 cups of one color and one odd color. The point of the game was to move the odd cup to the top of the stack by moving one cup at a time. We played Mommy versus Daddy and Daddy won again - by a millisecond! Then Gabe and Selah had to try it.
Our fourth game was called Junk in the Trunk and was the most popular game of the evening. We attached empty tissue boxes to the back of each child and put 5 ping pong balls in each box. On go they had to shake it until all of their balls were out of the box.
Gabe's preferred method was cartwheeling!
It was adorable!!!
Here's a video of the fun:
Our final game of the night was an all play and Mig LOVED it! It was called Snowball Fight. We divided our room in half and placed five snowballs (wadded up paper) on each side. On go, each team had to throw snowballs at the other team and after 1 minute, the team with the least snowballs on their side won! We played this at least 3 times - it was so much fun!
In the end, the Boys won the games for the night - but we all had a blast!
At 8:00 our time - 12:00 mid-night in Brazil we blew our horns, popped our poppers and sang We Wish You A Merry Christmas.....Gabe was a little confused about what song to sing at "mid-night".
We changed our sign from 2012 to 2013:
And then we had a piece of New Year's cake!! Our New Year's cake always has a trinket in one piece and the person that gets the trinket gets a dollar. Gabe found the trinket this year.
Then, exhausted from the activities and high on sugar, the kids went to bed.
Then Byron and I played card games and watched count downs to the New Year and for the first time in a very long time, I was able to kiss my sweetheart at mid-night!!
We wish you all a healthy and happy 2013!!!
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