Adios 2014!

(Note: I've waited to post this in hope of finding my camera with all of the pictures on it. However it appears to be lost for good so I will put the pictures that I took on my phone instead and half of them are blurry.Update: thanks to Sarah for sending me a few more pictures!)

As we have done for the past million years, we spent New Year's Eve at the McClarty's. Clarita has been obsessed with Reedcito and requests to see him on a daily basis to dance. She was very excited to see him and to eat pizza with him! The two took off once they finished eating and played with Reedcito and Kierito's new kitchen. They enjoyed filling the shopping cart up and driving their food all over the house!

Pizza!

Shopping

As more people arrived, Clarita became a little shy and wanted to be held. After awhile Sarah and I took the kids to Reed's room where they had a blast playing with all of his toys. Clara was really excited about all of the tractors and balls, Reed showed the little guys how to use everything, Kieran was excited about everything, and Eden was content to sit and watch the big kids run around.

Bailey doing what she does best

Now that everyone has kids, people started leaving early. By 11:00, Clarita and Reedcito had made it longer than most of the adults! Despite being tired, the two had continued to play together without any major problems or breakdowns. It was quite impressive. Clara chased Reed around yelling, "Reedcito, Reedcito" and when Sarah took him to go potty, Clarita ran behind yelling "wait!" She was very impressed with his potty skills, and kept telling me that he washed his hands with soap and water. Reed declared that he loved Clara as much as his soft sheep (can't get much more of a compliment than that!) and said that he didn't need to ask her to be his girlfriend because she already was! He also chased her around kissing her. Clara played hard to get at first, but finally gave in. I think the two are in love!

Cheers!

Late night snack

Tooth brushing party

Bedtime stories with Sarah

Jon, Sarah, los tios, Dada, and I managed to stay up to ring in the New Year. We left around 12:30 and Clara did not even wake up when I picked her up and put her in her car seat. She slept the entire way home and didn't wake up until 6:45 the next morning. That was a little too early for us so we put her in bed with us where she laid completely still and silent but wide awake for half an hour ( nothing short of a miracle) before Dada started playing with her.

We made it to midnight!

New Year esnuggles

On the first we had our families over for our second annual New Year's brunch. Everyone came except Tio Chino who was cooking shrimp for his family's annual gathering, and Tia Alyssa et al who aren't morning people. Dada made ebelskivers (aka pancake balls) and I made an egg casserole, and potato casserole. We had plenty of food and great company. Clara was excited about Abuela Sheri's fruit salad and the applesauce to put on the ebelskivers, but wanted nothing to do with anything else. She was super tired so she went down for an early nap while Dada and I took down Christmas decorations.

We thought Clara would be sad that the decorations were gone, but she took it with a grain of salt. I warned her and then as we walked down the stairs she said, "no garland" noticing that it was gone. We got downstairs and she said, "no Christmas trees, gone" and although she continued to talk about it, she wasn't sad. She had a lot of fun helping me to rearrange the living room and was a big help pushing the couches!

Around 4:00 we headed out for Tio Chino's family's annual New Year celebration. There was more food than anyone could eat and we spent the afternoon stuffing ourselves! Clarita decided that she liked the breaded shrimp and even ate some of the different spicy traditional dishes (she then requested milk because it was spicy). She had fun playing with the kids and she and Teegee ran around holding hands. We said goodbye to Uncle Karl as he was heading back to Washington the next morning and enjoyed the good company. Clarita was out as soon as we left and did not wake up when I took her out of the car. I ended up laying her down on her floor while I started getting my stuff ready to go snowboarding the next day. After a few minutes I hear laughter behind me and there was Clara standing in the doorway laughing like Chucky!

Tios locos