NYE on the Town Green, etc.

Just kidding! I did take Phoebe to the park another time this winter break! Phew!

My friend Christine invited me and another family to meet at the park so our boys could play. And so our teenage girls could hang out. And so our tween girls could play. Mostly I think she had the boys in mind, though.

But then I realized there was no one for Phoebe to play with (Alexander would have played with Zoë and Kate), so I invited my friend with twins her age. And then Christine told me that she'd invited her sister (who has two little girls around Phoebe's age) as well. And then we decided we should just send out a message to the entire ward (these were all church friends). 

I think two other families ended up coming. It was a real party!

We packed picnic lunches, the kids played at the playground, and many of the kids also walked over to Barnes and Noble to hang out for a bit.

Here's Benjamin (in orange) with his friends, looking like an album cover:

It was a chilly day, but we eventually got smart and set up around the gas fire pit in the middle of the Town Green.

Before we left, Phoebe requested that we walk across the PTC bridge, so we did. Here she is galloping across with glee:

And here she is walking back with her siblings—another potential album cover...if it were taken with better lighting by a better photographer:

We headed home to make perogi for dinner and then Benjamin and Miriam got ready to go to a stake dance. Rachel drove them in for us, along with her, uh, special friend. Benjamin and Miriam went to the dance. Rachel and her special friend went to get ice cream.

The theme of the dance was "decades," so Miriam went as the 80s:

Benjamin went as the original Star Trek from the 60s:

The ice cream was courtesy of Auntie K, who bought us some "boo books" at Wendy's when she was here. We stopped at Wendy's for dinner on our drive up to Tennessee with her at the end of August. She bought the books, handed them to me, and said, "Don't forget to use these!"

I stuck them in the glove box and said, "Oh, I won't!"

And then I forgot about them until we were driving up to Tennessee earlier this week and I opened up the glove box and was like, "Oh, no! We need to use these coupons!"

I gave half of them to Rachel to use on her date (nothing goofier than getting a million tiny containers of ice cream on a date, right?) and we used the other half to take the three littles out for NYE ice cream

We ate our ice cream, played a few games, then put Phoebe to bed. I actually wasn't feeling 100% so I took a nap until 11:00 when they woke me up to play Hearts and ring in the New Year.

Zoë proudly informed me that while I was sleeping, Waffles had climbed onto her lap and watched Doctor Who with her. So she thinks this bodes well for their relationship this coming year.

We played a very chaotic game of hearts—we never quite know what Alexander is going to do! His strategy feels very random...though he did end up shooting the moon once!

Here we are toasting the New Year:

I cannot remember why Alexander is standing like this, but he is. 

We usually head out for our first walk of the year shortly after midnight, a tradition we kept alive this year, even if it was sparsely attended. Phoebe did not wake up to ring in the New Year (for the first time in her life, I think) so Andrew stayed home with her. I went out with Alexander and Zoë. 

We found constellations like Orion, Canis Major, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Cassiopeia, and identified specific stars such as Polaris, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Sirius. 

Astronomy was a really difficult course for me, but I got really good at identifying at least those stars in the sky and still think it's fun to go outside and find them in the night. And it's been fun to help my kids learn to find them as well. 

Here's Zoë posing with Darth Vader (since I somehow didn't take a picture of her with him when she first came up with this pose...before Christmas):

He'll be coming down soon (tomorrow?) along with the rest of our Christmas decorations, so I'm glad we got a picture in!