New Year's 2015

The past two years we haven't done much for New Year's Eve - 2013 I was pregnant and not feeling too hot, and 2014 we had a 4-month-old baby.  I think both years we were in bed before midnight.  So this year we were ready to do something a little more exciting, and luckily the Mlynarskis invited us over for the night.  We made plans to have play time with the girls, then put them to bed and enjoy some adult time.  It turned out even better when Georgia Tech made it to the Orange Bowl, which was played the evening of December 31.

Joseph and I both worked until the early afternoon, and then we headed up to Marietta.  Wally & Jessica moved there shortly before their daughter Mackenzie was born, and they bought a beautiful (and huge) new house.  We got our own suite in the basement for the night, and they even had a full-size crib for Lola to sleep in.

The girls played together really well.  Mackenzie is exactly three weeks younger than Lola, and it's great they're so close in age.  M is a bit taller than Lola, though, and Lola is much fatter :)  It was cute to see them play.  M got a big playhouse for Christmas, so they had fun exploring that.  We fed them a simple dinner, bathed them (although M was not up for sharing a bath), and put them to bed.

Then we ordered pizza for ourselves, had some drinks, and watched some football.  I must admit that we were all pretty lame, some of us even falling asleep during the game a few times.  But we enjoyed relaxing, and of course the GT win was great.  We stayed up until midnight to see the ball drop, and then we all went to bed.

Lola continued her streak of not traveling well and was awake from about 2 to 5:30.  We took turns tending to her, but we couldn't figure out what she wanted.  She didn't want to sleep with us, didn't want to sleep in the crib, didn't want to sleep on the couch.  I think she eventually gave up from exhaustion and went to sleep.

We had a leisurely breakfast in the morning, and then headed home.  We all took an afternoon nap, and then we went to our neighbors' house, the Augers.  They were having a casual gathering, and it was nice to see them and a few other neighbors.  We were too exhausted to cook a nice New Year's dinner (as we had planned on doing), so we made a dinner out of snacks and crashed pretty early.  However, Joseph made up for it the next day and made a traditional Southern meal of pork tenderloin, collard greens, and black-eyed peas.  I think it was the first time I had ever eaten collards and black-eyed peas.  It was a delicious meal.  All in all, a great start to 2015!

Playing in the playhouse

Not sure Mackenzie is enjoying the hug

Cutie

Playing

New Year's dinner, a day late