New Year's Eve 2012

This year was The Holt's turn for the annual New Year's party. We thought about it in advance and booked the warehouse so we could have a little fun inside.  Mat started the night our with his version of fear factor which included sucking people's toes, putting a snake on your spouse, and eating a variety of things including crickets, meal worms, and gold fish.

 I had to assure people that the second half of the night I was in charge of and there would be no fear factor type of events.  While I got ready for my competitions we played a few games of dodge ball and sadly the girls aren't the champions at all.

 For my portion we played human bowling, duct taped people to the wall, made newspaper towers, and many other silly things. 

No matter how old we get I hope we always keep this tradition going.  It is such a blast and we always have the best sports and funnest people to ring in the New Year with!

Christmas 2011

Christmas time has come and gone.  Always far too quickly.  We promised the kids we wouldn't host any Christmas parties at the house this year and kept true to our word.  It still came too quickly.

 We scaled things back this year since we took the kids on the cruise and I realized just how crazy spoiled they are every year.  Even scaling back our children were overly spoiled and very happy with all of their gifts.

 Of course for Christmas Eve we went to Grandpa and Grandma Nelson's for dinner and gifts. We played the gift exchange game and stayed a little later than we should have.

 By the time we made it home Peyton was fast asleep so she didn't get to open her presents by the tree.  The older three made it to bed around 11:00 which made for a late night for Santa who wraps all the gifts with the paper the kids leave out each Christmas.

 Mom and dad made it to bed around 1:30 and were awoken 30 minutes later with kids excitedly telling us that Santa had came!  After the 3rd or 4th time of them coming in our room and us telling them to go back to bed we reluctantly got up and opened presents.

It was a wonderful Christmas and all were happy which makes mom and dad the happiest of all.