Ringing in the New Year with robots and rats...

Ok, so it's already the 3rd of January, and I'm just now getting around to posting about how our New Year's Eve went. I can see that 2008 is starting out about just the same as 2007 ended...  :)

For the past few years we've gotten together with my friend Kristi, her hubby Steve and their boys and had a small party for the kids. Two years ago this involved a chocolate fountain - fun, but messy and only held the kids' interest for about 10 minutes. Last year's event included noisemakers - for as long as we could stand them.  I'm sure Kristi's neighbors were probably wondering who was making all of the racket at 9:00 pm - we moved 'midnight' up a bit so that the kids would still get to bed at a decent hour.

This year, Kristi decided to attend the kids-oriented party at our local children's museum. This is something we've thought about doing before, but the tickets seem to sell out weeks before we're starting to think of New Year's Eve plans. Not so this year - we were prepared! But I thought about it and decided that this might just be too much for my kids this year - especially Becca. On to Plan B for us.

We've been trying to get together with our friends Carlos and Cheryl for months now - but the guys' work schedules make it difficult if not impossible to find a time that works for both families. We also live an hour away from each other, which makes visiting pretty much an all-day affair. Cheryl and I figured that New Year's Eve might work well for a get-together. Unfortunately though, Ron did have to work on New Year's Eve and didn't get home until 4:30pm. An extra hour drive after being in his work truck all day wasn't appealing - nor was the idea of driving home so late at night (he'd promised Abby and Hannah that they could stay up until midnight). So much for Plan B, on to Plan C. (Plan B was carried out the next day - we had a great visit with Carlos and Cheryl on New Year's Day instead)

It was strange to have no set plans on New Year's Eve. We sat around debating what to have for dinner (in our extremely grocery-challenged kitchen), and finally decided to use the gift cards that Ron's parents had given us for Christmas to go out. That plan worked great, except that I forget that the gift cards were in my purse, not the diaper bag (I thought they were in my wallet - they weren't), so we did end up paying for dinner ourselves - but hey, it gives us an excuse to go out another time as well.  :)  We had a nice, enjoyable dinner, then hit the video rental store on the way home.

We watched two movies - "Meet the Robinsons" and "Ratatouille" (thus the references in the title of this post!). The girls and I had seen Ratatouille the previous weekend, but Abby was begging to watch it again and Ron hadn't seen it yet. I spent the evening taking down our Christmas decorations while trying to stay out of the way of the television so everyone else could see.  The girls spent the evening like this:

So did the girls make it until midnight?

Abby did. She stayed awake through both movies (we stopped before Ratatouille ended though since it hadn't quite finished by midnight) and the ball dropping, and then promptly fell asleep in the recliner.  Hannah fell asleep on the couch around 11:00 pm.  Becca had been put to bed on time, but woke up at 11:30 pm so was half-asleep on my lap at midnight. I put her back in bed soon afterward and she slept for the rest of the night.

Ron saw a sum total of probably not more than 15 minutes of Ratatouille - he snored (loudly!) through most of it. He was awake at midnight and then was in bed and back asleep by 12:30am.

Me? I was up until 2:00 am, finishing up the Christmas decoration removal, and then doing a little blog reading and posting. But I got to sleep in the next morning, so it was all good.  :)

I think next year we'll try the party at the children's museum - Kristi said that it was probably the most fun that her kids had all year. And by next year, Becca will be almost three, so she'll be better able to handle it, especially since they also do 'midnight' at 9:00pm (which is how Kristi and I got the idea).

I mean, we 'only' have 362 days to get our plans in order, right?  :)