New Years at Noon

First of all, happy new year to everyone! As a holiday gift to ourselves, Mommy and I took one look at our over-clogged Google Reader (over 400 posts!) and clicked “Mark all as read.” Do you know what a relief that was? We just can’t keep up – and we needed a fresh start for 2011. From here on out I’ll be giving myself a break; when months like this one come along and we’re doing all we can do just to keep track of real life stuff, I give myself permission to hit delete. That being said, if you wrote a post in the past month that you think I should see and I may have missed it, leave a link in the comments.

So. New Years. You guys? We had such an amazing time! Although, as usual, Mommy failed and only took a few pictures. We threw a New Years at Noon party for all of my toddler friends and had an amazing time.

Our invitation:

No need for a babysitter – bring the kids as we celebrate the New Year {a little early}! We’ll count down to 12 {noon} and toast with bubbly {sparkling cider}.

And Daddy? is awesome. He only had a little fear in his eyes when Mommy
coercedbossed him intoconvinced him that we should invite everyone we know in the under 3 set over to our house. And? When it was all over and we were looking at the
small messwreck that used to be our living room, he said that it had been a good idea and it was nice to see everyone.

He loves Mommy very much.

We did run into a few glitches along the way, though.

The Plan: She was ready to do all the decoration on Thursday night, leaving Friday morning to add finishing touches and ::ahem:: shower.

What Actually Happened: I stayed up until 3AM, so Mommy ran around like a crazy person desperately trying to clean and get things ready in the morning before our first guests arrived. So much for that shower! (This accounts for the *complete* lack of pictures from before the party when everything was set up and ready – Mommy was literally closing the closet door on a pile of laundry when the doorbell rang.)

The Plan: When she was in college, Mommy’s sorority used to decorate for parties with a *crazy* amount of balloons – really just blanketing the ceiling, with the ribbons dangling down. We thought balloons? toddlers? How much better could you get? So Mommy bought two small helium tanks and 75 balloons to fill our front hallway.

What Actually Happened:
WeCousin Meredith filled all of the balloons on Thursday night and they looked absolutely amazing – EXACTLY what we were going for. Unfortunately, either the helium or the balloons themselves were defective and we watched in dismay as one by one they sank to the floor throughout Friday morning. When our first guests arrived, there were about 40 left on the ceiling; when the party was over only 8 remained up there. It ended up being okay, because, BOY, did we have fun playing with all those balloons on the floor, but I think Mommy was really disappointed and kind of close to tears.

The Plan: What do I love even more than balloons? BUBBLES. When Mommy spotted an inexpensive bubble machine on Amazon AND had an Amazon gift card? We knew it was fate. How much fun would a bubble machine at a toddler party be?!

What Actually Happened: We tracked our package anxiously as our free 2-day shipping from Amazon Prime (Are you guys all signed up for Amazon Mom? Free Prime for 3 months!) turned into almost a week because of the ridiculous storm in the North East. Our package arrived Thursday night (just in time!) and we immediately plugged it in to check it out. 1) The machine did not deliver the “tons of bubbles” as promised, and instead spat out a disappointing two or three bubbles at a time. 2) I went over to investigate one of the sad little bubbles that had landed on our floor and not popped yet and almost broke my neck – the bubbles it *did* produce had a thick surface that deposited a bunch of soap onto the floor when they burst. Slippery soap. Sad, non bubbles + ice skating rink floor = a bad idea for a house full of toddlers.

In spite of these minor glitches, the party was great success – we had So. Much. Fun.

The DecorIn addition to the aforementioned fail balloons, Mommy made that banner above, which this picture totally does NOT do justice. We might leave it up year-round because it is *that* cool.

We also had a store-bought banner that was not quite as awesome, but matched our paper goods.

That right there? Mommy’s brilliant plan to discourage me from teaching all my friends the take-all-the-dvds-off-the-shelves-and-throw-them-on-the-ground game. That’s another element that might become a permanent addition to our living room because? it worked.

The Food

You are looking at superdelicious cakepops that Mommy’s friend Melissa made. They were a HUGE hit! {You can have yummy, yummy cakepops at your next party, too – Melissa ships them! She totally didn’t pay me to say that, either, or to talk her up – they’re just that good.}

In addition to goodness-on-a-stick, we had fruit kabobs with dip, cheese & crackers, pita triangles & hummus, popcorn chicken nuggets, and veggie eggrolls. To drink we had sparkling cider (duh), juice, and soda for the grown-ups.

Activities

I had a bunch of my toys out to share and Mommy covered our coffee table with craft paper and put out jumbo crayons. She also glued sticks to cheap jewelry boxes filled with jingle balls and covered *those* with craft paper so we could decorate New Year’s noisemakers.

The Favors

Tiny champagne bottles of bubbles tied to Asti Spumante Splits? Bubbly for parents AND babies!

The Aftermath

Nine kids and their parents is a LOT of people to cram into our condo, but we all played nice. I ran to the door with Mommy every time the bell rang to greet all of my friends as they arrived and I let everyone play with all of my toys. We are going to be finding little foam letters (noisemaker decorations) until *next* December though…