{ New Year’s Eve 2011 }

Our New Year’s celebration started the morning of New Year’s eve when we all took a trip to Party City and Sam’s Club for some serious party supplies. We were so excited to have my parents and my brother Mitch and sister-in-law Michelli here to celebrate with us. We grabbed snacks, party hats, poppers, silly string, balloons, loud blowers, and our favorite item my brother found - a pack of fake mustaches (so random, but they were SO funny all night long).

We dressed people up in the mustache that best matched their hair. The funniest part was that some of the mustaches looked so real. Grandpa and Aaron could really have mustaches like that. We laughed so hard that night. Ryan got his own little mustache too, but wasn’t quite sure of it. (He totally reminds me of Nacho Libre in this picture) He wanted to pull it off…

…and then tried licking it…

..but finally was happy to let us give him another one that he kept on for almost the rest of the night. He must have liked the thinner, sleeker, dark mustache better. He looks like this funny little French man-baby.

Michelli and Ryan with his fancy black mustache.

We had a mustache fashion show-so funny that such a simple thing could make us laugh so hard. I love being with family!

Aaron and Brianna being so crazy!

Mitch and Scott being manly men with their mustaches

Austin and cousin David with their goatees

Mitch and Michelli wearing mustaches Brazilian style

We had high hopes of partying late into the night, but by the time 9:30 came around we were already spent. Aaron’s sister Cathy and brother in-law Jason and their family came over to ring in the new year with us. I’m sure they thought we were party poopers when we wanted to celebrate at 10:00pm instead of midnight. It was midnight somewhere in the world-no rules that you have to celebrate in your own time zone. We got all the kids loaded up with hats and poppers, fake mustaches, and horns. It was SO loud, but so fun too.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

There was so much silly string everywhere, and confetti from the poppers. I hadn’t really looked to see how big the box of poppers was, Aaron just threw it in the cart. It wasn’t until I was cleaning up later and saw that it was a box of 72! No wonder we had so much mess to sweep up. We were finding confetti and silly string on everyone and everything for days.

Scott and Aaron getting me with their poppers

Poor Ryan got caught in all the mess of silly string shooting and loud Happy New Year’s yelling that was happening. He was so confused about what was going on. And why he is carrying around a red high heel of mine? We have no idea. He finds shoes from our closet and is always trying to put them on or carry them around. It must have been part of the fashion show-black sleek mustaches, red high heels-it’s all good.

After we welcomed in the New Year a few hours early, we had a toast with our Root Beer floats, and called it a night for most of the little kids.

I love how short Scott is, but it trying so hard to be part of the toast. I’m pretty sure he’s on his tippy toes in this picture.

The big kids and some of the adults stayed up for a while longer. We played Taboo with the neighbor kids Jose and Arianna who came over to have Root Beer floats with us, and then almost died laughing when Austin and Aaron were doing funny stunts with the balloons. Austin and Aaron each put a big balloon in their shirts and then they would jump up and chest bounce each other. Austin was so much smaller that he went flying across the room. We video taped it, then would watch it in slow motion, backwards with funny Chinese language, fast forward. We definitely had the giggles that night.

It finally came time for bed, and we all took one look at the floor…

…and then promptly went to bed. This mess will have to wait until tomorrow. Happy New Year!!!