Happy New Year!

We had a pretty relaxed day today. I know I keep saying it, but it's nice to be with family. A summary of activities from yesterday and today follows:

--My sisters, their kids, DD, and DS#2 left for Houston before 10AM. DS#3 really wanted to go with them, but DH was able to talk him out of having a complete meltdown.

--DS#1 at soccer practice yesterday morning (9-11AM).

--I got off early from work, around 2PM and headed home to pack the car. We were on our way by 3:30PM and we got to my sister C's house by 6:30PM. DS#3 slept in the car for most of the way.

--The three girls have been playing so well together and with DS#3. They even helped him build some train tracks for his trains to ride on then they played trains with him. He loved all of that attention. DS#3 has been playing non-stop with nephew N's old trains and he loves visiting my sister C's house for this reason.

--The kids didn't get up until closer to 7-7:30 AM. Not bad for them. My sister C fed them cinnamon rolls and chocolate banana bread. Yum! She is such a wonderful hostess and we really appreciate all of her hospitality.

--My sister C and I went shopping at Hobby Lobby, Target, and then some outlet stores (Ann Taylor Loft, Gap, Coach). Her shopping style is much more suited to mine. We didn't spend more than a few minutes at the Coach store, for example. We looked around, didn't see anything we had to have, and left.

--My niece E used her new nail kit to give the girls pedicures. DD also took her fingernail polish off so she could put green nail polish on instead of the bright pink she had on there. She also had her toes painted in different colors while the other two girls chose alternating colors.

--We played Apples to Apples again tonight. The girls could play on their own but none of them are confident enough. Their preference for answers was hard to predict. We also played Scrabble Slam, a new word card game.

--DS#1 introduced DH to Mafia Wars, a popular game on Facebook. I thought it was interesting that DH was asking DS#1 a whole bunch of questions about how to play. They played on their laptops side-by-side. I also brought my laptop so I could surf the web and refer to my blog so I can finish up the journaling for my Project 365 2009 album.

--We set off a few fireworks outside. DS#3 was so tired that all he could do was cuddle with my sister M. It was also rather chilly with a good breeze that made it difficult to light some of the fireworks. DS#3 was fascinated with the fireworks despite his sleepy state. His cousins hovered over him--so cute! Even before we finished with the fireworks, DS#3 wanted to come inside to warm up and after his bath, he actually asked to go to sleep. It didn't take him long to go to sleep.

--DD was getting wild and kept getting too close to others with her sparklers. We think she was a bit overtired--not so cute. We all had so much fun with the fireworks. They've been banned at home for so long because of the dry conditions that we really have never had much chance to do fireworks at New Year's or the Fourth of July.

--We watched movies including "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe", "G-Force", and "Night At The Museum".

--DD asked to go to bed around 10:30PM, even before the "G-Force" movie was over. She was exhausted! Everyone else stayed up until midnight.

I'll post pictures tomorrow when we get home. We'll be counting down to midnight here shortly. Happy New Year to All!

**Edited to add a few pictures and few more details. We missed the ball dropping in Times Square. Oh well, we still had fun!